Unbound Read Free Page B

street. Behind him were the soft sounds of a wooded park. The noise from the nearby city was almost intolerable, but the small garden space with its two statues and profusion of flowers in the middle of the city was worth the noise pollution. The barrage was likely reduced to low thumps and rumbles underground where Vincet had begun to make a home for his young family.
    His middle was empty, and as he waited for Vincet to return from telling Noel they were back, Jenks fumbled in a waist pack for a sticky wad of nectar, honey, and peanut butter. His human partners were clueless, but if he didn’t eat every few hours, he’d suffer. What Rachel and Ivy didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.
    “That’s the statue, eh?” he said when Vincet rejoined him and they both came to rest on the back of a nearby bench. It was across the sidewalk from Vincet’s flower beds, and staying off the greenery made both of them happier—even if he had been invited and was wearing his red bandanna like a belt. He hesitated, and then thinking it might be required as part of his new “helping” role, he offered Vincet a sweetball. He’d never given food to anyone outside his family before. It felt odd, and Vincet blinked at him, clearly shocked at the offer.
    “No, thank you,” he said, looking confused. “Um. Yes, that’s the statue.” Vincet pointed at the closest statue, and Jenks slipped the second sweetball away. “It won’t attack until the moon is higher,” Vincet added, more at ease now that the food was put away. Wings shivering, he glanced up at the moon, a day shy of full. “It attacks at midnight, not the lunkers’ clocked midnight, but the real midmoon when it’s at its zenith.”
    Jenks’s attention dropped to the twin statues spaced about ten feet apart, surrounded by new annuals and low shrubs. Both had a Greek look about them, with a classic beauty of smooth lines and draping robes. The older statue was black in places from pollution, making it almost more beautiful. Carved ringlets of hair pulled back and braided framed a young-looking face, almost innocent in her expression. Her stone robes did little to hide her admittedly shapely legs from her thighs down. There was a flaccid water sack on her belt, and her fingers were wrapped about the butt of a sword, pushing into the pedestal at her toe.
    The second statue was of a young man with smooth, almost feminine features. An empty ankle sheath was on one bare leg not covered by his stone robe. He was lithe, thin, with a hint of wild threat in his chiseled expression. The sign between them, framed by newly planted, honey-smelling alyssum, said that both statues had been donated by the Kalamack Foundation to commemorate Cincinnati gaining city status in 1819, but only the statue of the woman looked old. The other was a pearly white as if brand-new. Or freshly scrubbed, maybe.
    A distant argument over burned rice became audible from over the grass between the garden and the nearby townhouses. Tink’s tampons, humans were noisy. It was as if they didn’t have a place in the natural order anymore, so they made as much noise as they could to prove they were alive. His garden and graveyard stretching an entire block within the suburbs, now made his by human law and a deed, was a blessing he’d come to take for granted. Rachel and Ivy never seemed to make much noise. ’Course, they slept a lot, and Ivy was a vampire, if living. She never made much noise to begin with.
    “Did you clean it?” he asked Vincet, and the young pixy shook his head, looking scared.
    “No. It was like that when we got here. Vi wakes as if in a trance, mindless as she hits the base of the statue until the burning brings her down. Then she screams until the moon shifts from the top of the sky and the statue lets her go.”
    Jenks scratched the base of his wings, puzzled. Though he didn’t move from the back of the bench, his wings sent a glitter of dust over them. Holy crap, he had to pee