Deaths Excellent Vacation

in, and jolted to a stop.
    Kate wasn’t screaming. She stood in the middle of them, mouth ajar and eyes wide, staring at me. She clutched her broken purse to her chest. She also wore one of my hooded sweatshirt jackets, zipped up to the very top and absurdly big on her. Her hair, long and loose, fluttered on the breeze from me busting through the wall. I opened my mouth to say something right before one of the harpies plowed through the hole I’d made and things got interesting.
    I hate harpies. They smell horrible. When you rip ’em apart, they screech so bad it makes your ears want to bleed. They aren’t that bad if they’re grounded, though. And then there was just Kate to worry about—grabbing her and getting her away from the gnomes with guns.
     
     
    THE packet was delivered—fake ID for both of us; I got the sensitized filmstrip on the picture ID to look like her with just a little rearranging. Plane tickets and a wad of cash for supplies I didn’t have enough time to buy. We just barely made the flight, and Kate was still in jeans and my sweatshirt jacket. We’d stopped for ten minutes we couldn’t afford in the airport; I bought a handful of clothes in a size that looked like it might fit her and stowed the bag in the overhead compartment. The flight attendant wanted to do it, but I mumbled something and Kate just dropped into the seat near the window. The attendant gave me a dark look and left.
    Kate was still trying to process everything, and there was drywall dust in her hair. Air France has really nice first-class cabins.
    They spare no expense when bringing in a Heart candidate.
    So we had a space all to ourselves, and the attendants fussed over her right before takeoff. Me they just looked nervously at.
    I buckled her seatbelt. “Bienvenue à Air France!” the intercom chirped brightly, and I didn’t let out a breath until the doors had closed and the plane started making its getting-ready-to-go sounds. The seat was wide and deep, and she wasn’t even scratched. Just that drywall, and glassy-eyed shock.
    “Thank God,” I finally muttered. “You want a drink?”
    Color flooded her cheeks again. She hunched her shoulders, darted me a mistrustful glance. “Christ, yes.”
    “What’ll you have?”
    “Vodka.” Her throat moved as she swallowed. The two little punctures were fully healed now. Gargoyle spit and garlic works wonders. She blinked at me like she was trying to get dust out of her eyes. “What the hell.”
    “Got it.”
    We didn’t have to wait long. The stews come around a lot in first class. She got a vodka with cranberry juice; I decided a Jack Daniels was in order. As soon as the attendant had finished pouring mine, Kate asked for another. The attendant gave her a weird look, but I palmed up a tenner and she ended up leaving us two vodka and cranberries, visibly hoping we weren’t going to be trouble.
    “Just don’t get drunk,” I cautioned.
    “Why the hell not ?” She laughed, a bitter little sound. The seats around us were empty; I’d bet the Sanctum had bought them, too, just to give us some privacy. “What the hell is going on? What the fuck are you?”
    I winced. “I’m a gargoyle. Stoneskin. We serve the Heart.”
    “Gargoyle. Okay. Got that. What were those . . . those other things ?” She took down another vodka with remarkable aplomb. I doubted she even tasted it, she tossed it so far back.
    “Well, there was a kolthulu . And some suckmonkeys. And harpies—those were the red and green flying bird things. And—”
    “The things with guns? What about those?”
    “I’m getting to those. Those were gneevil-gnomes.”
    “Gnomes. Okay.” She eyed the third vodka. “This is so Twilight Zone . It has something to do with that scar, doesn’t it?” Her right hand made a furtive little movement toward her chest. She put it back down.
    “The mark? Kind of. Sometimes people come back . . . special.” I sipped at my whiskey. At least in first class they don’t water your drinks. “I’m taking you to Paris, to the Heart. You’ll be safe there.”
    And boy, it was my day to lie with a straight face.
    “Since the . . . the accident, I’ve been seeing things. All sorts of things. You’re the first thing that hasn’t tried to eat me or scared me so bad I wanted to pee myself.” Her fingers played with the glass. “I’m sorry.”
    She was sorry? I closed my lips over a laugh and hunched my shoulders. When I could talk without wanting to spill