GARGOYLE BOB By Vincent Ho & Stan Shaw Cover Art By Ted Boonthanakit Limited Preview Edition November 2015 www.gargoylebob.com “Gargoyle Bob” is a registered trademark Publication of Gargoyle Bob, LLC GARGOYLE BOB 1 PROLOGUE The miracle that is related today about St. Romain is so persistent and so widely spread, that it must be told, if only to explain the many allusions contained in picture, in carving, and in song, throughout the tale of Rouen, and in the very stones and windows of her most sacred buildings. T.A. Cook – “The Story of Rouen” – 1901 The Bishop must have chosen the wrong man. On such a dangerous night, surely he needed the strength of a stonemason, not the talents of a sculptor. It was clear to Pascal that strong arms accustomed to breaking granite for the new cathedral would have been of much more help than his own artful limbs. “We should go,” he said. “It’s not safe...” His poorly cobbled shoes slipped on the wet river rocks that lined this desolate portion of the Seine. He yelped as he fell, but a firm grip caught his cloth tunic. Pascal’s rescuer pulled him upright, drew him face-to- face. “Quiet,” said Bishop Romain. More soldier of God than holy man, the bright moonlight deepened the lines of his grim face. Pascal stifled a cry of surprise. “Your grace... there’s a devil out here. They say a water dragon hunts at night.” He looked back at the distant spires of Rouen, longing for its main road still paved with stones laid by the Romans just a few centuries ago. “I know what lurks here.” VINCENT HO & STAN SHAW 2 The Bishop prodded him forward. His coarse black robe made it difficult for Pascal to see him in the night, but through rips in the garment he caught the glint of mail armor. The young artisan had heard whispered stories that the Bishop once destroyed a pagan temple of Venus with his bare hands. Now all the wild tales about this warrior priest appeared true. The Bishop had already done battle this night. Pascal shuffled ahead. He prayed for God to deliver him from evil, completely ignoring the “Your will be done” part. To be back under his leaky thatched roof in the city, to celebrate his birthday in this year of 630 Anno Domini were some of the self-centered pleas he beseeched God to grant. Any other plans God might have pre-ordained did not interest him. The gurgle of river water over rocks grew louder in the darkness. Clumps of boulders appeared along the bank, but as Pascal drew closer, the water bobbed and shifted even the larger shapes about. He froze. Those could not be rocks. The river current flipped one of them over into the moonlight. Pascal screamed. The mauled face of a soldier stared up at him, one eye gouged and half its flesh shorn away. His hauberk was torn through like fabric, links of metal broken and shredded apart. The corpses of bloodied clerics and other mangled soldiers were strewn about him. Then the largest boulder shifted. The dim light revealed a dead knight. Armor split open, he still straddled a half-eaten horse. The Bishop gazed upon his butchered flock. “Nothing on earth can destroy this demon.” GARGOYLE BOB 3 Pascal turned to flee, but felt that strong grip on his tunic again. He pleaded, “Let me go! What are you doing?” “What must be done. This ends tonight.” “You plan to sacrifice me? Use me as bait?” By the Bishop’s aggravated sigh, Pascal worried that all those possibilities had been considered. A large wave swelled in the river and crashed on the shore. The stench of death, more foul than possible for these newly slaughtered victims, stung his eyes. He gagged, but didn’t retch. The true source of the fetid odor swayed above him. Vicious jaws at the end of a long neck shot down toward Pascal. Jagged teeth closed in on him. The Bishop yanked him out of the way. “You’re here to bear witness,” he said. “Not to be eaten.” The water dragon, no longer rumor or gossip, shook its scaled head and pulled itself along with two front legs. Behind those clawed appendages, an enormous worm-shaped body humped and undulated across the ground in grotesque elephant seal fashion. The two men scrambled away from the monster. “I will fight hellfire with hellfire,” the Bishop shouted. He chanted a prayer Pascal had never heard before then thrust overhead an amulet wrought with dark metal. Arcs of lightning crackled over his arm and shot into the heavens. Pascal looked up into the moonlit sky. The clouds billowed then parted. A large shadow flew across his uplifted face. Somehow in this unholy night, things had just gotten