The Gargoyle’s Passion (The Gargoyle Awakens Book 2) Read online

  The Gargoyle’s

  Passion

  By Ginger Devine

  Book Two in The Gargoyle Awakens Series

  Copyright Page

  The Gargoyle’s Passion by Ginger Devine

  © 2017 by Ginger Devine

  Published by Devine Literary, LLC

  www.devineliterary.com

  All right reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact:

  [email protected]

  He feels the change in his legs first, stretching from the balls of his feet into his calves, spreading up through his thighs to his stomach and then his chest, branching out into his outstretched arms. The warmth of life heightens his senses; although he can’t yet open his eyes, he can hear, and feel. Sight is the last sense restored when he awakens.

  The smell of sweat and perfume nearly overwhelms him. A wave of voices and music crashes over his head as he struggles to open his eyes. It’s so much to feel, especially for a man made of stone!

  He also feels hope – that the noise and smell mean that he won’t be alone when he is fully awakened. His friends will be waiting, his beautiful, generous friends – Aime, Margaux, and Elyse.

  Lucien’s manhood throbs to life at the memory of the three girls who have changed his existence, made him believe after so many centuries that he might find an escape from this miserable Curse.

  Finally, the sun sets, and Lucien opens his eyes, starting to smile.

  There’s no one waiting for him on the rooftop.

  Pacing the perimeter, the giant half-man, half-monster looks over the edge at the many revelers below – the source of the ocean of sound and scent that is still nearly overpowering his senses.

  They didn’t come.

  He is alone.

  Lucien throws his head back and roars – an anguished cry of fury, pain, loneliness.

  December 22, 1989

  “What did I put in my mouth last night?” demanded Margaux. “and was it covered in sandpaper?”

  “I think it was too much champagne. Way too much. Enough to blind me and make you smell like something died inside your mouth,” replied Elyse as she sat up. They were laying in Aime’s bed, only partly clothed from the night before.

  “I don’t even remember getting home. It must have been a great party. We’ll have to remember that the Winter Solstice at Château de Romain is the best party of the year, even if we can’t remember the actual party”

  “I don’t remember much, either; the party, getting home, or how I got these knee burns. But I do know I need something to drink.” Margaux rolled over, falling off the bed, landing on Aime, who was still asleep.

  “Get up, we need water and a recap of last night, Specifically, did I have sex, because it feels like I have an orgasm hangover.”

  “Me, too!” said Elyse.

  Aime rolled over, pushing Margaux onto the floor. “I’m fuzzy on what happened last night, but I remember driving us home. I had my camera. Let’s see if we took any pictures.” She reached for the camera bag, which someone had flung over the dresser, knocking off everything else. “There are two rolls of film in here – I’ll get them developed this week. You’ll know what happened before the burns on your knees heal!”

  Margaux sighed, “I hope there are no pictures of me getting these burns.”

  “Oh, I really hope there are pictures of you on your hands and knees, with someone in front of you or behind you. Now get up, it’s two days until Christmas, you need to go home and wash thoroughly and go to confession before you see your host family. They are too nice for you! I’ll let you know about the photos.”

  The photos were forgotten though, until almost a year later when Aime found the two rolls of film under her bed while she was looking for something clean to wear. She took them to the photo lab at school to develop them herself. After they developed in the darkroom trays of fluid, she hurriedly left the lab to call Margaux and Elyse from a phone booth. “You need to see these pictures. Meet me today.”

  “But we have Medieval Literature this afternoon!” exclaimed Elyse.

  “I promise you will learn more about the medieval world from what I am going to show you than you ever will from Madame Bardeaux.”

  Two hours later, the threesome was sitting at a small sidewalk table on the Rue Saint Honore, looking at one another, unable to speak for several minutes. The photos were spread out on the table, face down. They had looked at them, twice, and didn’t want to take a chance that someone else would see the wildly uninhibited images. But even with very clearly defined photographic proof, who would believe what really happened?

  “Well, this jogs my memory of what happened at the winter solstice party last year,” said Elyse.

  “And why I had such a good time. That’s some, umm, equipment this guy is carrying,” added Margaux.

  “He’s not the only one – you were carrying quite a bit of his “equipment” too – in your mouth!” said Aime, getting them all to laugh.

  Margaux replied, “These are hot! I’m getting tingly just thinking about them. I’d like to try this again.”

  “And again, and again. I thought I was getting a fetish for angels, but I don’t think they have tails. And I am into tails, but couldn’t figure out why until now,” added Elyse. “I can’t believe the Gargoyle in my dreams is real. And that my dreams are based on things we really did!”

  Aime ordered, “We need to go back. The solstice is on Friday, so we are leaving school a little early again this term.”

  “I am blaming any bad grades on the demands of researching architecture of the middle ages and will show my professors the photographic proof if needed – who could deny me extra credit after seeing that epic tail?!” demanded Elyse. They laughed again as they toasted each other with wine glasses and began looking through the photos a few more times.

