I can’t tell you how many celebrity crushes I’ve had that were dashed to pieces when I found out they were super short dudes.īut the gargoyle was tall. It can be hard to tell in videos and pictures. I had never met or seen any other gargoyles in real life, so I didn’t know if most gargoyles were tall or not.

I was always wary, always watching for them. Things that stalked my dreams and haunted the periphery of my vision. I’ve had more experience being chased than I care to think about.Īnd usually, I was being chased by things that were much less nice to look at than the gargoyle was.

He didn’t give any outward sign that he’d seen me, but I could sense an alertness in him, and I knew he was here for me. In fact, if I did, that would be pretty hypocritical, considering I’m a witch and all. Not that I have anything against magical creatures, per se. They kept to the cities, or to their own places. In this area, magical creatures didn’t show up very often. And it was especially hard to blend in as a gargoyle. This was a small town, it wasn’t easy to blend in. He was sitting on a bench on the adjacent street, and he wasn’t facing me. I came out the back door, into the alley behind the place, and there he was, down at the end of the street. I had caught sight of him right away, when I left The Sunset Diner, the restaurant where I worked. This guy? He thought that I didn’t know that he was there, but I knew. Watch TV, eat a snack, read a trashy magazine, or even go through social media stalking boys I used to have crushes on in high school and convince myself I’m better off without them. There are lots of other things I’d rather do. It’s not high on my list of ways I’d like to spend my evening. He’d been following me for nearly six blocks.

As soon as she gets some coffee, that is. And it’s true that the other primals seem to subscribe to the philosophy, “Fight hard. She can’t help but want to loosen him up a bit. She’s been fighting them her whole life, and they haunt her nightmares.īut that hot gargoyle that recruited her said that she was pretty much the only hope to save the world. Petra would rather carve the word “primal” into her own stomach than fight those freaking creatures. Those creatures are pouring through a breach in the fabric of the universe right into the college’s library. Her innate magic is uniquely suited to fighting monstrous creatures from another dimension. But she was recruited to this “prestigious mage college” because she’s something called a primal. Petra Brightshade was under the impression that college meant going to, like, classes.

Witch and Moan by Val St. Crowe