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  Curse of Stone

  By Nikki Lockwood

  Curse of Stone

  First published in 2021 by Nikki Lockwood

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

  Text © 2021 Nikki Lockwood

  Cover illustration © 2021 Hasnain Ali

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This book is dedicated to my mentor and friend,

  Amanda Ashby.

  Curse of Stone

  1

  A ceramic cup crashed to the carpet, and hot tea splashed sideways. Terror flashed across Gran’s eyes as her body rippled with a shudder. I leapt from my chair and landed at her feet. She didn’t flinch or growl at the rapid patting of my hands on her legs, making sure they hadn’t been burnt. My chest heaved with relief.

  Gran sat silent, her hands clenched together on her lap, but her tight grip couldn’t stop them from trembling.

  “What is it?” I urged.

  “I saw him.” Her voice quavered.

  My eyebrows pulled together. “Who?”

  “The creature. I saw it again.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t go looking for it, it was just there.”

  My mind raced. “When? Where?” I asked.

  “Yesterday.”

  “Yesterday? Where did you see it?”

  “In the city. I popped in to do a few errands. When I was finished, I sat at the bus stop, and something made me look up. My poor heart skipped a beat. There it was. Perched on the back corner of the building’s rooftop. I didn’t even realise I was opposite a cathedral.” Gran’s eyes flickered; her body stiffened as she spoke. “It was the same creature.”

  The creature she saw in September fifty-eight years ago. The one she believed was a gargoyle. When her sister, Ruth, had disappeared.

  Most people dismissed Gran as crazy or insane, but I believed her, and her account of what’d happened had never changed. She’d told it to me so many times growing up that I knew it word for word.

  “That night was like many before it. As we walked through the cemetery, it was foggy, but the light from the moon shone bright. We heard a noise, like stones breaking. At first, I thought it might have been someone smashing headstones, but it wasn’t. Walking to where the sound came from, I froze. Two red eyes stared back at us. Petrified, I wanted to run away screaming, but I couldn’t move. It was a huge grey winged creature with red glowing eyes, and its claws had pierced the concrete—”

  Gran had spent a lot of time trying to find information about what she’d seen. Her search had always been about Ruth. Find the creature, and she would find out what happened to her sister. But now faced with it, Gran appeared too scared to do anything.

  “That must’ve been terrifying.” I lied; it was fascinating. “Which cathedral was this?”

  The fear in her eyes was instantly replaced with a knowing look. Her lips pursed before she spoke. “No, I don’t want you anywhere near it, Danielle.”

  I rolled my eyes at her.

  Gran smacked my knee. “Don’t you roll your eyes at me. You may be grown but I will still put you over my knee so help me. I know you too well, to know that you would go there.”

  A smile creased my face. She was right. I would go there. To see the creature with my own eyes. Plus, I had to know that Gran’s fear of the night was justified. After all, my mum had taken her own life because of it.

  “What’d you do after you saw it?”

  “Why I came straight home and locked the door.”

  I placed my hand on top of her trembling hands. “Do you want me to stay here tonight?”

  Her chest heaved with a deep exhale. “Oh no dear, I’ll be fine. You need to get home before dark.”

  “You sure? It’s almost dark now.”

  “What?” Horrified, her eyes darted to the window. Outside the braided pink-purple sky was covered in clouds as the sun was setting far away. “Quick, shut the curtains, quick, quick.”

  I hurried from room to room, drawing every dark grey curtain closed over the barred windows. It had always been that way. I couldn’t recall a time when there hadn’t been bars on the windows.

  Returning to the lounge with a fresh cup of tea in my hand, I stared at Gran. She always kept herself in pristine condition, and the same went for her home. The living room hadn’t changed much over the years. The navy tapestry couch and chairs sat in their places. The room was shabby chic with the ever-present vapor of menthol sweets and lavender perfume.

  As I handed Gran the cup of tea, her wet, dull eyes looked up at me. My heart panged. A spasm of ache twisted in my stomach. I couldn’t keep letting her chase the ghost of Ruth. I couldn’t sit back and watch as her heartbreak was freshly ripped open. No, I owed her. After all, Gran had practically raised me.

  This news was exactly what I needed to focus on finding answers – for Gran. If I failed, I failed her, and that was not something I could live with.

  “What jobs did you do in town yesterday?” I asked.

  Gran looked up, questioning me silently before responding. “Just the usual, butchers, hair salon. Oh, I had to pay my rates.”

  Gotcha. I smiled. At seventy-one, Gran was spirited, with pep in her step, but she had her favourites, her usual shops. I knew them well. None of them would place her outside a cathedral. But the council building would. In the proximity of that location, there was two cathedrals. One of which I knew had statues atop it.

  2

  I walked home through the streets lined with towering buildings and full of determined pedestrians and rushing traffic. The bus ride from Gran’s had taken twenty minutes. She lived on the outskirts of the city, in a residential suburb, and one of the oldest parts of the city.

