Read Mercy, A Gargoyle Story for Free Online

nothing but soft mush inside.
    Moag recedes into the night like a shadow, leaving me again, like he always does.   Always stranded.   The anger takes a long time to ebb away and when it does, what roots in its place is self-pity.   I spend my first night listening to my foreign voice growl complaints through the thin reed of my throat.
    The roof is like most, tarred and barren.   The pipes burp inconsistently.   There is a closet, which encloses a stairwell leading down into the apartment house.   The door to the closet is locked.  
    A line of air conditioners hum and grizzle on the opposite side of the closet.   A single, brown leather workman's boot has been kicked off near the door, faded three shades lighter than the tar, and just as crackled as my skin.   The boot has no laces and the tongue lolls.
    When I notice the floodlight in a silver hood beside the door, I break out its eye.   It will not disturb me by opening up its light.
    Beyond the stairway door, there is a bucket, overturned and oozy-black around the edges, as if it is no longer used for tarring.
    A truck rumbles across the street below and blows its horn.   I look up from my inspection of the bucket and notice a dark spot, sitting upon one corner of the concrete-block lip, at the opposite end of the roof.   The thing is hunkered down, but there are hard wisps of unruly hair rising all around it like the horizon of a Medusa hairline.   The thing must be looking out over the city, because it does not seem to notice when I scuttle toward it.
    I am guarded and suspicious, knowing now that I am not the only gargoyle to have been deposited upon this rooftop.   I am unsure if the thing will see me and spring to attack.   But, as I near it, I see that it is rooted to the building's edge, the base of its body a stone that is part of the lip itself.   The statue is sitting, at full attention, it's tail dangling and frozen in one tense twitch above the rooftop.   Closer yet, the thing has the sloped back of a waiting cat and the mane of a lion.   There are gashes speckling its mane and chips broken from its back.   It does not move.
    But I do not believe in statues anymore.   I nearly look to be one myself, and am convinced that if I sit very still, I could look as harmless as this lion.   Keeping a little distance, I hover at the edge of the building to get a better look at the gargoyle’s face.
    It is a lion, I suppose.   A grotesque lion, with a great, smooth hole, arcing through the center of its head, from a broad opening at its crown to its wide and snarling teeth that line its open jaw.   If I were a girl again, I could pass my arm through it’s mouth and out the top of it’s head, crooking at the elbow.   As a gargoyle, my claws would get stuck.  
    The snout of the immobile beast is as wide and flat as Moag's, but sculpted to be more lionesque.   The eyes are fierce with fat rectangles at the edges, narrowing like an Egyptian queen's eyeliner toward the ears.   The mane could be made of snakes, tangling and reaching out its undisciplined fingers on all sides.   It’s body is that of a muscular and half-starved king of beasts, but with magnified feet and claws that are as long and sharply arced as a collection of machetes.
    To stare at the thing, I must tip my face up and peer out the holes of my bone mask.
    I stare at the thing for a long time but it's own gaze never falters from its focus over the city.
    I stare a long time more and begin to itch, although I never dare, to touch it.
    I stare until the moon has begun its decent and then I finally say, "Hello."
    The lion does not move, but its enormous eyes slide, like gravel stones, rolls to the side of it’s head. It looks at me.
    But still, it does not give me one word.
    We stay rooted, me too terrified to move from its gaze, and it, just gazing.   I read nothing in its eyes that are only dark rock with holes bore for irises.   I wonder if the thing is more alive than I am,