The Conduit The Gryphon Series - By Stacey Rourke Page 0,51

even a scar remained.

“Impressive.”

“Not too shabby, huh? My dress on the other hand is DOA.”

“Our calling has been detrimental to your wardrobe.”

“Right?”

The sound of heavy footfalls landing on the rooftop behind us cut off our conversation. I didn’t kill the Seeker! He’s back! I whirled around and delivered an effective right hook without pausing to look.

My fist connected with its target as Kendall cried out, “Celeste! Stop!”

It was too late. I cold cocked my brother right in the eye.

“Oh, crap! Sorry Gabe!” I was going to have to leave a message, Gabe temporarily checked out.

He let out a shocked “ooof” then did a clumsy side—step. His eye instantly swelled shut. He would’ve hit the ground, but his sprawled legs locked up to prevent it. He hung his head and waited for the fog to clear. After a moment he began slowly shaking his head. Blinking hard with his good eye, he peeked up at Kendall and me.

“Guess what, Gabe?” Kendall chirped weakly. “Celeste got her powers. Yeay! How’s your head?”

He let out a feeble grumble. I knocked a gigantic lion for a loop. If that doesn’t stroke the ego, I don’t know what does. I tried to look concerned, while I internally gloated. “We should get you home and ice that eye. It’s turning a lovely shade of purple. Do you think you can make it down from here?”

Gabe took a tentative step forward. His leg buckled under his weight. We rushed forward to help him back up.

“There’s no way he can make it down.” Kendall fretted.

“Can you fly him down?”

She shook her head. “No way. I’m like a quarter of his size. I couldn’t lift him by myself. Unless…” She looked my way with a speculative eye.

“Unless what?” I didn’t like where this was going.

“You get an arm, I get an arm and we jump.”

I had been super strong for all of ten minutes. I had been afraid of heights a whole lot longer. “Isn’t there a way into the building from up here? We could just break in and take the stairs. Easy squeezy.”

Kendall rolled her eyes at me. “You would rather commit a crime by breaking and entering instead of just jumping down? You jumped up here you big wimp, you can jump back down. No big deal. And, if you do get hurt, I can heal you.”

“Thank you, that’s very reassuring.” I muttered wryly. I turned to my stunned and befuddled brother. “Can you change back Gabe? Make this a little easier on us?”

The lion half-heartedly raised his head, then let it drop again. I guess that answered my question.

“No biggee.” An annoyingly up-beat Kendall shrugged. “We can just lift him up on his back legs. We’ll drape his front paws around our necks.”

That seemed like a monumentally bad idea. “Look at the size of him, Keni. No way can we keep hold of him while we jump.”

“Sure we can, now that you have the super strength.”

“Already you’re taking advantage of my powers? If I’m doing all the heavy lifting, what the heck are you going to do?”

She put her hands on her hips. “I will make sure we have a smooth landing instead of crashing to the ground, if that’s all right with you.”

“Fine.” I scoffed. “Let’s just get this over with.”

We finagled Gabe up onto his hind legs, draped his gigantic paws around our necks, and shuffled to the edge of the roof. I peered down over the ledge and got a nasty case of vertigo.

“Nope. Can’t do it.” I declared.

“Yes, you can.” Kendall said. “Just don’t look down. On the count of three we’re going to jump. Ready?”

“No, I changed my mind.”

“One…”

“Please don’t make me do this.”

“Two…”

“I’m going to die.”

“No, you’re not. THREE!”

I took the mother of all deep breaths, squeezed my eyes shut and jumped. My hair whipped off my neck and lashed at my face as we plummeted toward the ground. To my shock and amazement we landed without incident in the alley behind the library. My body reacted to the jump like I had done nothing more than hop off a curb.

No sooner had our feet touched the ground then a menacing hiss jerked our heads to the right. A pair of wild luminescent green eyes peered at us from the shadows as it growled out its warning. My heart leapt into my throat with enough force that I almost choked on it. Another Seeker! I fumbled to free myself from Gabe’s heavy arm when what turned out to be