Hearts of Stone

The man jumps from the cathedral roof, arms and legs splayed out beside him as if to catch the wind.Instead he catches the sturdy wing of a two century old gargoyle. Pain ripped through his shoulder as he jolted to a halt; dangling 600 ft from the ground staring into the stony face of his savior. Pulling himself up, he swings a leg around the gargoyle, resting on it's back."Good luck having you here, eh fella?" he patted the gargoyle as he looked up to the roof he'd just escaped.
Marni stood three stories above him, delicately perched on the edge, watching him. He saw the dark satisfaction she took from his inevitable demise fade as she realized he had once again thwarted death.The man waved to her, grinning from ear to ear. Marni remained unmoved, the man just barely discerning a slight irritated flare of her nostrils from the shadows playing about her ivory features.In a flash she began scaling the side of the cathedral, crawling in a swift, spidery fashion. It took just a few breaths before she was on him. Pulling him the by the hair, bending him to the left to fall six hundred more feet to the sodden earth.
He gripped the gargoyle tightly, refusing to give an inch. Marni was agile and quick, decently strong even, but she tired easy. The fight never lasting more than a few minutes before she runs off to feed on some poor, innocent passerby. The man is tired, but he holds out long enough for Marni to give up clawing and pushing, and pulling at him. She hisses in his face backing down from his winged guardian and her growing fatigue. She stumbles on worn bricks and swollen window sills on her descent, but never looks away from her opponent. When she reaches the ground she scurries off into the woods with hopes to find a quick dinner. Ache settles into the man's muscles, the adrenaline fading from his blood, leaving him to feel the world again. His heart thumps a dull beat behind his ears, growing louder and louder until he hears it all around him. An incessant rhythm of alarm.

He wakes up.