Stonecast

Twenty-four

Stanis

My pained transformation to living stone upon the setting of the sun was a welcome one. Even after centuries, it struck me fresh every time, a constant reminder that it was a miracle I was a living creature. I minded the burning sensation even less that night because I awoke on the edge of the roof where I had stood for centuries. I was home, even if my home was littered with the remains of broken grotesques and the lifeless stones that had previously housed the souls of Kejetan’s closest Servants of Ruthenia.

I walked to the edge of the roof, the awakening sensation already fading, and dropped down to the terrace below. It did my soul good to find Alexandra in her great-great-grandfather’s studio, even in the condition I had previously left it in. As I came through the open hole where the doors should be, the floor crunched with the sound of stone and wood, drawing Alexandra’s attention.

She turned, for a second wide-eyed with concern until she saw me standing there and relaxed. That did my soul good as well, and I crossed to her as she returned to working on a mound of clay sitting on a table in front of her. To her left stood a large, solid block of stone taller than I was, which had not been in the space when last I had been there.

“Where are your companions?” I asked. “This building is not safe, not after the events of the other night.”

“Kejetan and his people got what they wanted,” she said, painful as it was for her to admit. “They’re probably off flying the friendly skies or doing a victory lap. As for Rory and Marshall, they’ve got lives. Me? I’ve got work to do. Between cultists and religious fanatics threatening my family, I need to get creating.”

“What about him?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear her answer.

“Caleb?” she said. She wiped her hands off on a piece of cloth and reached into her bag, pulling out a decorative box I would have expected Kejetan or one of his lords to have owned in life. “He’s out of the club. After the other night, I’m not at all sure I can trust him. But he did send me this as a peace offering.” She lifted the lid to reveal a small sphere filled with a glittering gold liquid.

“Is it true as it was in my century that women love to receive that which shines?”

She smiled at that.

“That we do,” she said. “I prefer the kind I can wear, personally, but it’s a start.”

I watched the liquid dance within the sphere. “What is it?”

She lowered the lid and slid it back into her bag.

“Let’s just say if you develop any other personality disorders, I should be able to cope with it on my own. It’s what he mixed when he freed you. It even came with instructions.”

“Let us hope it does not come to that,” I said.

“Let’s hope,” she said, crossing her fingers. As she went back to the clay she was working, the box she had just held out slid out of her bag.

“What the hell?” she said, tentatively pushing it back in, but finding resistance.

I moved closer, wings involuntarily spreading as I worried, but when Alexandra’s tiny brick creature crawled out from behind the box out of the bag, I lowered my wings.

“Hey, Bricksley!” she said. “I wondered where you had gone off to.” She picked him up and set him down on the floor. “Not now, buddy. Mama needs her time to get her creative art on. Can’t beat the baddies without some goodies, and since New York is crawling with every other Belarus statue in motion right now, looks like I’m back at square one crafting my own.”

I could not help but watch the little animated brick as it moved around the room, its wire arms and clay hands moving about freely, set to no actual task that I could make sense of.

“I wonder if perhaps your charge should have wings,” I said after watching him stumble around for a few more minutes.

Alexandra turned from her work and looked down to the floor at him. “Who? Bricksley?” She shook her head. “Not sure a flying brick is such a great idea.”

“It is a shame.”

My maker’s kin stopped working and turned to me. “Is it?”

“You have flown, Alexandra,” I said. “Both with me and of your own accord.” I picked up the miniature brick man and looked him over as he squirmed in my hands. Painted eyes and a smiling mouth stared up at me, unmoving. “Seeing him earthbound as he is, I feel . . . sorry for him.”

Alexandra walked over and took him from me, placing Bricksley on the table next to her. “Don’t,” she said. “He’s got a pretty good life. And look how happy he looks!”

“His face is painted on,” I said. “Of course he would seem that way.”

She leaned forward, looking him over.

“I’ll consider it,” she said, setting back to work on the mound of clay next to him. In silence, she sculpted it as I stood there watching, marveling at the grotesque figure that began to emerge before my eyes.

I could have stood watching her work for a century if my guilt over the sad state of my creator’s studio had not taken over, so I set about undoing what damage I could. Even the creature known as Bricksley moved about the space, returning randomly scattered books to the shelves in the library. Only when the heavy thump of footsteps on the roof sounded did I stop.

Alexandra looked up, then turned to me.

“Continue,” I said, heading off to the terrace, barely needing to retract my wings as I went out through the opening. “I will see to whoever is distracting us.”

“Thanks,” she said.

I nodded and took to the sky, rising just high enough to come down on the roof above.

A lone carved figure stood among the broken ruins of other grotesques, its body lean and serpentine features on its face. Its wings were wide, flapping in a nervous rhythm, betraying its mood. The stone itself was finer than mine, more of a textured yellow marble, and despite the new and strange feeling it still was to see others like myself, I could not help but feel my anger rise toward the intruder.