  Opposite the library was the closest bus stop to my apartment. It was only a couple of blocks away.

  As dark fell, the hair on the back of my neck prickled. An unsettling pit hollowed in my gut. Eyes were on me.

  I kept pace walking, scanning the street, but I saw no one. I glanced up at the buildings and rooftops, no one. As I lowered my eyes, on the other side of the street, at the edge of a darkened alleyway, stood the outline of a man. Even from this distance, his shadow felt cold and dangerous. A chilled breeze whistled around me. I blinked, and he was gone.

  It wasn’t far to my building, about three hundred metres. My black-laced boots pounded the pavement as I raced past a few late shoppers, listening for the sound of someone trying to catch up to me.

  The wind groaned, blowing rubbish along the gutter, the temperature had dropped. I peeked over my shoulder, down the now empty street. Where was everyone? And then, relief. The familiar grey exterior of my twelve-story building came into view.

  Spine tingling, heart pounding, I ran up the stairs to the entrance, skipping every second step. I keyed in my code, slipped inside and closed the door behind me.

  In the tiny lobby, waiting for the elevator, shadows gathered around me. I heard footsteps coming up the entrance stairs. Oh my god, whoever was following me, was coming in here. A quick glance around told me there was nowhere to hide, and the elevator hadn’t opened yet. Gritting my teeth, I shuffled my keys, repositioning them between my fingers as a weapon.

  Then the door opened.

  3

  Bracing myself I took one step backwards as a tall muscular figure stepped inside. Their presence instantly suffocated the empty space with an electric hum.r />
  “You alright, Stone?”

  Jamie.

  I almost collapsed with relief. Tension eased out of my spine.

  Jay was a rascal, always winding me up, but we were friends, and I was safe around him. I’d known him since we were five years old. He was always by my side, protecting me, having fun, but there was nothing more to it than friendship. The older we grew, the better looking he became, and right before I thought I may have developed a crush on him, I met Harley. After that we still hung out, but Jay grew distant. It wasn’t long after this that despite Jay’s maturing good looks, his reputation grew less delicious. He became known as Jamie the ‘player’, he was uncatchable.

  One year ago, he’d moved into my apartment building. Our friendship was rekindling. It was like old times but there was a new strange distance between us too, one that I couldn’t put my finger on.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  I felt like an idiot with a plastered grin on my face, as the elevator arrived. The door slid open. I stepped inside and leant against the mirror wall. Jamie followed, pressing the floor four button. He looked at me, and pressed six, my floor.

  His presence took up every free space in the elevator. My skin prickled from his electric energy. He really was all man. Dark, mysterious, and dripping of sex, the kind that left your mind scrambled and your body thoroughly spent.

  As always, he was dressed in sweatpants that hung low around his hips and a wife-beater singlet. He looked like he had just stepped out of the gym but not a single drop of perspiration gleamed on his sleek caramel skin. Muscles straining against his skin, like fabric covering his forearms, biceps, shoulders, and chest. The black ink covering his flesh only added to his dangerously tempting appearance. It was rare that I saw him dressed in anything else. But on occasion we did go out for dinner or ice cream or go somewhere that required him to leave the sweats at home, and fuck, when he did, holy shit. Black ripped jeans, and tight tees left even less for the imagination. His hulking thighs strained against the denim. Not that I saw him as anything other than that little ratbag who had been, and was once again, my closest friend.

  “What was that back there?” he asked, his steel blue eyes staring into mine.

  “Oh, I thought I was being followed.”

  His back straightened. “By who?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see his face. It was the weirdest thing; I could swear he was watching me the whole way home. It freaked me out. And then you came into the building right after me.” Oh my god. It hadn’t crossed my mind before. “Wait…was it you?”

  “What?” His shocked expression changed into a glare. “Don’t flatter yourself, Stone, I’ve got better things to do than follow you around.”

  I looked at him, standing with his arms crossed, and a stern expression furrowing his brows, steeling his eyes, and lips pulled into a flat line.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. The words were a bitter pill to swallow.

  Jamie sighed and unfolded his arms. “Why didn’t you ring me?”

  To be honest the thought hadn’t crossed my mind, but it probably should’ve. He has been protecting me since we were little, why would that change now.

  “We’ve known each other for a long time. If you think you’re being followed again, ring me, okay?” The husk of his gravelly voice softened with his instructive words.

  “Thanks Jay.” I exhaled appreciating the strength of not only his words, but his physical ability to protect.

  He stepped towards me with his arms outstretched. “Come on, bring it in.”

  I took one look at his devilish smile and gleaming eyes and knew instantly he was winding me up again.

  “Oh, bugger off,” I said, slapping his arms away.

  He laughed and stepped back, leaning up against the elevator wall beside me. The warmth of his bare bicep radiated through my jacket’s sleeve. It was his familiar masculine warmth, like a damn furnace some days, but one that coated my entire body when he was near. The lure of his warmth was as dangerous as his delicious scent – the faint hint of sweat, citrus, and the smell right before it rains. It was dark, like him, and an intoxicating bait of indescribable pleasures. Like I said, dangerous.

