A Demon's Family
Chapter One: Findings
The half-moon bathed the city in gentle light. Any who dared look up would see dark figures drifting across the starless night sky. The circling figures were the gargoyles of Clan Wyvern, destined to protect the city until the end of their days. There were more now than there had been a year ago as youngsters from Avalon flooded in. After the death of their dearly beloved Princess Catherine, Tom and the young gargoyles came to the city. Some stayed, adding to Clan Wyvern and the Labyrinth Clan, but the others decided to explore the outside world and repopulate, starting up clans in places as far away Russia and Africa and increasing the population of the London Clan and the Aztec Clan.
Whereas all the gargoyles in the city had someone to spend time with, a mate or a friend or a clanmate, there was one gargoyle who was all alone. Her name was Demona and every night, she would glide into the city and watch the clans interact. She remembered the original Clan Wyvern from over a thousand years ago and she marvelled at how much, and how little, it had changed. Goliath still believed in protecting the humans and still put gargoyles everywhere at risk with his foolish actions. Humans everywhere were now aware of the existence of gargoyles, but that changed little save that there were more humans to hunt them now the humans of the present were much more dangerous than the humans of the past.
Demona's eldest child, Angela, lived with Clan Wyvern and was mated to a sweet older gargoyle named Broadway, a member of the original clan. They were expecting her first egg and Demona was worried. Angela had wanted nothing to do with Demona for well over a year and had, of course, decided not to invite her to her first laying. This saddened her, obviously, but she supposed that at least some small part of it was her fault. Her hatred of humans had pushed her daughter away and it hurt. She had only wanted to protect her daughter and now she couldn't even be around to help her with her first laying.
Demona's youngest, Delilah, was dead now. A flaw in her genetic code had turned her to stone forever, her and her clanmates and even Thailog and Doctor Sevarius' monstrous son. It was true that Demona had known nothing of Delilah's birth or that the good doctor had seen fit to make her with DNA from both her and that infernal detective, but, after her fight with Thailog, she had snuck back and tried to get to know the young clones. Most of them, with the exception Delilah, had been incredibly stupid; Thailog hadn't seen a reason for them to be intelligent. They had all been incredibly obedient and it took some time before Delilah and the others could honestly answer a simple question about how they were feeling at the moment. Delilah had been quickest to learn, to evolve. She had liked playing soft classical music in the background while she was doing something and had loved exploring the Labyrinth. For her first and only birthday, Demona had given her an iPod with a lot of music, especially classical music on it; even after Delilah's death, she maintained it was the best gift she could have given her strange new daughter.
She was forced to lower herself closer to the roof of the small building when Claw, a member of the Labyrinth Clan, swooped by her hiding place. The large Mutate was a big softie at heart and Demona liked him, despite having only spent time with him during a brief moment of captivity. She would hate to have to hurt the shy mute over something so insignificant.
He glided away soon enough and Demona straightened up, eyes once again focused on the gliding figures. She wished she could just talk to them, maybe explain her actions, but even if she was willing to put aside their differences, and, for a time, her hatred, they would never give her that chance, not after the amount of chances she had already betrayed. She would always be an exile, unable to be a part of any clan, sentenced to a life crueler than death. If she hadn't been immortal, the pain of being alone would have killed her a long, long time ago. There was a reason why gargoyles lived in clans. They were social creatures, like humans, and, like humans, could eventually be driven to madness from the sheer pain of being alone. Ten years, maybe twenty, maybe even thirty years they could survive alone, but eventually, the loneliness would drive them to a slow, horrible, welcome death, a reprieve from their insanity. There is no crueler fate for a gargoyle than to live alone. That is fact.
Sighing, Demona stood, flaring her wings. Nothing could be gained from sitting and watching the clans on their patrols, nothing but greater pain. She was readying to take off when a quiet, pained sound reached her ears, like something between a gasp and a cry. She glanced over the side of the building, into the darkened alleyway, and gasped at what she saw. A human infant, swaddled in a dirty blanket, lay unmoving in the shadows of an empty dumpster. Were it not for the quiet whimpers Demona could barely make out even with gargoyle hearing, she would have thought the child dead. The little Demona knew of human children, and children in general, showed that they were almost always moving.
Moving cautiously, Demona jumped over the edge and, flaring her wings, gently lit down a few steps from the baby. She took a few slow steps forward. Feeling very awkward, she glanced around quickly before bending down. She reached for the baby but stopped, staring at her talons. They could cause serious harm to the child and that was the last thing she wanted. Positioning her claws above the child's head, she drove them into the ground, working them through the cement and under the child. A few moments later, her other arm pressing against the infant's side, she lifted her arm, and the child, very gently, until the baby was cradled between one arm and her chest.
Once secure inside her arms, the infant wriggled a little bit, whimpering quietly. Demona gently shushed the child and began to croon beneath her breath. Carefully, using her other hand, she pried the blanket away from the infant's body. A loud cry had her wings up and wrapped around both of them, shielding the tiny human from the chill night air. The child immediately quieted, nestling deeper into the gargoyle's grasp while Demona finally managed to open up the blanket enough to examine the child's body. What she saw horrified her. What little she saw of the child was covered in cuts and bruises, blood and dirt. She could feel her eyes burn at the sight of the emaciated young body.
"Come, little one," she crooned. "I will take care of you." Shifting the babe so she had a better grip on the infant, she hastily climbed back up onto the roof and checked her vicinity for gargoyles. She could see Claw and a few others off in the distance, but there were none nearby. Angling her wings, she leapt off the roof, caught a weak updraft and rose unsteadily in the air. Quickly turning north, she flew over the park. Some of the best air pockets could be found there and she was lucky enough to find one that lifted her high enough to make the long journey home.