Valor (A Greystone Novel)

Valor

A Greystone Novel

Book One

by Taylor Longford

Smashwords Edition

ISBN 9780983707820

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Valor Copyright 2011 © Taylor Longford

www.taylorlongford.com

Electronic Book Publication June 2011

This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Taylor Longford.

Warning: Any unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The names, characters, places and incidents are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

Books in the Greystone Series:

Valor

Dare

Reason

Defiance

Chaos

Victor

VALOR

A GREYSTONE NOVEL

Book One

by

Taylor Longford

Dedication

For Star

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Epilogue

About the Author

Valor's Prologue

The first thing you should know about gargoyles is that we're incredibly patient. But you might have already guessed that.

Perhaps less obvious is the fact that our hearing is exceptional. Which is probably a good thing when you consider how long we were stuck between those walls in York. Because, even though we couldn't see anything except for the pile of gray stones we were facing, at least we could hear. So we were able to keep up with the times by listening to the various occupants who came and went over the hundreds of years we were trapped in the house built against the old Roman walls.

Finally, you might like to know that gargoyles are territorial by nature. We look after our own and are driven by instinct to protect the home and hearth and the people we consider to be our family and friends. So, it's hardly surprising that when I found myself face-to-face with a girl of approximately my own age for the first time in eight hundred years, my first instinct was to protect her.

Of course, my senses told me a lot about the girl who needed my help since gargoyles can tell if someone is good or bad just by getting close to them. Don't ask me to explain how it works; I can't. But we can sense good and evil just like we can sense cold and heat. As a result, we're quick to make friends and don't waste any time making enemies.

But let me go back to the beginning and explain how we were trapped in the first place. And let me make it clear that it was all Havoc's fault.

It all started on a rare sunny day in thirteenth century England. Due to unfortunate circumstances beyond our control, we were trying to avoid a particularly nasty gang of harpies.

Harpies are as ugly as sin, which is probably being unkind to sin. What could I possibly say about harpies that wouldn't make you hate them the way I do? Okay. They make adequate mothers, tending their young until they fly at the age of five. But it's a wonder they ever have any young, when you take their looks into consideration.

Anyhow, it was late afternoon and they'd run us to ground in front of the old Roman wall. I wanted to take our chances and fight. So did Dare and most of the pack. But Havoc convinced us to make the change—to take on our stone forms—arguing that the harpies couldn't harm us as long as we were solid stone. So with the monsters right on our heels, we ducked inside a small deserted croft so no humans would witness our transformation. And as the afternoon sunlight slanted through the hut's small windows, we used its energy to make the change.

Havoc thought it would be funny as hell to see the harpies' faces when they realized they couldn't have us and couldn't hurt us. He's always had a warped sense of humor.

Unfortunately, harpies have a sense of humor as well.

And when they found us in our stone forms, they thought it would be equally hilarious to imprison us far from the sun's rays. So using large blocks of gray rock, they walled us in while chuckling the whole time, as if it was the best time they'd ever had in their lives. Then the wicked creatures left us there to rot. At least I think that's the term they used. 'Course we weren't going to rot or even erode. Instead we were going to wait for as long as it took the sun to find us again.

We realized we were probably going to be trapped in our stone forms until the walls crumbled down around us but, as I mentioned, gargoyles are patient. We knew one day those walls would crumble. And when the sunlight finally speared through a weathered crack and fell on us, we'd come to life ready to start up where we'd left off. The waiting would suck but, on the upside, we figured there was a good chance the harpy race would die out while we were waiting…and we'd be free to live out our lives in peace.

Needless to say, the croft changed hands many times as the centuries passed. And although we couldn't see anything while we were trapped between the walls, it was clear the original hut experienced many additions and renovations.

While that was going on, the printing press was invented and started churning out books and newspapers. Reading aloud became a relatively common pastime and helped to keep us informed. Eventually, the radio came along, which hugely expanded our knowledge of the world as well as sports. And it didn't seem too long after that that the television moved in to our house, although I think we all preferred the radio. The radio just seemed more articulate.

