Page 13 of Echoes in the Void

I am shit at this.

Dolion pried his eyes open that had fluttered shut. “Back when I was in love. Three hundred years I slept. You’d think I have had enough of wasting my own time, would you not? But no. May I perch on top of your crypt while you sleep?”

He didn’t wait for an answer before slinging one long, muscular arm that strained the thin material of his fine cotton shirt over the peaked roofline of the crypt. He hauled himself up in a smooth motion that belied his heavy mass, all feline grace as he landed in a crouch.

Hands that I swore were smoother a moment before ended in extended claws that curved over the rooftop, his knees and thighs bursting with the sort of muscle football players and wrestlers around the world would have turned frog pond green over. But his face was what took on the greatest transformation of all. Those bronzed features, all smooth lined and roundedangles twisted into a grotesque monster until I couldn't reconcile the man with the hideous stone carving stooped over my tomb.

“Dolion?” I whispered, stretching out a hand to touch the gargoyle's face. His mouth hung slightly ajar, and I half expected water to tumble forth. If I hadn’t seen his kind overpopulating the rooflines of buildings in the darkest years of Europe's history, I might not have known him for what he was and walked past him in the cemetery just like the community walking groups. But having seen the hideous monsters who stood sentinel over the precious buildings and homes, warding away the worst of that period’s evil to keep their homes and families safe…

I stopped hesitating and curved my palm over his ruined cheek. The stone beneath my hand was cool, though for a moment I fancied I could still feel the thrum of his pulse kick beneath the flesh turned cool. No heartbeat emanated from within his hard chest, all the warmth sucked from him, or enclosed within the granite looking mineral that encased his body in this new form.

“I’ll see you at sunrise, little sentinel,” I whispered, lest I rouse him, though I had little fear of that, truly. He had said he was tired, and I believed him. I had my own jobs to complete tonight, including locate his friend, the vampire, and convincing both him and the bar witch that I wasn’t the threat they believed me to be.

And then, with or without my stone friend's help, I needed to create an exit strategy from New Orleans before I ashed someone else by mistake. It seemed there were already rumors that I was some arcane creature of a different sort. I should probably leave before they decide I was a dragon and try to experiment on me, or worse.

That last had been tried before, many times, along with a few other things that didn’t turn out so well, for either me or theother parties. It turned out that I survived, even if they didn’t. And their paperwork didn’t fare so well, either. But in either case, Dolion wouldn’t be so excited to find out I’d abandoned my post if I didn’t return by the time he awoke.

I pressed up onto my toes until they barely touched the graveyard floor, and still found myself too short to be on eye level with my tame gargoyle. Well, nearly tame. He probably wouldn't want to be called that, but Dolion’s preferences weren’t tonight's problems.

“I’ll be back soon,” I promised him, and just because I could, I found the corner of his cold stone lips with mine and left a chaste kiss there that kind of burned with a sensation I hadn't experienced before.

It would be just my luck that I’d be allergic to gargoyle flavored stone.

Ignoring the tingle that wouldn’t rub off, I darted away from the stone sentinel clinging to my crypt as I left the safe haven of the graveyard, and the man who trusted me to keep him safe.

The vampire wasn’t at the bar the witch ran when I slipped through the doorway. One look at the bar owner who shook her head—either to say the creature I sought wasn’t in attendance or that I wasn’t welcome in her establishment—told me that tonight wasn’t my night. I left as quietly as I arrived, wondering that she didn’t have security on the door and then decided that she probably didn’t need it after all.

The sting of her viridian gaze lanced through me long after I walked along Bourbon Street alone, letting the crowds pass by me. Each brush of wayward hands or arms reminded me that I remained a part of their civilization, these people, even when Iconstantly felt apart from each person no matter how I tried to join in with their activities. Strange, that when I finally stopped was when I found the closest acceptance.

Here, amongst the crowd, I could walk freely, be myself. Perhaps I should bring a Dolion along with me next time I decide to socialize by mistake. We could walk along with the crowd, or against the flow and pretend to be who we wanted to be, or just…be.

Perhaps that was the lesson that, after over six thousand years of existence, I had finally managed to learn.

I hoped he wasn’t too upset about the kiss I had stolen, if he recalled the pressure of my lips against his stone at all. I had no idea how aware he would be in his grotesque state, though I suspected he chose what to feel and what not to remember at all.

I was in love.

Okay, so I paraphrased. But that was the gist of what he’d said. Not that he was in lovenow… I nibbled on my bottom lip, lost in thought as I walked through the edge of the crowd and out the back of the current party, lost in a darkened space for no more than a handful of breaths before the next on coming crowd engulfed me.

Long enough for an arm to snake out of the darkened space between buildings and tug me sideways into the shadows. Lost in my thoughts of another man, I didn’t even put up a fight. Because let’s face it. When you possess the ability to flash fry any enemy, fighting isn’t really a necessary skill.

Until the day an enemy possesses the skills to avoid said flash frying.

The fact that Dolion still existed bamboozled me. Not that I’d taken a stone lover before, or that he was one.Yet. If I had my way, maybe he could be my first.

Maybe.

Or maybe he was a smooth distraction in an otherwise bumpy existence.

I shrugged the uncomfortable admission that, in all my centuries in this world, I had never successfully taken a lover I could commune with intimately without killing the poor man. Or woman, because I tried that once before too. That one hurt. Really hurt.

I hadn’t meant to destroy the poor girl, and…

Well. Ash happened.

“You’re supposed to scream or put up a fight.” The soft voice behind me sounded…amused.

I sighed. “I was busy. And I had other things on my mind. Can we not get this over with? How much to make you go about your night and bother someone else?” I didn’t turn around.

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