Stoned - A Cursed Resurrection

Goji's Monster of the Week Short Story (Fiction)

Before we get to our short story about the gargoyle, Goji, I have a quick update about one of my books winning an independent publishing award.

Wicked Tree Press Updates:

I had a wonderful time this past weekend attending the Benjamin Franklin Award ceremony put on by The Independent Book Publishers Association.

Mary Shelley’s School for Monsters: La Llorona in the Machine took the highest prize for Graphic Novel in a category with many worthy graphic novels. I was able to attend in person and accept the award. It was a special night.

IBPA is full of wonderful and creative members working together to help independent publishers thrive in the competitive and rapidly evolving world of book publishing. I was honored to be recognized by the membership as well as the 170 judges that included librarians, educations, and industry professionals.

If you haven’t read the book and love monsters, mystery, and magic, I encourage you to pick up a copy of the graphic novel. I wrote it. Anna Wieszczyk is the illustrator. Book two in the series will come out in early 2025. If you want a chance to pre-order the kickstarter exclusive of the prologue of book two, you can do that until May 15th. Orders will close that day. You can also order you own copy of the award-winning La Llorona in the Machine from that same site.

Another way to receive both the comic and the book, is to upgrade your membership to founding member here on Substack. You will receive both as a welcome.

Now, for Necro’s short story inspired by the original gargoyle, Goji:

Stoned - A Cursed Resurrection

Gargoyle on the Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris, France (Photo: Sonar/Depositphotos)

Cracking embers spat hot sparks across the cathedral’s stone allure as the orange glow of the setting sun shown through the intricately carved designs of the parapet. A young cleric poured water from his wooden bucket, transforming the pile of white ash into sizzling slush near his sandaled feet. The ashy water rolled through the open parts of the carvings in the parapet over the ledge before falling and landing with a splat on ground. The cleric travelled up and down the thousands of stairs many more times, filling his bucket at the well and returning, until all remnants of the violent burning were erased and only the smooth, wet, glistening stone remained. Someone had to make thing made dirty clean again. In the cathedral, it was critical that the cleansing happened immediately with no trace left behind. Often, that labor fell upon the youngest of the flock. The cleric had never seen a dragon burned alive before. He had never seen anything burnt alive. Of course, he had also never seen a dragon or anything close to one before. The sun was setting on this day of horrific firsts for him. He now stood over the fruits of his labor, clutching his bucket, relieved that this dark work was over. He had erased the evidence of the deed, cleaned the space like the newly appointed bishop had cleansed the land of a ravenous and ungodly monster. The cathedral and its surrounding lands felt safe for the first time in his short life. The cleric and his feelings were forgetting that most monsters do not play by the church’s rules or respect their rituals.

Behind him, a bubbling sound rose, ending with a pop, and then repeated again and again, intensifying in volume and frequency. The cleric slowly turned to face the source of the sound. It came from a small amount of trapped water that had pooled where the two gutters met at the southwest corner of the cathedral facing the village. The cleric’s eyes narrowed as he crept closer, still gripping his bucket. As he closed in on the sound, he noticing small bumps forming on the pool’s surface. His brow furrowed as glistening scales emerged from water, growing up and around the wet stone of the parapet. The cleric leaned in, frowning. Trembling, he reached out and touched the scales, but they did not budge. He jabbed the scales with more force and jammed his finger. He pulled it back and rubbed it. The scales were hard as rock, maybe harder. He stepped back, repulsed by the gurgling growth emerging from the water and stone. The scales quickly layered atop one another, expanding up and out until they formed a long, muscular neck that soon sprouted a formidable dragon’s head filled with gnashing teeth, frozen in a furious and fearful gaze. The neck and head elongated out from the parapet, stretching over the church’s domain, keeping angry watch over its denizens. The tips of two sets of claws just barely poked out of the stone, position as if they were trying to tear the rest of the creature out of the rock. The cleric cowered, whispering prayers of protection as he watched this creature finish forming out of the stone and lock into place; its gaze set on the marsh just beyond the village outside the cathedral walls.

The cleric’s jaw went slack, his eyes wide like communion wafers, and his feet frozen as his own gaze remained fixed on the stone beast. The man could not look away. The last bit of the sun dipped completely behind the hills in the distance, bringing darkness to the land as stone beast and man uneasily adjusted to this new reality. As the sun’s light dimmed further, the dragon’s stone eyes flashed, transforming into a swirling murky green, the color of the swampy water surrounding the cathedral. They quickly became the primary illumination as the night chilled and darkened. As those eyes came to life, they filled with sadness, then fear, and quickly landed on rage. Steam rose from the stone, and the dank smell of rotting wet leaves and fish rose, filling the space with the dank smells of the marsh. The gargoyle’s smooth stone skin turned flesh as the last bit of natural light slipped away. Goji thrust his head forward and his claws scratched the stone, trying to rip his body free from the rock, the forsaken place where he had been set ablaze by a so-called saint hours earlier. Try as he might, he couldn’t pull more of him out of solid rock. He glared down at the place where the rest of his body should be, but there was only the slick, structured lines and decorating carvings of the cathedral where his neck ended. Below that place where his body became church, was the ground far below. Above him was the sky, where a few crows flew freely past him. His roar echoed, rumbling the allure and parapet, causing the young cleric to drop his bucket. It hit the floor with a bang and then rolled toward the stairs. A few remnants of the parapet’s carvings broke away and fell the great distance to the ground below. Shaking, the cleric reached for his cross beneath his brown robe and forced his trembling legs to take one step toward the thunderous brawls of the beast, rasping, “devil, be gone.”

