CHAPTER#64

"Right." He seemed to forget that. Abella, the home's stone guardian was always watching, always listening. "So yeah. Something is bugging me, but I have no idea what."

"Here." She held out her hand.

"What?" He reached out, expecting her to hand him something. Instead, she grabbed onto his wrist and casually pulled him off the porch, his legs dangling over the yard below. With a flap of her wings, they took to the sky and she did a quick spiral of the house. His stomach threatened to leap out of his body while he watched the ground below twist back and forth.

They landed by the turret on a flat piece of roof. He sat down and Abella leaned against the roof, her tail twitching back and forth.

"I want to show you something." She crouched down, lying flat against the roof. "Get down or he'll see you."

"He?"

"Mister fancy pants." She placed her hand on his head and pushed him prone. They laid this way for several minutes, and Abella lifted her head just enough that she was gazing across the yard. Several minutes passed, and Mike wondered if he was in danger.

"There he is. Move slowly."

He sat up and saw Sebastien slowly cross between the two lions. He twirled his cane and leaned on it, his eyes on the house.

"What are we doing up here?"

"Blowing off steam." She reached across the roof and picked up a large brick.

"Where did that come from?" he asked.

"Construction site down the road." She grinned. "Keep watching, this really pisses him off."

"Okay." Abella cocked her arm, her eyes narrowing. After a couple of seconds, she flung her whole body forward, the brick sailing through the air and smashing through Sebastien's skull. His upper body exploded into sand, his limbs twitching as his golem fell apart.

Abella's wings beat quickly and she soared down to where the sand was busy trying to reform. Flapping her wings, she landed hard, scattering the grains with heavy wing beats. The sand tried to resist her at first, attempting to reform into Sebastien, but she kept at it, swirling him apart. Eventually, the sand had been scattered into the bushes and grass, and she took off, flying back to the roof and landing gently.

"That really pisses him off," she said, making a fist. "Takes him nearly an hour to reform."

"That is pretty funny."

"He has another one down the block that watches me do that." She pointed and he followed her finger. This version of Sebastien was dressed as a jogger, his arms and legs pumping as he ran. "I don't dare fly past the lions to try it with him while he's watching me. He's carrying a wand in his shorts and I don't want to get blasted out of the sky."

"Good. I don't want anything to happen to you." He leaned against the wall of the turret. "So is this what you do for fun? Throw bricks at that asshole?"

"One of the things." Her cheeks darkened. "I often hear you with the others, so that causes, um, distractions."

"I see." He looked around, realizing that nobody would wander by to bother them. Even the fairies weren't flying around up here. He had realized lately that it was difficult to truly be alone with anyone in the house. It was becoming a regular waystation for all the creatures under his roof.

The breeze was nice, but not as nice as the smile on the gargoyle's face.

"Maybe I could use a distraction." He moved closer and touched her skin, his fingers sliding up the thick marble of her thigh. Her flesh yielded only slightly when pressed, but her skin was perfectly smooth, like polished marble. "What do you think?"

"Out here? In the open? What would the neighbors think?" She winked at him, tilting her leg in his direction, opening herself up.

"Huh. It occurs to me that I don't actually know my neighbors."

Abella laughed. "They have almost no idea you exist. The geas messes with their squishy little brains. When Emily first lived here, there were a couple of them who threw neighborhood parties in the summer and stuff like that. She described it as recognizing someone you hadn't seen in a while, but couldn't put a name to the face. She would just introduce herself as the new neighbor, but apparently some of the people would actually notice the house for the first time, so she quit doing that."

"Interesting." He stroked her inner thigh, his fingers running along the creases. He wondered how her muscles were able to flex, if it was driven by magic or if her cells were a unique blend of minerals. "So the house sort of fades away."

"Yep. Your eyes have difficulty focusing on it, like it's trying to blend in with the landscape. I've watched plenty of people walk by and look surprised when they see it, but then they just keep on going as if they've already forgotten. When Tink was little, she used to conduct experiments with the geas, to see what people noticed or didn't. As long as there wasn't a physical interaction, anything abnormal simply didn't register with whoever was looking."

"Physical interaction?"

Abella laughed, pulling up on his shirt to reveal his stomach. "Tink got grounded once for using a stick to trip people as they walked by. People came to the door to yell at Emily for letting her kid wear a Halloween mask in the summer while harassing them. They forgot about it later, but she didn't like that Tink called attention to herself like that."

He chuckled. "I can only imagine."

"So I have a question." Abella touched the scar tissue along his side. "How did this happen? It feels so different from the rest."

"Car accident." He sighed. "I was in a pretty bad accident when I was younger and almost died. The car caught on fire and I got burned and cut up pretty bad. Luckily, it was mostly superficial, but it didn't heal well enough to cover it up."