Chapter 87 Leo & Kristen (Double Feature)
LEO'S POV
The bike screamed around the corner and I saw it immediately. Disaster. Trees down across the pathways, their trunks splintered like matchsticks. Pavement cracked in spiderweb patterns that spread across the plaza. People scattered everywhere, running in blind panic. Sirens wailed in the distance, getting closer but not close enough.
Fuck.
I killed the engine and swung off before the bike had fully stopped, already running. Then I saw something that made my blood turn to ice.
Ice.
Actual ice, covering a park bench in thick frost. Spread across the fountain in crystalline patterns. Giant shards embedded in the ground like frozen spears, each one the size of a person.
My stomach dropped.
Anna.
Anna was here. Which meant...
Oh God.
I ran faster, pushing my legs harder than I ever had. Past abandoned strollers with toys still inside. Past dropped bags and scattered picnic supplies. My heart hammered against my ribs so hard I thought they might crack.
Kristen.
I rounded the fountain plaza and saw the tornado. Not natural. This was swirling with purpose, controlled, someone actively making it happen. And there, standing right in front of it, right in front of twenty feet of stone and fury and death, was her.
No no no.
The tornado was weakening. I could see it losing power, the winds slowing, and the gargoyle was starting to break free. Its massive form pushed against the vortex, stone muscles straining.
I didn't think. I just acted.
My eyes found a car, abandoned with its doors still open. Thirty feet away. Perfect.
I flicked my hand once. The car lifted, metal groaning in protest as all four tires left the ground. I hurled it with everything I had.
The car flew through the air and slammed into the creature's side with a crash that echoed across the park. The gargoyle staggered, its wings flaring for balance as it roared in fury.
It turned toward me.
Good.
"Kristen! Run!" My voice came out raw, desperate.
She looked up and saw me. Her eyes went wide with shock.
"Leo..."
"Move!" I shouted, already reaching for another car.
She scrambled up and ran toward two figures I could now see clearly. Anna, and an older woman I didn't recognize.
The gargoyle recovered faster than I'd hoped, its glowing white eyes fixing on me now. Its wings spread wide, blocking out the sun.
I raised both hands. Two more cars, one on each side of the plaza. I threw them both at once, sending them spinning through the air like toys. The gargoyle blocked one with its massive arm, but the second hit its wing. The sound of metal on stone was deafening.
The creature snarled, visibly pissed now. I kept moving, getting closer to where the girls were huddled, keeping the gargoyle's attention locked on me.
One more car. I flung it hard, and it hit the creature's chest, knocking it back several feet. Bought me precious seconds.
I reached them, breathing hard.
"Are you okay?" I was looking at Kristen, scanning her for injuries, checking every visible inch of skin for blood or breaks.
Anna nodded quickly. "Yeah, we're... Leo, what in God's name are you doing here?"
"Tracking that thing." I gestured at the gargoyle as it recovered, getting ready to charge. "Why are you not in school?"
Anna's face flushed. "We came to see my friend. Deidre."
I turned to look at the older woman properly for the first time. She was staring at me with sharp, knowing eyes. And around her neck hung a golden key that seemed to glow with its own light.
"I'm Leo Moretti." I extended my hand. She didn't take it.
"I take it you're the one with the tornado," I said.
Deidre nodded slowly. "A biker. Metal powers." Her eyes narrowed, assessing me with uncomfortable accuracy. "You're a Bloodhound."
I stiffened. How...
"People who guard the fabric between worlds aren't hard to recognize," she said simply.
Kristen cut in, her voice tight with fear. "This can happen later. We need to figure out how to kill that thing."
She was right. The gargoyle was on its feet again, watching us with those burning eyes.
"What the hell is that anyway?" Anna asked.
Deidre and I spoke at the same time.
"The Silver Gargoyle."
We looked at each other. Kristen's eyes went wide with alarm.
"What?"
Deidre stepped forward, her voice steady and clinical despite the chaos. "A Silver Gargoyle is a giant brainless henchman. Sent to find something or someone. They're always focused on their mission. Which means if it's here..."
"It's been sent to look for something," I finished, my eyes cutting to Kristen. My stomach sank with the terrible certainty. It's here for her.