worse. Answering the Bishop’s call, a VINCENT HO & STAN SHAW 4 roar and beating of wings heralded the descent of something far from angelic. The water dragon bellowed at its new challenger. The Bishop’s champion dove from the shadows and choked a brawny forearm across the throat of the water dragon. Its serpentine neck twisted wildly about, but couldn’t dislodge the stranglehold. Desperate for air, the dragon’s head swung back and forth ever expanding arcs. The last arching swing slammed its enemy down onto the riverbank. Smashed against the rocks and dazed, the Bishop’s winged creature fell to the ground. The water dragon pounded forward on its front legs, eager for the kill. But its prey recovered and flew up with a punch that snapped the water dragon's head back. A low moan sounded deep within the leviathan’s gullet. It staggered about for a moment then coiled its body together, ready for another attack. Pascal watched it all, too stunned to move. Earth shaking blows and hideous screams filled the sculptor’s senses, and vaguely, he knew he would never again walk along the Seine with any comfort or peace of mind. *** Days after the primeval duel, Pascal stood in his rustic workshop with the same bewildered expression. The Bishop had forbidden him to ever speak of the battle yet commissioned him to create anonymous sculptures of its victor. Accepting the small fortune on the condition of anonymity felt infinitely preferable to saying “no” to the Bishop and risking his wrath. In front of him sat a block of stone. Pascal struggled to process the danger he had survived. He GARGOYLE BOB 5 slowly reached out with a chisel and hammer then chipped away a few flakes. As shock gave way to a desire for release and expression, the artisan began to sculpt with more certainty, more obsession. A muscular arm of marble started out ordinary enough then he shaped a hand with deadly claws at the end of it. A broad back initially appeared muscular and natural until a bat wing took form along its length. But the macabre face he sculpted never once looked ordinary or natural, just horrific with tusks. Pascal stepped back to admire the image of his savior, the Bishop's winged creature. He gazed on the sculpture without knowing that his work would forever mark Rouen as the birthplace of gargoyles. VINCENT HO & STAN SHAW 6 CHAPTER ONE At danger’s call we’ll promptly fly; And bravely do or bravely die. Chicago Police Department – 1861 The beat-up Police Athletic Gym looked like a waste of Chicago tax money. With the global financial crisis and stimulus money that never reached its destinations, the gym faced closure from budget cuts. But to those that wore the checkerboard hatbands of the Chicago PD, the weathered bricks, chipped stone lions under the cornices, and archaic words of courage chiseled in the archway — all marked this place as hallowed ground. For Officer Marcus R. Kincaid, a veteran cop on the salt-and-pepper side of middle-aged, the gym’s boxing ring was his altar. Every week he dumped offerings of misery upon its sweat stained canvas. Criminals free on bond, mountains of paperwork, relentless bill collectors, and most of life’s tortures usually melted away after a good sparring session. But tonight before the start of the late shift, it was going to take more than a few rounds to exorcise his crappy day. If there were ever an Order of the Woeful Countenance, Kincaid’s dark, solemn eyes would have rode shotgun in that company. His look and boxing stance also bore the street toughness of a Joe Frazier not the Hollywood smooth of an Ali, Laila or Muhammad. Frank Chen, a much younger man, lean and tall with more testosterone than sense, bounced about the GARGOYLE BOB 7 boxing ring. Full bodied black hair that spiked up on its own without gels poked through the top of his headgear. He lunged and threw a flurry of off-balance punches. The blows smacked into Kincaid's shoulders but left no real damage to his aging heavyweight build. Something had upset his opponent enough to throw his technique all over the place. Kincaid wasn’t the best marksman on the force and for the longest time assumed the wrong skin color or poor brown-nosing skills blocked his promotions. But he had a talent for sensing people’s emotions. More than hearing vocal inflexions or seeing shifts in body language, emotions had their own sort of taste and feel to him. His mother had called this empathic ability a “gift,” but he always thought that the ability to predict the future or read people’s minds would have been much cooler.