Gargoyles

by Ryan M. Patrick

in Issue 156, January 2025

“It’s sad, innit.”

I sighed, a bead of sweat dripping down my long nose. I didn’t know how the laborers were able to function in the heat. “What’s sad?”

“That they’re all coming down.”

I shook my head. The man was likely wasting my time, malingering on the job. “What’s coming down?”

“The guardians.”

That didn’t ring a bell. I stopped what I was doing – watching a small crane raise a pallet of supplies to specialists on a higher level of the cathedral that lay just outside the citta – and turned to face the other man. “What are you talking about, Leondro?”

“The statues at the top of the structure, sire.”

I squinted, trying to make out what he was talking about. A pair of birds few overhead, but that couldn’t have been what he was referring to.

“You don’t see them?”

“No.”

Leondro pointed at the top of the massive church, up by the belfry. “Those gargoyles.”

I laughed. “Those grotesque things?” They were carved in the shape of malformed pig mixed with the essence of a diseased crocodile; ugly figures carved from basalt jutting off the side of the building. “They’re just rainspouts, used to let water drip off of the top. The new design with the flying buttresses is more efficient, we don’t need them anymore.”

“It’s not about the water flow, sire.” Leondro wiped the sweat off of his brow. “It’s about the statues themselves.”

“What about them?”

He scratched the top of his head. “It feels wrong, sire.”

“They’re just hunks of stone.”

“They may be, but they’ve guarded the Saint Toman for years.” Leondro exhaled deeply. “I don’t know, sire, I just feel a little sad.”

I met him with a chuckle. “It’ll be ok, Leondro. In a couple of days, you won’t even remember them being there.”

“If you say so.”

***

I got home early, to the small bungalow I shared with my grandmother at the outskirts of our citta. We were the only ones left of the once-great Alessandro clan, the only two who had survived the plague that had swept through Milanos nearly a decade ago. I had thought she’d be outside in the back garden, tending to our chickens, but instead she sat on our front porch. As I grew closer, I could see that she was knitting. “What are you working on, Nonna?”

She looked up at me. “Oh, just something for the back deck.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What are you working on for the back deck, Nonna?” I loved the woman, she had helped raise me after my parents had passed and had gotten me through the royal university, but occasionally a hairbrained thought came out of her wizened head. Once she had taken care of me, now my salary paid for all of our expenses.

Nonna put down her needles and yarn. “Romero, you forgot to knock down the wasp nest.”

A non-sequitur. But she wasn’t wrong. “Sorry, I have a lot on my mind.”

“Yulia?’

I smiled. “Her, and work.”

She laughed. “At least you aren’t seeing monsters again.”

My face went beet-red. “That was years ago.”

“Goblins and centaurs haven’t been in this part of Milanos for centuries,” she said, shifting slightly in her chair. “But back to the present, Gio.”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t knock down the wasp nest. It was there, the third time they’ve built one in the same spot by the eave.” She held up a hand, suppressing my protest. “I had to do it, despite my advanced age, and then I went to Benardina’s for tea.” Nonna paused. “She told me if I were to knit a small stuffed design that resembled a nest, and hang it there, the wasps would believe that there was already another colony there and move on to another location.”

I spat on the ground. “That seems hard to believe.”

“I don’t care if you believe it or not,” my Nonna said matter-of-factly. “I’m doing it, and that’s final.”

“Very well,” I said. Maybe she was going senile, but it wasn’t worth the fight. “What’s for supper?”

***

The next day was a long one at Saint Toman. The first of the gargoyles came down, just as the plan had called for, but we were only able to take down one of the eight monstrous statues before the sun set and the laborers all went home.

It rained hard the next two days, a storm pushed north of the Ikonos Peninsula to batter Milanos with wind and rain, and none of the planned refurbishment took place. I hunkered down and played card games and did puzzles with Nonna while canning what was left of our small garden harvest in our cellar.

When I finally made it back to the work site, it was a mess.

The foreman quickly whipped the laborers into shape as the cleanup began. I even had to pitch in for a bit before I was called to the head architect’s tent. I walked in confidently despite the grime on my hands and face. “Yes, sire?”

The tall, thin man stood up. “We need to move up our operations. The remaining seven abominations must come down by the end of the day.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Why, sire?”

He sighed. “King’s orders. We’re behind schedule, and he has a reopening ceremony for next month that cannot be moved.” The other man sighed again. “And his royal advisors don’t think we’re making much progress. If we get the gargoyles down, I can point to some concrete proof that we’re moving forward.”

“Makes sense, sire.”

As he began to pace, the lead architect rubbed his chin. “I have an engagement this afternoon, so I will leave you in charge. Make sure that all seven come down in case that any of the royal court pay us a surprise visit in the morning.”

I nodded in response, then turned on my heel and left.

***

It was a long day in the sweltering heat. I worked side-by-side with the laborers, repositioning our tall crane to take the residual seven statues down from the Saint Toman’s two towers. It was backbreaking work. My shoulders ached and my hands were full of callouses, but as the sun set to the west I beamed with accomplishment. The gargoyles were down, and the next stage of the project could begin as soon as the sun rose the next day.

