Adamant Spirits, page 115
Tor grinned. "I can assure you that in the course of my work – which is finished, by the way. Your house is completely repaired and without leaks, as good as new – I have not found any shoes or other items of clothing, and while there were a couple of rat skeletons that had likely been beneath the floor for decades, I disposed of these bodies in the wheeled rubbish receptacle behind your house. There are no dead bodies anywhere in your house."
Catena sagged with visible relief. "Tor, you are a legend." She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly.
Another awkward embrace. He refrained from patting her back this time, but he still felt bereft when it ended. Odd. Having her body close to his seemed like the most natural thing in the world, when he knew it was anything but.
She pulled away. "Sorry. You're not a hugger, are you? I should try to remember that better."
Tor coughed. "On the contrary, Miss Kelly. Should you feel the desire to hug me, you are welcome to do so, any time that you wish."
Her eyes narrowed. "This is part of the bit about being at my command, isn't it? The world has changed, and it's not about who gives the orders, at least not when it's about personal contact. If you don't want me to hug you, and I try to hug you, you get to tell me to fuck off. And I need to listen to you, and respect your wishes."
Tor took a long time to consider her words. The world had indeed changed. The prison guards would not have agreed to fuck off. No, they would have laughed, chained him up, and lashed him, no matter what he wanted. Not only that, but Miss Kelly was completely the opposite to the warders in his past.
"Do I have your permission to speak frankly, Miss Kelly?" he asked.
Catena grinned. "Sure. I'm not sure I've been told to fuck off by a man with a sexy Scottish accent before. Have at it."
"Even if I was not your protector, my purpose to serve you, I would not dream of telling you to fuck off, as you say." He swallowed. Of course, being a gargoyle, it didn't moisten his throat in the slightest, but the reflex was still there. "If you wish to hug me, I welcome your embrace. I may be made of stone, living stone, but stone nonetheless, but I do feel, and I am particularly partial to the feeling of holding you in my arms." He paused, considering. "Perhaps it is partly because you are easier to protect when I hold you close."
Easier to kiss, too, if madness overcame him again. Though he would be careful to make sure it did not.
"So, let me get this straight. Yes, you like hugs, and no, we don't have any dead bodies in the house," she said.
Tor inclined his head. "Correct on both counts, Miss Kelly."
"My name is Catena, or Cat, like the little black creature Anemone has that smells like fish. Remember? Honorifics are for arseholes like the prime minister."
"I do not think I shall ever be in a position to address the prime minister, Miss…Catena."
"Let's hope we're both that lucky, then. Oh, and I almost forgot. All that talk of hugging distracted me. The leak at Anemone's place, the one that made her ceiling fall in. It's in the limestone wall outside her bathroom. I saw it when I went up into the ceiling. She said she was looking for an experienced stonemason to repair it, and seeing as you've been doing all this work around my house, I wondered if you'd be willing…"
"If it is part of the building in which you live, I would be only too happy to make the repairs, with your permission, for you did not wish me to enter your neighbour's home, and I must respect your wishes."
Catena wrinkled her nose. "No, I don't mean to ask you for a favour. Of course, I'm delighted that you've done all that work here, which I will pay you for, if and when I can. Free room and board for as long as you need, if nothing else. But Anemone's looking for a tradesman to pay to do the work. Plus, if she likes it, she works in a historic building, older than this one, that needs a lot of work done on it, and the owners are looking for a tradesman to do the repairs there, too. You wouldn't have to hang around here, protecting me from whatever stupid things I manage to get into. You could go back to building things that can stand the test of time. Important things."
It was on the tip of his tongue to say that there was nothing more important to him than protecting her, but there was a yearning in his breast now for more than that. He wanted to keep doing what he'd done, to build her a home where she could be safe and happy and where he could live with her. Share her life, like…
His breath hissed out through his teeth. He didn't just want to protect her, he wanted to provide for her. To spend every day making her happy. Like a husband.
Which he could never be.
"I will pay this historic building a visit, and see if there is anything that can be done for it. Then, if I can repair it, you may tell your friend so."
Her shoulders sagged. Relieved again. "Would you? That would be wonderful. I don't think Anemone gets the final say in who does the repairs there, but if you can at least give her a quote. Shit, or a list of what needs to be done, seeing as neither of us knows much about the going rate for stonemasons or even limestone…"
"Where might I find it? I shall fly over tonight, and make my assessment."
"It's the walls of the old prison. She said something about how they fell down shortly after they were built, and they had all these witch marks on them to protect them. I was going to head up there maybe before work or on my lunch break tomorrow, to see if I could spot the carvings. It's too late now, after dark and all, not safe…"
The prison. The place he'd been so afraid of being trapped inside, he'd escaped, only to end up trapped here instead. Tor wasn't sure he could even enter the place without the memories overwhelming him again. He didn't imagine they'd still have the whipping post – as Catena had said, times had changed – but to stand there, with those walls looming over him, ready to bury him forever…
Tor swallowed again. He didn't dare ask, and yet he couldn't bear to do this without her. "We shall go tonight, together. I shall keep you safe, and we shall both see all that we wish to see." And if he went to pieces, the strength of her command to head home, and the need to protect her, would be enough to overrule his fear and force him to do what was needed.
