Read Online Claimed By Shadow by Karen Chance - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Karen Chance
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point forcefully at the swinging doors with a spoon.
“Rum torte,” a tiny chef croaked in passing. He was wearing only the top half of the usual tunic-and-trousers set, which in his case brushed the floor. A long, lizardlike tail protruded from beneath it.
He resembled most of the other creatures in the room, the majority of which had bat wings, clawed hands and long tails, but there the similarity ended. Their heads were everything from avian to reptilian, with a few furred ones here and there. Some had horns and others droopy ears, and their height ranged from maybe two feet to tall enough to stare me in the chest. Their eyes varied in color and size, but all of them seemed to glow, as if lit from inside by a high-powered bulb. It was unnerving, especially since they reminded me of something, and I couldn’t quite figure out what.
“Gargoyles,” Pritkin said as we stumbled through the swinging doors into a short hallway. At the end, a door that looked like old, carved wood but was too light to be real let out into a much longer and wider corridor. It was lined with medieval weaponry and cobweb-covered suits of armor, and dimly lit by flickering torches—fake, of course. Dante’s wards were minimal on the upper floors, so electricity worked okay except for the occasional splutter. And real torches would have been hard to get past the fire codes.
I stopped and glared at the mage, who was looking around like he expected something to jump him at any moment. It would really be nice if the universe could stop throwing creatures out of fables, myths and nightmares at me. “There’s no such thing as gargoyles!” I said just as two of the little monsters pulled a cart out of the door and began tugging it down the hallway. The floor, painted to look like weathered stone, was carpeted with a narrow strip of old maroon plush barely two feet wide that ran down the middle. It didn’t do much decorwise, and it threatened to tip the cart over whenever one of the wheels encountered it. “It’s just a name for fancy rainspouts,” I insisted, even as my eyes told me otherwise. “Everyone knows that.”
“How can you have lived so long in our world and know so little?” Pritkin demanded. “You must have seen stranger things. You grew up at a vampire’s court!”
By this time, the servers had navigated the corridor and paused in front of an elevator. One of them pressed the call button with the tip of a pointed tail. He had the face of a dog and a bat’s body, while his companion was covered in grayish scales and was drooling around a two-foot-long tongue.
“The strangest thing about our cook in Philly,” I told Pritkin dazedly, “was that he was almost deaf from years of blasting heavy metal. But he was human. Well,” I amended after a moment, “until that time Tony promised an important visitor fettuccine Alfredo, only the cook somehow heard bacon, lettuce and tomato. . . . Anyway, shouldn’t they be off decorating a cathedral somewhere?”
“The creatures on medieval cathedrals aren’t gargoyles; they’re grotesques,” he replied pedantically, while we moved in the direction of the cart.
“Stop it! You know what I mean! Why are they here?”
“Illegal aliens,” he said shortly. “Cheap labor.”
I stared at him suspiciously, but if the mage had a sense of humor, I’d yet to see any sign of it. “Aliens? From where?”
“From Faerie,” he replied in the clipped tones he uses when annoyed. That seems to be most of the time, at least around me. “They have been coming into our world for centuries. But the numbers have greatly increased recently because the Light Fey have been making things difficult for the Dark—among whom the creatures we call gargoyles are numbered. The mages who handle Fey affairs have been complaining about the number of unauthorized arrivals we’ve been getting as a result.”
“So they come here and do room service?”
The elevator came and the gargoyles tugged
“Rum torte,” a tiny chef croaked in passing. He was wearing only the top half of the usual tunic-and-trousers set, which in his case brushed the floor. A long, lizardlike tail protruded from beneath it.
He resembled most of the other creatures in the room, the majority of which had bat wings, clawed hands and long tails, but there the similarity ended. Their heads were everything from avian to reptilian, with a few furred ones here and there. Some had horns and others droopy ears, and their height ranged from maybe two feet to tall enough to stare me in the chest. Their eyes varied in color and size, but all of them seemed to glow, as if lit from inside by a high-powered bulb. It was unnerving, especially since they reminded me of something, and I couldn’t quite figure out what.
“Gargoyles,” Pritkin said as we stumbled through the swinging doors into a short hallway. At the end, a door that looked like old, carved wood but was too light to be real let out into a much longer and wider corridor. It was lined with medieval weaponry and cobweb-covered suits of armor, and dimly lit by flickering torches—fake, of course. Dante’s wards were minimal on the upper floors, so electricity worked okay except for the occasional splutter. And real torches would have been hard to get past the fire codes.
I stopped and glared at the mage, who was looking around like he expected something to jump him at any moment. It would really be nice if the universe could stop throwing creatures out of fables, myths and nightmares at me. “There’s no such thing as gargoyles!” I said just as two of the little monsters pulled a cart out of the door and began tugging it down the hallway. The floor, painted to look like weathered stone, was carpeted with a narrow strip of old maroon plush barely two feet wide that ran down the middle. It didn’t do much decorwise, and it threatened to tip the cart over whenever one of the wheels encountered it. “It’s just a name for fancy rainspouts,” I insisted, even as my eyes told me otherwise. “Everyone knows that.”
“How can you have lived so long in our world and know so little?” Pritkin demanded. “You must have seen stranger things. You grew up at a vampire’s court!”
By this time, the servers had navigated the corridor and paused in front of an elevator. One of them pressed the call button with the tip of a pointed tail. He had the face of a dog and a bat’s body, while his companion was covered in grayish scales and was drooling around a two-foot-long tongue.
“The strangest thing about our cook in Philly,” I told Pritkin dazedly, “was that he was almost deaf from years of blasting heavy metal. But he was human. Well,” I amended after a moment, “until that time Tony promised an important visitor fettuccine Alfredo, only the cook somehow heard bacon, lettuce and tomato. . . . Anyway, shouldn’t they be off decorating a cathedral somewhere?”
“The creatures on medieval cathedrals aren’t gargoyles; they’re grotesques,” he replied pedantically, while we moved in the direction of the cart.
“Stop it! You know what I mean! Why are they here?”
“Illegal aliens,” he said shortly. “Cheap labor.”
I stared at him suspiciously, but if the mage had a sense of humor, I’d yet to see any sign of it. “Aliens? From where?”
“From Faerie,” he replied in the clipped tones he uses when annoyed. That seems to be most of the time, at least around me. “They have been coming into our world for centuries. But the numbers have greatly increased recently because the Light Fey have been making things difficult for the Dark—among whom the creatures we call gargoyles are numbered. The mages who handle Fey affairs have been complaining about the number of unauthorized arrivals we’ve been getting as a result.”
“So they come here and do room service?”
The elevator came and the gargoyles tugged
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