18. Movements in the Dark:
I just want to thank the creators of DARK AGES for creating such a great background, and Storyseeker for correcting my fics and helping me with great ideas and for the characters of his ficverse.
A bandaged man is being transported out of the De'Mark Psychiatric hospital
In a Monitor Room in an unknown building Roland and Thailog watch Castle Wyvern with the help of the spy bugs.
"There are visitors wishing to see you," the major-domo explained.
"Visitors?" Goliath asked surprised, just to add more thoughtfully. "From the government?"
"The Canmores," Owen replied, and by going away he added. "They await you in the guest room."#
"We are here because of the promise you gave us," Robin explained, stepping forth from behind her brother in a tone a level cooler than his. "We want to see our brother."
Elisa looked surprised at both of them for a moment, and then she shrugged her shoulders.
"Well, I can call Chavez tomorrow and call her…" she explained, stopping when she saw Jason shaking his head.
"No," he said firmly. "Tonight."
The air whirled Lana's hair, and made her kneel down in half a second, through which she knocked over the bucket, spreading the contents. As she dared to open her eyes, Lana saw Queens gliding over the courtyard.
"ARE YOU NUTS?" Lana screamed on the green-skinned Gargoyle with the large shoulder and knee spikes, her eyes blazing red.
His response consisted of waving and smiling happily, while behind him, Edward and the light brown one with the shark's fin were engaged in showing off some even more crazy stunts.
"Can't you do something productive with all these testosterones?" Lana asked angrily.
"Lana had the right idea," Edward added. "We could go out on patrol, and see if we could catch Lucifia or one of her followers."
*Zong*
It didn't hurt, not a bit. In fact, if not for the feeling that something had hit him, very hard in his chest, he wouldn't have noticed it except for the feeling of weakness that overcame him.
Looking down he noticed that a small harpoon had cut through the left side of his chest; its head now resting at his back while the end was connected with a line, which seemed made of a strange metal.
The line lead down maybe ten meters under him, and as he could taste blood coming up from his throat, the smoke black warrior noticed the figure of a man, holding the gun that was connected with the line, wearing a black mask with three lines looking likes scars of blood on them.
~ The Hunter, ~ the smoke black one thought….
14.09.98; 01:49; Destine Mansion:
The figure wearing a long brown coat looked around, making sure no one was on the street to see him. He then climbed up the wall with remarkable ease, noticing the top of the wall consisted of a small metallic part.
~ Does she have it electrified? ~ the figure wondered.
Having no intention to test it, the figure jumped over it and landed on the grass inside the courtyard, rolling over just to land securely on his feet. Cautious he looked around, just in case of any automatic defence systems.
Carefully he moved to the door, seeing no movement behind the dark windows, but believing to hear a silent snarl, when suddenly the door opened… The figure stopped, seeing Shade leap outside, snarling.
The realization of a trap came half a second too late, since just as the figure looked up, a snarling large shadow with eyes like two coals on fire fell on him, pressing him painfully on the gateway ground, while its tail twitched like mad in the air.
"YOU ARE TRESSPASSING!" Demona screamed on him, feeling somewhat pain in her back as she stared on Macbeth.
"Listen, I… OUHHHHH!" the old Scot tried to reason with the Gargess, having little success, but giving the other immortal time to try to slash his guts out.
Luckily for both of them, knowing his old friend, Macbeth had taken preparations so that Demona's talons met the surface of the other immortal's black body-armour hidden under a blue jersey, which had just been turned to shreds.
Thanks to the Gargess's surprise, and that she had had to remove her claws from his shoulders to attack, Macbeth managed to grab her arms and throw her back on the closed gate with the help of his leg.
Turning on his knees while standing up in pain, Macbeth stared at his old enemy who was doing the same thing, only slower.
Just as the former king tried once again to say something, he heard a growl from behind, much too close, and half a second later felt the impact on his back as Shade jumped on him.
The black beast bit him in the back of his coat, just to meet the armour as his former friend had done before, and as before Macbeth used the moment of confusion to act. Standing up, he turned a powerful circle, pulling the beast on his back with him, and just as the circle had reached the zenith of his strength, he let his arms slide out of the coat so that it and the beast flew against the wall behind him, the latter being trapped in the coat for the moment.
Taking a deep breath, the former king stared on the gargess who likewise took time to breathe.
"I CAME TO TALK!" Macbeth shouted. "Have your rookery mothers not taught you any manners?"