But by the time the twenty-first century rolled around, we rarely heard mention of harpies anymore, or gargoyles for that matter. We'd occasionally hear vague references to them on the television but they no longer seemed to be a part of everyday life. Instead, they seemed to have been assigned to some hazy past that smacked of myth and legend.

Then the quiet man came. He was probably only quiet because he was alone and had no one to talk to. But it was clear he was doing something to our house. We could hear him stripping away parts of the building. The creaks and cracks echoed through the walls and we assumed the house was going through another renovation.

Fortunately, he left the television on whenever he was home and he was home most of the time, so we were glad to have him. And eventually, he worked his way to the back of the house where he did something none of the previous residents had ever done. He tapped on the stone wall that stood between us and the sun's light.

MacKenzie

Chapter One

Five days before Halloween, I sat on the hood of my green Jeep Cherokee inside the garage. The doors were open and I looked out on the pine forest that surrounded my home in the foothills outside Denver. The morning was sunny and mild but that wasn't too unusual for October.

We had the day off school and I'd gotten my driver's license exactly one week earlier so I'd made plans to hang out with my friends, Whitney and Mim. That was before the step-Greg called and told me about an important shipment he'd sent to the house. He wanted to be sure there was someone home when the delivery was made. Since my mom had just left for California, it meant I had to hang around.

I didn't like Greg despite his charm and charisma, which he laid on thick for my mother but spread a little more thinly for me. And I didn't approve of his questionable business practices. There were rules and regulations set in place for the removal of antiquities from the UK and Greg didn't appear to follow any of them. My mother didn't seem to realize what was going on; she was too busy with her job.

Anyhow, I was supposed to call him as soon as his shipment arrived, regardless of the hour. I glanced at my watch. Ten a.m. in Colorado made it five p.m. in England. I couldn't help but wish I were in England. If I were, I'd have taken a train to Oxford to see my cousins.

Hooligan had followed me out of the house but wasted no time galloping off into the woods to harass the local rabbit population. Hooligan's my Irish wolfhound. Not that he looks like a wolf; he's not nearly that good looking. Picture a greyhound on steroids having a bad hair day and you'll have a good idea of what Hooli looks like.

Wolfhounds aren't the most handsome breed of dog, just the biggest. They're huge. They're tall and lanky and supposedly can bring down a deer when they want to. Thankfully, Hooligan likes his dinner in a bowl so the deer that visit our three acres come and go in peace.

My mom got Hooli for me two years ago when he was a puppy. He was supposed to protect me when she was out of town on business. I figured he made an adequate guard dog. He liked Mim and Whitney, was wary of most males and hated the neighbor in particular. That made him a good judge of character in my book.

My phone vibrated inside the pocket of my hoodie and I pulled it out. I answered a text from Mim and spent some time browsing through cheap apps for my phone. After downloading the latest free game, I bought a travel app that tracks the location of your phone and shows its position on a map. When I started the app, it displayed a map of the town I live in. A round, red target symbol flashed at the approximate location of my house.

I figured the program would come in handy for the trip to Portland Mim and I were planning when school got out for the summer. Not that I thought we'd actually be allowed to go, but sometimes you just have to plan for the best.

The sound of a chainsaw snarling to life cut into my thoughts and set my teeth on edge. The neighbor had started cutting trees a few weeks ago. At first, my mom and I assumed he was just thinning the forest around his house. My biology teacher, Mr. Kincaid, figured the forest around Pine Grove could do with some serious thinning. But it soon became obvious that the neighbor planned to remove all the trees on his lot. He'd started at his back door and had taken down every single tree that stood between his house and our property line. Then he moved downhill.

A stiff breeze growled through the branches of the lodgepole pines. The forest sounded angry. Or at least damn irritated. I gritted my teeth. If the next-door tree-slayer had wanted a damn lawn, why hadn't he bought a home in the city?

