Gargoyle

Dear Readers,

This Weekly Dose of Fiction is the end of Gargoyle. Each week, I write a short story and try to figure out where I came up with it. As I said in Part 1, my last post, this one came from a nightmare. It didn’t end well for Adrien Rochefort in my sleep. Want to see how it turned out after I sifted his story through my mind? Then read on.

Gargoyle, Part 2, The End

It was dangerous, she knew. But if she was going to prove what she thought was true—that she’d discovered who the murderer was, and if she could put an end to these senseless killings…Well, she had no choice but to venture out, and she knew exactly where to go. Pinpointing each murder, she’d drawn a circle on the map. At the center of this circle was Westminster Abbey.

She waited until after curfew, then, pulling her coat collar snug around her neck, she set out along the Southbank. Fog rolled in thick, adding another layer of dread to her mission and making ghosts dance in the lights from the abbey.

She walked quickly toward her destination, but halted at the sound of stone scraping stone. But there was no movement. Then, through the dense white, a shadow moved toward her—a man, but massive with shoulders hunched, and she imagined wings sprouting from his thick back. In the misting light, his eyes burned gray, the color of weathered limestone.

“You see me,” he said, voice deep, like frozen rock cracking in winter.

Lily’s knees shook, but she stood her ground. “Adrien Rochefort. Cursed unfairly.”

At his name, he faltered. “You know of my curse.”

“Yes. I also know your victims aren’t the people who condemned you,” she whispered in as stern a voice as she could muster. “Those people are long dead. These are innocents who know nothing of your misery, nothing of how you were wronged.”

He reached toward her then, with cold fingers. She expected to die. Instead, he traced her cheek with surprising gentleness. “Your voice…it does not accuse me.”

He sighed, and Lily could almost touch the sadness in it.

He smiled, but it was empty and forlorn. “For the first time in hundreds of years, I feel something other than rage.” He looked out at the city. “This is not the place I know, nor is it where I can return. I failed to see that. I failed to rid myself of the last of that wretched curse.” He looked at his hands, slick with blood from the lives he had already taken. “There is no forgiveness for me.”

“Then stop,” Lily begged. “Stop before you take more.”

Adrien stepped back and, looking overhead, reached his hand toward the spires high above them. Frozen into silence, he vanished, but Lily couldn’t tell if he had simply stepped into the thick fog and out of her sight or had magically disappeared.

Pixabay

With the new day, the groundskeeper, making his rounds, looked up at the imposing facade of Westminster, a view he always remarked, “I know like the back of me hand.” He was about to move on when something unfamiliar caught his eye. A new gargoyle was crouched where the man was sure there hadn't been one before. He pulled out his binoculars for a closer look. “Crikey. Is that bloke smiling? And where did this one come from?”

When Lily’s article ran, she had stripped it of curses but ladened it with mystery. The public read of an unknown killer who had vanished as suddenly as he appeared, and her editor praised the piece. The police questioned her, but found nothing suspicious to connect her with the crimes. And they were more interested in the fact that no new terrible mutilation deaths occurred on their watch.

Passing Westminster weeks later, Lilly paused at the very spot she’d encountered the tragic Adrien Rochefort. Something made her turn her gaze toward the sky, and there she found herself fixed in a gargoyle’s stare. It didn’t look at her with anger or revenge, but with what she’d call tragic longing.

I often write Contemporary/Realistic novels, but once in a while, I take a leap into the fantastic. Rattlesnake was one of those leaps.

Review: “Rattlesnake is a captivating blend of suspense, mystery, and forbidden love. Set in the Nevada desert in both modern times and the silver mining era of the 1800s, it weaves suspense, mystery, and supernatural intrigue into a compelling narrative.”

Amazon

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