Stone Cold Bastards Read online

  “Elisa,” Morty said as he tried to move past her. She wanted to talk, but Artus was waiting in the courtyard for him. “You look lovely, as always.”

  “Save the compliments, M,” Elisa replied in the jokingly antagonistic manner the two of them had developed. It was almost a sibling relationship, instead of protector and ward. “I need something from you.”

  Long, raven-black hair; dark complexion; high cheekbones; a body plump in places, muscular in others; eyes made of pure gray steel, Elisa Running Child was Cherokee through and through.

  Except she wasn’t, as she’d told Morty many times. She’d never known a tribe. Never set foot on the reservation that was only a couple of dozen miles away from Margaret’s Patch. She’d been taken far away by her mother, a woman desperate to escape poverty and spousal abuse. Elisa had only her last name to connect her to the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians.

  Running Child.

  Which was what she had become, running from one bad situation to the next until she’d had enough of running and tried to hitch her way back to her people. She’d only made it as far as Margaret’s Patch. Then the Gates of Hell opened.

  She was angry at the world, but she was also cautious, careful, practical, and always upfront. No games, no drama, no crap.

  Which was why Morty wanted to put off whatever conversation she had in mind.

  “I don’t have time, E,” Morty said. “I need to speak with—”

  “Artus. Yeah, I know,” Elisa said. She waved her hands around. “Everyone knows. You’re late to the party in the courtyard.”

  “Party?” Morty asked. “What party?”

  He tried to look past her, but she blocked his view. Elisa was not a short woman. Six feet and broad-shouldered, she could be a formidable physical presence. But she rarely used that size to intimidate. She had a natural command of who she was, and Morty respected that. He especially knew it wasn’t easy being large without coming off as aggressive. It was probably why the children of the sanctuary looked up to her the most. Elisa had a way of being in charge without a need to be constantly noticed.

  At least until she wanted to be noticed.

  “What?” he asked, rolling the cigar between his lips. “What is it, E? I’m busy.”

  He overcompensated and was a little too gruff with her. It instantly showed on her face as some of the joking fell away. A small widening of the ever-cautious eyes, a hurt twitch pulling down the corner of her mouth. Morty knew he’d pay for being a jerk, but he’d have to worry about that later.

  “Nothing,” Elisa said, stepping out of his way and giving him the most sarcastic curtsey in the history of sarcastic curtseys. “Sorry to bother you.”

  Now he’d stepped in it. Morty knew people looked up to her. When things got hard, which was all the damn time, eyes glanced her way and looked to her for guidance. All it would take to make his life in the cathedral very uncomfortable was for word to get around to one or two people of how he’d disrespected Elisa. The key to staying safe, to keeping the sanctuary of the cathedral secure, was order. Elisa could rip that order and precarious balance apart with just a sentence, if she chose to make an issue of this.

  Morty growled his capitulation, a sound like grinding gravel in his throat. “What do you need?”

  “You sure you have time?” Elisa asked. She straightened up from her curtsey and placed her hands on her hips. Her thumbs instantly hooked into the belt loops of her jeans, and Morty smiled. It was a habit she had when she loosened up.

  “What?” she asked. “What’s so damn funny?”

  A couple of the humans hissed at the word damn, but Elisa ignored them, her eyes focused squarely on Morty.

  “What do you need?” Morty asked again.

  “Pregnancy test,” Elisa replied. Straightforward, no explanation. “Can you get it the next time you go out?”

  “What? For you?” Morty asked. He tried to keep the surprise out of his voice, but failed horribly. “Never mind. Doesn’t matter.”

  “Well, it kind of does matter,” Elisa said. She grinned as Morty tried not to look uncomfortable. “Just not for me. I’m good. Can you get it?”

  “Who says I’m going out again anytime soon?” Morty asked.

  Elisa cocked a hip and folded her arms in reply. A determined frown replaced her grin.

  “Fine, I’m going out,” Morty said. “But I don’t know when. Doesn’t Highlander have one in the infirmary?”

  “Highlander still thinks babies are brought in by the stork,” Elisa said.

  “No, he doesn’t,” Morty said. “He knows exactly how babies happen.”

  “Yeah, but you know he gets weird around me sometimes, so asking him for a pregnancy test is like catching a deer in the headlights,” Elisa said. “He freezes and all that autistic medical genius of his goes bye-bye.”

  “You checked the supplies yourself?” Morty asked, but it wasn’t really a question.

  Again with the hip cock. The frown deepened.

  “Fine,” Morty said. “I’ll add it to the list.”

  “Good,” Elisa said, the frown banished and the grin returned. “Thanks. I knew I could count on you.”

  She started to walk away, but Morty tapped her on the shoulder. She didn’t flinch, but Morty could see and sense her instantly tense. Elisa didn’t exactly like to be touched, a fact Morty forgot all the time.

  “Yeah?” she asked.

  “Answer me this,” Morty said as he pulled his hand back. “How the hell does everyone know that I’m going out soon?”

  “We keep an eye on your cigar stash.” Elisa shrugged and then walked off.

