Page 56 of A Shade Too Far
Pyotr was hunched over the tablet I’d bought him to watch movies on, chanting “Go! Go!” at another Fast and Furious flick.
“You enjoying that?” I said.
The gargoyle nodded seriously. “Very much.” In his Russian accent, he pronounced it “wery.” He spied Laurent and snapped his gray gargoyle wings out. “You bring new pet?”
Laurent had ducked so he didn’t have an eye gouged out by a wingtip. “Pet?”
“Hmm. Not pet,” Pyotr pronounced. He was dressed in his customary brown plaid shirt and brown pants. “This one has heartbeat.”
I grimaced. What kind of pets were you used to, dude? “This is my friend.”
Pyotr set down his tablet and shoved his bulging eyes and gaunt face into Laurent’s armpit. “Smells like dog.”
A low growl burst from Laurent’s throat, but the gargoyle didn’t stop smelling him, his nose now in the hollow of Laurent’s neck and a frown replacing the usual sorrow carved into his stone features.
I muscled in between the two of them because the shifter was bristling and the gargoyle was still in freaky sniffer mode. “Laurent, this is Pyotr. He’s the gatekeeper here in the Kefitzat Haderech.”
Pushing Pyotr away, Laurent raised an eyebrow. “No kidding.”
I’d told Laurent about this place when I was still at risk from eternal torture here. Once I’d seen through what the angels had attempted to do to all Banim Shovavim, I’d shared the rest of the story and that I was no longer in danger traveling on it. Right now though, Laurent didn’t look as impressed as I’d hoped. Time to call off the gargoyle.
“If I gave the Kefitzat Haderech a name, would it take me to that person?” I said. It was worth asking if we could skip a step in finding the killer.
Pyotr shook his head. “Location, not name.” Oh well.
“Can Laurent choose the sock?” I winked at Pyotr. For some reason, single socks ended up here, so to get rid of them, the gargoyle and his boss, the neon sign, told new Banim Shovavim that they needed a sock to use the KH. It was a little silly, but it was part of the fun.
Pyotr sniffed again. “Don’t know.” His voice was slow and thoughtful, more so than usual.
I tsked, in no mood for any more delays than we were already dealing with. “Please? It’ll be fine,” I promised, grabbing Laurent’s hand. “We’ll just take a sock and be out of your hair and you can forget all about us.”
Laurent, meanwhile, was not being helpful at all. His arms were rolling with fur, like his magic was surging to the surface.
“Calm down, dude. Just pick a sock and we’ll jet,” I hissed, and plunged his hand into the sock pile.
Lightning flashed under his skin, like looking at a storm from an airplane, and fangs sprang down from his upper jaw, his curls turning fluffy and white.
I sucked in a breath at the sight of his Banim Shovavim magic warring with his Ohrist magic.
“Stop,” Pyotr ordered, raising a stone hand to swat him as the neon sign burst into life.
Its lights sputtered on and off, the sign jerkily cycling between its face and the images of the angels who cursed the Banim Shovavim.
An alarm wailed, the noise bouncing off the rock walls.
“Bad, very bad,” Pyotr whispered. He fluttered his wings frantically, knocking over the table, and the tablet flew across the room. The gargoyle dove onto the pile of socks, gathering as many as possible into his hands.
I clapped my hands over my ears against the deafening siren, searching for the narrow green door to get us out of here.
Laurent roared, fully wolf save for his legs, and fell to his knees, his front paws hitting the ground. His bones crunched, his limbs reforming into hind legs while a brilliant white light snaked over his body.
The gargoyle looked terrified, the sign was going berserk, and my friend was transforming into his dybbuk-killing self, howling in helpless fury.
I summoned my magic to make my scythe appear, but we weren’t under attack, and it didn’t manifest. I grabbed Laurent by the scruff of his furry neck but couldn’t transport us out either, so I ran to where the door should be and pounded on the rock face.
A gust of wind and a low moaning sound shivered up my spine. I beat on the rock harder, but when the alarm cut out with a silence loaded enough to go off like a gun, I slowly turned around.
The wolf was blindingly lit up, almost painful to look at, and still he was a preferable sight to the enormous skeleton ghost face made of smoke hovering over the growling shifter.
