Myths and Gargoyles Read online

  Myths and Gargoyles

  Two Complete Series

  Jamie Hawke

  Editors

  Diane Newton

  Tracey Byrnes

  MYTHS AND GARGOYLES is a work of fiction.

  All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Complete Book is Copyright (c) 2021 by Jamie Hawke (of Double Down Press).

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Jamie Hawke.

  Contents

  Welcome

  BOOK 1: Myth Protector

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  BOOK 2: Dark Legends

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  BOOK 3: Mystic Guardians

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Epilogue

  BOOK 4: Stone Cold Mage

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  BOOK 5: Of Witches and Gargoyles

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Chapter 122

  Chapter 123

  Chapter 124

  BOOK 6: They Come at Night

  Chapter 125

  Chapter 126

  Chapter 127

  Chapter 128

  Chapter 129

  Chapter 130

  Chapter 131

  Chapter 132

  Chapter 133

  Chapter 134

  Chapter 135

  Chapter 136

  Chapter 137

  Chapter 138

  Chapter 139

  Chapter 140

  Chapter 141

  Chapter 142

  Chapter 143

  Chapter 144

  Chapter 145

  Chapter 146

  Chapter 147

  Chapter 148

  Chapter 149

  About the Author

  Read Next

  Welcome

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  Thank you for taking a chance on my books. I hope you love reading them as much as I loved writing them!

  Jamie Hawke

  BOOK 1: Myth Protector

  1

  Walking through the Anaheim Convention Center at LegendFest, my badge said press but my eyes said holy shit, because the ladies I was walking past were hot as fuck. My head swiveled, taking them in and not bothering to hide my stare in the slightest. After all, would they get all dressed up like that if they didn’t want me to look?

  They were versions of Disney Princesses, though they’d taken certain liberties with the sluttiness of said princesses. On the left was Belle, a red rose pinned over her left breast that made me worried where that pin might be attached. She wore yellow lingerie with strings of pearls hanging along the seams, a golden bow between her breasts, and another with diamonds over her ass, along with white pantyhose up to her thighs and high heels. The Little Mermaid was to her right, with soft, purple clam shells over her breasts, a green sparkly miniskirt, and her red hair pinned back with a starfish clip. She even had some white glitter around her belly button and neckline which I assumed was meant to be some sort of water effect, but led my mind straight to highly inappropriate places.

  If this were my reality, I’d never make it outside the house. Their friend had gone a bit simpler, with a sexy but less revealing Elsa dress.

  The one wearing the sexy Belle outfit turned to me with a glare, apparently sick of being ogled all day, but her eyes lit up when she saw my press badge. She stopped and nudged Ariel. The two came back toward me while the third took a second to realize what was happening, then stood there awkwardly, watching with interest.

  “Press, huh?” Belle said.

  “Yeah…” I started, about to explain that it was a benefit of running a blog about movies and games specifically related to the content of this con. But all the rest of that came out in my mind as I stared.

  “As in, you’d like to press your body up between us tonight?”

  “Wha
t?” I blinked, trying to open my mouth to deny it, but my throat went dry and all I could do was take a big breath. Fuck. I was royally screwing this up.

  “That’d be a story, huh?” Ariel said, grinning. “Hey, write about this,” she added, and then pulled at the edge of one of her sea shells so that I got a nice look at her breast, nipple and all. “Perv.”

  The two laughed and about-faced, returning to their friend who rolled her eyes and mouthed, “Sorry,” before joining them to continue walking down the hall. I heard her asking the other two if they had to be so mean, but… honestly? Getting flashed and, even jokingly, asked if I wanted to essentially have a threesome by two stunning beauties was fucking awesome. Well, one beauty and one mermaid.

  Even if it wasn’t happening, you could be damn sure that vision was hot in my mind after that, and as I kept walking the floor, looking for my buddy Chris, that tit kept flashing through my head over and over.

  “Come on, dude,” a guy manning a booth said. I turned to look at what he was selling, unimpressed. A bunch of superhero trading cards and memorabilia.

  “Nah, I’m good.”

  “No,” he said, nodding down.

  I frowned, confused, and then followed his gaze to my crotch, where sure enough my boner was showing like a banana in my pocket. My first reaction was to swing my tote bag around front, hiding it, my second was to look for an escape.

  “Brah,” he said, then motioned over his shoulder with his thumb. “Bathroom’s right there. Forty bucks and I’ll give you some lotion.” He was serious, too, holding up one of those little hotel bottles. Apparently, this wasn’t the first time this had happened. Judging by the ladies that walked by next, all wearing nothing but green loincloths with their skin covered in blue body paint so that they looked like water fairies, it made sense.

  “No, I’m—I’m good,” I said, annoyed and embarrassed. But I did start to head for the bathroom, just in case.

  It wasn’t that the Disney characters themselves turned me on. No, that would be weird. But I grew up on them, so seeing ladies dressed like the characters totally gave me this weird sense like I’d seen them mature and we were all the same age now, and so it could feasibly be possible that the Little Mermaid and Belle would want to have a ménage à trois… in a weird way.

