Read Online Ascension (The Gryphon Series) by Stacey Rourke - Free Book Online Page A

his legs went rigid. He landed hard, all four paws stiff in the air.
    “Whoa, what happened to feline grace?” I said with a light-hearted chuckle that betrayed me by wavering with concern that I may have actually hurt him.
    At any moment I expected him to spring to his feet and shake it off. He didn’t. Not a paw twitched, or a whisker fluttered. In fact, he lay there bearing a striking resemblance to an overturned stuffed lion.
    Still leery this was a ploy, I kept my hands raised defensively. I inched closer until I could poke the fur of his tawny shoulder with the toe of my ballet flat. “Gabe?”
    Wide , feline eyes jerked one way then the other in obvious panic. The rest of him remained rigid and statue still.
    “ Huh.” My hands fell limp to my sides. “Uh … Big Mike? I think I broke our lion. Mike?”
    A cursory glance over my shoulder revealed this problem for the bigger dilemma it had fast become. Our newly appointed Guide stood frozen mid-motion. One fist propelled forward while his body pivoted slightly on the ball of his foot. His wings didn’t curl in to shield him, but arced up and back in a stance that exuded power and a regal strength. As he appeared now I could foresee outsiders, without the knowledge of his tobacco addiction or general distaste for people, mistaking him for a certain archangel he happened to share his name with.
    From his frozen prison , Big Mike blinked hard and stared my way … as if I had any plausible answer to give.
    A gain, all I could muster was a befuddled, “Huh.”
    I turned in a slow circle as a familiar tingle raced up my spine. Something demonic this way comes.
    A devilish cackle echoed through the room, followed by a taunting melody stolen from a Meatloaf song, “ On a mild summer night would you offer your throat to the demons with the black roses ?” 
    “You have got to b e kidding me.” I groaned, and then hollered to the room in general, “ No! We are not doing this tonight! You hear me?”
    “ They promise to offer you their hunger …” Whispered words tickled across my neck.
    My balled fist swung in the direction of the voice, but struck nothing but air.
    “ I bet you do that to all the demons.” Five voices, I knew well enough to dread, chorused. In practiced synchronization the Dark Army Glee Club poof ed corporeal—each in their own unique ta-da pose.
    C onversation with this band of goobers never accomplished anything. Plus, I was having a monumentally crappy night. Therefore, I decided to skip ahead to the inevitable violent conclusion. If I execute my roundhouse kick just right I may be able to make their heads knock together like in the cartoons …
    “Red! Now!” Eddie, the closest thing the se oddballs had to a leader and dead-ringer for Eddie Munster, shouted.
    His lanky, red-headed cohort fumbled with what looked like a bottle of glass cleaner. I winced, but continued en route for my attack as he misted me with the mysterious shimmering blue liquid. Mid-rotation my limbs locked up—one leg and one arm out, with nothing to do but hang there and stew in my extreme annoyance.
    The rag tag group of misfits crept forward, their faces squinched up in masks of sheer terror.
    “Are you sure it worked?” o ne Siamese twin asked his brother.
    “ That would be a hard position to maintain if she was faking,” the other twin snorted and pushed his thick glasses further up the bridge of his nose. In human form they were connected at the shoulder, an appearance much preferred to their other guise as a huge, two-headed flying lizard.
    Boil Face waved his wrinkly hand in front of me. “Still, she’s the Conduit. If anyone has the reflexes to pull off a decoy move like this, it’s her.”
    “How do we test her?” Eddie tipped his head back and crinkled his nose as he considered me.
    “Ooh! I know!” Red’s face brightened with enthusiasm. Latching on to my ankle with both hands, he dragged me around in a circle. I was a prisoner to this