Stoneskin Dragon (Stone Shifters Book 1) Read online

  The worst part was, she reluctantly believed him. He didn't sound like he was lying.

  "What about my boyfriend? Will it help him too?" She tugged at the stoneskins' hands again, and realized that with the magician's attention no longer focused on them, she was starting to get a little slack. She might be able to pull her hands free.

  "If he's still alive in there," the magician said.

  Her heart gave a tiny, hopeful leap. This might be the only thing that could save Reive. Wasn't it worth it?

  "And the other gargoyles?" she asked. "Will it hurt them?"

  "Do you care?" he asked, and that sent a chilling certainty down to the bottom of her heart.

  Yes, it will.

  There was a time when she had thought the gargoyle side of her was a monster lurking inside her. She would have done anything to be free of it, and to help free Reive, even if it meant killing every gargoyle in the world.

  But now ...

  She turned toward Mace in the near darkness. Lit by flickering firelight, he hung immobile on the rock spikes piercing him. If he was alive, he might be her closest kin, an uncle she had never known she had. And there could be others out there. Other relatives, a family like the close-knit dragon clans that Reive had told her about.

  How could she sacrifice Mace, and them, and all of gargoyle-kind, even for the possibility of saving Reive?

  If I can still save him ...

  Her mouth opened and closed. She started shaking her head, a desperate refusal to make such a terrible decision.

  And then everything changed.

  Reive

  He floated in darkness. Peaceful. Still.

  Wrong.

  There was somewhere he needed to be. Someone he needed to be with.

  And he wasn't dead, he began to realize, as some degree of awareness drifted back to him. He was just ... between.

  Between what?

  It was like being balanced on a pivot point. It felt as if he had to make a decision.

  Dragon? Are you there?

  He reached out in the darkness, trying to find his beast. He had a vague sense of its presence, but it kept slipping away.

  This isn't right.

  Growing urgency beat at him, and suddenly the reason for it burst over him with the shock of a tidal wave.

  Jess!

  Jess, with her soft cloud of curly brown hair and her long, strong limbs. Jess, with her gargoyle body that was no less beautiful than her human one.

  Jess! he cried silently, and threw himself against the prison of his body. He had to get back to her. She was in danger. The longer he stayed here—

  Wherever here was.

  It was like learning to shift all over again, he realized all of a sudden. For every young shifter, there was a first shift, that magic instant when they managed to fit their human and animal selves together like a key turning in a lock.

  For most of his life he had done it so naturally that he was hardly aware of the transition. It was only lately that it had stopped being automatic and become something he had to struggle and work at. But that had made him conscious of what it felt like, in a way that most shifters weren't.

  And this was the same feeling, but a hundred times more so. He had to contort and twist, trying to find just the right angle of approach. He wished he could hear his dragon; that would make it so much easier.

  Dragon? Am I doing the right thing?

  He tried to reach out to that elusive part of his soul. And then suddenly his dragon was there with him in the darkness, as if he had opened up a door that had been shut.

  Jess, it said clearly.

  I know! We have to get back to her.

  His dragon's desperation matched his own. Are you willing to do whatever it takes? it asked.

  Whatever it takes, he answered firmly, and in that instant he and his dragon were united in pure clarity of purpose, as sharp and defined as a blade made of ice.

  And—oh—it had been easy all along, after all.

  He shifted.

  It was a shift as easy and swift as any of his previous shifts had ever been, before the illness, before the stone. There was no pain. There was no separation between himself and his dragon. He was him again.

  He burst out of the tidal pool in an explosion of salt spray. His forelegs thumped to the beach with a heft that drove his clawed feet into the rock itself, nearly up to his ankles.

  Oh. That was new.

  It was almost dark in the grotto, but dragons had keen night vision. He looked down at himself in surprise. He was himself ... but not.

  He was made entirely out of stone.

  And yet, everything else was the same. Every scale was as neatly formed as if sculpted with infinitely delicate chisels. Perhaps more important, he could feel every part of his body. Nothing was painful or insensate. He felt perfectly normal.

  He was a dragon of living stone.

  "Reive!"

  Jess's glad cry rang across the tidal pool, and he forgot everything else in his need to get to her. He whipped around, and his lashing tail cut deep into a boulder and showered pebbles around him.

  Okay, this was going to take some getting used to.

  So was flying, he discovered a second later. He spread his wings to take to the air, but the weight and balance of his body were so different now that he crashed into the tidal pool instead, raising another great wave that washed along the beach.

  "Reive!" Jess cried. "He's about to get away. Get him!"

  "Gladly," Reive growled, and it rumbled out of his chest, deeper and louder, but still recognizably his voice.

  All of this was him. He no longer felt strange or different. It felt as if he had become what he was always meant to be.

  He flung himself at the magician. Stoneskins moved to block him, but he effortlessly smashed them. His new form was so much heavier than a normal dragon that they didn't stand a chance against him. He could crush them with ease.

  The magician flung out his hands and Reive reared back, feeling, for an instant, those hot-wire tethers settling around him. But only for an instant. The bindings disintegrated almost immediately.