It wasn't the revving of the chainsaw that bothered me; it was the sound of the wood ripping as the trees fell. Not that I'm a tree hugger or anything. Mr. K. is one of my favorite teachers and if he says two out of three trees around my home need to go, I'm good with that. But clear cutting three acres for no apparent reason just seemed like wholesale murder to me.

Feeling edgy, I left my phone on the Jeep's hood and slid to my feet, pacing through the garage doors just in time to see a blue and white delivery van bouncing up the long, steep driveway toward the house. Automatically, I checked to make sure all of my hair was tucked into my blue slouch cap, just in case the driver happened to be cute. Mim knitted the cap for my birthday and I wear it all the time. It's easier than trying to make my hair behave. My hair is red. Dark red and thick. Thankfully, my eyebrows and lashes are darker and tamer. But trying to get a comb through my hair is like trying plow a field of scrub oak.

But I'd wasted my time worrying about my hair because the driver was disappointingly middle aged. And the shorts he was wearing were a bad fashion choice for a man with his knees. Maybe he thought his designer sunglasses balanced the look he had going. Sadly, the glasses fell a bit short of getting the job done.

The driver strolled around the side of his van and opened the rear doors. No school today? he asked, his jaw working around a big wad of pink gum.

Four day weekend, I answered. We're off Monday as well.

Must be nice, he grunted. He used a dolly to move a tall wooden crate inside the empty garage bay where my mother normally parks her car. I gotta get me a job as a teacher.

The teachers don't get any time off. Friday and Monday are in-service days.

Then I gotta get me a job as a student, he chuckled as if he found himself extremely entertaining.

Where are the others? I asked, eyeing the van's interior through the open doors.

He stopped chewing his gum long enough to ask, Others?

My stepfather told me to expect three crates.

He checked his electronic clipboard and shrugged. He must have sent them in separate shipments. Maybe the other two will make it tomorrow.

I lifted my chin in a slight nod and signed the clipboard, hoping Greg didn't expect me to wait at home again tomorrow.

Name? the driver asked without looking at my signature.

MacKenzie, I answered. My handwriting wasn't that bad; he could have taken a look and figured it out.

"Last name," he corrected me.

Campbell.

Have a nice day, he rattled off mechanically before he returned to the van and steered it back down to the road.

"Thanks, I muttered. And as the dust settled on the gravel driveway, I stood alone with the wooden packing crate, wondering what national treasure Greg had deprived the British of this time. I even walked around it a few times inside the dark garage, looking for a crack or a loose panel that might give me a glimpse of what was inside. But the crate wasn't giving up any secrets. The step-person had done a good job of sealing the wooden box.

At that point, I should have given up and walked away. Greg had told me to call him when the shipment arrived and nothing more. He hadn't said one word about checking the contents. But even though I knew all that, I headed for the giant red tool chest at the far end of the garage.

Technically, the tool chest belonged to my father but he didn't have room for it in his garage in Denver. So after the divorce, he left it behind with us. The thing was massive and almost as tall as me. I love my dad but he tends to overdo everything. He can't do anything small. It always has to be big. Anyhow, I pulled out several drawers before I found what I wanted—a hefty claw-foot hammer. And with my hand wrapped around the red handle, I returned to the crate, determined to find out what was inside.

The crate was tall and each side was made up of two square wooden panels. So I grabbed a folding step stool from a hook on the garage wall and started working on the top one, inserting the tapered end of the claw foot beneath the slat of wood and prying away. But I might have put too much energy into the job because the entire square of wood suddenly came loose and got away from me. I yelped as it smacked the garage floor.

Teetering on the step stool, I eyed the contents of the crate, relieved that nothing seemed to be broken. And when I regained my balance, I took a closer look at Greg's treasure. It appeared to be some kind of stone sculpture swathed in several layers of bubble wrap.

