Chapter 7: Blood From a Stone

“Morning, Mister Lewis,” West said as Ethan entered through one of the revolving doors. Ethan was momentarily taken aback, but he reminded himself that this was what the gargoyle had promised, that nobody would even remember that Spencer had existed. It seemed a cruel fate, but it was not undeserved after what he had done.

“Good morning, Mister West,” Ethan replied. He hesitated for a moment, wondering if he should risk pushing his luck, but he couldn’t relax until he was certain. “I see that the main desk is empty,” he added, “I don’t suppose you’ve seen Mister Spencer around today?”

“Mister Spencer?” West asked, confused. “Is that a new hiree, Sir? Nobody has manned the main desk as long as I’ve worked here. There’s not much use for a concierge now, not with most of the building unoccupied.”

“Never mind,” Ethan said with a smile, passing by the bemused security guard.

She had really done it. West and Spencer had been close colleagues, if anyone would have remembered him, it would have been the burly guard. Did that mean Ethan was off the hook? By God, could he actually focus on the work that he had been so excited to undertake when he had first accepted the position of facility manager?

He walked straight to the executive elevator, the key still in his pocket. Without Spencer to forbid it, there was nothing unusual about the facility manager going where he pleased. After a quick ride to the top floors, he made his way up the spiral staircase, emerging onto the observation deck. Spencer’s body was indeed gone, there was no evidence that it had ever been there, and there was nothing out of place save for the faint scent of sulfur that lingered in the air.

Ethan couldn’t see the gargoyle, and so he wandered out onto the balcony, enjoying the cool wind as it ruffled his hair. There she was, perched in her usual place, sitting motionless. Ethan began to worry that she had returned to her petrified state, but as he approached her, one of her pointed ears started to flick.

“Welcome back,” she said, turning her bestial face to greet him. The fearsome blend of reptilian and feline features was still there, but it was softer now, somehow less pronounced. Her ruby eyes had lost much of their fiery glow, the vertical pupils now dilated and round. It was almost as though the rage and hunger that had been forced upon her by Spencer had changed her physical appearance in kind, and without his insidious influence, she was returning to a more natural state.

“It’s just as you promised,” Ethan said, leaning against the railing beside her and looking out over the city. The sky was bathed in less ominous oranges and pinks now, a far cry from the blood-red of the morning prior. It seemed like a good omen. “Nobody remembers a thing.”

“The world has changed so much since I was last summoned,” she muttered, Ethan following her gaze. “Back when my sisters and I were worshiped, when we had energy abundant enough to go where we pleased, Athens was one of the largest cities in the world. Its buildings seemed so tall, so grand. Then came the keeps of the dark ages, towering walls of stone, but even those pale in comparison to these constructs of glass and metal.”

“Yesterday, you told me that you’d answer any questions that I had,” Ethan began. She nodded, keeping her eyes on the skyline, wistful. “What ... are you?”

“Belief brings deities and monsters into being,” she replied, Ethan waiting patiently for her to elaborate. “Once, every natural phenomenon and cultural concept was attributed to some kind of God. They ferried the dead, brought victory in war, made crops flourish or fail. We are gestalt. When enough minds come together, when their imaginations sing in harmony, we are made manifest. The energy of worship and belief sustains us. But religions come and go, myths fade from the collective consciousness, and we fade along with them.”

“So ... you’re a God?” Ethan asked skeptically.

“Not anymore,” she chuckled bitterly, raising a stone hand and examining her clawed fingers as though she was seeing them for the first time. “My first incarnation was that of an Erinye, a Fury. We were the Goddesses of vengeance, emerging from Hades to wreak bloody havoc upon the wicked people of Greece. Adulterers, murderers, thieves. Their victims willed us into being through their thirst for retribution, and we were all too happy to oblige, my sisters and I...”

She spoke of her past with longing, as though the bloody retribution that she described with such glee was something that she missed dearly. Perhaps the lead amulet had not been the sole source of her bloodlust...

“We were hellions, flying on bat-like wings, our hair crawling with serpents. But eventually, we were convinced to abandon that lifestyle by Athena, the patron deity of the city in which we resided. So many cities had one in those days. She made us protectors, wardens, she gave us a more prominent role in a new system of justice of her own design. As such, we were worshiped, loved. The nourishing energy flowed.”

