In Stone by Louise D. Gornall

you listening to me?”
    “I was listening.”
    “Then you don’t understand the situation,” he scoffs. “That knife has power. It’s killing my kind. We don’t die, Beau; we can’t die. We’re designed to live forever.”
    “It’s not here. I got rid of it.” The words rush out of my mouth.
    His eyes scan my face furiously. “You got rid of it?” A vein in his neck starts pulsing as he heads back over to me. “You-you got rid of it?” A deep shade of scarlet colors his cheeks. He’s angry, really angry. In response, my shoulders stand up. I put my hands on my hips and tip my chin back.
    “I gave it to the cops at City Hall to incinerate.” I’m trying to sound nonchalant, but the shadow growing on Jack’s face makes my voice tremble and my feet shift.
    “You gave it to the police? You gave it to the police?”
    I wonder if he thinks repeating himself is going to make what I’m saying any less true.
    “You didn’t think to question who was carrying it, or wonder as to its origins? You didn’t think that handing it over to the police was perhaps a little brash, a little ignorant?” His voice descends to a threatening growl. He starts pacing in front of me. A cocktail of anger and irritation rumble around in his chest. I suddenly feel very small, like he’s growing, or the room’s expanding, and I’m shrinking. I’ve made a mistake, obviously. In my defense, it’s not like I was given an instruction manual, a how-to on handling strange weaponry. I had a problem; I fixed it. Period. He continues to plod back and forth. His scowl growing thick and murderous.
    “What is your problem?” I question before he wears a hole in the shag, or has a brain hemorrhage, or turns around and takes my tiny head off. “How was I supposed to know what I was doing? Nicholas said I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone about it, and I figured no knife, nothing to tell. It sounds to me like I did you a favor.”
    “You don’t understand. You can’t just get rid of it.”
    “What part of incineration don’t you understand? The knife is charcoal, melted down into non-existence. It’s already done,” I reply pointedly. I realize I’m pushing my luck. I realize my tone is berating instead of placating, but I can’t get a hold on myself.
    “You can’t destroy it with mortal fire. It needs to be retrieved. We need to find it before it ends up in the wrong hands,” he decides indirectly. He’s thinking out loud, but I can’t help notice that he said ‘we’. I’m instantly curious as to whom said ‘we’ refers.
    “We’ll go tonight. We can track it from City Hall,” he concludes then stands and looks expectantly at me. “Are you ready?” I point to myself, a little stunned by the audacity of his assumption. He rolls his eyes impatiently and nods once. “I’m going to need your help.”
    “Forget it,” I say, cutting through the air with a swipe of my palms. “Look, I’m sorry that your immortality is under threat…”
    “What about your mortality? Your mom’s mortality or the mortality of your friends? Tell me what you know about Gargoyles.”
    “I know that they’re ugly,” I say, mostly because I’m seeking some clarity. Nicholas wasn’t ugly, and he certainly isn’t.
    “It’s the stone shell that’s ugly,” he says. “Do you know why?”
    “No, but I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”
    “To frighten demons away. We keep the monsters away from your world.”
    Big black clouds roll in -- which is impossible because we’re inside and there is no sky in here. But the room is suddenly ten shades darker than what it was. Jack takes a deep breath. He takes it all, the air, leaving me none.
    “The knife is what they need to take this world.”
    “But Gray, he was a gargoyle…”
    “Supremacy belongs to whoever owns the knife. Gray wants it because he cannot stand the idea of no longer being indestructible. He doesn’t want to be vulnerable.
    “Beau, as long as the knife