Chapter Twenty-Two

Even though Blake could move around now in his gargoyle form, he still weighed nearly as much as when his body was made of stone. When he finally stepped away from the living room window and sat , the couch creaked.

Melodie raised a brow at him, and he shrugged. “I’ve got to sit somewhere.”

“Are you hungry? Why don’t I made you something—”

“I’m not. And I don’t think a kitchen chair would hold me anyway.”

“I can bring you something here.”

“No. I’m fine.” He wasn’t, but what could he say? He’d longed to see the sun again, and now he had. Maybe he should be content with that. He sighed. “If you’re—”

“No. I’m not either.” She seemed to flutter around the room, obviously unsure of what to do with a living gargoyle.

He wondered how he must look to her. He’d run his fingers over his fangs, pointy ears and hairless head several times and still couldn’t quite believe it. His lower jaw felt huge, and his bulbous forehead shaded his eyes. Somewhere, snaking down one leg of his jeans, there seemed to be a tail, but he didn’t have the stomach to excuse himself to another room to check.

“I can bring you your laptop, if you’d like to work.” She sounded hopeful, as if she could take his mind off his new predicament.

“No. I think I’ll just rest for now.”

“Sleep? You want to sleep?”

Yes. He wanted desperately to wrap his arms around a pillow or some other soft object and drift away, but how could he close his eyes on the first rays of sunlight he’d seen in ten years? How could he close his eyes on Melodie?

He followed her movements around the room and gazed up at her when she returned to him with a knitted afghan from a nearby chair. She handed him the blanket, her expression uncertain. “While you’re sleeping, I’ll see if I can track down Calypso and find out what’s going on.”

Blake dropped the blanket across his lap and reached for her hand. “Don’t leave, please.”

“I won’t. I’ll call her. I told you I’d stay with you, and I will.”

“How can you even look at me?” He let his fingers trail out of hers and flicked the woolen ridges of the blanket with one vicious black claw. “I understand now why it’s better to be turned to stone. At least then, I didn’t have to see my own reflection in people’s eyes.”

Melodie drew in a breath and swiped a hand over the tears that had gathered on her lower lashes. “You’re not ugly. Not at all. And you’re not frightening.” She knelt down in front of him and put her hands over his. “When I look at you now, I don’t see a monster. I see a man who’s done everything he can in the last few days to try to help me. You might pretend you’re only in this for yourself, but I see the real you. You’re not a witch hunter, and you’re not evil.”

He almost believed her. Staring into her warm brown eyes, feeling the slide of her smooth skin over his rough hands, he could almost imagine himself as the man she claimed to see.

Their gazes held, and he leaned over to kiss her, not thinking, only feeling.

“Ow!” She jumped back, dabbing at a scratch on her chin from one of his fangs.

“I’m sorry—damn, I’m sorry.” Instinctively he reached for her, then pulled back, afraid to hurt her again.

She caught his hand and held it to her face. “It’s okay. I’m fine.” She rose and ran her hand over the top of his head. The contact made him shiver. “I’m going to call Calypso. Get some sleep.”

“Wake me before sunset,” he said as she headed out of the room. “I don’t want to miss any more daylight than I have to, but I can’t keep my eyes open any longer.”

She nodded and disappeared, and with a heart as heavy as stone, Blake lay down on the creaking couch and closed his eyes.

Apprehension dogged Percival’s every step as the copper-haired girl led him deeper into the woods. He expected a cave, or perhaps a deep, dark tunnel leading to the underworld, but instead she brought him to a cabin made of smooth, round river stones with a neatly thatched roof. The stuff of fairy tales—and probably nightmares as well.

The man who answered the rough plank door at her insistent knock looked like a woodsman. His dark eyes sparkled in a heavily bearded face, and concern creased his plump lips. “What happened, Lise? The blood—”

“Is not mine,” the girl hastened to explain. “This man killed the Mendican.”

Percival eyed her expectantly. In the warm light spilling from within the woodsman’s cabin, her hair lit with streaks of gold and her face shone like an angel’s. He cleared his throat, prompting her to continue.

“And he saved my life, I suppose.”

The woodsman raised a bushy brow. He looked nothing like a sorcerer, and Percival wondered if perhaps the girl had deceived him to draw him farther from the village.

“As recompense, he asks a favor. Can you break a witch’s curse?”

The man eyed Percival now, and his lips quirked into an expression resembling a smile but without the humor. Finally he motioned them inside. “Sit by the fire, and I’ll make you something warm to drink. Tell me about this curse you bear.”

“I never said I bore the curse.”