Bubble wrap! I could have killed the step-person for transporting it so carelessly. And I didn't even know what it was yet! But whatever it was, it was bound to be valuable or Greg wouldn't have…appropriated it. And, considering how anxious he was about its safe delivery, it was probably something quite a bit more valuable than usual. Hopefully it wasn't anything as important as a winged victory or a venus de milo, nothing that would send the International Police breathing down our necks.

Stretching my arms upward, I tugged the plastic bubble wrap apart along a seam, then reached inside to the next layer and pulled that apart as well. As the shape and form of the statue came into focus, I took a swift step backward, forgetting that I was standing on a stool. And for the next few heartbeats, I did a reasonable impression of a windmill, somehow managing to avoid a total wipe out and glad no one was around to see it.

Once I had my feet firmly back beneath me, I lifted my gaze to the crate again, just to make sure I'd seen what I thought I'd seen. A sharp gasp broke from my lips as I stood and stared.

I was looking at a statue of a young male. From beneath the shadow of a sharply jutting brow, two eyes gazed intently out at me. Several strands of hair fell across his left eye and I couldn't help but marvel at the skill required to chisel the impossibly slender strands out of solid rock. Looking closer, I saw that each eyelash was carved with the same incredible precision—out of the smoothest gray stone I'd ever set eyes on.

If my mom had been there, she could have told me what kind of stone had been used to create the amazing sculpture. She's a geological engineer and she knows her rocks. But it would have been hard to grow up in my home without the occasional geology lesson, and the fine-grained stone looked like a flint or chalcedony to me.

At that point, I'd pulled away enough bubble wrap to expose the statue's upper body. His shoulders were wide and stretched with muscle, his arms cut with a lean strength unlike anything I'd ever seen on any of the jocks at school. It didn't look like the sort of physique that had been developed through long hours in the weight room. Instead, it looked like the sort of raw power that was earned from a hard life full of physical demand. His arms were crossed over his chest and he wore a slight scowl on his face, the intensity of his gaze making me feel like he was watching me.

A shiver traveled down my spine but it wasn't because I was creeped out. It was more like a shiver of excitement, like the way you feel when you know something good is about to happen—like a Christmas morning feeling or a first kiss feeling. Not that I'd ever been kissed but you get what I mean. With a soft snort, I shook off the strange sensation and returned my attention to the job at hand.

It was dark inside the windowless garage, even with the lights on, and I wanted a better look at Greg's stolen treasure, so I put my hip against the crate and tried to angle the open side toward the sun. The box was heavy and it didn't budge much but I got it turned a few inches toward the light.

And after I'd worked more of the bubble wrap away from the statue's shoulders, I could see the beginning of wings spreading out behind him. Apparently, the sculpture was some kind of angel, though probably the avenging sort if his expression was anything to go by. But his wings weren't feathered or shaped like the wings normally associated with angels. Instead they were more like the wings of a bat, with flat spans of thin stone stretched between narrow spines.

He was magnificent, though. And not only as a work of art. I'd thought the yearbook editor, Josh Saxon, was good looking. But Josh had nothing on this guy. I'd never seen a more beautiful creature in my life.

With my finger, I traced a vein that tracked the length of his strong forearm, then I reached up to the delicately carved strands of hair that fell across his face. They were so slender and lifelike that I felt compelled to brush them out of his eyes. Of course, they were made of stone just like the rest of him and when I realized they weren't going to budge in my lifetime, I stepped back with my hands on my hips and raked my gaze over the fabulous sculpture. I didn't know how old it was but I'd have given anything to travel back to the time when guys looked like he did.

They don't make guys like you anymore, I murmured, and lifted my face to meet his stern gaze.

Hooligan must have heard my voice from the other side of the lot because he suddenly reappeared at the garage doors. For some reason, he took an unexpected interest in the sculpture, lifting his front paws to its shoulders and looking it in the eye before giving a soft bark. I was surprised by his reaction because Hooli's usually pretty dignified. He doesn't like to do anything that makes him look silly.