  The conversation was done. She was heading back to the kids and their eager faces, leaving a confused Morty in her wake.

  “But I have that hidden,” Morty called after her.

  Elisa laughed without looking back. “Sure you do.”

  Morty grumbled as he continued to the courtyard, his mind going over the layout of the cathedral, searching for a new hiding place for his cigars.

  When he walked out into the last rays of the sunset, he stopped cold. Every mobile G in the cathedral was there waiting, all stone eyes on him.

  “Thank you for joining us, Mordecai,” Artus said from his perch high in the far corner of the courtyard. “Now we can begin.”

  3

  THE STONECUTTER took special care when carving Artus. He spent a year and a half getting the features right, making sure every detail was sharp, crisp, clear. When he was done, he did what all Stonecutters did, and smeared his own blood across Artus’s carved face. In that moment, there was the tiniest of flashes of light, but the spark was gone almost before it began.

  The Stonecutter smiled and went about his day’s work, taking less care with the other projects in his workshop. For them, he was only a stonecutter. He was not the Stonecutter as he’d been for Artus. The other projects would never get the blood. They were simply carved stone, inanimate, heavy, sitting there to be picked up and moved by the wagon man, and taken to their new homes.

  Artus would be picked up by the wagon man, as well, but this time, the Stonecutter would accompany the delivery.

  Artus’s origin was a story Morty and the others had heard a hundred times, but he always replayed it in his head whenever he was in the gargoyle’s presence. He wasn’t sure why, and didn’t know if any of the other Gs did so as well, but it seemed to help remind him that no matter how hard his job was, Artus’s was much harder.

  Installation of Artus took eight men, and a complex system of pulleys and winches. He was one of four gargoyles set in the high corners of the courtyard of the castle, which would become an abbey, which would become a cathedral, then become so many more things when moved to the New World centuries later to once again become a cathedral.

 
; For the centuries in between, Artus looked out over the courtyard and had thought of nothing. He was designed simply to decorate the courtyard and to divert water out and away from the internal walls when it rained. He was hollow, and his wide-open mouth sent a stream into a large cistern that sat far below him. He was no different than the three gargoyles that decorated the other corners of the courtyard.

  Except that he was the only one of them that had been made by the Stonecutter. He had been the only one gifted with the man’s blood. People tended to want to drink from his cistern more often than the others. Priests blessed the water that came down from his mouth, ignoring the three other sources. Those who stood beneath him, when it wasn’t raining, felt a sense of peace.

  Many a priest, monk, noble, or visiting villager took solace in looking up into his stone face when their lives became difficult. Whether it was the magic the Stonecutter’s blood imparted or just the artistic skill with which the face was carved, those who gazed upon him always went away feeling lighter, happier, like maybe, just maybe, their troubles weren’t as overwhelming as they had thought.

  Artus had been different even before the building was taken apart and moved, stone by stone, piece by piece, onto ships and across the ocean. Still, Artus had had no idea that something important was happening. He was only stone. He was an ornament. He was just a set of four.

  But, when the stones, the pieces, the parts of the cathedral had finally arrived at Margaret’s Patch, he became a set of one. The other three gargoyles, his silent brothers in rain, snow, and sleet, hadn’t made the move. In fact, quite a few of the grotesques hadn’t survived the trip. Maybe a dozen or so remained intact, but the rest either cracked during shipping or crumbled upon the rebuilding of the cathedral.

  Artus was still bound by stone—was stone—oblivious to the changes.

  The three broken gargoyles were replaced by replicas, cut to look just like Artus in their reincarnation, instead of how they were before their unfortunate destruction. If Artus could have seen them, had eyes that weren’t stone, he would have stared at three identical images of himself.

  Despite their perfect mimicry of Artus, the replicas never felt right, even to Byrne who’d been responsible for moving the stones. So the man had the imperfect replicas taken down, tossed them aside, and then he hunted for gargoyles, for grotesques, for carved faces and forms, for stone monsters and gods, for granite beauties and queens. Somewhere inside the gangster, there had been a romantic, a person who could feel the power and love hidden deep within Artus’s stony form. That romantic part, that part of Byrne that wasn’t a killer and crook, took vacations to places where he might discover new carved souls of stone to bring back to Margaret’s Patch.

  And when the Gates of Hell opened, when the gargoyles and grotesques of the world that had been carved by Stonecutters awoke, Artus found himself in the company of some very special creatures indeed. It was those creatures, including Morty, he had told his story to, for it was all their story.

  “Thank you for joining us, Mordecai,” Artus said, pulling Morty from his thoughts. “Now we can begin.”

  “Don’t let me hold you up,” Morty said as he ignored the irritated looks from the others.

  Morty was not the only stone creature standing below Artus, but he was the largest of the Gs. Spaced haphazardly in the courtyard was a mélange of comedy, horror, imitation, and caricature. From a foot high to Morty’s six feet, the Gs were carved in forms ranging from a large fanged goblin to petite faeries. Symbols of the eras in which they were carved, each G had been special to their Stonecutter, each worthy of being given the blood of the hands that had shaped them.

