Free Sabrina's Clan by Tracy Cooper-Posey Page B

gargoyle did was dislodging him. The net was helping him anchor himself down.
    As Nyanther took in the astounding sight, the gargoyle trumpeted his alarm and fury and spun around in a tight circle, trying to get at the man.
    “The base of the neck!” Nick cried. “Straight in from there!” He was directing the man.
    There was a scrambling sound to Nyanther’s left and the bushes swayed. Then Riley pushed through. She wasn’t on her feet. She was crawling and it looked like she hadn’t had to work too hard to get through, either.
    Crawling. Why hadn’t he thought of that?
    “Now!” Nick yelled at the man, as Riley stood up and pulled out her katana.
    The man thrust the long knife in deep, using all his bodyweight to drive it straight into the gargoyle’s skull.
    The gargoyle screamed and became utterly still, a towering mountain of bestial power.
    The red in the eyes faded.
    The man twisted the blade with a vicious wrench.
    The gargoyle pitched forward, toward Riley. Nick leapt toward her and pulled her out of the way.
    As the gargoyle hit the ground with an impact that jarred the earth under Nyanther’s feet, it broke up into rocks and pebbles, a huge mound of them. The man leapt lightly off the top of it and landed on the dirt next to Nyanther and blew out his breath.
    “Damn, he was stubborn,” he said, sounding amused. “Guess I showed him.” There was more than an ounce of satisfaction and pleasure in his tone.
    “Who are you?” Riley asked, coming up to him. She kept the katana in her hand.
    “I could ask you the same thing,” the man said, brushing his hands on his jeans. “I thought I was the only one who knew about these things.”
    “Gargoyles?” Nick said. There was a faint sound of confusion in his voice. If Nick was confused, then Nyanther knew it wasn’t just him wondering if he’d stepped into an alternative universe.
    “ That’s what they are?” the man said. “I didn’t know.”
    “You said ‘they’,” Riley said. “Are you the one who killed Ingong four days ago?”
    “They have names, too?” he asked. He showed no surprise at the news that another gargoyle had been killed recently. “What, are you guys naturalists or something?”
    “Or something,” Riley said flatly. “Who are you?” she repeated.
    The man smiled and held out his hand, which was smeared with ichor and dirt. “Sorry. I’m Jake Summerfield.”

Chapter Seven
    Jake waved his filthy hand in front of his face, trying to disperse the air. “It stinks here,” he added. “Do you think…could we head back to town and get breakfast and talk there? I’m so tired my face is trying to slide off my skull. I need coffee.” Which was true. Once he had found the nest, around one in the morning, he had hunkered down inside the bushes rimming it and waited. He had only dozed lightly, too wired with a hot mix of adrenaline, fear and anxiety to really sleep properly, even though if he had fallen asleep, the return of the creature the tall man had called a gargoyle would have woken him.
    Gargoyles. The name seemed fitting, except he had always thought gargoyles were the little stone decorations on old buildings.
    The tall man looked at the woman—who was gorgeous in a white and pink Vivien Leigh sort of way—and the other, almost as if he was silently conferring with them.
    Jake waited them out. They clearly had been here to deal with the…gargoyle. Now it was dead, there was time to sort this out. So long as it was somewhere far away from the stench. He would never forget this smell. He would never smell it again without it triggering him into reaching for a weapon.
    The woman nodded. “The diner on the highway out of Lake Placid. We need to wash up first. They’ll arrest us, otherwise, especially him.” She nodded at Jake.
    “My truck is about three miles from here,” Jake said.
    The other man, who was shorter than the tall one by a mere inch and was possibly as tall as Jake on flat ground, had very