Page 52 of Guarded By the Gargoyle

At last I grabbed it—but I let it go a moment later with a gasp of pain. It wasscorching—I felt like I had laid my bare hand on a red-hot stove burner!

“I can’t do it—it’s too hot!” I shouted to Kael, who was fighting two heads instead of one since the middle head of the Hell Hound had revived now. If the right-hand head came back, I was going to be in trouble. It was barely twelve inches from my face!

“You have to get back—let me do it!” Kael growled. He was doing his best to shove the Hell Hound backward and had mostly succeeded in getting it through the doorway. The problem was, he had stepped over the threshold. He was standing on the barren, cracked land of the Hellscape as he fought the demonic beast.

“You can’t!” I protested again. “It’s my fault. I should be the one?—”

And then the words died on my lips, because I saw something even worse than the Hell Hound.

It was Carlo and he was coming for me.

His head was still caved in, his face blackened and his lips dry and cracked. One eye dangled out of its socket like a deflated balloon. But the other eye met my gaze and he smiled at me—a horrible smile. One that said he was going to pay me back for what had happened to him.

“Hey, babe,” he slurred, leering at me. “Look at you—all naked and hot. Come here—we’re gonna have some fun!”

My dead ex reached for me and I couldn’t help it—I jumped back, out of the doorway. It was an instinctive reaction—I couldn’t let him touch me with those dead, swollen fingers—I justcouldn’t.

But it seemed this was the opening Kael had been waiting for. With a mighty heave, he shoved the Hell Hound backwards, knocking it off its feet and into the sluggish river of lava flowing nearby.

I heard its agonized howls but before I could reach for the door again, Kael was pushing my ex out of the way and grabbing the doorknob. Despite its scorching heat, he gripped it hard and pulled…but it didn’t even budge.

Kael, come on—comeoutof there!” I begged him.

He shook his head.

“It won’t close from this side—it has to close from the other side.”

“What? What are you taking about?” I cried. But he didn’t answer. Instead, he ran around to the other side of the door—the Hellscape side. Putting both hands against the heavy iron door, he began to shove it closed.

“Kael, stop! Don’t do that—you’re going to be trapped!” I shouted as panic rushed through me. I had just admitted my feelings for my gargoyle protector—I didn’t want to lose him!

But Kael didn’t pay any attention. Through the crack in the other side of the door where the hinges were, I saw him shoving with single-minded attention. His gargoyle face was a sneering mask of effort—the door must have weighted a thousand pounds!

“No!” I shouted as, inch-by-inch, the door began to close. I wanted to rush in and drag him out, but then Carlo was there again. He was dragging himself off the ground and grinning atme again, the horrible deflated balloon of an eyeball smacking wetly against his sunken cheekbone as he moved.

“Gonna get you, babe,” he croaked, reaching for me. “You sent me here—sent me to Hell. Now you’re gonna come stay with me so we can have funforever!”

“No…no!”I gasped, backing further away from the doorway. “Kael, please! I need?—”

But just at that moment, the huge gargoyle gave another mighty shove…and the iron door leading into The Pit closed completely.

I stood there, stunned for a moment, unable to believe what had just happened. It all seemed like some kind of crazy, vivid nightmare I would wake up from at any moment.

Only I didn’t wake up.

The iron door stood quietly at the foot of the bed like some kind of strange monolith for about a minute. And then, like a magic trick, it folded itself in half. The top half came down and met the bottom half with asnappingsound. Then it folded again—this time vertically with the right half folding over the left half. Then it folded down again.

By this time it was barely a foot tall. It was happening so fast I couldn’t move. I watched in horrified fascination as it just kept folding and folding—like an impossible piece of demonic origami.

And then, with a finalsnap!it folded one last time so it was no bigger than my palm—and abruptly winked out of existence completely.

28

WILLOW

It took me a moment but I finally unfroze.

“What just happened? Where is it?” I exclaimed. I looked around the bed and bent to examine the footboard, but the iron door that had led into The Pit was gone now—it had vanished utterly.

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