Anna's voice shook. "How do you kill a Silver Gargoyle?"
I swallowed hard. "There's only one way." The gargoyle was moving now, stalking toward us with deliberate steps. "You use silver."
Silence.
Then Kristen spoke. "What?"
Deidre nodded grimly. "It has to be killed with something made of silver. Something big enough and sharp enough to pierce its hide."
Kristen looked around wildly at the destroyed park. "Great. Where do we find something with enough silver to kill that thing?"
Anna's voice rose in panic. "It's like searching for a giant silver pitchfork..."
I turned and saw it. A shop across the plaza, its windows somehow still intact.
Sterling & Sons - Fine Silver Goods.
"That'll have to do."
I ran toward the shop, and behind me I heard the gargoyle roar. Wind exploded across the plaza as Deidre raised her hand, hitting the creature broadside. It stumbled and turned back toward them.
"No you don't," I heard Deidre say.
Anna stepped forward and ice formed in her palms. She hurled it at the gargoyle, but the creature didn't care. It charged, moving with terrifying speed.
Too fast.
Deidre threw more wind. Anna threw more ice. The gargoyle swatted at them with one massive arm and they both went flying, hitting the ground hard.
I was at the shop now, smashing through the door. Inside, silver gleamed from every surface. Candlesticks, platters, jewelry. I grabbed the largest thing I could find, a decorative staff nearly six feet long, and held my hands over it. Heat built in my palms as I focused, melting the silver, reshaping it into something sharper, deadlier.
Outside, I heard Kristen scream Anna's name.
KRISTEN's POV
No.
No more running.
I stood and faced the gargoyle, meeting those glowing white eyes. "You want me?" My voice was stronger than I felt, stronger than the terror clawing at my throat. "Then come get me."
I turned and ran. Not away from it. Leading it.
"Kristen!" Anna screamed behind me. "What are you doing?!"
I didn't answer. Just ran past benches, past the playground with its swings still swaying from the wind.
BOOM.
The gargoyle followed, each step shaking the ground. Focused only on me now. Good. I was leading it away from Anna and Deidre, toward the tree line.
I stopped and spun around. The gargoyle was there, its wings expanding until they blocked out the sky. Nowhere to go now. Trapped.
My breath came in ragged gasps. The creature loomed over me, easily three times my height, its stone skin scarred and ancient. This close, I could see every detail. The way its muscles moved beneath the surface like living rock. The glow of its eyes that seemed to look right through me, seeing something I didn't understand.
Think. Think.
I remembered Deidre raising her hand, the way the wind had obeyed her like an extension of her will. I remembered Anna with ice forming from nothing, launching it like weapons with just a thought and a gesture.
Can I do that? Can I...
I raised my hand, my fingers trembling. Closed my eyes and focused with everything I had. Reached inside myself for something, anything that felt like power.
Please. Please work.
Nothing happened. No wind. No ice. Nothing but my own terrified breathing and the sound of the gargoyle's massive lungs filling with air.
The gargoyle snarled, its mouth opening to reveal teeth like broken tombstones. It raised one massive claw, preparing to strike.
No no no...
Desperation clawed at my throat. I reached deeper, past the fear, past the certainty that I was about to die. Reached for that place Deidre had talked about in the tent, the place where power lived. There had to be something. Had to be.
Then I felt it.
A pulse. Deep in my chest, like a second heartbeat. Foreign and familiar at the same time.
The ground shook.
Not from the gargoyle. From something else. Something inside me, trying to get out.
The pulse grew stronger, spreading from my chest down my arms, into my fingertips. It felt like electricity and ice water and burning all at once. My hands started to glow with a faint light that grew brighter with each heartbeat.
The sky went dark. Clouds rolled in with impossible speed, blotting out the sun. Wind picked up, gentle at first, then building into something stronger. Something wild.
Oh God, what's happening to me?
The sensation in my chest exploded outward. I gasped as power flooded through my veins like liquid fire. It hurt. It felt amazing. It terrified me. I couldn't control it, couldn't stop it, couldn't do anything but feel it consume me from the inside out.
