Free Dead Waters by Anton Strout

how she was controlling the water, but right now all I could think about was how nice it would be to not die this way.
    Movement from above the woman caught my eye. Another figure was plummeting down from above. Between the dark, the rain, and the figure’s growing speed, I couldn’t tell if it was Connor or Jane, but whichever one of them it was, they were not going to make it into the pool, a fact that caused my heart to leap out of my chest. Before I could even think to look away, the figure landed square on top of the woman. The sound of them impacting against each other was not as meaty as I had expected. The collision was more like stone grinding against stone—one of the gargoyles from up above. It shattered, crumbling on the spot into a million broken pieces in a pile of rubble.
    The woman, however, didn’t crumble like the gargoyle did. She exploded, not into a geyser of bloody, fleshy bits, but into water . The spray flew in every direction like an ocean wave hitting an outcropping of rocks, leaving no trace of the woman whatsoever. The pressure in the water faded and in a flash I was across the pool to where I could finally stand and wade my way out of it. I ran over to the spot where the broken gargoyle lay.
    As I shifted the rubble around with my boot, Jane came barreling out of a set of exit doors onto the patio, her hair wet and my satchel still in her hands. Her face washed with relief when she saw I was alive. As she walked over to me, she looked to the pile of stone, and then up into the rain toward Professor Redfield’s patio.
    “What the hell happened?” she asked.
    “ I happened,” a voice called out from behind her. Connor stood in the doorway Jane had just come through, panting and rolling his left shoulder. “Jesus, those gargoyles weigh as much as a kraken.”
    Jane hugged me and handed my satchel over. “What happened?” she repeated. “The second you threw yourself over the railing, I took off down the stairs and missed everything.”
    “It looked like that woman was doing something to you in the pool, kid,” Connor said, walking over to us. He handed me my jacket, looked down at the pile of stone, and kicked a few pieces around, too. “Interesting. No body.”
    “Oh, you noticed?” I said, still catching my breath. “I don’t know what the hell she really is, but basically she was using the pool water to crush me. Maybe she’s some kind of water elemental. . . ?”
    Connor shook his head at me. “And this is why we don’t go jumping over high-rise railings after strange women,” he said. His chiding was probably the closest I was going to get to hearing him say that he was glad I was okay.
    “Well, I thought it was heroic,” Jane said, smiling. “Stupid, but heroic.”
    “Thanks,” I said. I brushed her wet hair out of the way and kissed her forehead. “Next time, you get to jump first.”
    She hugged me and I hissed as pain flared up my side.
    “Careful,” I said.
    Jane stepped back quickly, concern on her face. “Are you hurt?”
    I pressed along my bruised ribs gently, testing them. “Not too badly,” I said. “More my pride than anything. Drowning in someone’s pool isn’t the way I really pictured myself dying. A vampire, werewolves, maybe, but not this.”
    Connor tsk-tsked me.
    “What?”
    “Let’s get out of here,” he said, heading back toward the door, “before I nominate you for the Departmental Medal of Stupidity.”
    I wasn’t sure if that was a real thing or not. I wouldn’t put it past the Department to issue something like that, maybe a dunce cap to make an object lesson out of foolhardy agents. Connor walked off before I had a chance to ask him. All I could do was let Jane help me hobble my way off the patio. Given all our cuts recently, I wondered whose paycheck was going to cover the damage the falling gargoyle had made. I doubted we could expense it.

7
    I wasn’t normally one to strip in the partially walled office cube that