  “You know you want to,” he whispered.

  His warm breath hit my ear, sending a fuzziness down my neck, it tingled.

  “Dreaming about me, are you?”

  That comment snapped me out of my thoughts, realising I had been thinking about him. “Ah, no. Not in this lifetime,” I said with eyebrows raised.

  He chuckled.

  The elevator came to a juddering halt, and as the door slid open, Jamie walked backwards towards the door. “Catch you later, Stone.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said, gesturing with my hand for him to get out. I hated that he called me by my last name, but he always had, and some things never changed.

  His smile vanished as his eyebrows furrowed. “And I meant what I said, if you think you’re being followed, ring me.”

  4

  With a crack, and the absence of the sun, stone fell from Gabriel. He morphed from beast to man, but he dared not move. The wind battered his face carrying with it a faint scent. She was close.

  The heart beating inside his chest was more than the single beat of his own, he could feel it. As the sun set and darkness smothered the land, it had raced. His frustrated anger was insurmountable. He had to find her.

  It had happened a lot over the twenty-seven years since he was notified of her birth. He had felt her every pain, sadness, and heartbreak, of which there had been two. Many winters had passed since the first one, but the last one, was three years ago.

  Since the day she entered this world, when his heart had stopped and restarted in sync with hers, Gabriel had searched many lands, following the whispers of rumoured healers. But all whispers ended nowhere. It had been hard, but he’d never stopped searching for her, not even when he sunk into despair over the probability of never finding her.

  Then two years ago, the scent of her blood had been detected on the winds. She was here, somewhere.

  The scent alone wasn’t a guarantee she was a healer - that had to be proven by an elder. Many women were born carrying Cassandriella’s blood in their veins. But only one was bound to him, and the fate of his cursed existence.

  Gabriel’s heart filled with a heavy dull ache. If he could smell it, then every manner of demon and supernatural being could as well. Finding her before something evil did, that was the race, the fight he had on his hands. Gabriel knew the consequences if she died or had her heart possessed by evil.

  Death in stone.

  He would become stuck, buried, unable to break free from the cold prison that bound him during daylight. Gabriel shuddered.

  But it wasn’t her blood alone he smelt. His brothers detected the lingering rot too. A demon. It had arrived a week ago. An old woman, dressed in tattered clothing, surrounded by a flaming glow. She had kept to herself, showing no interest in humans. But still she was here, in the city, and in the wolves territory.

  He watched her vigilantly during the night hours. Gabriel sensed her presence wasn’t the only thing menacing about her being. He knew there was no way she would return to the Earth’s plane without a purpose, a job to do. She was after the woman, his healer.

  Iktok landed on the roof with precision. Wings of magnificent silver guiding him down.

  Long had it been since the great dynasty of Iktok’s people. During the time when the lands of his country were divided into two: the red lands to the North; and the white lands in the South. Tales of Iktok the Nubian warrior began when a scorpion from the West, a self-entitled ruler, led an army into the white lands, trying to conquer and claim it for his own. Iktok united warriors from both lands and defeated the scorpion. He went on to become the first King of Egypt, whose tales have been long forgotten with the sands of time.

  Their peace was soon shattered by a great evil from the South, who travelled up the Nile River, in boats full of w
ild southern men. Ruthless and cunning, Iktok led his people once more, but was slain. A cloaked figure appeared to him as he lay dying in the sands covered in blood and bodies. Iktok’s mortal life ended in 3267 BC. He was the first one turned and considered one of the three elders. But Gabriel called him brother.

  “I meet with the wolves tonight,” Iktok said, pausing to inhale through his nose. “She is close. Her scent grows stronger.”

  The protection of all those who carried the blood of Cassandriella fell upon all the men cursed like Gabriel. It was a condition of the oath made with Kharachne.

  “Yes, she is,” Gabriel said, sighing deeply.

  Iktok had never felt the presence of his healer, not yet anyway, and that filled Gabriel with a great sadness to know that Iktok had never found that peace.

  “Belvess accompanies me.” Iktok leapt into the air. “Do not lose hope brother. We will find her.”

  5

  “It was close,” I said to King, my alpha. “The putrid scent. I smelt it close to my apartment building.”

  “Did you see anyone?” King’s voice was as tough as his physique.

  “No. But she saw a man. I thought it was a woman.”

  “It could’ve changed flesh. Stay on point, it’s getting closer.”

  “Yes.” It fucking was. Shit.

  Little had I known that bumping into her two years ago had tripped a supernatural switch that caused Stone’s scent to change, and demons from all walks of life to seek her out. I hadn’t noticed right away because I’d been too damn stuck on the fact that she was now single. But the minute I touched her; Stone had become a beacon. Even those winged beasts sensed it. Cathwulf, the head of three werewolf packs in the area, hadn’t given her name up to them yet because I promised her that I had it handled.