"You intruded my home!" Demona snarled on all fours, staring at him with her eyes still burning.
"I rang the bell for ten minutes," Macbeth said in a calmer tone, noticing that behind him Shade was going to free herself by turning the coat to shreds. "Don't tell me you have gone deaf."
The gargess kept glaring on him. "What do you want?" she asked.
Macbeth waited for a second.
"I want us not fight to death every time we see each other," he explained "And since I want to hold this time as little as possible, I want this divorce!"
"Ha!" his wife replied, standing up and giving Shade a short look who had taken position behind Macbeth once again. "My lawyers have sent you my offer."
Macbeth closed his eyes a moment, knowing that killing her wouldn't solve too much, and then there was the other reason why he needed this...
"I'm not giving you half of my property!" he replied as politely as possible.
"Fine, I wanted all of it after all," Demona replied, beginning to walk to the door of her house. "Just talk to my lawyers if you change your mind."
Macbeth took one step in the other immortal's direction, causing Shade to growl louder once again and tensing her muscles, ready to jump.
"Try just one time to pretend to be a reasonable person!" Macbeth told her. "Don't you want this whole thing between us at an end?"
Demona had nearly reached the door of her mansion, but then turned around, her eyes burning red.
"Since the night you betrayed me, yes," she snarled, just to add in an icier, more cynic tone. "But I'm not interested to die, and seemingly neither are you, so leave my home before I call the police."
"I wasn't the one who betrayed an ally that night, Demona," Macbeth noted bitterly, as Shade walked back in the mansion. "You know that!"
"Leave!" his former friend snarled menacingly, and closing the door behind her.
Macbeth stared at the door a moment longer, his face unreadable, then he went to pick up his coat, finding it very much torn to shreds under the gargbeast's claws and fangs.
"If you would be so good as to OPEN THE GATE!" he shouted to the closed door once he noticed he was effectively trapped inside the courtyard.
At first nothing happened, but then the gate slid to the sides and opened his way back to freedom.
Macbeth looked to the door one last time, thinking about going back and trying it once again, but realizing it would gain him nothing but the possibility of his own death, and this wasn't what he desired anymore.
The immortal shook his head and walked on the streets, looking for his car.
~ There are other ways… ~ he thought, though he had hoped not to be forced to go there.
14.09.98; 01:57 Castle Wyvern, Great Hall:
Lana knelt under one of the many tables, trying to scrape the dried chewing gum stuck underneath it with a spatula… with little success.
"Children are pigs," she noticed in disgust, spraying some cooling spray on the chewing gum and trying again.
"I don't believe it was just our younger sibs," Ruth replied on the other side of the table while fighting with her own chewing gum.
"Ewww…" Lana commented, as she finally managed to remove the chewing gum, or at least part of it, and letting it fall into the plastic bag.
Feeling a bit sick from the smell it emitted, the half gargoyle looked around the room, noticing Angela working on the table right of theirs, her task visibly eased by her mate who helped and quite visibly flirted with her, making her smile deeply in love.
Lana smiled
It was an unthankful task they had been given by some of the elders, yet it seemed to be much easier than just half an hour ago, and it wasn't just the mated pair that seemed to lighten the mood…
Lana glanced over to the table two lines away where the grey hairless female was fighting against the chewing gum in silence.
Despite everything, Lana had to smile as she turned back to her task, as it had been very funny to see her former torturer being dragged naked into the Great Hall by Deborah, her most privates parts just barely covered by her wings, and red to the top of her hairless head.
It hadn't been hard to figure out where the hairless young warrior had just been dragged away from, especially when her mate had come in shortly after they arrived, holding her clothes with his own barely put on correctly, just in time to hear Deborah *having a talk* with her rookery daughter and explaining what was going on to the Gargoyles around.
After all the young one's pranks, it was hard to find someone who felt mercy on her.
~ Serves her right, ~ Lana thought, turning back to the chewing gum. ~ Maybe… ~
"GET THE HEALER DOWN HERE!" a male voice shouted.
Lana, along with everyone in the hall, turned her head in the direction of the voice, the doors to outside bursting open by a bulk of Gargoyles. They rushed in, centred around a large light-brown Gargoyle with something on his head resembling a shark's fin whom she had begun to call Finn for herself.
Looking closer, the half-Gargoyle discovered to her shock that he was carrying the smoke-black one with the beak, whom she had begun to call Smokey in her mind. The rather small Gargoyle was unconscious with blood running down his back where…
"By the dragon, what happened?" someone asked in the mass.
