Gargoyle (Woodland Creek)(2)

He kneeled down on his right knee and placed a book on the sidewalk in front of my feet. “There is much information held in this book. Names. Shifter types. Abilities. You won’t understand all of it, but you are free to read it.” He reached forward and tapped my left shoe.

My body came alive at the touch, a deep-seated sizzling in my veins. I stared at the man…at the wizard. A power radiated around his body in a sea of waves.

If I hadn’t been frozen before, I would have been now, my heart rate skyrocketing.

“What you see is real. What you know is real. Never forget that.” He stood straight from his lowered state, shadows ever swirling around his face. He began an easy stroll down the sidewalk, away from me. “And do not tell others what you see. Not unless you want to be dead.” He paused, his dark head peering back over his shoulders. “And quit drinking. It won’t do your body any good. You need to be vigilant to the truth around you.”

When he disappeared completely into the quiet of night, my body jerked forward.

I was free. Free of the wizard’s hold.

I choked on air, trying not to pass out, and crumpled to my knees. My eyes never left the black, ancient book before me. I swallowed down the burning bile in the back of my throat.

Perhaps Woodland Creek wasn’t so beautiful.





I shouldn’t have accepted the package.

I had known the woman was a wizard. She radiated power, her voice even wracked with it. But I had taken it from her, accepted its intended destination, and now I was standing outside an office building where I could see many shifters inside. With the full moon and the lights shining brightly inside the building, it wasn’t hard to make them out through the windows. It appeared to be a drunken celebration.

They had probably just killed a new load of campers at Nightmoon Creek. Yay for them.

Killed innocents.

The shifters were s-h-i-t. Shit.

I hated them.

Hated. Them.

And I had to go in there. With them.

Sighing heavily, I unclipped my helmet from under my chin and set it on the seat of my Moped. No one would steal it here. Hell, no one wanted to come here after dark, this area of Woodland Creek…not so guiltless. But I needed the money. I would take just about any job right now.

Wiggling my shoulders past the nerves beginning to etch into my gut, a fluttering that made me half nauseous, I cleared my throat and began making my way up the concrete sidewalk that was pristine and unblemished, whereas the main street had been cracked and filled with potholes. It was just another indication that this was an otherworldly building. The woman inside hovering above everyone’s heads, with her angel blue wings beating heavily to keep from slamming into their drunken party, really wasn’t needed to tell me this. Nor was the man with the tiny devil horns, arm wrestling an average looking woman…if you didn’t count the fact she had only white bones for a hand. She was also winning by the looks of it, the man’s horns growing longer in his frustration.

At the large front door surrounded by floor to ceiling windows, I started to press the buzzer on the intercom, but a couple stumbled outside, their beer sloshing over the edges of their cups. I gritted my teeth against their voices that sounded like shards of glass threatening to burst my eardrums, and quickly caught the door before it swung closed. I don’t think they even noticed me, they were so plastered. That was one reason why I didn’t drink anymore. My eyes were wide open now to the way the world was and I wasn’t about to be caught unaware from imbibing.

I muttered a quiet curse when the scents of sour alcohol and sickly sweet substances—marijuana, I was pretty sure—attacked my nostrils. Though the music blaring wasn’t half bad, a jungle type with a hypnotic beat. It was music I might actually download later if I could catch any of the words over the shouts of revelry off to my right inside the ‘party room.’

Glancing around my surroundings, my black brows lifted slightly. There was no security here inside the lobby. Or a receptionist, the desk void of any living being to take the small package in my hand. I peered around a bit more, my eyes scanning from ceiling to marble floor. A delicate, beautiful green grass had grown up between each tile, giving the area a patio sort of vibe. Walking carefully on each tile—not about to allow the seemingly harmless grass to touch my feet—I rested against the receptionist’s desk. I even pressed the little bell on top of the counter, an ancient form of communication to indicate there was a customer here.

No one came.

Not even after ten minutes with me ringing the damn bell twenty more times. Maybe more.

Grinding my teeth, I tossed the package on the chair behind the desk.

The wizard woman hadn’t said I needed to have it signed for. I had been paid in advance, too. The chair was good enough.

It happened as I was turning to leave.

A blast of something…unnatural…crept through the air.

The feeling wasn’t harmful. At least, it didn’t feel like it.

Instead, it stroked like the sunshine…I groaned. My hand instantly went to my lower stomach. “What in the…” My God, my voice was throaty. I slammed my other palm down on the receptionist’s desk when another wave of unusual power pulsed through the air, radiating around me, ruffling my hair as if it were in a soft breeze. An excruciating tidal wave of need made my legs weak.

I doubled over, glaring at the door. “I knew I shouldn’t have taken this job.” Clenching my muscles between my thighs, an intimate wetness felt, I carefully placed a foot toward my exit. “Gotta get out of here.”