  "Your powers don't work on gargoyles, do they?" Reive casually swatted aside another of the lumpy, malformed stoneskins, crushing it under one heavy stone paw. "That's why you never attacked Jess directly. You couldn't. All you could do was send stoneskins after her. Well, guess what." He grinned, showing off his new stone teeth, and then crunched down on another stoneskin, biting off its head and part of its torso. The gravel was strangely tasty. "Now it doesn't work on me either," he said through a mouthful of granite.

  The magician yelped and flung a hand out, starting to trace fiery trails in the air in the shape of a portal.

  "Oh no you don't." Reive lunged. The main problem with this new body was that it was slower than his old one, or at least he hadn't yet figured out how to compensate for the weight with his newly increased strength, but he swatted the magician before the portal could open fully.

  The magician went sailing all the way across the pool. When he hit, his entire body flashed with a flare of campfire glow, the way a banked fire can flare up when a big stick is thrown on it. It appeared to be some kind of shield, because he was already picking himself up rather than lying there stunned, and starting to open another portal.

  Reive leaped at him, but his claws closed on empty air.

  Jess

  While Reive kept the magician and his stoneskins occupied, Jess found herself free. The stoneskins had been called to help their master, and she stumbled on the sand, shaking her aching wrists. In the near-darkness, she groped her way to Mace. She wanted to help Reive, but if the magician really meant to use the book to destroy all gargoyles, he could not be allowed to have it.

  "Mace?" she said anxiously, prodding at him. She felt for a pulse, not even really thinking about it until she felt the slow thumping of his heart through his neck. So their hearts still beat as gargoyles.

  But then, she was a
gargoyle; she ought to know. She breathed. Her heart beat. She still felt like herself. There was nothing alien about this body, and she was absolutely positive in that instant that she wanted to keep it. The magician could not be allowed to get his hands on that book.

  "Mace, where is the book? What did you do with it?"

  He stirred finally, lifting his head enough to groan out, "Rock ..."

  Oh. Of course.

  There was a terrific crash from across the pool. Trusting Reive to hold his own against the magician, she placed her hand on the cliff face.

  Come on, she thought, focusing on the rock. Mace did this as naturally as breathing. The ability was inside her; she knew it was. Maybe it would never be as easy for her as it was for a full-blooded gargoyle, but she was positive she could do it.

  Come on. Give it to me.

  She pushed her awareness into the rock, trying to feel it as an extension of her body. And then suddenly she was aware of the foreign object embedded in it. She reached for it, and was almost entirely unsurprised when her arm sank into the rock up to the elbow. She closed her hand around the leather cover and pulled the book out.

  But now what?

  She stood indecisively, clutching it in both hands. Across the pool, there was more crashing and a flare of light. Reive was fighting the magician and giving her time to get the book and Mace to safety. But if the book was intact, they would never really be safe ever again. This guy wasn't going to give up.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered, placing a hand on Mace's shoulder. "I'll come back for you. I have to get rid of this first."

  He didn't answer. She felt for his pulse again. It was slow and hard to find.

  "I'll try to hurry. Hang on."

  She wrapped both arms around the book, and concentrated on the ground under her feet.

  After pulling the book out of the rock, it was easier this time. The rock responded to her sluggishly, but it did respond, and she sank as if into quicksand.

  She had a moment of instinctive, claustrophobic panic before she realized she could breathe like this, just as she had been able to when Mace had transported her underground. It was like being wrapped in a dense, cool fog that surrounded her utterly. She knew her limbs were all there, and she could dimly feel the book against her chest, but everything was a little bit distant.

  Is it the rock getting soft ... or me?

  She could ask Mace later, once she was out of here.

  It would be easy to just leave the book here. But no, there was still too much chance it could be found. If the magician realized what she had done, all he had to do was dig for it.

  She had to take it very far away.

  It took a little bit of experimentation to figure out how to move like this. The easiest thing to do was to sink, so she sank, as if she had become just that bit heavier than the surrounding stone.

  As she did, she began to delight in the variation of the rock around her. Her ability to recognize subtle changes in different kinds of stone was growing by leaps and bounds. She could taste it, feel it. There were probably words for all the different kinds of rock she was feeling, but since she didn't know them, she could only think of it as slight changes in feeling or flavor: this rock was grittier, this one lighter; this was dark and strong like coffee; this one was more powdery and light, and left an almost sweet sensation on the back of her tongue ...

  She passed through a coal seam, and laughed out loud in delight at its rich dark feeling, like dense chocolate cake.

  There were faults in the rock around her. She could feel the strains and stresses, the pent-up energy that was subtly building, hinting at earthquakes in the far-distant future.

  Could I predict earthquakes? I wonder if there are any gargoyles with geology degrees who work for earthquake prediction centers. How much loss of life and property could they prevent?

  Could I stop an earthquake?

  Could I cause one?

  There was no time for experimentation now, and she didn't want to do it under a populated coast anyway. Maybe at some point in the future, she could have Mace take her to some uninhabited part of Antarctica and do a little bit of seismological practice.

