Page 29 of Bite of the Gargoyle

“My humanity?” I ask, shaking my head. “Not a chance. And as to my being tired… I’m not.”

He continues to smirk at me. “Are all humans so high maintenance?”

I frown at him. “Ha-ha, very funny.”

“Regardless, we need to regroup,” he continues, nodding as though he’s making an important point. “We need to come up with a plan as it will be no easy feat to take Balor down.”

I figure I can’t argue with that so I don’t even try. Instead, we both fall silent and the closer we get to our destination, the more bats I see—they begin to dominate the night sky as though they’re circling the castle. For all I know, maybe they are. Soon the baying of wolves interrupts the otherwise stillness of the air.

“How much farther?” I ask.

“We’ll arrive shortly,” he says, as if that’s a satisfactory answer.

“Shortlycould mean five minutes or an hour, Derith,” I respond, still uncomfortable with the fact that I’ve teamed up with him. In general, I work alone. What’s more, I’ve never joined forces with my enemy before—and even though Derith didn’t murder my family, he’s still a monster, thus still my enemy.

“It’s much closer to the former than the latter. I assure you,” he says with a charming grin.

“Was that so hard?”

“You’d be surprised.” The silence descends once again and strangely, I find myself actually enjoying it—enjoying walking beside this strange man, er vampire. Now that I know he isn’t the murderer of my family, well, maybe I’m willing to look at him in a different light—one that isn’t stained with vengeance.

As we walk, the vegetation appears to become strained, dying—no longer verdant in color, but brown and gray. After a few more minutes, I realize it isn’t just the flowers, bushes, and brambles that are shrinking into nothingness. The trees now appear narrow and leafless, almost sickly. Soon, we’re surrounded by a forest of death where once evergreens stood proud.

When I left the castle the first time, I did so from the opposite end—aiming straight for the sea which wasn’t a far walk, thus I hadn’t seen the lack of vegetation that surrounded it. Now, as Derith and I walk closer to the castle’s portcullis and the surrounding wall of stone, I can feel a sense of encroaching death, and I have a feeling the castle, itself, is the source.

We reach the edge of the Chimera Forest, that pesky stretch of endless wood between the village and the castle. Here the dying plants taper off, opening into a grand courtyard of equally dead trees that line a stone entryway. A creeping fog clings to the sides of the castle and the ground surrounding it, almost like a moat. If my eyes aren’t deceiving me, the fog takes the form of grasping claws against the climbing towers. As I watch it, the fog appears to dance as though it’s constructed of writhing serpents.

“Lovely place,” I mutter. Derith just chuckles at me.

We walk up to the portcullis. It’s a giant wooden megalith that I imagine requires the strength of ten men to push it even an inch open. Yet Derith thrusts it up and open with a single shove that looks like it takes no effort at all.

“After you,” he says, gesturing with both arms for me to walk ahead of him. I take a tentative step through the threshold and then inhale a hesitant breath. Now inside the stone walls of the castle, I notice that the place reeks of wet and mildew. I take a few shallow breaths and walk the rest of the way into the entry hall, the temperature around me dropping the further I walk.

I turn to frown at Derith as a cobweb catches me right in the face. After pushing the sticky thing away, I look around at the entirely stone mansion. There are a few places with intricate stone carvings and along the walls there are large concave areas that feature gargoyles who look down at us with various sinister expressions.

“Family portraits?” I ask Derith who just frowns at me, but there’s a smile in the upturned corners of his lips.

Other than the gargoyles, the place is pretty barren. No furniture to speak of, no tapestries or paintings, no rugs, and no other life, as far as I can tell.

“Couldn’t you at least attempt to make this place look less like a dungeon?”

He shrugs. “What difference does it make to me? I don’t feel the cold, I don’t require a bed and I never have guests.”

“What about your human minions?”

He shrugs again. “They are cared for.”

I laugh at that and then sigh as I take in the surroundings of the castle as we mount the winding stone staircase. “Well, aren’t you going to tell me about the place?” I ask, figuring we might as well attempt to make conversation if we’re going to be working together, something I still haven’t quite wrapped my mind around.

“It’s been in the family for… well, quite some time.”

“Makes for a good heirloom, I guess,” I say, running one of my hands along the stone wall to my left.

“There’s a guest room upstairs,” Derith offers. “Actually, there are several so you can choose whichever you like.”

“Is it too much to hope for a bed?” I ask. “Or is the reason you have no furniture because you sleep hanging upside down?”

“Funny,” he says with a chuckle that says my comment is anything but. “Yes, there are beds.”

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