Gargoyle: Kinswoman

Part 15

The moment Veronica got to the other side of the gate, she gasped. This side of the gate wasn't hidden at all – it was in the middle of what looked like a market place! It was huge hall, very tall with columns rising through at least two storage worth of space with lots of light oozing through huge glass windows cut into equal squares of sheer greens and yellows, gilding everything in warm hues. Despite it being packed with sellers and their small stalls and buyers, the place still echoed as if they were tiny molecules on the floorboard and shouting up towards the sky. You could hear sharp words carrying out from the conversation, a laughter that made the place feel like a bath house.

She blinked. The place was full of people, creatures of all kind she only recognized from mythology books, and they were staring at me with curiosity. Whoah! All she needed now was somebody realizing she wasn't local and scream! Then again, they might scream not because she looked different, but on account of her holding the revolver? The second the realization hit her, she lowered it, hiding it quickly in her large baggy pocket on her side. She did bring the holster, but with so many curious and shocked eyes turned on her, she didn't have time to think where that was. The moment the gun was gone, the curiosity seemed to lessen around her and she began searching for exits. One was near, she could see the edges of a large door on the opposite end of the huge market hall.

She started pushing past the creatures, through any crevice she could fit herself through, trying to keep the sash in focus, but it was getting harder by the minute. Then somebody's huge body blocked it from her view. It was a very large man with big downward pointed rabbit ears and two very long saber teeth pointing at her direction. He avoided touching her, but she knew if she tried to run, he'd probably lock her arms faster than a wind. Seeing what Bascun could do, she doubted anything in this world would be much slower.

He asked something. It sounded a lot like Latin, she could recognize the conjunctions and domina.

She stopped herself from laughing out loud when she realized that's what it must have felt like for Celts to arrive to Rome. It was both joyous sensation and terrifying as hell. Her Latin had always been for recognizing rather than speaking. She never had to speak it, and Latin books were becoming rarer by the year and she rambling like a crazy woman. She had to focus.

She opened her mouth to answer, but her Latin was rusty at best and all she managed was: "Ego quaero... How do you say gargoyle in Latin?"

"Hostis!" He exhaled.

"No-no-no!" She shouted immediately, both happy and alert that she recognized the word. "Not an enemy! Uh..." She fanned with hands while desperately trying to remember the right words, but stopped it, when the rabbit's eyes narrowed and she guessed she was giving off some serious scare-the-danger vibes. She should have brought my dictionary! "Extraneus!"

Should have kept her mouth shut, she recognized the horrid shock on his face and instinctively backed away. Straight into another saber-tooth rabbit, who didn't waist any time asking questions and locked her between his two mighty paws.

"Let me go!" she did nothing to hide her screams now, feeling her bag being expertly removed and her hands manhandled into shackles. The duo was pushing her towards her goal, the door, but she doubted she would be so adorably taken straight to where the gargoyles were hiding. Instead it was gonna be a long way around.

She thought she saw a shadow pass the light coming from the window above them. A pair of wings stretched and were packed up again. She turned quickly to get a glimpse on the figure – a gargoyle! Definitely a gargoyle! He looked young, slim, boyish, like a teenager. She couldn't see his face, because he was sitting with the bright sunlight shadowing his front. But she could tell he was eating a fruit of some kind and that he had cropped honey blond hair with white ends that created a round halo around his otherwise square face. Everything about him was squarish. His wings were gray and his head bleach blond with similar shape of shoulders that would bulk up to one day be as big as Bascun.