What business it had here was a mystery, but it was one I meant to solve.

Months of frustration, servitude, and not being able to crush Caleb’s head the other night had left me wanting conflict. I ran for the other grotesque, but was only halfway across the rooftop when it spied me and leapt into the air, taking flight.

I took off after it as I had Alexandra the other night, the grotesque even heading uptown the same way, but its flight was not nearly as stable. Its wings fought to strike a steady beat, the creature’s flying only improving when it forced itself into a glide. I was determined not to be outdone by a grotesque that was at best days old. Centuries should give me the upper hand here, and I fought to push myself through the sky even faster in pursuit.

The distance closed between us with every block, but even then it took minutes to catch up, and we were halfway over Central Park before the grotesque was nearly in my grasp.

When the grotesque looked back to find me so close, it dropped lower over the park, hoping perhaps to lose me under the cover of the trees, and that was its crucial mistake. The centuries had taught me how to maneuver through this city, its parks as well, and I dove after the creature, gliding with little effort between the branches and boughs that it struggled to get through.

Only its strength and claws kept its path clear, but even that was enough to slow it down. I pushed my wings harder in flight, closing the gap, and the closer my prey, the more fury I pushed into my pursuit of it. With a final burst, I pulled my wings in close to maximize my speed, slamming into the grotesque and wrapping my arms around it.

We fell from the sky into the park, our bodies and wings tearing through limbs until the two of us hit the ground in a tumble. A wide swath of dirt opened from our impact, the cut of it growing larger and longer as we went. I used the momentum of our roll to give me the advantage when we finally came to a stop, the spread and motion of my wings pushing me into position on top of my prey.

“Which of my father’s men are you?” I shouted at it. With its wings pinned underneath my knees, I balled my hands together and raised them high over my head, ready to unleash my fury upon the creature.

“Please don’t hurt me!” the voice cried out, that of a woman, and I faltered in my downward swing, stopping myself.

“You serve Kejetan Ruthenia, do you not?”

“Yes,” the grotesque shouted, but the voice was an unfamiliar one.

I had known most of the people who had served my father in his human life, the ones who had earned a place as Servants of Ruthenia, but I could not place this one.

“You are not of my father’s kind,” I said, unable to hide the surprise and curiosity in my voice.

The grotesque looked up at me with fear and confusion on its face. “I—I don’t understand,” she said.

“You serve him,” I said, “but yet you are not one of them, not of the Servants of Ruthenia.”

“Please!” she pleaded. “I don’t understand any of this. They told me they’d take me in, that they’d care for me. I don’t understand what has happened to me!” The creature looked at the sharp claws at the tips of her fingers. “Why do I look like this?”

I lowered my arms but did not release her. “Who are you, then?”

The creature’s face struggled as she thought, but her body relaxed. “Emily Hoffert,” she said. “My name is Emily Hoffert.”

“Listen to me, Emily,” I said. “The men who made these promises to you are liars.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head in earnest. “They’ve taken many of us in already.”

I cocked my head. “Us . . . ?”

She nodded. “Yes,” she said. “There are others like me. Lost, confused . . .”

Of course, I thought, remembering the night Kejetan and his men had come to claim their new forms on top of the Belarus Building. There had been far more statues than necessary for the Servants of Ruthenia to occupy.

“How old are you, Emily?” I asked.

Again, she paused in thought. “Twenty-three.”

“And what year is this?”

“It’s 1963,” she said with no hesitation.

“I do not understand how it happened, Emily,” I said, “but it would seem your spirit found this form as its new home.” I stood, freeing her and offering her my hand. She took it and rose, her wings fluttering behind her, but I held her eye, and they calmed after a moment.

“We are going to have to have a long discussion about a few things, Emily,” I said. “But first you must tell me: What did Kejetan promise you when you found yourself in this form the other night?”

“It wasn’t him exactly,” she said. “It was the one called Devon. He offered me safety. He said they had a ship where I would be safe.”

I cringed at hearing the name of Alexandra’s brother. “The Servants of Ruthenia do not make promises lightly.”

“Who are the Servants of Ruthenia?” she asked. “I had not even heard of them until I awoke in this form the other night, when they offered their protection.”

“What price did Devon set for such protection?”

“There was no price,” she said. “He only asked one favor.”

My wings fell against my back, a sinking sensation overwhelming me. “And what was that favor?”

“He told me all I had to do was look for the building on Gramercy Park with all the broken statues on it and if another grotesque should try to talk to me there, I should fly as fast as I could away from it.”

“That,” I said with growing dread, “is what we call a diversion tactic.”

I spread my wings and leapt into the sky.

“Wait!” she cried out. “Don’t leave me here!”

“We will meet again, Emily Hoffert,” I said, already shooting straight up into the night sky. “Seek me out where we met at a later time. Let us hope then, however, I am not as foolish as I was just now.”