“I’m assuming that didn’t last?” Ethan asked, watching the light of the rising sun reflect off the myriad windows of the far-off skyscrapers. It caught her stone hide, too, tiny mineral crystals making her shine as they refracted it.

“Empires rose and fell, as did pantheons,” she said mournfully. “New beliefs subsumed the old. Some deities adapted themselves to new roles, while others faded from existence, starved of vital energy. In those times, it was common for lesser deities to enter into the service of greater ones, taking a share of their energy in exchange for services rendered. Gone were the days where we could walk the Earth amongst the mortals at our leisure.”

Her great wings unfurled, Ethan’s eyes drawn to the defined muscles in her back and shoulders that powered them, shifting beneath her grey skin. The limbs resembled a second pair of muscular arms, the fingers elongated, the spaces between them joined by webbed skin like a bat or a pterodactyl. She might be animated by magick, but her body seemed as real as his own. It was driven by muscle and sinew just as an organic creature was, and it obeyed the same physical laws. Like a bird longing to take flight, she almost seemed to be trying to catch the wind, as though the memory of a freedom now lost was too much to bear.

“Bifrons was one of them,” she continued. “My master once went by the name of Janus, but he now serves mortal summoners, nourishing himself and his legions of dependents with the energy that they provide.”

“So you went from being worshiped as Gods to doing work for hire?” Ethan asked. “That has to be a ... rough transition. That’s like a celebrity being reduced to taking odd-jobs on Craigslist.” She turned her reptilian snout in his direction and cocked an eyebrow at him, not understanding the reference. That might be for the better. “How did you end up here, like this?” he continued as he gestured to her stony body.

“My sisters and I continued our work as protectors, just as we had in Athens. During the dark ages, the sorcerers who advised Kings and Nobles often sought our help to protect their keeps. We would perch upon the battlements and frighten away their enemies with our terrifying visages, springing into action when serious threats emerged. It seems that we started somewhat of a tradition,” she muttered as she nodded to one of the adjacent gargoyles. “The likeness is far from perfect, but I suppose I should be flattered that we are remembered still.”

She rose from her perch, Ethan moving out of her path as she stepped down onto the balcony, the stone beneath his feet shaking with the impact. She began to walk towards the door, and so he followed beside her as she continued her story.

“When Spencer failed in his attempt to buy eternal life from Bifrons, he instead asked him for a familiar, someone to protect him and his secrets. Bifrons sent me to watch over him and this building, an obvious choice. But once I was under his power, Spencer bound me to this stone statue and affixed the seal about my neck. How ironic, to be confined within the very vessel that my likeness inspired.”

“If he had managed to accumulate enough souls,” Ethan began, disgusted by the idea that Spencer had been treating them as mere units of currency to be bartered. “Would Bifrons have given him what he wanted?”

“Some Demons accept souls as payment,” the gargoyle replied, her lips pulling back to expose her teeth in an expression of displeasure. “They feed on powerful emotions like pain and fear, the more intense, the better. They draw their energy from blood sacrifices. Bifrons is not one of them, and he would not have given Spencer what he asked for, no matter how many souls were offered to him in payment. I doubt that any Demon would, even the most ... depraved.”

“Why is that?” Ethan asked. “Is it not something they have the power to do?”

“Oh, they have the power to do it,” she continued. “But not the will. Mortals are meant to live and die, the idea of disrupting that process goes against the natural order. It is offensive.”

“But Spencer didn’t know that?”

“Perhaps he simply chose not to believe it,” she replied with a shrug of her stony shoulders. “He couldn’t turn back, not after what he had done to reach that point.” Her expression darkened, a hint of the fury that he had seen in her returning for a moment as she snarled like an angry wolf, her snout wrinkling. “For a deity of justice and retribution to be forced to partake in such activities ... he must have derived some sick pleasure from it.”

Ethan took a seat on one of the old leather recliners in the observation lounge, arranged around a small table with a couple of other chairs. It had once looked out over the city, but now the windows were too grimy to see through. The gargoyle stood nearby, towering over him, her leathery wings folded across her back almost like a cape.