Goji’s roars transformed to manic cackling at the idea of this cleric imagining him as the devil in this scenario. He began to truly panic, pure terror coursing through his veins. His legs, wings, torso, claws were not emerging from the stone. He was still only a neck, a head, part of a torso, and bits of claws. He was no longer whole. Worse, he was stuck atop this horrible faux pious place where he had been burned alive for all to see. The excruciating pain of the experience was one thing, but the humiliation of being imprisoned here was unbearable. He was a mighty water dragon who ruled these lands for centuries. One man’s tricks and his cross with a few bumbling criminals would not be the end of his story. He cursed his curiosity around the human’s obsession with their cross. He had only wanted to understand its power, determine why so many people kneeled at the sight of it. So, he followed those awful men to discover the secrets of the cross. He had not viewed the man wielding it as a true threat which was his biggest mistake. He had never imagined that any man was powerful enough to make him kneel before such an object. Yet, it had happened with the assistance of iron chains, fire, and his own arrogant hubris.

The flip and flop of the cleric’s sandal approaching him cut through his racing thoughts. His large nostrils flared and then inhaled the man’s fear. Just barely a man. The cleric had been but a boy just a few summers ago. When Goji smelled his fear, his panic increased. Instead of the ravenous hunger followed by the delightful anticipation of satiated that hunger he usually felt when he smelled fear, he felt a deep aching, emptiness. This emptiness was a void he knew that he could not fill, not with any amount of nourishment for he no longer had that kind of relationship with his body. A man wielding his cross had taken it from him. He was missing so much of what he once was just a day ago, and this young man had washed what remained of him off the ledge of this cursed cathedral. He whipped his neck around and fixed his glare on this pathetic, trembling human. His glowing green pupils nearly cut the man down with their ferocity and intensity.

The man staggered back but then forced himself to steady and direct his own brown eyes to meet the beast’s, releasing a ragged gasp.

“A demon in the house of God,” he murmured.

“One you put here,” Goji snarled and then released a low growl. The cleric forced himself to take another step toward him, clamoring for his rosary and whispering his medieval chants, emboldened by the so-called miracle he had witnessed the bishop perform earlier. It was not a miracle, just a barbaric act, one that Goji planned to make this cleric pay for, all of them, saving the newly-appointed bishop for last. If this man child was arrogant enough to attempt to wield such power against him then he would face the consequences as would his lord. He would teach them the reason the villagers still feared dragons, even once you burned them alive and turned them to stone.

The parapet was still wet from the last buckets of water used to cleanse its surface of what remained of the great water dragon. The young cleric steadied himself against it and faced what was left of the beast, hesitant because he was sure that the full body of the creature would grow from the stone at any moment. He was careful to stay out the reach of its razor-sharp rows of teeth. Goji’s neck hummed as the moisture on the stone welled to the surface and slithered toward the pool beneath where his flesh had melded into the structure. The cleric held the cross of his rosary toward La Gargouille, careful not to look down. The drop from this level was high above the grounds. A fall from this height would be fatal and instant. The stone dried completely and the water entered Goji’s flesh where it experienced an ancient more pagan transformation similar to this cleric’s concept of transubstantiation. The water became pure energy, creating a covenant with Goji’s flesh. Goji’s scales began to glisten as his pupils became brighter and brighter. He raised his head, glaring at the cross in the young man’s hands. The ancient power inside of him ready to battle its power.

He would not fall under the spell of the cross ever again. Through his burning, it had lost what dominion it held over him. The young cleric had stood by the bishop’s side when they chained Goji to this spot and set him afire for all to see. Goji would not forget nor forgive. He did not believe that type of compassion would teach these men the lesson they needed to learn.

He growled again as the man stepped closer, still out of reach of his jaws.

“I banish you devil from this house of the Lord. Be gone!” The cleric thrust the cross in front of him like a magical talisman. This man was new to the faith, still believed in magic and the power of dragons more than he believed in the power of the cross, making him very vulnerable in this moment. Moisture from Goji’s scales disappeared into his flesh.

“You do not believe, not enough anyway,” Goji hissed in the human’s language thrusting his head toward the man. The man stumbled back and nearly fell off the ledge, barely regaining his balance, cross still tightly in hand. “And I have now seen how you men pervert the power of the cross.”

Goji inhaled, and his pupils flashed, lighting hitting the marshy waters of his irises. He exhaled and a blast of icy water blasted from his throat and slammed into the chest of the cleric, giving him the final push over the ledge.

The parapet was once again soaked with water as the screams of the man echoed, ending with a satisfying thud.

As the sun rose the following morning, screams of a young villager rang up to the parapet. The murmurs of the cathedral’s denizens followed shortly afterwards. The young man’s body lay mangled in front of the church for all to see, prostrate beneath Goji’s stone neck and head high above them. The bishop rushed out into the crowd surrounding the broken body. A few women pointed up at the cathedral, one screamed. The bishop forced his gaze from the haunted eyes of the dead cleric to the parapet. His lips thinned and his skin paled as he stared at the stone neck and face of his greatest foe, realizing he had not banished the creature, only bound it to his own sanctuary forever. A spectral to remind those who dwelled there, especially the bishop, that they were never truly safe.

Notes from Necro:

There is much more to Goji’s epic story. This is only the beginning of his curse and adventures as a gargoyle. This story captured the day he first resurrected from stone. He has transformed further throughout the centuries, and his powers have evolved. One day, I will tell you more… much more.

Here is a sneak peek of an illustrated and lettered page from Mary Shelley’s School for Monster: Origins #2. Also, I’m also including a link for a download to Origins #1 if you want to see how it all begins.