The wind grew violent, tearing at my clothes and hair. Trees bent double, their branches scraping the ground. Roof tiles shook and broke free, spinning away into the growing storm.
Across the plaza, I heard Deidre's voice. "What..."
I looked at my hands. They were shaking uncontrollably, glowing brighter now, and I could feel the wind responding to them. Could feel it waiting for direction like a massive beast that had been unleashed and was looking to me to tell it what to do.
"Is... is this me?" My voice came out small, terrified.
"It looks like you are," Deidre said, but her voice sounded distant, like it was coming from underwater.
The power kept building. It felt like I was holding back a dam that was about to burst, pressure mounting behind my ribs until I thought my chest might explode. I needed to let it out. Had to release it or it would tear me apart.
"Oh my God," Anna breathed from somewhere behind me.
A tornado formed in the distance. I could see it spiraling up from the ground, massive and roaring, tearing up earth and grass as it approached. And I could feel it. Could feel every rotation, every gust, like it was part of my own body.
The gargoyle took a step back, and for the first time, I saw something that might have been uncertainty in those glowing eyes.
"You have Deidre's power," Anna said, her voice cracking with shock.
I wanted to laugh. Wanted to cry. Wanted to scream that I didn't understand any of this, that I was terrified, that I didn't know how to stop what was happening.
"I don't... I don't know what I'm doing..." My voice broke.
The tornado grew, fifty feet wide now, a hundred feet tall. And then something else happened. Something impossible.
Cold exploded through my veins alongside the heat. Ice formed in the air around me, crystallizing out of nothing, responding to the same desperate need that had summoned the wind. The ice merged with the tornado, giant spikes spinning in the vortex like deadly teeth.
It felt like my body was at war with itself. Heat and cold, wind and ice, two completely different powers trying to exist in the same space. The sensation was overwhelming, too much for my mind to process. I could feel Deidre's power flowing through my left side, wild and untamed. Could feel Anna's power in my right, sharp and precise. Both of them mine now, somehow.
Anna staggered back, and when she spoke, her voice carried a note of fear I'd never heard from her before. "And my power too." She turned to look at me fully, and I saw my own terror reflected in her eyes. "Kristen, what are you..."
"I don't know!" Tears streamed down my face, hot against my frozen skin. "I don't know!"
The tornado slammed into the gargoyle with the force of a freight train. The creature roared as it was lifted off the ground, trapped in the spinning vortex. The ice shards tore into its stone skin, each impact sending chips of rock flying.
I could feel it all. Every gust of wind, every shard of ice, every rotation of the tornado. It was too much. Too much sensation, too much power, too much everything. My knees buckled but I couldn't fall, couldn't stop, because the moment I lost focus, the moment the power slipped from my control, people would die.
So I held on. Held on even though it felt like I was being torn apart. Held on even though my vision was blurring and my head was splitting and every nerve in my body was screaming.
Movement caught my eye. Leo emerged from the silver shop carrying something, a giant staff wrapped in melted silver that still glowed with heat. Even through my pain and terror, even through the overwhelming sensation of power coursing through me, I felt a spike of relief at seeing him.
He's here. He's going to fix this.
Leo raised his hand and cars lifted into the air. One, two, three. They stacked on top of each other like stairs, and he ran toward them with the kind of fearless determination that made my chest ache with something other than power.
He jumped onto the first car, then the second, then the third. At the top, he leaped with the staff raised high.
The silver plunged deep into the gargoyle's neck, and the creature's scream shattered what was left of my concentration.
The power released all at once.
The tornado disappeared. The sky cleared. The wind died. And every bit of strength left my body in a rush.
Pain split through my head like lightning. My vision blurred and my knees finally gave out. I hit the ground hard, barely registering the impact.
"Kristen!" Anna was there instantly, catching me before my head could crack against the pavement. Her hands were on my face, my shoulders, checking for injuries. "Are you okay? Oh my God, are you okay?"
I couldn't answer. Could barely breathe. My entire body felt like it had been wrung out and left to dry. Every muscle ached. My head pounded with the worst headache of my life. But I was alive. We were alive.
