Page 98 of Stone Temptation

There were three gargoyles gathered around the mote vent on the northwestern tip of town.

“What’s happening down there?” Asher said, lowering.

Ugh. Did we have to investigate? I hated the mote vent area. A place of muddy mounds and soupy puddles. A wasteland with no plants, not even a single weed.

The vent ruptured from the ground, hunching over in the shape of a cornucopia. Yellow fungus grew around its huge opening, as well as the fences with the glaring red warning signs to ward off fools.

You’d have to be a massive fool to get too close.

Asher brought us down, my feet eager to scurry in the opposite direction. But my curiosity spiked when I spotted the dead body on the ground.

The dead body wearing a gas mask.

“What the hell?” I said.

“Exactly,” Asher responded.

The three gargoyles turned to face us. Two cheerily, the other not so much. He was the one who’d killed a monster on the peninsula.

“Alright?” Asher greeted them, shaking all of their big hands. He gave them his name, told them he’d come from London to take care of his mark.

All eyes fell on me.

“You’ve marked a human?” the one woman in the trio said. “Good gods.”

“I know, right?” Asher answered. “This is Luke.”

More handshakes before the dark opening of the mote vent.

“You might be able to help with this corpse,” the friendlier man said. “We got a briefing from Seth earlier about a similar human riding a chimera in London.”

The mention of Seth’s name made my skin crawl.

Commence countdown from ten.

“No clue, stone brother,” Asher responded. “Have you tried taking off the mask?”

Deep gouges sliced up the dead man’s chest, a pool of blood beneath him staining the mud a deep scarlet. There were also what appeared to be teeth marks on his left arm.

Gross.

“No protection,” Asher said. “Just like the last guy.”

“Monster nibbled on him,” Grumpy Gargoyle chimed in. “Didn’t eat. Why didn’t he eat or make him a terror?”

He seemed to ask Asher that question.

My bodyguard crouched beside the body. “No idea. Might be part of some sort of cult.”

“A cult of what?” the woman wondered.

“Monster lovers? Dunno. Why can they ride one but get chewed on by another?”

“Don’t like the idea of that,” the friendlier man said.

But a valid idea, for sure.

Asher leaned in closer to the corpse. “It’s like something sampled him but got put off. Weird.”