  And just like Morty and Artus, they had awakened the day the Gates of Hell had opened.

  “Is this meeting about when Morty is going out again?” a short, stout G with the body of a man and head of a donkey asked.

  “No, Geffe, this meeting is not about that,” Artus replied in the patient, calm voice he used for all occasions, no matter the importance. “I would not call a meeting for that. You can coordinate with Morty yourselves if you have any specific needs.”

  The needs were quickly voiced by all and the courtyard became a loud and raucous space filled with gravelly voices.

  “Hey!” Morty shouted and everyone piped down. “Later, okay? Write it down, make a list. It’s not that hard.”

  A three-foot-tall fawn raised a hand that held his pan flute and asked, “What if we don’t know how to write?”

  “Come on, Deek,” Morty snapped. “Get someone to write it down for you. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to ask!”

  “But it may be the last time,” Artus said, taking control of the meeting once again with those ominous words. “That is why I have called all of you here. I have already spoken to Olivia and she spread the word to the grotesques that are not mobile before taking her shift at the gates. I am afraid we may only have a few more weeks, perhaps only days, before the possessed surround us.”

  Including Morty and Artus, there were nine Gs present. Byrne had collected many more grotesques during his travels, but he was not an expert, nor was he trained in any way when it came to the hidden powers of the universe. Only ten of the free-standing statues he found had been carved by Stonecutters. Possibly another dozen Gs were scattered throughout the cathedral, but, like Artus, they were immovable, some meant as weight-bearing pieces of the structure while others were simple, large tiles with faces set high into walls and placed in the center of doors. Only those grotesques standing below Artus, as well as Olivia at the gates, and one more G that kept to himself up on the roof, could move about at will.

  These few were the last line of defense against the possessed and the demons outside the sanctuary grounds. The stationary Gs could only shout hurtful words and make awful faces. When it came time, the Gs standing in the courtyard, all looking confused at Artus’s words, were the fighting force that would decide whether or not the wards inside the cathedral lived or died.

  “How do you know that?” Morty asked, voicing the obvious question for all. “You can’t leave that spot, Artus.”

  “There are times I am given information,” Artus said. “I know not where it comes from, but when it does, I am confident it is the truth.”

  “He knows not where it comes from? He knows not where it comes from?” Geffe mocked. “Cut the highfalutin’ BS, Artus, and lay it on us straight. How do you know we’re about to be surrounded?”

  Geffe had spent a good deal of his time on Earth in various grotesque and art collections, but ultimately ended up being owned by a New Mexico rancher in the nineteenth century. He stayed in the family until one of Byrne’s men found him at an estate sale and knew his boss would love the donkey-headed thing.

  Artus was used to Geffe’s blunt manner.

  “Visions, as I have told all of you, are part of my magic,” Artus said. “I have seen the land surrounding the sanctuary. I have seen the multitudes of possessed who will fill that land, all wanting to get inside here at what remains of humanity.”

  “What remains of humanity?” two faerie Gs asked. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  Small, frail-looking, almost like they would break any second, the faeries were joined at the hip, their slight, female forms covered with carved vines and grape leaves, but only enough to keep a modicum of decency for those who might be offended by the nude form. On their backs, they each had a pair of wings, but the wings were small and chipped in so many places that they were only decorative. Their mouths were nowhere near as delicate as their bodies.

  “How many more fucking sanctuaries are left?” the faeries, Nissa and Tessa, asked.

  “One less, for sure,” Morty said, used to their profanity. “New York fell.”

  Stunned silence. It was a silence only creatures of stone could make. The total absence of sound.
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  A barrel-chested G, about five feet tall, who looked like a storybook goblin, complete with bulging eyes, pointed ears, and huge fangs, cleared his throat.

  “Is this verified, Morty?” Antoine asked.

  “Valac took the day shift,” Morty said. “He’s controlling Todd’s body right now.”

  Raspy gasps filled the courtyard instead of silence.

  “Doesn’t prove anything,” Geffe said. “You hear it direct from Valac?”

  “Todd told me before Valac came on,” Morty said. “Any of you heard of a demon named Anzu? He was the night shift. Todd plucked the info from his mind.”

  “Yeah, he’s the new guy,” Nissa said.

  “He didn’t say a word to us,” Tessa stated. “Just ate up everything he could get his shitty hands on.”

  “That’s what Jack said,” Morty added. “Rude guy. Newly let out. Didn’t seem like much of a team player.”

  “Anzu? I do not know this name,” Artus said, his features turning troubled. He shook his stone head and his expression returned to his paternal calm. “If he returns in Todd for a shift, study him. The Hierarchy of Demons would not have placed him at the bar if he did not have an important role to play.”

  “That’s all there is to do when on shift,” Geffe said. “Just stand there and watch Todd being used like a puppet by some dumb demon.”

  “There are no dumb demons, Geffe,” Artus warned. “The dumb ones have not been let out, and they will not be let out until the final days are upon us. Pray that does not happen.”

  “We’re getting off track,” a four-legged G that looked like a cross between a lion and a large dog, said.