The laborers began to trickle out one by one as daylight continued its retreat. Soon, it was just me and a pair of Leban migrants. The short, stout men scurried around the worksite like ants as they cleaned up debris.

I didn’t know why I was still there. Nonna likely had supper waiting for me, some kind of stew or soup that she had been working on all day, but here I was helping the two workers prep the site in the day’s waning minutes. 

But, as I did so, I felt a chill creep up my spine. It was a sense of danger, a sixth sense that I was being watched. It spread from my torso to my arms and legs, causing goosebumps to form on my skin as I carried a small pallet of wood to a prepositioning spot near the cathedral’s exterior wall. I felt cold, even though the heat hadn’t yet dissipated from the area. “Mehdad, do you feel cold?” I asked one of the laborers as I set down my cargo. He was just a few paces away while the other man, whose name I had long forgotten, stacked stone bricks at the far side of the site.

The Leban man shrugged. “No more so than normal, sire.”

“Hmm,” I wondered aloud as I rubbed my exposed forearms. Looking to the sky, the previously bright blue had been replaced by deep purples and oranges. A few clouds drifted in from the south but otherwise it was just as open as it had been during the day. Noticeably, there were no birds or bats – a common sight through the duration of this project.

I heard a gust of wind sweep through the area, but it wasn’t like any gale I had ever experienced. Accompanied by a low howl, the force almost knocked me over, sending my already-heightened senses went into overdrive. “We need to leave.”

“Why, sire?”

Motion up on the main spire caught my attention as I held up a hand for the other man to be quiet. My eyes failed me in the weakening light. I couldn’t make out what it was, just that there was something perched on the edge. In fact, right where one of the grotesque gargoyles had been earlier that day before having been removed by the small army of workers.

Then it attacked.

The creature swept down toward us, narrowly missing both Mehdad and me as we ducked underneath its claws. I didn’t get a good look at it, could only tell that it was at least twice my size with gigantic wings that seemed to stretch an impossibly long distance in either direction.

Fear swept my body. It was a feeling I had never experienced before, worse than when I had seen a man-sized shark while swimming as a child in Vanos Bay or when I noticed the plague sores that had ended up being a rash from an ionian vine. My body froze, my arms and legs not responding to any inputs as I watched in horror at what happened next.

With gigantic talons, the creature grasped the other man at his shoulders and lifted him into the air without much of an effort. He screamed, the shrill sound carrying over the nearly empty worksite, and then was gone.

***

I sprinted through the citta, having lost Mehdad at some point in my haste. My eyes hurriedly checked the sky for more of the monsters but there were none to be found amongst the stone towers and crumbling palazzos. It was almost pitch-black. The only light to be found came from oil lamps within the structures, casting long shadows out onto the dirt throughfares.

My initial destination was my house, to bar the wooden door and pray that the creature couldn’t find me inside, but I realized that it was too far away. Instead, I made a left at Via Liorna and headed for the home of the foreman.

Reaching it just a few moments later, I rapped on the door with my knuckles while scanning overhead for a threat that felt like it lurked just out of my periphery. “Who is it?” a muffled voice asked from within the dwelling.

“Your engineer, sire.”

“Romero?”

“Just let me in,” I pleaded.

The door opened just enough for me to fit my slim body in, then shut behind me.

I found myself in a small two-room house, the thatched roof just a few hands over the top of my black-haired head. My overseer held a small torch in his left hand as he covered his eyes with his right. In the corner, I could see his wife and child huddled in fear. I opened my mouth to speak, but he beat me to it. “Why are you here at this late hour?”

This was the question I had been trying to ask the entire time I had been sprinting through the citta. “Something happened at the cathedral.”

He furrowed his bushy brows. “What happened?”

I sighed. “It’ll be better if I show you.”

***

“This is blood.” He flicked the dirt away from his finger.

“I know, sire,” I said, my voice full of exasperation. “It came out of nowhere and took one of our laborers. He screamed, and then he was gone.”

“Which one?”

“I can’t remember his name.”

“Mehdad?”

“No, the other one.”

The foreman sighed. “I don’t remember it either.”

“It came from up there,” I said, pointing at the cathedral’s spire. “Swooped down, missed Mehdad and me, then grabbed the other laborer and took off.”

I could see his face in the weak light of the oil torch. It was as worried as I had ever seen him. “Monsters haven’t been around here in years.”

The same thing that my Nonna had told me. I swallowed; my throat dry, not sure what to say.

“Did you see any before they were exterminated?”

I nodded, not wanting to give any details.

He shook his head. “Have you told anyone else?”

“No, sire.”

“Keep it that way.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Come in tomorrow like nothing’s happened.” He sighed again. “Lebans come and go like the tide, hopefully no one notices his absence.”

***

And, in the short term, no one did.

I didn’t work the next night, instead spending time with some old friends from the royal university in a downtown tavern. Nonna was asleep when I got home, but I did notice her knitted wasp nest in the light of the two moons before I made my way inside and to my straw bed. I fell asleep wondering what her next project would be.

The next day at Saint Toman, it was chaos.