“I guess that explains where you came from and how you got here,” Ethan said. It was no more unbelievable than anything else that he had seen over the last couple of days. “But one more thing has been bothering me. The ghosts ... where did they go? What happens after we die? Spencer said that there were worlds besides our own, but he never really elaborated on what that meant. Are Heaven and Hell real places?”

“Yes, and no,” she replied. “What you refer to as Hell is our abode, an immaterial realm of pure emotion in which the thoughts and feelings of its denizens blend in a chaotic soup. The physical barriers that separate individual minds are absent there. To be summoned is a reprieve, to be free to experience the world as mortals do a rare delight. Sight, sound, taste, touch. These are things that we go eons without. As to where the dead go when they die, in truth, I cannot say. Demons do not possess souls in the way that mortals do. We are forever bound to our realm, only able to make brief jaunts into yours when our stores of energy allow it.”

“So it remains a mystery,” Ethan muttered, remembering what the man in the cap had told him in the elevator. Maybe it was better not to know.

“The matter of your ‘glow’ is more pertinent,” she added, taking a few steps closer. Ethan leaned back in his chair in alarm, sinking into the leather padding as she boxed him in, her claws digging into the armrests as she leaned closer. The frame of the old chair creaked as she rested some of her weight on it, her biceps bulging from beneath her granite-textured skin. Her feline nose hovered near his neck, the living rock flexing as she seemed to take in his scent.

“What do you mean?” he asked, freezing up as her red eyes scrutinized him. He tried to keep his gaze off her chest, where a pair of stone breasts the size of his head were on full display, paradoxically firm and inflexible. Some parts of her body seemed to be less animate than others, as though she was only partially alive.

“The spirits were drawn to you because of what they called your ‘glow’. Your soul is ... uncommonly vibrant,” she explained, her tone covetous. Ethan felt a pang of fear, wondering how much control over herself she really had. Was she about to make a meal of him?

“Still not following you,” he complained, his eyes wandering down to her lips. They were thick and puffy, concealing rows of carnivore teeth that were shaped like stone knives. Her skin was oddly textured, it was hard to tell if it was a result of the rock from which her vessel had been hewn, or if she was covered in fine scales.

“You ask me to describe a sense which mortals do not possess,” she replied, those red eyes wandering up and down his body as he shrank into his seat. “I might as well try to describe the color of a smell or the sound of a flavor. Some souls shine brighter than others, imbued with greater energies. The spirits that were trapped here were drawn to you, the only light in the darkness, and you are sensitive enough that they could reach out to you from beyond the veil. You might have been a temple priest or a prophet if you had been born in a time in which your gifts were recognized, but so too might you have been plagued by hungry spirits who sought to feed on you. It is a double-edged sword.”

She reached down and pressed one of her claws beneath his chin, making him lift his head reflexively as it pricked him, examining him more closely.

“I have a confession to make,” she added, “I still need your help.”

“But I already freed you,” he replied, his brow furrowing as she released him.

“When you tore the pendant from about my neck, you freed me from Spencer’s control, but I am still confined within this vessel. I lack the energy necessary to escape it, and to return to my master’s side in the immaterial realm.”

“Why can’t Bifrons come and get you?” Ethan asked as she rose to a standing position, her wings casting him into shadow as they flexed idly. “Don’t you get your energy from him?”

“Any action on his part also expends energy,” she replied. “I need not trouble him if I have found an abundant source...”

Ethan swallowed conspicuously, his heartbeat starting to quicken. His reaction didn’t escape her attention, and she opened her jaws as she laughed at him, exposing her serrated fangs. Even the interior of her mouth and her tapered tongue were made from stone, she was the same color inside as out.

“Do not fret, little morsel. I’m not going to hurt you. There are ... other ways to share energy besides sacrifice and worship.”

“Do I have a choice?” Ethan asked skeptically.

“Of course you do,” she replied, her sweet tone unconvincing. “Everything that a Demon does is contractual, I cannot act without your consent.”

“So I have to make a contract with you?” he added, the gargoyle nodding her head. “I’d like to know what I’m agreeing to beforehand, you still haven’t explained what these ‘other ways’ to share energy entail.”

