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“No. I’m saying that many gargoyles become leaders in the Gray Society. Do you know how large it is? Finding your father will take someone capable of running computer programs and analyzing data, who will be impressed with the idea of making a connection with an upper tier elite, so they bother to help you.”
Let me think who fit that criteria, no, don’t let me. Percival Marigold would be delighted to find my father if that meant that he got to rub elbows with someone vile enough to impregnate my mother and abandon her, knowing that her child would end up turning to stone at some point. I really wasn’t interested in finding this guy, except maybe to yell at him for being vile and disgusting, but then again, that probably wouldn’t be the best way to get his help.
“You can’t turn me into a gargoyle?” I asked, knowing the answer, but needing to ask anyway.
“No, but I can take you home. You need to clean and bandage your injuries. You shouldn’t go around at night alone, not with a demon on the loose.”
“Right. Thanks, except that I have to work at night so I can take classes in the morning so I don’t have to spend the rest of my life as a janitor, not that it isn’t noble work, but it’s not my calling.”
“I thought that your calling was hunting gargoyles.”
“No, that’s my obsession. My calling is taking care of my mother.”
He was quiet for a long time, then carefully scooping me up against his chest, he rumbled, “She is lucky to have you. I hope that you find your father, and I’m sorry that I can’t help.”
I rested my head against his shoulder and closed my eyes, fighting tears for some reason. “It’s okay. I’m just lucky to have her.”
He took off, gliding beneath the moon with me tucked against his chest. The wind swirled my hair around and I forgot about every single problem, too busy floating on moonbeams in the arms of my gargoyle to focus on the very unpleasant upcoming task of asking Percival Marigold for help.
Chapter
Six
I’d prefer to face demons than Percival Marigold, but he was the only person who ticked all the boxes. Did he actually know gargoyles? Maybe he didn’t know that they were gargoyles, just that they were elites in the Gray Society. That made sense, much more sense than me being the daughter of one of those elites. The thought made me shudder. I didn’t want anything to do with a father who carelessly impregnated a human, creating a child destined to turn to stone, but I wouldn’t abandon my mother like he did, so I stood outside Percival’s window, early enough that no one was up to see me. I had a squeegee and a spray bottle and had washed all the windows on that side of the building, in case anyone was suspicious. His room was on the second floor, and I’d been in it enough times to know how to approach it, but I was putting off the inevitable. I’d never broken into his room to talk to him, to catch him before he headed off to be brilliant or whatever.
My yellow rubber glove covered most of the patch of stone on my arm, but not all of it. It was definitely spreading, but not quickly. Should I knock or break in? Breaking in would probably not be the best way to get him to willingly help me. I knocked on the glass and then casually washed it, scraping it with the rubber line until the window I was working on rose and there was Percival looking mussed and delicious, with a sculpted bare chest that was impossible not to find attractive. I scowled at him before I remembered that I was trying to get him to help me. This was hopeless.
“Did you mean to wake me up early on a Saturday morning? And here I thought you’d given up on torture.” He ran a hand through his long dark locks and stretched, making the muscles in his chest do the most interesting…
I snapped my eyes up to his. “I have a problem and I thought that you might be able to help me, which I wouldn’t ordinarily think that you’d do, but it involves upper level members of the Gray Society, which I understand you are all gung ho about joining. Am I wrong?”
He blinked at me. “You intentionally woke me up early on the one day I don’t have somewhere else to be to ask me for a favor? Did you get a concussion? Brain damage? Amnesia?”
I rubbed my head absently. I had hit it kind of hard when I’d come down off my skateboard crash. “Do you want to make connections with some big wigs or not?”
He gestured at me, particularly my yellow gloves and squeegee. “And you’re going to connect anyone to anything worthwhile? Fine. You woke me up, so entertain me.”
I glanced around and then climbed in his window, closing it behind me and then shutting the curtains so we were in the diffuse light, kind of close together, with only my bottle and squeegee between us.
“My dad’s probably a…” I really didn’t want to confide anything to Perci-vile the Half-Naked.
“You’re saying that you’re the daughter of an elite official of the Gray Society?”
“Maybe. I need to do research and find him.”
“Maybe?” He shook his head, more puzzled than angry. “You woke me up on a, maybe?”
“Look, I’m turning to stone, okay? I need to find my dad so he can transform me or something, and that means I need someone devious and diabolical to help me. I’d just forget about him, but my mom needs me, and so I have to get a cure.”
He reached over to his bedside table and put on the claw he wore for doing spells. “Take off your clothes.”
“I’d rather be dipped in acid.”
“I don’t think the acid will help with the turning to stone thing, but we could try it, just for fun. I’ll hold your ankles and everything. I can’t see you under that hoodie and shapeless black dress. I need to examine your transformation, see how far it’s gone, and make sure that you’re actually turning to stone and not just developing leprosy, or perhaps this is all an elaborate plot to see me half-naked first thing in the morning.” His eyes got all half-lidded and bedroomy, and there was a bed right there behind him. It was all the talk of dipping me in acid that got him excited. No, he was just messing with me.
I shuddered. Let the torture begin. “Yeah, that’s a never-going-to-happen right there. First, put on a shirt. We can’t both have less clothing, or… I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. You’re my personal devil, and I’m asking for help? I really must have gotten a concussion.” I rubbed the knot on my head.
“You actually do have an injury?” he asked, grabbing a shirt off the floor and pulling it on. It was long-sleeved, but it left the top of his chest framed, and that was somehow even prettier than without a shirt.