Lana gasped, as she noticed the harpoon in his side where the left lung should be. The bulk of Gargoyles with the wounded one passed her, and she noticed the Gargoyles in the centre were all the ones whom she had sent on patrol.
For a painful long moment she believed he was dead, and they were carrying his body in a sort of crazy hope, but then she noticed a big violent movement of Smokey's chest and the dampened sound of pain emitting from his beak as he did so.
"…. Hunter, he was behind us before we even…"
As fast as they had come, the group had vanished into the door leading to the medical station, leaving the Gargoyles in the big hall to watch each other unbelieving.
Lana shivered.
14.09.98; 02:06 Castle Wyvern, Computer Room:
"Try again with codex 46a," Lex said, not even looking up from the PC.
Bea typed in some lines while looking at her own monitor.
"Nothing," she said after ten seconds.
"Damnit!" Lexington shouted in frustration, hammering on the keyboard and glaring at the monitor.
He didn't even notice Bea move, except when her claws touched his neck, massaging it, but finding it surprisingly relaxing, not even shrieking from it for a second.
"No one is expecting you to find a solution for this problem in a night," she told him. "Or in an hour. We have tomorrow…"
Lexington softly shook his head.
"I will tell Xanatos of it before daybreak, his programmers will probably find the code," he explained, looking up to Bea for the first time. "At least they can work 24 hours on it… and can work on places where they are sure not to be watched over."
Bea felt a slight shiver creeping through her spine while looking around in the room.
They had searched through the room without finding a bug, but that meant nothing, for the best experts of Xanacorps had searched the whole castle for bugs without finding one before the tape had been made… something quite a tribute to Nightstone's skills.
"Thank you," Lexington said, a bit more relaxed, enjoying the warmth of Bea's claws.
"Hey, I must thank you for allowing me to help you," his sister joked. "Besides, it is much better than scraping chewing gum from under the tables."
"We make a great team," Lexington replied, daring to lay his claws over her own. "We…"
He stopped, forgetting what he was going to say, but staring back on the monitor.
"Chewing gum…" He murmured. "Maybe…"
Instead of asking what he meant, Bea stared on the monitor.
"You mean the signal is mixed with the receiver instead of going on its waves?" she asked.
Lexington nodded absently, beginning to type in some lines for a program, Bea watching him with a slight smile, removing her claws for the moment.
"There!" Lexington exclaimed in what seemed only a minute later, as a window opened on the monitor, revealing what slowly turned into a stable transmission of the floor leading to Xanatos's bedroom. "We got it!"
"Great!" Bea exclaimed excited, looking over Lexington's shoulder. "Can we find another room?"
"Hold on a second…" Lexington replied, pressing some buttons and making the window switch again.
They saw another transmission, now showing the information room, then came the Great Hall where amongst others Lana was still occupied with the tables… another transmission of the Hall this time of another angle… showing what looked like a patrol returning, but something was wrong…
"Look," Bea pointed out on the monitor where their large, fin-headed brother was holding his smoke-black brother. "No…"
Now both of them had discovered the object towering out of the black one's chest, and the blood pouring…
Both shared a short look of concern, then they jumped up and ran to the door… pulling it open just to find Mary and her mate running down the floor.
"There has been an attack," Lexington told them.
Mary nodded.
"We know, they brought him to the medical station five minutes ago, we just heard it," she told her siblings.
Lexington and Bea shared a look.
14.09.98; 02:08 Undisclosed Location Near The Docks:
The Hunter landed his bike in the empty looking dock building, hearing the gate close behind him. As he stepped off his vehicle he noticed a movement behind his back, the sound of claws tipping on the ground.
Given the fact the room had been full of weapons and… other equipment when he had acquired the bike, the Hunter wasn't surprised to turn around and see their owner standing in front of him.
"I had hoped for more professionalism," Lucifia noticed without even a hint of anger. "At least your former boss told me so."
"I was paid better then," the Hunter replied, looking back at the black eyes of the Gargoyle. "Besides, you broke me out to hunt your kind, and the other kills would have been too easy even for your men."
While he talked he let his right arm go down slightly to where his electric gun was fixed. He had used the electric net already, but he wasn't out to just hurt her, so the electric shot would be a nice beginning.
"You disappoint me," the being sighed, her voice unreadable as were her eyes. "You betray me."