“Surely you can guess?” she said, planting her hands on her wide hips as her pointed tail whipped back and forth behind her. “If a Demon can feed on powerful emotions and sensations like pain and fear, then it stands to reason that they can also feed on...”

She gestured to him, waiting for him to figure it out for himself. He thought for a moment, his cheeks starting to redden as he considered the implication.

“Pleasure, and ... I don’t know what the opposite of fear is.”

“Joy,” she purred, “and you are correct.”

“I don’t want to be presumptuous,” Ethan said, dancing around the issue. “But are you suggesting that we...”

“What’s the matter?” she asked, baring her sharp teeth in a sly grin as she watched him sweat in the armchair. “Are you afraid of me?”

“I think I have good cause to be afraid of you,” he replied indignantly. “I don’t even know your name, and in case you’d forgotten, you’re made of stone. How would that even work?”

“My name is Alecto,” she replied.

“Oh,” Ethan mumbled, “does it mean something in ancient Greek?”

“Constant anger.”

“Okay then...”

“As for how we would go about it,” she continued, tapping a claw against her chin pensively as she considered. It made a rather distracting sound, like two pieces of flint being struck together to start a fire. “That old bastard left me with scarcely enough energy to animate this vessel, so I lack the reserves to fashion a more ... suitable body for myself, a construct of flesh and blood. We will have to make do with what we have.”

“That’s not exactly the most appealing proposition I’ve ever heard,” Ethan muttered.

“Tell me, do your people still tell the story of Pygmalion?” Alecto asked. Ethan shook his head. “He was a Cypriot sculptor who carved a statue of a woman from a block of ivory. It was so beautiful and true to life that he fell madly in love with it, inanimate thing that it was. He was so enamored with his creation that he made offerings at the altar of Aphrodite, asking her to deliver to him a bride in the likeness of his ivory woman, but it was the Goddess Venus who answered his heartfelt pleas. When he returned home, he kissed his statue, finding that its lips had become warm. The more he touched it, the more the ivory lost its hardness, becoming as living flesh.”

“Did that really happen?” Ethan asked.

“Sure, why not,” she muttered dismissively. “The point is, with enough energy, I can transform this cold stone into warm flesh. I can create blood, nerves, breath. But like a serpent basking beneath the morning sun, I must warm myself, free myself from this lethargy. You shall be my sun.”

“Yeah ... I don’t know about this,” Ethan replied, making no attempt to disguise his apprehension. If he really did have a choice in the matter, then if he told her no, she would have to accept his decision.

“Do you have a wife, is that the problem?” the gargoyle asked.

“No, I don’t have a wife,” he chuckled.

“Good,” she continued with a nod of her head, “because I do so abhor adulterers.”

Ethan swallowed, wondering what her reaction would have been if he had said yes.

“There’s no polite way to phrase this,” he began, “so I’ll just come out and say it. I’m not attracted to your ... vessel.”

Alecto rolled her red eyes, then gestured to her herself with her sharp talons.

“Are powerful women no longer desired in this age? Perhaps your people prefer them dainty, and acquiescent, but strength and vigor were sought after in my time. This body is not so different from one that I would have fashioned for myself,” she continued as she drew his attention to her midriff. “Look at this strong core. Imagine it not as lifeless rock, but slick with sweat, glistening under the Mediterranean sun. Does that thought not excite you?”

His eyes traced the contours of her abdominal muscles, a defined six-pack bulging from her otherwise flat stomach in two perfect rows, framing her navel. Calling them chiseled was doubly apt, both because they had literally been carved from stone, and because of their flawless shape and symmetry. They shifted beneath her grey skin as she moved, flexing subtly, the light that bled in through the dirty windows casting deep shadows that served only to accentuate them further. As thick and as sturdy as her midsection was, it still had a pronounced, feminine shape on account of her hips. They formed a curving hourglass, so wide that he doubted whether his fingers would meet if he wrapped his arms around her.

