4 - We Are Gathered by Jackie Ivie Page B

top of his wings, folded in sleep, but itching with the need to open, to take his body soaring through the night sky.
    "Such detail," she murmured.
    His eyes shifted in their sockets. He wanted to see her, needed to see her, but his body wasn't quite ready. It was still locked in its rocky state.
    She edged closer, her feet scraping over the hard ledge on which he was perched. He could feel it too now, through the thin-soled shoes he'd worn when he'd agreed to the sorcerer's bargain, agreed to go to sleep for eternity so his enemies, the chimeras, would be put into the slumber too.
    He and the others like him had given up their freedom, their lives, to save the world from the chimeras who would have enslaved humanity--but he was awake. He swallowed, or made the motion at the back of his throat; the action was uncomfortable, unnatural locked in this stony state.
    He tried again, managed to move his head to the side, but only an inch. The woman pressed against him, studying him, didn't notice--but the movement was real. He was coming awake.
    Were his enemies too?
    o0o
    Kami Machon clung to the gargoyle, kept herself from looking down by concentrating on the impossible detail of his wings, muscles, everything. How she wished she knew who had sculpted him, how the sculptor had put such strength and darkness into the white marble he'd used to carve the creature.
    She'd been sculpting with clay for years, but had recently forked out the dollars for a block of alabaster. Her fingers itched to pick up that chisel, make the first chink in the stone. But she was afraid. She wanted it to be perfect, beautiful, like this gargoyle.
    She ran her hand lower, toward the strange kilt-like cloth that covered the gargoyle's lower body. The stone beneath her hand quivered. She jerked, then laughed at the flight of her imagination. Real as he might appear, this gargoyle, or grotesque to use the more accurate term, was stone, cold and hard. He couldn't feel her hand moving over him, couldn't react to her touch.
    She shook her head and forced her feet to inch further along the ledge. One hand gripping the gargoyle's for balance, she lowered her other to the flashlight that hung on a string from her neck. It was dark, past midnight--the only time she'd been sure no one would see her and try to stop her.
    She'd tried going through regular routes, asked permission from the building's owner to view the statue up close, but her calls had been ignored. Then, miraculously, the temp agency she worked for part-time had offered a position with the building's cleaning service. The rest of the crew was gone now. Leaving her with free access to the ledge and the gargoyle that was perched there.
    She flipped on the flashlight and directed its small beam onto the gargoyle's profile. His jaw was strong and firm. She laughed again--of course it was. He was carved of stone. She lowered the light so she could feel the strength there, memorize it to replicate in her own work. The beam danced along the ledge and over her feet, drawing her gaze for just a second.
    From the corner of her eye she saw movement. She started to turn, but pressure hit her square in the back and knocked her off balance. She screamed and grabbed at the stone fingers she'd been holding, felt her own digits slip one by one until she fell free and tumbled through the air toward the cement circle two hundred feet below.
    o0o
    Mord heard the female scream and felt her fingers slip over his knuckles. His body tensed, vibrated with an uncontrollable need to save her. The stone encasing him cracked. His muscles flexed. His wings shook. He took a breath and forced air to fill his lungs.
    There was another crack--louder, like a canon firing--and he was free. He shoved his body away from the wall. His feet broke away from the ledge beneath them. His wings expanded and he free-fell for a few seconds, reveling in the feel of the air rushing past of him, of being alive--again.
    The night air was dark and