The laborers stood in a semicircle around the foreman at the cathedral’s wall, chanting and raising their arms in an aggressive manner. The polyglot of language confused me, so I sat down on a crate and watched.

There had been another abduction. This one of a local, a man named Marco who I had eaten lunch with on multiple occasions. He was a nice carpenter, a widower two decades older than me with two grown children who lived on the other continent. I wiped a tear away when I heard that he had been taken. 

Thankfully, the foreman was able to persuade the laborers to continue work. There was an indistinct promise of guards, but I wasn’t sure if we could make that happen. When they scattered back to their individual jobs, he walked up to me. “We have a problem.”

I gulped, then nodded. “That we do.”

“Let’s talk about it in the tent.”

We walked to his personal workspace, then entered underneath a flap. A small opening near the top provided some light. “Last night, Marco was attacked.”

“I surmised as much from their complaints.”

He ignored my statement. “There were two of them.”

My blood ran cold. “That can’t be possible.”

The overseer shrugged. “There were four witnesses.”

“Did any of them get a good look at them?”

He shook his head.

“What are we going to do?”

“I’m calling in some favors with the citta guard,” he said softly. “We should get a squad or two of men.” He sighed. “Problem is, I have to be out of town tonight.”

I didn’t like where this is going. “Where are you going to be?”

“In Rangelo, negotiating a supply of stone.” That was a half-day’s travel from here. “You’re going to have to stay here with them.” He paused. “And, if necessary, kill whatever beasts are attacking our workers.”

***

I was no soldier, no warrior. I had no combat experience, hadn’t been a fight since I was a lad. Yet here I was, standing with a standard spear and shield as I prepared to take on whatever beasts haunted our cathedral.

The citta guards had given me ten minutes of training, then had me stand near the church’s main door as the twenty men patrolled the courtyard. I had suggested for one of them to climb to the roof, near the main tower where I had seen the beast a few nights before, but they had ignored my suggestion.

The sun’s blood-red rays bathed the area with an eerie light. I rested the butt of my spear on the dirt, keeping my eyes skyward for their arrival. I still didn’t know what they were. The beasts were likely some primordial remnants of the monsters my ancestors had slayed centuries ago. At the far reaches of the kingdom there were still goblins, wargs, and worse, but here in Milanos they had been gone a long time.

Why had they come back?

Movement caught my eye, but it was just an ordinary bat leaving its roost as the sun set, out to look for insects. A wave of relief washed over me. Maybe they wouldn’t come out tonight, maybe the creatures would be deterred by the citta guards – and me – standing guard as the last laborers finished their daily tasks.

But my relief would be short-lived.

Out of the clouds swooped one monster, then a second, then a third. Pandemonium struck the work site as the workers fled. Two of the guards did as well, but the rest formed a small circle with their spears pointed up toward the heavens.

A laborer was seized, taken into the sky by a beast with an unearthly shriek. I stood, frozen in my spot, as the formation of guards broke when a monster flew into it at full speed. One of the armored men was taken as well.

And then the last one came for me.

I ducked, avoiding its talons by a hair, then scrambled to my feet. My left hand let my shield fall to the ground but somehow I managed to keep the spear in my right as I sprinted in the direction of the citta. I turned back to look, hoping that the beast would turn its attention toward another one of the poor humans at the cathedral. 

However, my luck had ran out, as it made a wide turn and then swooped back toward me.

I screamed and took off, my legs pumping as fast as I could make them. Fear gripped every fiber of my being, but my survival instinct overcame it. The flying creature was intelligent, smart enough to cut me off from the safety of the main entrance, so I made a detour to the exterior of its walls.

The sun had nearly dipped entirely below the horizon, but there was still enough light for me to make out the expanse of farms that ring Milanos. Most of the workers there had gone home for the night, but I could still see a few harvesting wheat and soybeans. I looked back, smiling as I had gained some ground on my pursuer, then back at the fields as I continued my mad dash to safety. 

While most of the tiny figures moved, one stayed static – a scarecrow, used to keep birds away from the crops. It wasn’t a real threat to them, of course, but like my Nonna’s ersatz wasp nest it kept them away.

It clicked. It all clicked into place like the last piece of one of our puzzles.

The gargoyles weren’t there just to be rainspouts. They were there to keep the winged monsters from roosting on the cathedral. 

My mouth agape, I watched as the beast stopped its pursuit of me and dove toward the poor, hapless workers amongst the wheat – none of whom knew it was there. I heard a scream and continued my sprint until I reached the main gate.

A guard helped me in, frowning at the massive smile on my face. “Why do you grin? The citta is under attack. Giant creatures are everywhere.”

“Because I know how to stop them.”

***

Two days later, I watched the last of the stone guardians be raised to its former perch on the cathedral of Saint Toman. The foreman had worked carefully with the religious leaders to ensure that the gargoyles would be put exactly back where we had found them. While the rest of the church’s renovations would proceed as we had planned, the removal of the statues would not.

And the winged creatures were not seen or heard from again.

© January 2025, Ryan M. Patrick

Ryan M. Patrick is a former U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force officer who works in the aerospace industry as an engineer. He is the author of two self-published novels. This is his first published short fiction.