Words of Power (Alice Gray Book 3)

61

Hard stone limbs twisted around the enormous frames of the Minster's windows. Clawed hands and feet pulled massive lumpy bodies inside. They appeared so high up on the walls, their substance somehow defied the gravity that should have brought them crashing down and shattering on the hard stone-paved floor.

Faces frozen in pain and terror.

Disproportionate body parts and wings that had no chance of ever taking flight.

Snouts, claws, tails, teeth, all in the wrong place and the wrong order.

Dead stone eyes that somehow managed to shine fury and madness.

But they didn't scare me. This was what my power did. These were my troops.

This was my gargoyle army.

More and more of the stone monsters crawled through the windows before leaping down in wave after wave of jagged stone bodies. They jerked and shuddered with movements that should have been awkward but when carried by the rhythm of the silver leaves held a grace that seemed impossible from creatures so hard and ugly.

Twisted bodies with misshapen parts and stretched out faces crawled towards us in undulating tides, until they swelled onto the first group of wolves that ran to meet them.

I winced at the sounds of agonised howls and brittle bones crunching as those rabid animals were crushed to death by stone hands and feet and teeth. They wouldn't have stood much of a chance had they been in top form, but with their brains melted half away by DPA drugs, it was a massacre.

The poppet-men were next. Their advantage of size was lost against the Minster's impressive gargoyles, some of whom were twice the size of the humanoid monsters that had been stitched together in a lab.

Stone will always beat dead flesh in a game of paranormal rock, paper, scissors.

As badly stitched limbs were torn away from waxy grey torsos that were never meant to support them, the thrill of victory rippled through my body.

This madness, this destruction, it was what my power wanted, what I wanted.

It was mine.

The chimes of the silver leaves cackled their joy in a celebration of their triumph over the person that I'd clung to as my life-force grew. That Alice Grey had been timid and scared of the magic that had turned her life upside down and changed her very identity.

That girl hadn't existed for a long time now.

The leaves crashed in appreciation of my self-realisation. The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, this was what it was all about. You had to know your darkest self before you could claim to know yourself at all.

Once upon a time, I'd questioned how Jonathan could ever torture people by turning them into these misshapen, distressed looking creatures, and now I was using them just like he had. But I had to use any weapon at my disposal. Everybody was relying on me.

And right now I was exposed in the middle of the fight.

I rolled away just before a meaty looking hand grabbed my arm. The angel blood coating floor helped my body slide along the slick tiles with far more momentum that it would on a dry floor.

Sharp teeth snagged my clothing, piercing through to skin as I slipped past, trying to get back to the fort that Thomas still protected. He tried to move towards me, but rabid, mangy looking wolves hung from his sleeves and trouser legs. Madness lent strength to their attacks, and as yet another launched itself at him, I knew that I was on my own until I was back inside the pulpit.

Agonised wails and loud, dead thuds told me that the gargoyles would soon be on us.

A frightening thought popped into my mind far later than it should have. These gargoyles might have heard the song of the silver leaves, but I wasn't the same as Jonathan. These were not monsters of my making.

For some reason of their own, the architects of the Minster were responsible for crafting these stone creatures, for trapping their souls for centuries. Did people volunteer for this as some kind of penance? Was it a punishment for some horrendous crime?

How could I be sure that they would respond to my command?

I had to get to Thomas before the gargoyles reached him.

Emily's lessons in self-defence were paying off, and I was thankful for all those bloody noses as I caught a wolf by clamping my hand around its muzzle before snapping on one of the plastic ties she had insisted that I carried in my pocket. Be prepared for any attack, was Emily's best advice, and as a human in the paranormal world, she knew the dangers better than most.

Having dealt with the wolf's deadliest weapon, I chanced a kick at its shoulder blade, sending it flying against the Minster's hard cold wall. A painful crunch told me that he was a goner.

The massive lumbering man-poppets were a different matter altogether. My skid's momentum finally having come to a stop, I scrabbled forward nearly back to Thomas and the safety of the pulpit.

My chest hit the floor as my leg was yanked up and pulled back. Face slamming against the paving stones, the taste of angel blood mingled with my own and coated my tongue with a tangy coppery taste. My lower body lifted as the enormous man-poppet pulled me up by my foot. I twisted my head so that I could see his large, slack-jawed moon-face.

His eyes glanced down at me with no comprehension, their emptiness infinitely more frightening because it represented the fate of everyone here if I didn't do something.

He turned and started traipsing towards the Crypt. My fingers scratched and strained against the blood-wet tiles, trying to find purchase in the gaps between the floor's paving stones.

Horror and disappointment filled me, making me forget my training as my mind spiralled, panic freezing my brain until I was slow and stupid. Just like the automaton that was dragging me down.

Was this going to be the end of me, even after I'd seen all creation playing out before me, its levels and layers opening out for me like I was the Almighty surveying my domain?

Providence couldn't be as cruel as that, surely?

I tried with everything that I had to send my silver energy out of me, to influence the thing that dragged me along. But Brother Jerome's man-poppets were just empty shells. Science had brought them back, but their souls were gone. And without a soul there could be no desire, and without that, how could my magic tempt it.

This was the real lesson. All along the silver tree, the Tree of Knowledge had been leading me to the realisation of my weakness. Of my magic's impotence in the face of human science.

I called to the gargoyles instead, with the song of the silver leaves, the White Paternoster, the words of power.

But their souls had been claimed by somebody else, somebody whose only concern was protecting the Minster from the atrocities of corrupt science and magic that defiled it.

I realised far too late how powerless I was against those who had no respect for life, the spark of creation that was in us all, humans, witches, vamps and everything in between.

Hell, even the angels shared that in common with us. Their magical essences just a magnified version of our own.

Their blood, the same as our blood.

But it wasn't the same, I realised with a spark of hope that lit me up from the inside. It was more powerful, just like their life-forces out shone ours in every way.

We were so close to the Crypt steps now that I could see the last charm that I'd carved into the doorframe shining brightly with the magic of my ancestors. Spreading my palms on the slick red paving stones, I covered them with angel blood.

Oblivious to my intention, my slow, lumbering captor hefted me the final few steps until I was level with the charm.

There was only one kind of magic that could help me now.

Blood Magic.

And what could be more powerful than angel blood.

Eek, she's desperate but is this really the way forward? Hope you're enjoying the story!