  Nobody needed to know that, though, so when I saw Chris heading my way, I held my tote bag closer and nodded at him.

  “Jackass,” he greeted me, grinning at his favorite way to mock the fact that my parents hadn’t come up with some fancy name like Skyler or Landon. They thought Jack was great, and so did I, so the idea that he would mock it always pissed me off. Which was, of course, exactly why he did it. “You won’t believe what I found for sale.”

  “You know I’m not here to spend money,” I reminded him, glad to see that his presence was doing a great job of making my boner go away. “Press. Talk to people, go to events, write the story.” He grinned, and already I knew this was going to hurt. “What is it?”

  “Follow me.”

  We turned a couple of corners, passing booths of comics, posters, and statues modeled on various myths and legends. Basically, this was a new con that had popped up in celebration of everything geeky. Since we prided ourselves on our geekery, it was perfect for us. This was the place fans of Marvel, DC, Disney, hell, even Care Bears—whoever the hell made them—could come and drool over cool memorabilia.

  At a desk full of Deadpool comics and figures, I glanced over to see a woman in the crowd looking my way. She looked young and like she could be quite stunning, if not for her disheveled hair and the wild look she was giving me. At first I thought the hair had to be part of a costume, but the closer she got, the more it became clear that wasn’t the case.

  “Come on,” I said to Chris, pulling him by the sleeve to check out another area.

  We turned past that row and saw a large crowd coming our way, likely from some special event or performance. I picked up the pace, Chris grunting in annoyance as we went, and then we were past them, the weird woman lost back there.

  I couldn’t have explained why I didn’t want to be around her, but the feeling was strong.

  “What’s the rush, dillweed?” Chris asked. “It’s not that way. Over here.”

  He moved to the next aisle and I realized that, from where he stopped, we’d be relatively hidden by the banners.

  And then there it was, the epitome of perfection in swords—exactly how I’d always imagined Excalibur, complete with Celtic engravings on the hilt and intricately designed patterns at the base of the blade. I had to have it. Every ounce of me craved it, needed this Excalibur in my life. Chris was looking at the statue of Merlin with a blown-glass magic effect next to it, apparently thinking that’s what I was into, but this sword truly called my name.

  “How much?” I asked, knowing I shouldn’t.

  The man behind the table looked at me closely, a lady at his side looking me up and down, frowning. She wore a skimpy black top and skirt. Her ears were pierced along the tops and she even had a piercing at the bottom of her black-painted lips. She licked her lips, considering, and then glanced back at the sword for a moment. I didn’t think it was that difficult a question. Or were they judging me? Debating how much they could get away with charging me, or whether I’d even be worth responding to?

  “Not for sale,” the lady finally said.

  “Damn.” I frowned, let down, and was about to walk away.

  “It’s… actually a raffle item.”

  “The fuck?” Chris said at my side. “We gotta win that.”

  “Sorry,” I mouthed, noting the way she frowned at him standing next to me. “How exactly do I enter?”

  She eyed me again, then looked knowingly at the man next to her. They seemed to share some unspoken agreement before she held up a card. “It’s a sleep study. People at these conferences get overwhelmed, even stressed. We’re offering a natural, organic and approved sleep alternative.

  “Um, pass,” I said, and Chris blew a raspberry as if we’d never even consider the idea. Considering how well I knew him, this woman’s looks alone made the whole thing quite tempting, but come on—who gets stressed out from a convention like this?

  “Well, if you change your mind.” She handed me the card and I looked it over, pretending to care for the sake of this lady. It was simple, with an address, phone number, and a logo of a white swan.

  Damn. I really wanted that sword hanging over my mantle. I know, most guys my age thought having a sword was nerdy, or would rather have Longclaw or some other sword from Game of Thrones, but not me. All of those things would be nice too, but I’d grown up going to Disneyland and watching the classics, such as the Sword in the Stone. On top of that, this was the most badass Excalibur I’d ever seen. It was like I was drawn to it, like the fucker was a siren singing a song that I couldn’t turn away from.

  But there was no way I was going to subject myself to the status of guinea pig for the chance at it.

  “Thanks,” I said, nodding at her and not missing for a second the way her cleavage showed or her breasts threatened to pop out of that black top as she leaned over the table and gave me a polite nod, but glared.

  “Some people can’t accept ‘no,’” Chris whispered in my ear as he guided me away. “Chick’s goth as fuck. Better to avoid her, man. So many options here.”

  He was right, and already we were passing a trio dressed as Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, and—my attention was pulled from the third as a chick walked past in only body paint, and I bit my lip to stop from yelping or quoting a billion movies by saying, “Dammmnnn.”

  I was pretty sure security would escort her out any minute now, so I relished the sight… only to see Goth Chick back there giving me a raised eyebrow. Who was she to judge me?