There's something sexy about wings even they're not being used to fly. A while back we were mentioning gargoyles; I used to have one in my store years ago (my day job is co-owning a pair of college-town stores with a little bit of everything in them) that was my inspiration for my story "Freeing the Demon". I wish I'd kept him, since he's not available any more. This one was demonic, but with cause, since he was clearly trapped in stone and could only howl his rage and grief silently into the sky. That image stuck with me, and finally I found a way, and a woman (the point-of-view character in the story) who could free him--and herself as well.
An excerpt for the atmosphere:
In two years of drifting in place Jayne had seldom looked out the window. What was the point? At night, clients came, and went; in the daytime she slept. Sometimes, very rarely, she dreamed.
She might never have noticed him looming just beyond her balcony if a nervous college kid hadn't felt in sudden need of air.
"Hey, terrific gargoyle! French, probably, limestone, taking a beating from acid rain. Not much detail left." He grasped at the distraction. "They say gargoyles are demons cursed with eternal imprisonment in stone. Guess nobody figured even stone might not be forever."
Jayne's stroke on his thigh turned him from the window. Long, pale hair swung with the seductive tilt of her head. Gray eyes looked through dark lashes into his. "You like things...French?" He forgot about the gargoyle.
Jayne didn't forget.
On a rainy evening she watched through summer dusk as rivulets washed over the stone shoulders. Thin glistening ribbons of water criss-crossed in ill-defined grooves, giving a sense of layered scales, or feathers; something indelibly winglike.
The massive back was hunched. The twisted, upturned face hurled mute defiance at the heavens, while pointed ears and horns stabbed at the sky. The jaws had once spouted water from the eaves, but the intake had been clogged for years and the torrent spilled haphazardly down the head. The teeth were mere vestigial stumps. Jayne thought of the acid rain, and her own fleeting youth, and mourned for them both.
An excerpt for the atmosphere:
In two years of drifting in place Jayne had seldom looked out the window. What was the point? At night, clients came, and went; in the daytime she slept. Sometimes, very rarely, she dreamed.
She might never have noticed him looming just beyond her balcony if a nervous college kid hadn't felt in sudden need of air.
"Hey, terrific gargoyle! French, probably, limestone, taking a beating from acid rain. Not much detail left." He grasped at the distraction. "They say gargoyles are demons cursed with eternal imprisonment in stone. Guess nobody figured even stone might not be forever."
Jayne's stroke on his thigh turned him from the window. Long, pale hair swung with the seductive tilt of her head. Gray eyes looked through dark lashes into his. "You like things...French?" He forgot about the gargoyle.
Jayne didn't forget.
On a rainy evening she watched through summer dusk as rivulets washed over the stone shoulders. Thin glistening ribbons of water criss-crossed in ill-defined grooves, giving a sense of layered scales, or feathers; something indelibly winglike.
The massive back was hunched. The twisted, upturned face hurled mute defiance at the heavens, while pointed ears and horns stabbed at the sky. The jaws had once spouted water from the eaves, but the intake had been clogged for years and the torrent spilled haphazardly down the head. The teeth were mere vestigial stumps. Jayne thought of the acid rain, and her own fleeting youth, and mourned for them both.