“You didn’t have to. I can see it in your aura. It’s powerful. You must have done something terrible to earn it.” The man’s eyes, set deep in his wrinkled face, seemed to pierce Percival’s soul. Reluctantly he crossed the threshold into the old man’s home and followed him to sit on a cushioned bench near the crackling hearth.

His apprehension eased just a bit when the woodsman placed a cup of steaming broth into his hands. He sipped the brew, grateful for its warmth, and before long, he found himself confessing his sins. All of them.

When he’d finished, shame heated his face as surely as the merry flames heated his old bones. Lise glared at him, her youth obviously heightening her emotions. The woodsman merely nodded as if none of the horror Percival had described fazed him in the least.

“Can you help me?”

“I can.” The man raised a hand swiftly to still Lise’s protest. “Hush, child. This is beyond you at the moment, and it is not your place to judge. Nor is it mine.”

For the first time in more years than he could count, Percival’s heart lifted. He’d have grabbed Lise and kissed her if he wasn’t certain she’d have spit in his face. “Thank you. Thank you.”

“Don’t waste your gratitude. You may find my brand of help lacking since I cannot break the curse myself. Only she who cast it should make that choice, but I can tell you where to look for her.”

Percival sagged. More searching, more disappointment. “And if she won’t cooperate?”

The woodsman placed a hand on Percival’s arm. “It’s not her cooperation you seek.”

“What then?”

“It’s her forgiveness.”

Melodie awoke with her heart pounding, unsure of where she was or why she’d been asleep. She pulled herself upright and groaned at the stiffness in her legs and the ache in her lower back. She’d been dozing in the chair in Blake’s living room, and unfolding herself from the pretzel shape she’d curled into took every ounce of effort she could muster.

An unfamiliar sound drew her attention to the couch where Blake’s gargantuan form bowed the cushions. He thrashed once, his arms thrown out as if reaching for something just beyond his grasp. He moaned.

Mel scuttled across the dim room. Dusk had settled. She’d slept too long and allowed him to miss what might prove to be his one and only “day” in ten years. Racked by sudden guilt, she shook him awake, her eyes on the shadows lengthening around the room. He had only moments before the day he’d dreamed of for so long slipped away, and it was her fault. “Blake!”

He growled at her intrusion, and for a brief second, she feared he might attack. She froze when he gripped her arms and snarled at her. Then his eyes snapped open, revealing the man trapped in a monster’s body.

“What time is it?”

She bowed her head. “I don’t know. Maybe six. I’m sorry. I fell asleep too. The hazards of being up all night, I guess.”

The couch creaked piteously as he rolled to his feet. He crossed to the window and swept the filmy curtains aside to look out on the last few seconds of daylight. “More like the hazards of being a demon. Most of them hibernate during the day when they’re above ground. I doubt either of us could have stayed awake if we’d tried.”

“I’m sorry. Maybe tomorrow we can—”

“No. It’s okay.” Dismissing the purple light of dusk, he turned back toward her. “Where’s Calypso? And what happened to Van Houten?”

“She’s not back yet, and I haven’t heard from Palmer all day. I hope he didn’t lose his job.” Mel watched Blake pace across the room. The floorboards groaned under his weight. “What’s wrong?”

“The witches have to find a way to break the curse. They have to.”

“They will. I know they’ll think of something. We just need to—”

“Percival sought forgiveness.” His words came out as a strangled whisper that Mel wasn’t quite sure she heard correctly.

“What?”

“He knew he had to ask forgiveness of those he’d hurt in order to end the curse. Once he realized that, he set out to find Birgid Cooper, the witch who’d cast the spell.”

The conviction in Blake’s eyes and his voice made Mel nervous. How could he know what Percival’s motivations had been in seeking out Birgid Cooper, if indeed that’s what he’d done? “Obviously he never found her. Or maybe he did, and she refused to break the curse.”

“Even so, whether he found her or not, he wanted to be forgiven. I know that. I see his life when I’m…transformed. I live in his head.”

“But just now, you weren’t transformed. You were only dreaming.”

That silenced him. He swallowed and turned away from her. “But it felt the same. I’m still part of Percival, and he’s part of me. Maybe that’s why the curse can’t be broken. Maybe I’m Percival’s soul reincarnated, and I still have to do his penance.”

Mel crossed the room and put her hand on his broad shoulder. His gray flesh was cool to the touch, so much like stone. “I don’t believe that, but even if it’s true somehow, you shouldn’t pay for his crimes. What he did has nothing to do with you.”

“No, lass. It has everything to do with me. I’ve been with Percival from the beginning, and I know everything he did. I feel like I’m a killer just like him, and maybe that’s why the curse can’t be broken.”