On Your Knees, Prospect (Kings of Hell MC 3)

The gargoyle roared once more, but this time he released an inferno that lit up the corridor. Vars was sure the man was a goner, but he must have managed to duck, because the next time Vars spotted movement, the man was crawling away on hands and knees, screaming his head off.

The gargoyle heaved, twisting around and swinging its extremities, which caused yet more havoc, breaking glass and toppling exhibits to the floor. Only now Vars had the capacity to realize that maybe the monster was... confused? Its massive chest rose and fell as it grabbed more objects, smelling each one only to throw it away, it’s moves jerky as smoke floated up from its wide nostrils.

Fighting every instinct that had kept him alive for almost forty years despite leading a dangerous life, Vars stepped closer.

“Jake?”

The gargoyle stilled and turned its ruby red eyes at Vars. Every fibre in Vars screamed for him to run. Something was already burning down in the corridor where the beast had breathed fire, and Vars’s flesh could be next, but if Jake was still inside of this creature, Vars couldn’t leave him like this.

The gargoyle took a deep breath, opening its wide jaws, but when Vars decided it was time to say goodbye to the world, the creature spoke.

“Help,” it whined in a voice like rusty nails scratching over a blackboard. It reached out to Vars with its clawed paw, but then pulled it back with another moan, which sounded much softer, like a wounded pit bull desperate for attention.

Vars shook with sudden emotion, staring back at the diabolical features of a creature huge enough to wreck a whole room just by moving around, which could burn this whole place to the ground if it wanted. He was still afraid, but the distressed cries lured him in, close enough to smell the burn on the gargoyle’s—Jake’s—black flesh. He brushed his knuckles over skin that was hard and dusty like a rock in a desert and looked up the massive chest crisscrossed with bone growths, all the way to features that suddenly provoked pity rather than fear.

A deafening sound tore through the air.

Jake roared, twisting around so abruptly only ducking saved Vars from having his face smashed in by the muscular tail, but the noise was a constant, high-pitched ring of an alarm that must have been set off by the smoke or the fleeing man.

The mix of screeches and roars combined with the warning signal distorted Vars’s thoughts. He leaped back into a corner, squeezing the useless collar in his hands, but when the gargoyle flapped its wings, lifting its massive body into the air only to crash into the ceiling like a vulture trapped in a dog house, Vars finally got an idea, even if it was crazy.

Through the noise overhead, Vars could hear another sound, more regular and louder by the second. Police sirens. They had no more time to waste.

“Jake, down. Come down here. We need to run,” he yelled at the top of his lungs, dashing for the french doors that would surely lead them into another part of the garden.

Vars slammed into them with his whole weight to get through, but they creaked, bent, and stayed put. He was about to try again when Jake bulldozed them head first, rolling out into the garden and flapping his wings like a helpless baby bird that had just hatched.

Clouds of vapor exploded over the peaceful garden as if a bomb had just gone off where Jake had fallen, but it must had been the head of his body causing such sudden reaction, because when Jake spread his wings, it was water, not snow, that sprayed Vars’s face.

Vars ran after him, calling out Jake’s name, but the police sirens were getting so loud on the other side of the museum he could barely hear his own thoughts. “We need to run!”

Jake looked back at him, and Vars’s heart filled with a whole ocean of relief. The eyes that had glinted like rubies just moments ago were blue once more. Somewhere beneath that monstrous armor that curled around Jake’s body, the sweet boy still remained.

“Get on!” Jake yelled in that scratchy rumble of a voice and turned his back to Vars, scooting down.

For a brief moment, Vars was too stunned to react and looked toward the fence in hesitation, but once the police siren stopped, he dashed for Jake. The gargoyle flesh barely offered any give under his weight, but it was hot like the benches at a sauna. Vars was still shocked, and a part of him expected to wake up in his bed after a particularly strange dream, but the humongous body, hardened by smooth scales, felt so real it wouldn’t disappear even if he cut off his finger to awaken. Unsure what to do, he placed his head close to Jake’s shoulder blades and grabbed the ridges that ran along the huge back. The skin smelled pleasant, like rocks that had been tossed out by the sea, and he shut his eyes, sensing the smooth, heavy stone inside him throb, like a reminder of what death had been like.