Myths and Gargoyles Jamie Hawke (i read a book .TXT) 📖

something dark in her expression, but then continued. “Where do you think the video games you know so well got these concepts? A Protector sold out, abandoning her calling, and helped a man in Japan, her lover and a Myth who also went rogue. From there it all developed in ways that no longer relate to what we do, but it should feel familiar to you.”

“Yeah… right.” I approached the screen, looking over relatively unimpressive stats and seeing that there were other screens. Just then, something she said hit me. “But King Arthur—you said all Protectors have been women?”

“No,” she corrected me, “just in my time. Are you ready?”

She clearly didn’t want to discuss the legend of Arthur and how it all tied in, so as curious as I was, I let it go for now. It was damn sure going to come up again though.

“We have to go,” she said. “Quickly, assign your prana.”

My blank stare told her she’d lost me again.

“It means life force, simplistically speaking,” she explained, talking quickly now as we needed to go. “What you get here as the Protector when you defeat Shades. Ichor is more powerful, essentially the same idea though when defeating a Legend… or a Myth, if it ever came to that. Okay?” When I still shrugged, she went to the screen, selected my strength and applied one, then my speed.

A green glow formed over my body, moving to my arms and legs, and then sunk into me, gone.

“Done,” she muttered, glancing at the screen again and then the door. “Like I said, not enough to make a noticeable difference yet, but you’ll get there.”

“Thanks…?” I clenched my hands into fists, wondering if I would feel any different, but I didn’t.

She paused, then tossed the blue sphere my way. “Hold onto that. It’ll help you track this stuff and assign the power where needed, though you don’t exactly need it to do so. We’ll get into all that later.”

I put my hands to my face, trying to understand all of this.

“You don’t have to get it,” she said as if reading my thoughts. “You just have to commit. And right now? Now you have to help me save Red, before it’s too late.”

“Of course,” I said, shaking my head to clear it. “You can understand if it’s all a bit much to swallow.”

“I do.” She held out her hand, in the same way the guy in the car had, which I frowned at, but then accepted as she added, “We can discuss on the road.”

“Great,” I replied, and then went for the door.

She pulled me back. “Not that way.”

“Oh?”

A grin actually spread across her face. “You’re going to like this. Just because we’re riding off to possible defeat, with friends’ lives on the line, doesn’t mean we can’t do it in style.”

Moving to the back wall, she scanned her hand on another section, which caused the bench to move out and reveal a small, narrow staircase. It looked dark and cramped down there—not my idea of ‘in style’ at all. But since she went first and didn’t flinch at the idea, I had no choice but to follow.

It led to a narrow box big enough for basically the two of us and something under a tarp. Pucky gave me a mischievous grin then stepped forward like a lady about to perform a magic trick, and swept the tarp away to reveal the most badass-looking motorcycle I’d ever seen.

The thing about me, though, was I was into painting, going to cons, stuff like that. Riding a motorcycle had never even really crossed my mind, except for maybe when playing with Ninja Turtles when I was young and imagining riding with them to go take down Shredder. And once when I wanted to be Ghost Rider for Halloween, but I quickly got over that idea when the prospect of lighting my head on fire scared me off (it was only later that I learned Chris had been bullshitting me about that requirement as part of the costume, and that I could’ve just bought a mask).

This bike was set up like a Harley with a front fairing (or shield, as Chris always liked to say when I got geeky with knowing the right terms) that reminded me of the prow of an old pirate ship, complete with the bust of a harpy with wings spreading back along the sides for extra protection. The bike itself was glowing green in the darkness, with a wheel on the back but what looked like a hover station on the front beneath the shield, along with a barrel of some sort of gun, I assumed.

“Hop on,” she said, handing me a helmet from a rack on the wall. She took one for herself, and then pulled down on the rack to reveal a small display of pistols and blades, each with their own glow of green, purple, or blue. She selected two of the pistols and tucked them in her belt.

“Like the agents had,” I muttered, almost to myself.

She turned, nodded, and said, “It’s how they fight us, and how we fight Legends. You need enchanted weapons, and this is pure—basically weaponized Ichor. Blood of the gods, they used to say. Now it’s this blood of ‘gods’ that fuels the fight between us.”

“And the agents?” I asked.

“Agents…” She frowned at that, selecting a large pistol for herself and then, considering me, handing over a sheathed knife. “That’s for the Shades, and it’s magic. But for the agents… I imagine you won’t want to be killing them, correct?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Good. We do our best not to. They’re people, after all. Humans who don’t really understand what they’re fighting here, or why. They’ve taken on the help of some Legends to hunt us, but most Legends are on their own, happy to kill human and my kind alike. Our war is not with the humans, as much as they might think it is.”

“So if I’m attacked by agents?”

“Unlikely, as they’d send