Her eyes lit up. "You'll take me on a private tour of the prison walls tonight? With all your expert knowledge on how things were built back then? Fuck yes, let me get my coat, and let's go!"
Tor blinked. He had not expected her to agree so easily. At least, if he had to revisit the worst of his past, he'd get to do it with Catena in his arms. Nothing and no one bolstered his courage like she could.
Forty-One
She might be padded in so many layers, the cold air would never get through, but still she could feel every muscle along Tor's torso, hard against her back. Toasty warm, too, not like stone at all. And when he flew…she felt so secure in his arms, her only thought of the drop below was how beautiful it looked from up here.
Gargoyle magic, she decided. It had to be. For gargoyles to exist implied the existence of magic, and while she'd never believed in any of that stuff before, it was hard to deny that she was flying through the air in the arms of the most gorgeous gargoyle she'd ever seen.
Callie would never have called gargoyles ugly if she'd met Tor.
They landed in a patch of darkness outside the walls, where frosty grass crunched underfoot.
Tor stared at the wall for a moment, before he burst out laughing. He doubled over, slapping his thigh, until he rolled on the grass, still roaring with laughter.
"What is it?" She couldn't spy anything even remotely funny. Certainly nothing to warrant rolling on the ground, laughing her arse off.
"They built buttresses! Bloody buttresses! By God, I wish I'd been here to see it. I told them the walls would fall down unless they built buttresses. Did they? Tell me, did their walls fall down, like I told them they would?"
"Anemone said they fell down only a year after they were built," Catena admitted.
This only made Tor laugh harder, slapping the ground so hard he left handprints in the sodden soil.
Without warning, he leaped to his feet. "Did they build them on the south wall, too? I have to see." He was half a metre in the air, flapping hard, before Catena could blink.
"Wait! You can't just leave me alone out here!" she cried, reaching up.
Tor grinned, leaned forward, then dived. He caught her around the waist before shooting up into the air, clearing the wall with its rusting razor wire and heading across the prison yard.
This was the part of the prison Catena couldn't bear. She squeezed her eyes shut, but still she saw the whipping post she'd hated, every school excursion to this horrible place. Anemone had told her it wasn't even the real one, soaked in the blood of so many prisoners, which was kept in a climate controlled room with the most delicate items in the museum collection. Convict clothes, whips, manacles, and a noose kept coiled in readiness for the gallows.
The rumble of Tor's laughter made her open her eyes again. They hovered near the top of the south wall, where she could see Fremantle spread out below, all the way to the night-dark sea.
"More buttresses?" she guessed.
"Yes! Look at them all! And covered in my mark, as though pretending it was my work would be enough to keep them standing! Fools!" He reached out and traced what looked like a six-petalled flower in a circle. "Here, and here, and over here, too!"
Even Catena could see what Anemone had meant. The wall and buttresses bore the same mark, every few metres. The marks were angled such that they would only be visible to someone working at heights, for they would be invisible from the ground.
Hidden marks, just like the shoes. They were everywhere. A city built on secret witchcraft, right in plain view. Someone should study this, and bring the hidden history to light so more people knew about it.
It was like the graffiti in Pompeii, innocent chalk markings on a wall, preserved for two millennia to tell the eruption's true date, and not the false one recorded in some old scholar's memoirs, many years afterward. Pliny, if she recalled correctly.
She wondered what other secrets this place hid. The prison, and all the other buildings convicts had built in Perth and Fremantle.
Maybe Tor would know.
"If this is your mark, but you didn't put it here…where can I see the real thing?" she asked.
"The Gatehouse. A proper gatehouse, this one is, like I'd build to guard the lower reaches of a castle. The angles must be perfect for ornate work like this one, which is why you must have a cut circle to compare it to." Tor flapped his wings – once, twice – and cleared the wall, setting them down on the road in front of the prison entrance. "There. Carved by my own hand, that was."
Catena could see the difference. Unlike the scratched marks on the wall, this one had been carved deep by someone with a steady, sure hand. This mark was not meant to be a secret, it was a signature.
"What does it mean?" she asked, running her fingers over it. It beggared belief that she could be standing here, speaking to the man who'd carved it almost two centuries earlier, but this was the sort of thing she'd dreamed about as a child. It was like finding out time travel really was possible.
"It means I made it. That it will stand strong against any storm. That it will not fall down around the occupants' ears because of shoddy work. It's not some plea for protection, scratching a magic rune to call the spirits down to hold the wall up, for the stones themselves are not up to the job. It says I made this, and it will stand."
Catena's mouth dropped open. Tor seemed to stand taller, his shoulders broader than they were before. Or maybe it was in the tilt of his head…he looked proud of his work, and so he should be, if his creations stood the test of time while the convict-built ones behind them blew over in the first storm.
