Free The Obsidian Dagger (Horatio Lyle) by Catherine Webb Page A

gargoyle: huge eyes in a small face, a chin so sharp it could have cut diamond, and eight razor-sharp stone claws at the end of stick-like arms, ready to scratch and tear. The little stone monstrosity was scarred and scratched from its journey, especially around the hands, but now lay on the bottom of the deck staring at nothing with a furious expression, as if about to demand a refund and ticket to a better destination, or else.
    There was a sound in the hold that was louder here. It was the sound of ice gently bumping against the walls of the deck, and the whisper of water rushing in and out, like a whale breathing. Lyle followed the drag and push of the water until his hand bumped up against the wall of the ship. He let himself hang in front of the black tear in the ship’s side, running the light round the edges of the torn and shattered wood. It wasn’t a very large hole, but it had clearly been enough to seal the fate of the Pegasus for ever. He levered himself down and turned his head this way and that, trying to see clearly the cuts that had broken the wood. He was beginning to feel warm now, a pink warmness all over that he knew was a bad sign. The light was almost out, and giving off a dirty yellow vapour that made the greenish water seem even dirtier and more sickly. In its last glow he reached out and touched the marks around the wood. They were small but deep, and clearly had been administered with some considerable strength to have torn the planks apart.
    In the dying light, Mister Horatio Lyle saw, quite clearly against one of the planks, eight tiny claw marks, like the hands of the glaring gargoyle, and in his heart of hearts, he knew it was a clue. The thought terrified him. He spun in the water, less aware of his own weight now as nerves started to shut down in the cold; and, as if it wanted to provide an appropriate comment on this discovery, and to make its participation in the affair noticed and appreciated, the torch gave one last hiss, and went out, plunging him into darkness.
    For a second, fear was colder than the ice in Lyle’s blood. He had the feeling of being watched, of something else outside peering in, of a consciousness down there apart from the fish and shimmering eels that had crawled through the shattered wood. He felt along the length of the hosepipe, using it to pull himself forward, back towards a distant patch of slightly patchier darkness where the water lapped up from the hold, and though he knew not to fear, there it was, the drumming in his ears, the hammering in his chest, the heavy pulse of the blood under his skin, beating out a tiny rhythm, catching at the senses like a half-heard Hark, hark ...
    He felt something move in the water, and knew he hadn’t imagined it, and thought that he should have. He thought of fish nibbling at bare toes and eels rubbing against frozen skin and the terror was there, bubbling just below the iron vault of his scientific objectivity, and he tugged at the hosepipe now, using it more as a rope than a supply of air, and the pressure was there in the water again, a ripple of displacement behind him where there should have been none and something closed around his ankle - oh God, something hard and colder even than he was, clutching at his skin, digging into it, dragging him back with a strength and a grip that amazed him.
    He flailed uselessly in the water against it, but it didn’t let go, dragging him down like a stone, pulling his hands free of the hosepipe and its precious air, so that it twisted and bubbled wildly around his face, stinging his eyes as he was pulled back down. He kicked at the invisible, unseen thing, but it didn’t seem to care. The dead torch fell from his fingers, and he felt sorry that Tess wouldn’t be able to keep it as a souvenir, and wondered that he should think of a thing like that at a time like this, with the air burning hotter in his lungs, bubbling out of his lips in its desperation to get out and be replaced, a