She was, however, curious about why Cash and I showed up together again this morning, this time stumbling into the shop out of breath at the same exact time.
I’d been planning to walk to the Wharf last night, but cutting a goat out of a fence had thrown that plan right out of the window. Cash had insisted that I ride with him and by the time I’d showered and gotten dressed I didn’t have it in me to argue with him.
“Okay, now youhaveto tell me what’s going on between you and our broody neighborhood gargoyle,” she whispered to me as we wiped down all of the furniture in the waiting room. Her vines were out in full force, one using the spray bottle to douse everything while the others wiped with paper towels.
The morning had been relatively slow, so once Effie finished up her tasks upstairs she’d come right down to bug me.
“He saw me walking and gave me a ride as a favor,” I insisted, looking anywhere but at the nymph as I sprayed with one hand and wiped with the other. Not as efficient as Effie, but it got the job done.
Effie snorted inelegantly. “Cash? Doing a favor? Please. That gargoyle doesn’t do favors.”
I was saved from answering her when the bell over the door rang.
“Hi, welcome in! Do you have an appointment?” I asked, wiping my hands on my jeans and hurried over to the desk and logged back into my computer.
“Yeah, at eleven.” The voice was so monotone that it made me look up from what I was doing.
I barely contained my gasp. Standing in front of the desk was another gargoyle. He looked somewhat like Cash, but his jaw was blockier and his eyes were more of a slate rather than a silver. But unlike Cash, he had a pair of impressive stone wings tucked against his back.
Effie was at my side in a blink. “Hello, Brendan, I’m surprised your clan agreed to allow you to come here at all.”
There was a note of anger in Effie’s voice and when I glanced over at her I found her green eyes glaring daggers up at the gargoyle.
“There’s only one tattoo artist within a thousand miles that can tattoo stone skin,” was all the gargoyle said, his voice still an even-keel. “So, they made an exception.”
This gargoyle’s demeanor made Cash’s somber attitude seem absolutely bubbly by comparison.
Effie looked as if she wanted to tell the gargoyle to get the hell out of the shop, but instead she just sighed and slammed one of the intake clipboards onto the counter.
“Fill this out and remember: you treat Cash with respect. We don’t give a shit about gargoyle politics here. You treat him bad and I’ll blacklist you and your whole damn clan and I’ll put a call in to the other stone skin artist on the East Coast and make sure you can’t get inked by her either,capiche?” Even as tiny as she was, Effie still managed to look threatening as she waited for him to respond to her threat.
“Of course,” he harrumphed, like her warning was ridiculous.
Effie didn’t seem totally convinced, but she still turned and hurried down the hall to get Cash anyway.
Turning my attention back to the gargoyle in front of me, I tried to paste a friendly smile on my face. “You can go ahead and sit over there, Cash will call you when he’s ready. You can give me the clipboard when you’re done.”
Instead of looking at me or acknowledging me at all, Brendan just turned and headed to sit down.
“Okay… guess you’re not fond of humans,” I muttered under my breath, knowing he could probably hear me with those stone ears of his. “Note to self: not all gargoyles are created equal.”
Brendan’s head snapped up, a flicker of irritation on his chiseled features.
I was convinced that he was going to snap at me for daring to disrespect him, but he never got the chance because Cash’s footsteps were rumbling down the hall.
In his hurry to get to the front, he forgot to duck underneath the human-sized door frame and ended up whacking his forehead on it, his horns tangling in the metallic hanging beads as he cursed.
I’d gotten a look at the top of the door frame after my first day of watching all of the monsters above six feet nearly clothesline themselves on it and it was sporting several cranium sized dents.
Cash rubbed at his forehead before turning his attention to the other gargoyle. He looked smaller than Brendan, but I was sure that it was just the absence of wings. “Brendan, good to see you.”
Brendan stood up, and just like he had with me, he didn’t acknowledge Cash at all, not even sparing Cash a glance as he passed by him to duck through the beaded curtains. Cash’s shoulders sagged a bit.
Anger sparked deep in my chest, and without thinking, I reached out to grab Cash’s hand before he could follow the other gargoyle to the back.
The contact was brief and electric, like static in the winter. I quickly let go, frowning at my fingers for a moment before speaking.
“Why did you let him treat you like that?” I asked, not even bothering to whisper.