Whoever had sculpted her had included even the most minute details, not neglecting a smooth mound of Venus that was flanked by her pelvic bones, which rose subtly from beneath her skin. Her stout thighs were about as thick around as his torso, so packed with muscle that he could see the dimples, yet sheathed in what looked like a layer of fat. His eyes told him that it would yield beneath his fingers, buttery soft, but it didn’t behave as fat should. It didn’t shake when she walked, and it didn’t appear to give when her thighs brushed together. It seemed as though any flesh that wasn’t necessary for movement had been left in a petrified state.

He didn’t dare let his eyes wander between her legs, fearing that her creator had been far more anatomically correct than was appropriate for a gargoyle. Then again, she had already changed aspects of her vessel to suit her needs, so it was possible that the details were her own doing.

“Or perhaps fertility is more appealing to you,” she continued, cupping one of her generous breasts. It was large enough to fill her palm completely, and her hand was at least twice the size of his own. The flesh here too was immovable, hewn from solid rock, but that did nothing to detract from her impressive bosom. Her boobs had been lovingly sculpted, huge by normal standards, but more appropriate on her seven-foot frame. They had no nipples, lending credence to his suspicion that she was influencing the statue that she had come to inhabit. Their alluring, teardrop shape was so realistic that it tricked his brain into expecting them to wobble with her every motion, so full and heavy.

He realized that his gaze was lingering on them, and he looked away, embarrassed by his lapse.

“We were born of Gaia, you know,” she said with a smirk. She had noticed his change in demeanor, Ethan keeping his hands clasped in his lap so as to conceal any involuntary reactions that might encourage her. “We were as much deities of fertility as of vengeance and justice.”

She planted her hands on the armrests of the recliner again, looming over Ethan as he shrank away from her, her lips curled into a knowing smile.

“Just say yes,” she hissed, her cold snout brushing against his warm cheek. “How often does a mortal get the opportunity to lie with a Goddess? You won’t soon forget the experience...”

Ethan turned his head away from her, the gargoyle hovering with those sharp teeth not an inch from his neck. He realized that he wasn’t saying no, he wasn’t telling her to back off. Of all the confusing and strange situations that he had been in over the last couple of days, why did it feel like this one was the most outrageous? She seemed to be able to smell the arousal on him, her stone tongue emerging to toy with one of her pointed incisors as she peered down at him with her crimson eyes.

“I sense it,” she whispered eagerly, the frame of the chair creaking in protest as she leaned more of her immense weight on it. “You can’t hide anything from me, Ethan, I see beyond the flesh. That fluttering sensation in the pit of your stomach, those shivers crawling up your spine like cold fingers, the way that your heart feels like it’s going to burst. You feel as though the strength is being sapped from your body, as though you’re melting like a wax candle.” She brought her lips to within a hair’s breadth of his ear, her husky voice low and lascivious. “Give in to it...”

“I ... don’t trust you,” he muttered, trying to keep his eyes off her leering face. “If I say yes, I don’t know what’s going to happen. Everything that I know about you is warning me not to get entangled with you, not to give you any power over me, that it would be safer to refuse.”

“And isn’t that wonderful?” she purred, “not knowing what awaits you? If you’re wondering whether you can handle me, whether you can keep up ... you can’t,” she added gleefully. “I’ve exhausted Athenian warriors in their prime, but that shouldn’t dissuade you. If it makes you feel more confident, we can discuss the terms of our arrangement beforehand. If I promise not to harm you, not to cause you any distress, I will be bound by my word. A verbal contract.”

She could very easily be lying, and he would have no way to know, but Ethan finally gave in to her persuasion. If she merely wanted to drain him like a battery, then what could he have done to stop her? There must be some truth to what she was saying, she really did want his permission.

“Alright,” he mumbled, her toothy grin widening in anticipation. “You can’t injure me in any way, or cause me any distress, physical or emotional. You have to stop if I tell you to. And...” He hesitated, his cheeks flushing as he tried to get the words out. “You have to be ... gentle.”

She threw her head back and laughed heartily at that, amused by his request.

“I agree to your terms,” she finally said, her sordid chuckling coming to an end. “I will take the energy that I require, all without harming a hair on your head, and I will obey if you should ask me to stop. But if you want my opinion, I doubt that the word ‘stop’ will ever pass your lips, not least because they’ll be occupied...”

