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gargoyle descended. The sight of it, membranous wings spread wide and claws ready to kill, filled him with rage. Creatures like this one had taken everything from him, his family, his world, his humanity.  
    He surged to his feet. Every muscle in his body screamed out in agony, sore from the fall. The beast’s claws tore into the ground where his head had been seconds earlier, tearing away a huge swath of earth.  
    Artan backed away, awareness trained on the creature while trying to locate anything he could use as a weapon. It felt like he was moving in slow motion, reflexes dulled. An hour of sparring with Rhianna wasn’t the same as facing men and monsters on the battlefield while decked out in full armor. He’d traded in a life of war for one of peace, and it showed. A fully trained knight, armored and armed, stood a slim chance at besting a gargoyle; a weak, soft citizen of this century was just easy prey for the demon.
    With a ferocious roar, the gargoyle approached.  
    Artan noticed something glinting nearby. The dead police officer’s pistol. He must’ve dropped the gun during the attack.  
    Lightning fast, Artan grabbed it.  
    Rhianna had shown him how to use a firearm at a shooting range a few months earlier. Even though she had insisted he was a natural, Artan wasn’t enamored with the modern-day weapon. To his mind, it made killing too easy. Nevertheless, he was grateful for the gun as his finger closed around the trigger and squeezed.  
    Gunfire rang out through the park as he unloaded the entire magazine into the creature. Bloody holes erupted along the gargoyle’s muscled torso, but the bullets barely slowed it down. They did manage to buy him a few precious seconds, however, which allowed him to back up toward the park’s wall. The beast, more angry than hurt, resumed its inexorable approach. He tossed the now useless firearm aside and jumped over the wall. A car honked and swerved as he stormed across the street, avoiding a collision by a hair’s breath.  
    Artan never stopped, never looked back.  
    Every fiber of his being was focused on the immediate task of surviving. The subway station jumped into view. He almost expected the gargoyle to land in front of the station’s staircase and bar his retreat, but the monster never materialized. The hail of lead must’ve slowed it down for the time being. Unwilling to pause to catch his breath, he ran down the filthy stairs. The earth swallowed him as he shot into the nearly abandoned station. Only a few late-night commuters listlessly waited for the next train, most of them focused on the glowing screens of their phones.
    Artan didn’t slow down as he launched himself over the turnstile. He’d made it underground, but this didn’t mean he was safe, not by a long shot.
    He advanced toward the edge of the platform. The tunnel stretched before him into darkness. The station’s silence was shredded by the ear-pulverizing sound of an incoming train. Headlights raked the tunnel’s tiled walls and a blast of air buffeted Artan's face as the steel behemoth tore through the station. The express train never slowed as it headed toward its unknown destination. Seconds later, the station was once again enveloped by a preternatural silence.  
    The quiet didn’t last long.  
    With a keening shriek, the gargoyle dove toward Artan—not from the stairs, as he’d predicted, but from the shadows of the tunnel. Too late, he realized that it must have torn open a grate and entered the subway system farther down the line so that it could meet him head on.  
    All these thoughts slashed through his mind in the split second before the creature’s claws tore him off the platform. Airborne once again, man and beast hurtled through the tunnel. The station’s lights receded, and soon the only illumination came from the series of grates above. Shooting down the tunnels, the gargoyles’ talons ripped flesh and drew blood. Then the gargoyle let go of him, and he