  December 21, 1990

  The girls made the same journey they had taken one year earlier, this time with much more excitement, and sensible (but cute) walking shoes. It was a long way up to the tower roof where Lucien would be waiting for them.

  They paid their entrance fee to a bouncer with bulging biceps who was wearing a large codpiece over tights and combat boots, and sidestepped the already frolicsome revelers in the large outdoor courtyard. Many of the men were in gargoyle masks again this year, but the girls didn’t even glance at them; They’d seen the real thing alive and in person, and the masks were a very poor imitation. But some of the codpieces did look intriguing.

  As the sun started to fall below the horizon, they burst through the door onto the roof.

  “Lucien, we’re back!”

  The imposing stone gargoyle stood above them on a ledge, his wings outstretched, head high, and the impressive indication of his manhood standing firm and hard, exactly as they had left him one year before. He hadn’t moved since they had last seen him.

  Aime reached out to touch his leg, running her hand across his thigh and up to his groin. She cradled the base of his shaft and then slowly stroked up the length of him. “Lucien, we’re here.”

  The statue didn’t budge. The sun was nearly gone.

  “Why isn’t he moving? Maybe you’re not doing it right,” said Margaux. “I know he likes this,” she said as she rubbed her breasts against the top of his cock. Still no movement. It was now completely dark except for the light from the battery powered lantern that they brought with them.

  Elyse crouched down behind Lucien to touch the tip of his whip-like tail that lay curled behind his feet.
“Maybe he doesn’t want to see us anymore.”

  “I don’t think that’s how it works. He told us he can resist the change from stone to flesh, but I think we would see some trace of his struggle– he would be warmer, softer, even if it were for just for a few moments. But there’s no change.”

  “Maybe we imagined what happened last year – who knows what was in those joints that the codpieces downstairs were passing around.”

  “But what about the photos? Something is definitely happening in them. He was alive. And he was really into us.”

  Aime sat down on the pedestal as she said, “Let’s wait to see if anything happens tonight; this is a statue that was cursed at least 1,000 years ago, it’s not exactly a scientific process to predict what’s going to happen.”

  The rising sun awakened them from where they’d fallen asleep around Lucien’s feet. Margaux groaned as she stood up. “I’m so sore, and I don’t even have a good story to tell. Or even a story that I forgot and then remembered because of the X-rated photos.”

  Aime asked the others, “Do you think that forgetting we met Lucien is part of the Curse? No one can help him if they can’t remember they met him in the first place.”

  “Maybe” replied Margaux. “We didn’t have that much to drink last year.”

  They gathered their coats and the lantern and trudged down the stairs. Like the post-party carnage of the year before, there were partiers from the previous night still in the courtyard, passed out on the ground and benches, some clothed, some not so much. The three stepped over chilly, slow-moving bodies without noticing them, their sadness and disappointment at missing Lucien and wondering what else they didn’t remember filling their thoughts.

  No one spoke for a long time on the car ride home. Aime started to fall asleep in the back seat as Margaux drove and Elyse stared out of the passenger side window. She suddenly jerked awake.

  “I know what we have to do! We must find that book! We told Lucien we’d look for answers and for an escape from the curse. But we forgot. And he didn’t come back. Maybe he knew that we would forget. Or maybe he doesn’t come back every year. Maybe it’s every other year. Or ten years. Or 100 years. We need to investigate!”

  “Or maybe we are delusional,” Margaux replied. “This is ridiculous. I’m not going to waste any more time on chasing a dream we think we had a year ago, when we were stoned and drunk off our asses. “

  Elyse sighed, saying, “You’re right. This is a waste of time. It was fun last year, an adventure, but this time it meant something to me, and I feel stupid now. There is no Lucien, there never was.” She turned her head back toward the window and started to cry.

  “Do what you want. I’m going to look for answers and I am going to meet Lucien again one day.” Aime lay back down in the back seat, but she didn’t fall asleep. She was already working on a plan.

  They didn’t say anther word for the rest of the drive back to Paris.

  December 20, 1999

  The three women now sitting at the same café where they’d met nine years before hadn’t seen one another in years. After their last solstice adventure, they had grown apart, and lost contact altogether after graduating from university. The reunion started with a call earlier that day.

  “Yes?!” Margaux answered the phone as she was packing boxes. She was moving out, her lease up on the last day of the year, her now ex-boyfriend already gone, and she was not in a good mood.

  “Margaux, it’s Aime. I need to see you and Elyse. It’s about Lucien. He’s coming back…tomorrow night.”

  Margaux resisted, she said she had too much packing to do, and what if Elyse couldn’t make it? But Aime was insistent on the phone, and Elyse and Margaux were both in need of something hopeful, something exciting. Their shared night with Lucien ten years before was still something they all dreamed about.

  Aime was barely able to contain her enthusiasm. “I found the book! The Medusa Codex! And it might explain how Lucien was turned to stone. I also found lots of history on the Chateau de Romain. It all makes me think that Lucien will be transformed back to flesh and blood tomorrow night, the same way he was on the night that we met him.”

