A Box of Gargoyles Read Online Free Page B

Valko jumping out at that column of shadow and barking as loud as he could ( pretty good , thought Maya, for his third bark ever ); the shadow almost losing its balance—if losing its balance is something a whirling column of dust can do—falling back, straightening up again, stretching tendrils of darkness— arms —out in front of itself, reaching, reaching past Valko, feeling for something else or someone else—
    Then . . .
    M a y a , it said, in exactly the sort of ghastly dry whisper a column of leaves and dust would use if it was trying to learn to speak.
    They turned and ran.
    It wasn’t far to the end of the street. At the corner Maya took a chance and looked back.
    â€œHey, wait,” she said, panting hard. “Look at that.”
    The shadow seemed to be stuck a ways behind them. They could see it pushing against the air, almost as if it had hit a wall.
    â€œStay here,” said Valko, and he walked back a bit to look. He always had to investigate things properly. Maya shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Her feet were eager to keep moving.
    â€œThe air’s different here,” Valko called back over his shoulder. “Notice that?”
    He was keeping his eyes glued to that shadow, though.
    Maya took an exploratory breath. The air was different. It was like something chaotic in it had vanished. The hum was gone.
    She saw Valko take another few steps and then pause. The sack’s worth of shadow pressed against that invisible wall, but the wall didn’t yield.
    He went closer. The shadow just eddied there, waiting.
    â€œCareful,” said Maya.
    â€œDon’t worry,” said Valko. He crossed over to the other side of the street. The shadow stayed where it was. It didn’t seem to notice Valko coming closer from the side; Maya could have sworn it had its nonexistent eyes fixed entirely on her. Not such a good feeling.
    â€œIt’s like there’s a shimmer in the air here,” said Valko. “Like an edge in the air. Or a wall. Do you see it? Look, I can just slip my hand right through—”
    â€œEep!” said Maya. It came out more as a sound than a word.
    â€œI know,” said Valko, without turning around. “I saw that, too.”
    When Valko’s hand had gone past that edge, the shadow thing had moved a little ( turned its head , suggested Maya’s mind, ignoring for a moment the point that columns of shadowy dust don’t actually have heads). That was creepy.
    A biologist who has just run into a grizzly bear will move with great caution; so did Valko. He seemed to be carefully fishing something out of his pockets. Maya squinted: oh, a pencil. Was he going to stop to take notes ? How completely crazy could one person even be? She walked a few paces in his direction, just in case she needed to grab him by the sleeve and haul him away.
    But now Valko was running his hand across the wall, right to the very place where the shimmer started.
    â€œUm, what are you doing?” said Maya, trying not to catch the shadow’s attention. “Seems like we should just leave, doesn’t it?”
    Valko was making a careful line of X s right there.
    â€œMarking the edge,” he said. “Got to be dark enough to find later, but not so big the graffiti police come and wipe it off.”
    M a y a , said the shadow thing.
    â€œEnough,” said Maya, shuddering slightly.
    â€œDefinitely enough,” said Valko, stuffing the pencil into his pocket. Maya and Valko trotted back to the far end of the alleyway, and then one block farther from the river, because Valko wanted to see if they could see a boundary there, too.
    They could. Valko ran down that street to the very edge of the shimmering air and left some more X s on that wall, too.
    It was five long minutes before the shadow appeared in that street, so at least (said Valko to Maya) it was dumb and slow .
    â€œDumb, slow dust that’s walking and