“S-shouldn’t I be getting something out of this arrangement?” Ethan added, realizing that the terms of the contract were rather one-sided.

“Oh, but you are, little morsel. You’re getting a once in a lifetime experience.”

She reached down and gripped his wrist, her touch as cold as the grave, pulling his hand away from his lap to expose the erection that was tenting his slacks.

“That’s more like it,” she cooed, “the time for modesty and restraint has passed.”

Ethan recoiled as she drew closer, her cold nose brushing his own, moving in as though intending to kiss him. She parted her lips, but as thick and as inviting as they were, they were still fashioned from lifeless rock. How was this supposed to work?

He felt like there were butterflies swarming in his stomach as she embraced him, her weight pressing him back into the faded leather of the armchair. Maybe he should do as she said, and give in to this feeling, let himself go.

Her lips were hard and cold, inflexible. He might as well be making out with a breeze block. Their texture was like rough granite, and she had no breath, no scent. Her head was so massive and heavy that her kiss had the opposite effect that she had intended. It was hard to be aroused when you were in danger of being crushed by a giant rock.

“Relax,” she whispered, her hard tongue clicking against the roof of her mouth as she spoke. “I just need a little energy to get us started. You’re not convinced right now, but just wait until these lips are warm and wet. You’ll come around...”

The implication sent another throb of anticipation through him, which she seemed to pick up on. Alecto couldn’t do anything physical to him, not yet, so she was using a little suggestion to get his blood flowing.

“Don’t worry,” she murmured, her husky voice taking on an even more sordid tone. “The more energy you give me, the softer and warmer I’ll become. I’ll be gentle ... enough.”

His erection was straining against his pants now, her red eyes fixing on the conspicuous bulge. Their lips met once more, a stone claw beneath Ethan’s chin encouraging him to lift his head so that she could reach him, their difference in stature exacerbated by him sitting down. He expected the same unpleasant texture of rough stone, but instead, he found them as soft as marshmallows. His eyes widened as he felt their smooth, fleshy texture, the warmth that they radiated. They were alive, he could feel them moving. When she pulled away, he saw that their grey color had flushed pink, as though blood was rushing into them. The rest of her face was still stone, patches of green lichen clinging to it in places, but the healthy color was slowly spreading.

She was making use of every ounce of energy that he was giving her, only focusing on the areas of her body that she needed to use right now.

She locked him in a more passionate embrace this time, slow and measured, the warmth and life spreading through her as though she was sucking it directly from his body like a vampire. Their lips interlocked despite their difference in size, Alecto pressing him deeper into the plush chair as she mouthed softly. Ethan felt something hot and wet dart into his mouth, his heart skipping a beat as he realized that it was the tip of her tongue. What had once been cold, dry rock was now warm and inviting, its smooth surface damp with what tasted like saliva.

His spine arched from the armchair involuntarily as she pushed more of its fat coils past his lips, subjecting him to a kiss deeper and more ravenous than any that he had experienced before. What felt like wet silk grazed his palette, its questing tip glancing his inner cheeks, the tickling sensation making him flinch with every stroke. Her winding organ was larger than a person’s would have been, thick and muscular, in line with the rest of her impressive physique. It moved with such skill and finesse, her control over it so precise, its practiced movements more like the tentacle of an octopus than a tongue.

Her deft flurries and gentle licks began to make him light-headed, a sensation of warmth coming over him as his heart started to beat faster, making him feel like he was melting into his seat. A voice in the back of his mind kept telling him that he shouldn’t be doing this, that he was making a mistake by falling under her spell, but her kiss oozed such palpable desire and tenderness. She wanted to please him so badly, ‘needed’ to please him, and he didn’t give a damn why at that moment.

As his eyes slowly began to close of their own accord, Alecto setting the pace, he felt her cup his cheek in one of her large hands. They were somewhere between those of a human, and the paw of a bear or a lion, devoid of fur but still cushioned with fleshy pads. The skin was smooth, indistinguishable from his own. Her five fingers were tipped with curved claws that resembled those of an eagle, which she kept clear as she cradled his head, Ethan finding himself pushing into her palm. For something that had looked so dangerous, it was remarkably inviting, like a living pillow.