  Meanwhile, she was still sinking. She had no idea how much time had passed, but she was starting to be aware of a ringing in her ears and a growing leaden feeling in her limbs—distant and muffled, like everything else here.

  Oh. I guess this takes energy, doesn't it?

  She remembered how wiped out Mace had been when he transported them from Italy to Stonegarden. Now that she was learning to do it herself, she understood what an incredible feat that had been. He had transported them thousands of miles almost instantaneously.

  I could do that. I could take myself thousands of miles away ...

  Except, now that she had realized it was a possibility, she didn't think she still had the energy to try. She was tiring at a rapid rate. Tiring ... and weakening. Her heart was starting to pound as if she'd run a marathon, and she felt uncomfortably hot.

  No, wait ... I think that part's real.

  It was getting hotter around her. Well, that made sense, didn't it? If you went deep enough in the earth, you eventually hit lava.

  In fact, as she sensed the variations in the rock around her, she found a place where magma had pushed up closer to the surface. Not that close; it wasn't like a volcano was going to erupt in Newfoundland anytime soon. Well, unless I really screw up down here. But it seemed like the perfect place to get rid of the book.

  Her real body would have long since been both crushed and incinerated, but what she felt was a sensation of near-painful heat prickling along her skin, like putting your face too close to a campfire, as she pushed her hands holding the book into the magma flow.

  There was a nagging sense of regret weighing down her librarian's soul. All that knowledge. All those secrets. So much about the history of her kind that would be gone forever.

  But it was better than allowing it to fall into the hands of people who would warp and twist it, and use it to hurt gargoyles.

  She let go.

  The book was gone instantly, as soon as it left her hands, simultaneously incinerated and crushed. There wasn't even enough left of it for her to sense it as an interruption in the stone around her.

  I guess I can go back now.

  But ... how?

  She had gotten here by sinking. It was the easiest thing in the world; she just let gravity pull her down.

  How to go up, though?

  Somehow, Mace had made it all the way across the Atlantic Ocean by sheer force of will. She had to be capable of doing the same thing. It was just a matter of figuring it out.

  And having the energy left to do it.

  She was flagging rapidly. Never especially athletic, but naturally strong due to her gargoyle heritage, she had overextended herself at the gym a couple of times, and this feeling took her right back to those days—the sensation of coasting on endorphins until suddenly she hit a crashing wall of Nope, this is all my body is capable of.

  She was hitting it now. Her breath came in short gasps, and if she'd had a properly physical body, it would have been drenched in sweat. She felt dazed. Her knees wanted to buckle.

  All I have to do is go up. Just like climbing a hill, right?

  Except now that she'd stopped moving, she wasn't sure which way up was.

  Panic crashed over her in earnest. Her ears hummed and purple spots danced in her vision.

  I don't know how to get out. I'm running out of strength to get out. I'm going to die here.

  Then ...

  It was as if a voice called her, distantly, out of the dark.

  Jess?

  I'm here! she cried back.

  She had no proper mouth or lungs, but she shouted; she had no hands, but she reached out. Reive was there somehow, not here with her under the ground, but reaching out to her from wherever he was. He was a beacon, calling her home.

  Reive, I'm too weak ... I can't ...

&nb
sp; Yes you can. He had gone from being the weak one to the strong one now. His voice wrapped around her, deep and commanding, and she responded to it on pure instinct. You can do it. You're incredible, Jess. You can do anything. I've never met anyone as strong as you. I know that you have a core of steel. Let me see it now. Come back to me. Come back.

  She strained in the darkness, reaching out for him. She was so tired. But he was so close; she could feel him just beyond her reach, and she stretched, trying with everything in her to close that last gap between them.

  That's it, sweetheart. You can do it. I love you.

  The words seemed to startle him as much as they did her. In her timeless, bodiless nothingness, she felt the ghost of tears spring to her eyes. No one had ever said that to her before. Not even her foster parents. Not even once.

  And she had never said it either. Not properly.

  I love you, she thought at him. I love you. I love you. I love—

  She burst out of darkness into light, and fell into warm arms closing around her. The physical awareness of her body was a sudden anchor dragging her down. She was so exhausted that for the first moments she had to struggle to get enough air. Each breath she took was an effort like pushing a boulder up a hill, dragging air one gulp at a time into her recalcitrant lungs.

  "That's it. You can do it. Breathe for me."

  It was strange to hear Reive's voice with her ears after what seemed like an eternity of laboring in the dark. And even stranger to hear Reive's voice as she had never heard it before. There was worry for her, but beyond that, he sounded warm and strong and full of life. There was a commanding note in his voice that had never been there before. He had been through hell and come out the other side and somehow matured along the way.

  "Jess?" he said in that warm, wonderful voice, and she painfully cracked her eyes open.

  There was sky above, and it was light. That was the first thing she saw, with Reive's head framed against it. The sky was pale blue, flecked with clouds. It looked like an early morning sky.

  I was underground all night. She was still too exhausted to move. Dark clouds kept trying to roll into her vision, but she fought them back. Dimly she was aware that she was back in her human body, weak and soft.