Gargoyle Saga: In The Beginning

Chapter Twenty-one

"For those of you who don't know me, my name is Tara. This," she pointed to the girl beside her, "is Saskia. While you are here you are under our protection and guidance. If you have any questions or requirements during the time you are here, please ask us. Now as you are only here for a short time, I have planned out a schedule for you and I do expect you to keep it."

Saskia then handed out a thick wad of paper to a few people at the end of our row and it slowly began to be distributed to everyone. As one was passed to me, I read it and stared at it in awe. Though the schedule was tight, I found that there were a lot of things to do. After this introduction, it looked like we'd be split into small groups.

20:00-20:45 Gargoyle 101 (Hannah Smith)

20:00-20:45 History of T.A.T (Tara Young)

20:00-20:45 Demon Protection (Henry Simmons)

(Break 15 minutes)

21:00-21:45 Hand to Hand Combat Training (Lionel Stone)

21:00-21:45 Horn, Tail and Wing Techniques (Saskia March)

21:00-21:45 Magic Practice (Hadriana Von Reed)

(Questions with Tara and Saskia)

"I'll give you a few moments to think about which group you'd like to be in," Tara told us once everyone had had their schedule, "but once you have chosen you cannot choose another."

I had already chosen which group I wanted to be in. But I heard the girls giggle as they wanted to be in one of the groups led by guys. I felt like mumbling, 'How pathetic,' but stopped myself as I saw Saskia was staring at me. She frowned as I looked at her then she broke eye contact and resumed glancing around the room. Tara then looked directly at me and gave me a small smile. "Right then," she looked back across the sea of newbie gargoyles. "If you want to be in Gargoyle 101, please leave through the exit and Hannah will take you to one of the offices upstairs." There were quite a handful of people who had stood up and after they left, Tara then got everyone's attention. "For those of you who want to be in Demon Protection with Henry, please leave the auditorium now." I noticed a strikingly handsome guy in his late twenties appear in the doorway. He looked a little menacing as he folded his arms and stared at us. As Perri and the girls stood up and giggled, I noticed quite a lot of the girls followed suit leaving quite a vast amount of guys left. I turned in my seat and saw the guy Lauri from earlier and a few of his mates surrounding him. They noticed me staring and began elbowing each other and mockingly blowing kisses.

"Right then you lot," Tara called and clapped her hands. "We will stay in here for the duration of the History of the T.A.T." The last person closed the door of the auditorium and Tara waved her left hand and magically old pictures from the Victorian era appeared on the wall in front of us. One of the photographs showed a bald man with a cowboy hat standing outside the British Museum surrounded by eight men and two women. Neither of them smiled for the camera, as was normal back then. The other photograph showed a cover with the date 1825 scrawled in white on the bottom left corner.

£For the next forty-five minutes, I'm going to tell you a little bit about this facility, the T.A.T itself and what it does and the future prospects." She waved her hand and the podium vanished. "So, way back when, the T.A.T was formerly called the OMC Guild, or the Origins of Mythological Creatures Guild." She waved her hand again and above looked like mini-magical clips of film in the air. Some showed Victorian age men and women handling dragon bones or viewing footprints of animals that weren't meant for this earth. We were all in wonder as they changed constantly and it dawned on me, Tara had somehow shown actual snippets of the past!