  “What is The Medusa Codex?”

  “It’s the book Lucien told us about, the blue one with the snake on the cover. He said the Duc de Romain who cursed him had a book and an object that he used to turn the villagers to stone. I found the book and there’s enough of it still intact that I think I figured out the curse, or at least some of it. Legend has it that Lucien awakens every ten years. And tomorrow night is ten years since we met him!”

  “You mean since we screwed him?” asked Margaux.

  “Technically, no one got screwed, it was more a lot of licking and rubbing,” replied Aime.

  “And coming!” added Elyse. She was getting excited, even though everything Aime said was ridiculous. But still, she couldn’t stop thinking about Lucien’s tail…that memory was too weird to have originated in her imagination.

  Aime continued sharing what she’d learned about the history of the Château de Romain. “The party that happens now on the solstice probably originated in an ancient custom. On a solstice night hundreds of years ago, the stone statues that had been placed around the de Romain awakened and sought revenge on the Duc. He was killed, I don’t know how or by whom. But after that night the villagers were terrified of the statues and started keeping a vigil during every solstice to protect themselves.

  “After a couple of decades, they realized that the statues seemed to come to life every ten years. And even thought there were no more murders or violence, the villagers started removing the statues, selling them to other great house and to cathedrals and churches. They were hesitant to destroy the statues because the they had all once been villagers, too. It seemed too much like murder.”

  “Soon, almost all the statues were gone, except for Lucien. They couldn’t move him from the roof. But they also realized that Lucien couldn’t have killed the Duc, because he had never been able to leave the roof of the Château’s tower. “

  “Strange stories would periodically crop up of women who claimed to see the Gargoyle come to life, even talking with him, touching him…and more. These evolved into the legend of The Gargoyle’s Curse – that he was imprisoned for a crime of passion and that he awakened every ten years looking for his true love. If he found her, he would be free of the curse.”

  “Eventually the Gargoyle was forgotten about by the people except as a statue that presided over the countryside from the top of the tower, but the all-night solstice gatherings continued; evolving from a vigil to protect the village against otherworldly intruders, into celebrations much like the modern-day version: an orgiastic party when all rules and inhibitions are ignored.”

  “We’re going back to the Château tomorrow night,” said Margaux, “but if Lucien doesn’t come back to life this time, I’m pushing him off the roof.”

  The three friends spent the night at Margaux’s nearly empty apartment drinking wine, helping her to pack, and catching up on what they’ve been doing for the last several years. Margaux managed a gallery specializing in medieval art, Aime was an archivist at The Louvre, and Elyse was the arts editor for a French magazine. None of them was in a romantic relationship.

  Margaux’s latest boyfriend was not the only one she’d sent packing. “I just don’t find any them very interesting after a few months. They bore me.”

  “At least you have them long enough to get bored. I haven’t had a relationship that lasts more than a few dates. I’m so lonely,” said Elyse.

  “I don’t have time for dates or boyfriends, or girlfriends. My work takes so much time, and yet I still feel like I’m behind. I don’t know that I’ll ever have time for love,” said Aime.

  Margaux raised her wine glass in a toast, “We will always have Lucien!”

  Aime drove them the next day to the Château. There was a different bouncer at the door, and the admission fee was twice as much as it w
as the last time they visited. “Robbery!” Margaux grumbled. They walked through a carousing crowd, much larger than they remembered, so boisterous that they had to struggle to get to the door at the base of the tower because of the mob of people dancing and thrashing to the music of a DJ. It was louder and more chaotic than ever.

  “I think they’re partying like it’s 1999!” shouted Elyse.

  “It IS 1999!”

  “Yeah, exactly!”

  It took them what seemed like forever to reach the tower door, and the sun was almost below the horizon when they finally reached it.

  Hurry up!” Aime yelled, wrenching the door open. Then they heard the roar. It shook the foundation, drowning out the music, making the DJ’s record skip and then stop. The revelers stopped too, stared up at the sky, looking for the source of the still-reverberating thunder. Then the record on the turntable started spinning again and they began wildly moving.

  The women ran through the door, turning the ancient iron key in the lock, then raced up the stairs, tumbling breathlessly through the doorway six flights up.

  Lucien turned as he heard the door slam back against the wall. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he growled.

  The three women stopped in the doorway, shocked. Lucien had been a dream. None of them really believed that he would come back to life, as much as they wanted it to be true. And yet, here he was, magnificent in his rage, towering over them, blocking out the last vestige of the sun’s light drawing a thin blue line across the horizon.

  “We’re happy to see you, too!” exclaimed Elyse.

  “I’m sorry we’re late, we didn’t think there would be so many people here. It’s madness downstairs. We should barricade the door, just in case.” Margaux tried to drag a stone urn but realized it was too heavy for her to budge. Lucien reached over and easily picked it up, moving it in front of the door, making it impossible to open.