What had it taken to break a man with such towering strength? She shuddered at the thought. Something terrible. Only something heart-breakingly awful could have shattered his hard-as-stone spirit, to make him bow his head so deeply he hadn't dared rise again until now.
Now, he was himself again, or almost.
This man's purpose was not to serve, though every inch of him screamed that he could and would protect.
Catena's mouth was dryer than the stones behind her. The Tor before her was everything she could have dreamed of in a man. A man who was more than she could ever hope for.
"Tor? What will I tell Anemone? When she asks me if you can fix the walls?"
She suspected she already knew what his answer would be, but she wanted to hear it from him.
"The only way to fix those crumbling walls is to tear them down and build them anew. Or let them fall into ruin, as they so clearly wish to do. Or, I could do as I have in your house, and painstakingly patch them, so they might stand for another century, but certainly no longer." He scrutinised her. "Are you cold, and impatient to return home? Have you seen enough of crumbling stonework, and silly superstition?"
Actually, she wanted to see more of it, for the seed of an idea was growing in the back of her mind, though she had yet to voice it. All in good time.
"I'm not cold, but I think we are done here. If you're ready to fly home, I'm happy to fly with you." Any time.
As Tor scooped her up and rose into the air, she wished they could fly everywhere together.
Then again, that would probably have the internet afire with videos of them, and one Moth Man video was more than enough.
She peered at the streets below them, searching for anyone with a camera pointed upward, but it was close to midnight on a weeknight, so no one was out to ruin her night.
So she just rested her head against Tor's broad chest, and enjoyed the ride.
Forty-Two
The roster had her working this weekend, so she paid her weekly visit to Maria on her day off, instead. Maria's mind was wandering more than usual today, so Catena just settled down to listen.
Then, when Maria paused to free her teeth from the caramel Tim Tam, Catena figured she may as well ask.
"What do you know about gargoyles, Maria?"
A big swallow of coffee had Maria opening her mouth again, and wagging her finger, too.
"I bet you're thinking the only kind of gargoyles are the ones you see on medieval churches, aren't you? Well, you'd be wrong. Gargoyles go as far back as the earliest civilisations. They've been protecting buildings for as long as there were buildings. Egypt, the Middle East, even Pompeii had gargoyles, but they didn't look like those ugly things on top of the cathedral in Paris. Oh, no. They were fierce defenders, and they were lions and dragons with the faces of men. People believed they would rise up, actually come to life, and defend the buildings they stood guard over.
"I remember when I was working on a dig in Pompeii, a site that had been dug up by treasure hunters when the city was first discovered, then reburied. We, of course, were doing the thing properly, systematically. Anyway, the first night out, before we started work, we're all having a few drinks, saying what we hoped to find. It's a game you play, though more often than not, nobody actually wins, but when someone does, we all chip in and get the winner roaring drunk when the thing they wish for is discovered. I don't remember what I wished for – I didn't win, so it didn't matter.
"No, it was a local boy, home on summer holidays from university, I think, who had the strangest wish. He told this story about some barbarian woman, the daughter of a prosperous freedman, who set up a high class bathhouse in Pompeii. She took three lovers – a gladiator, an artist, and an engineer. Now, she loved all three equally, but each of the men wanted her to themselves. So one day, they played a game of chance, saying that the winner could have her. Well, they played, but before they could determine the winner, an earthquake toppled the house down on top of them, and all three of them died. When she got home, she was devastated, but, being a barbarian witch, she knew how to cast a spell to raise her lovers from the dead, and bind them to her forever. The catch was, she had to bury them beneath her house, before she could revive them, and there were only so many builders in Pompeii, and they were very much in demand after the earthquake. Being a freedman's daughter, and a barbarian to boot, she was way down the list, and she had to wait years for her turn. Finally, her house was rebuilt, and she planned a magnificent feast for the night she planned to revive her lovers. Only the volcano erupted, and she was forced to flee…leaving her lovers behind, still waiting for her to resurrect them.
"He'd grown up with the story, maybe he was even descended from that woman, but what he wanted to find was those three men's bodies."
Catena leaned forward, balanced on the edge of her seat. "So did you find them?"
Maria laughed. "Of course not! It was just a silly story. But every night, we came back to it. Arguing over which man we'd have chosen out of her three lovers. Whether you wanted a man who'd fill your house with beautiful art, or build you a house with the most modern and remarkable things, or the gladiator, all supple and athletic. I imagine the sex must have been amazing."
There was a reason Maria never had a roommate, though there was space in this room for two. She'd scandalised so many of the little old ladies with her open talk of sex that the nurses knew not to put anyone else in with her, or risk them having a heart attack.
"That reminds me of a ruined castle in the UK I worked at for a season. Don't remember which one it was. But they did have a little chapel with the roof missing. Down at the village pub, they told all sorts of stories about the castle. That the family's fortunes had been lost when the local lord went off on a crusade, leaving his wife to hold the fort, as it were. She did for a while, praying every day and every night in the little chapel, which apparently had a gargoyle on the roof.