"That was..." Anna's voice shook, caught between excitement and terror. "You just... you summoned a tornado. You have air powers. And ice powers. Both of them. At the same time. How is that even possible?"
I tried to speak but all that came out was a groan. The world spun around me even though I was lying still on the ground.
Leo was there suddenly, dropping to his knees beside us. His hands joined Anna's, checking me over with quick, efficient movements. "Kristen, can you hear me? Are you hurt?"
"Head," I managed to whisper. "Hurts."
"That's normal after using powers for the first time," he said, but I could hear the tension in his voice. The confusion. "Especially powers that strong."
Deidre approached more slowly, and I could feel her eyes on me even though I couldn't quite focus on her face. The golden key at her neck was glowing brighter than before, pulsing in rhythm with my heartbeat.
Anna was still talking, her words tumbling out in a rush. "Did you see the size of that tornado? And the ice inside it? I've never seen anything like it. I didn't even know that was possible. How did you..."
"No."
The single word cut through Anna's excited rambling like a knife. Deidre's voice was cold. Certain. Final.
Everyone turned to look at her.
Anna frowned, confusion replacing excitement on her face. "What do you mean, no? Didn't you see what just happened? She saved us. She..."
"She summoned a tornado with ice spikes inside it." Deidre's eyes never left my face. "It's like she..."
A long pause. The silence stretched out, heavy with implications I didn't understand.
"Like she combined both our powers," Deidre finished quietly.
The words hung in the air. Anna's hands tightened on my shoulders. Leo went very still beside me.
My head was pounding so hard I could barely think through the pain. "What... what is going on?"
Deidre stepped closer, her expression shifting from shock to something calculating. Something cold. "It all makes sense now."
"What does?" Anna demanded, her voice rising with each word.
"The fractured future I saw in the crystal ball. The way it turned red and shook. The cracks instead of clear visions." Deidre's voice dropped, taking on an almost reverent quality. "Of course. How could I have been so blind?"
"Deidre, what are you talking about..." Anna started, but Deidre raised a hand to silence her.
"The gargoyle was here for you." She looked at me, and what I saw in her eyes made my blood run cold. Not wonder. Not relief. Fear. "It was here to capture you. Because it knows."
I struggled to push myself up, Anna supporting my weight. "Knows what..."
"What you are. What you're capable of." Deidre's hand moved to the golden key and gripped it so tightly her knuckles turned white. "I know now too."
Leo stood slowly, positioning himself slightly in front of me. His body language shifted into something defensive. Protective. "What are you saying, Deidre?"
"I've always thought your kind were a myth," Deidre said, and her voice was barely audible now. "Stories told to frighten children. Warnings passed down through generations. I thought there was no way your kind roamed the earth anymore. There was no way a..."
She stopped. Swallowed hard. Her face had gone pale.
"I can't even bring myself to say it."
Anna's voice rose in panic. "What are you talking about?! What kind? Deidre, you're scaring me!"
Deidre raised her hand. The golden key began to glow even brighter, and wind picked up around us. Gentle at first, like a breeze. Then stronger.
"Anna." Her eyes never left mine, and what I saw there made my stomach drop. "Your friend should not exist."
I felt it then. Pressure around my throat. Invisible hands tightening, cutting off my air.
"She should not be allowed to roam the earth." The pressure increased. I gasped and clawed at my neck, trying to pry away hands that weren't there.
"Deidre, stop!" Anna screamed.
"She should not be allowed to walk among us." The air crushed tighter around my windpipe. My vision started to darken at the edges.
Can't breathe...
Leo lunged toward Deidre but a wall of wind slammed into him, sending him staggering back.
"She should not be allowed to live."
Anna was screaming. Trying to reach me but Deidre's wind held her back too. I could see tears streaming down Anna's face, could hear her voice breaking as she begged Deidre to stop.
Deidre's voice was steel and ice and absolute certainty. "I cannot let you leave this place, Kristen."
The pressure increased until I thought my throat would collapse. My vision tunneled, darkness creeping in from all sides. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't do anything but feel the life being squeezed out of me.
Deidre's voice had dropped to a dangerous low.
"I simply can't let you leave here alive."