Deaths Excellent Vacation

taken their candidates, and they were here to serve. They got to bathe in Heartlight every day.
    They had names. The thing every gargoyle wants, a name of his very own.
    But dammit, Kate. Kate.
    I tipped my head back, bonked it gently on the window frame behind me. The frame was pure stone.
    There was an Inner at my door. A guard. I wondered how many gargoyles considered something stupid when they brought their Heart candidate here. All of them? Just me? There wouldn’t be a guard if none of them did. Or was he there because I might need something? Like a good pep talk?
    Like a reminder of why we did this? The Heart must feed. It fights the Big Bad; it powers all of us, gives us pieces of itself that grant us the stoneskin trueform. It even gives us names. True names, ones that don’t fade. None of that comes cheap.
    But . . . Kate.
    I had my feet outside the window before I thought of it. Pulled them back in.
    What was I thinking? I was still damp from my bath, tingling from the Heartlight, and in a gray robe and cloak with a big, deep hood. I would still shamble, though. I couldn’t move gracefully at all. And I would have to keep my hands hidden. They all wear gloves.
    Kate. She had a name. She probably took it for granted, too.
    Where would they have her? If I had to guess . . .
    I didn’t have to guess. The entire Sanctum was ablaze with expectation, the Heart’s singing to one of its own. I could just follow it to find her. Or I could follow the ringing pull from the necklace in my fingers.
    Or I could just sit here until they came to get me. I could do what I had to and get a name. I could be beautiful.
    Kate.
    I slipped the obsidian knife up my sleeve, pushed my feet out the window, and landed on garden loam.
     
     
    THE door was wide, and old, oak bound with scarred iron pulsing with life. I put my hand on it and the iron zinged, singing in a high carbon whine. It creaked a little as it opened, and I peeked in.
    The chapel was long and narrow. At the very end the stone rose like a wave, shaping itself into an altar draped with crimson velvet and pillows. I pushed my hood back. It fell away from my ears and I could breathe again.
    Kate lay there, very still. The walls throbbed. It was deep down and close to the Heart. The beats were a melody the Heart inside me echoed. It was hard to keep everything human-sized and inside. The trueform just kept wanting to bust out.
    The corridors had been sleepy and deserted. I’d done my best to glide and managed not to lurch too much. The necklace quivered in my aching fist. I’d wrapped it around the leather-wrapped hilt of the obsidian knife and pulled both up inside my sleeves.
    They’d put her in a red dress. It was beautiful. She was beautiful, in a way I’d never be. Her arm was over her eyes and her hair spread out over the pillows.
    God and Heart both forgive me. I pulled the door shut behind me as quietly as I could. My whisper boomed against the walls. “Kate?”
    She stirred a little. Her arm moved.
    “Kate. Wake up.” What if they’d drugged her?
    This was a fine time to start changing my mind. I’d done my duty all my life. But this . . .
    Being in the Heartlight makes you think about things a little differently, I guess. Or maybe it was the way she’d clutched at my arm. Maybe it was the way she’d looked when she asked me why they got names and I didn’t.
    Maybe it was because no matter how many times I made an excuse to stand in her checkout line for a pack of gum, she always smiled at me. Or because . . .
    Oh, hell and damnation. I would rather be ugly on the outside than ugly all the way through.
    “Kate?” I whispered again, more urgently. The chapel floor was carved with fleur-de-lis, all circled, all tangled together. I stepped on them without mercy as I lurched toward the altar. They dug into my feet, sharp sliding edges. “Heart and Hell, Kate, wake up. Please.”
    Her arm slid away from her face. She blinked, and the chapel walls resounded with a gong-struck quivering. I made it to the altar as the stone whispered away between fan vaulting, the Inners appearing in the leaf-shaped doorways.
    Had they just been here, waiting for me?
    “Shit.” I reached the altar and my human form shredded away. I whirled, my back to Kate, who let out a high whistling scream. The Heart thudded, and its light drenched us all with crystal clarity.
    The Inners moved forward, and they each had their own knives. Their hoods covered their faces, but