The Hunter heard the small door behind him being torn open, but it was a moment too late, as he was just grabbing his gun when he felt a pain exploding in his back, and spasms were shaking his body as muscles twitched under electric energy.
"This is a bad thing, and I fear I have inherited my mother's view on that," Lucifia noted, watching the human twitching before her as two of her followers grabbed him, both of them strongly built men and armed with the same electric guns that the Hunter was wearing.
"You know, I would have given you all that you wished if you had just waited," Lucifia explained, as her henchmen dragged the Hunter up by his arms. "Not too long, just one or two more kills, the special project we talked about and you would have gotten all that you wanted…"
The being shook her head, as the man in front of her groaned, fighting with winning back his strength.
"What is your plan?" she asked. "How do you believe to be able to win against a clan of over one hundred and fifty Gargoyles?"
The Hunter stared up at her, at the same time testing the strength of the man who held him, remembering the hunting knife fixed at his left leg. Yet the men were strong, even stronger than he had believed…
"I have my ways," the Hunter murmured from under his mask. "And I won't take orders from such a filthy beast."
For a long moment, Lucifia just stared at the human.
"Well then," she explained with a grin. "For all that you can do, you can use our supplies."
As the eyes of the man under the mask widened, the Gargoyle's grin widened even more.
"One way or another, you will pay off your fee," Lucifia explained.
In a sudden and violent movement that no one saw coming, her right claw slashed over the masked face, slitting it open just where the marks had been drawn in.
"Perfect," Demona's daughter explained beneath the screams of the man whose mask drew up the blood hungrily.
14.09.98; 02:09; Castle Wyvern, Elisa's Room:
"Really?" Elisa asked again. "Yes. Tell this to my captain."
Without waiting for a reply she hung up, grabbed her jacket and left the room, running down the floor until she met Goliath who was just talking to Hudson, Deborah and Brooklyn.
"I just learned," she explained. "Jon Canmore has been smuggled out for at least two days, and this was only discovered after his siblings wanted to visit him."
"Enough time to take off the straitjacket and put on the Hunter's mask," Brooklyn commented.
"Aye, lad," Hudson said. "But what role-play did his siblings play in this?"
"My mate is right, their appearance is too strange to be an accident," Deborah agreed. "They must know something."
"Don't forget that Lucifia might still play a part in this," Elisa noted. "It would be her style."
"We will ask them," Goliath decided, looking around. "You will come with me, Brooklyn. You will call the patrols back and hold contact, inform me if anything happens."
Brooklyn wasn't too happy to be left behind, but nodded as the others moved away.
14.09.98; 02:14; Castle Wyvern, Floor Before The Medical Station:
Waiting was the worst part...
At least that's what everyone else believed, but Lana had never agreed with that, not since the night the phonecall had come that had told them, simply and finally, that her father was dead, and she felt as though a part of her heart had died, and had stayed dead for the weeks to come.
Now she felt like that every second, as she imagined the Gargoyle out there on the table possibly dying, not because he meant something to her, but because this time it was her fault…
Lana stood there with Ruth, Mary and their unnamed sister by the side, and waited, looking at the door leading to the medical station, hoping that suddenly the door would open and the doctor would tell them that it was going to be okay.
The waiting continued, giving her enough time to look around the floor where most of the smoky black warrior' siblings had gathered, including the members of the patrol which had gone so terribly wrong, and who hadn't even found the time to clean themselves of their brother's blood.
Suddenly, as if he had sensed something, Queens looked up, his eyes meeting Lana's.
The half-Gargoyle looked away, searching for other things she could look at that would distract her mind, finding the second who stood some meters away, near the entrance waiting together with his thicker aquamarine brother.
"Where is the leader?" someone demanded to know.
Looking in the direction of the voice, Lana discovered Kronos walking in with Emilia by his side and Achilles shortly after.
"Out with his mate, Hudson and the teacher," Brooklyn explained from beside Broadway, visibly not happy to see the older Gargoyle there. "They are paying the Canmores a visit."
"About time," Kronos commented.
"We don't know yet if they had anything to do with this," the second responded, looking in the older Gargoyle's eyes. "That is why they are there."
Kronos seemingly wanted to say something, but Achilles spoke first.
"How is he?" he asked.
Brooklyn looked at Achilles a bit surprised, and then he grumbled.
"I don't know, Moore is still in there, as are the healer and the two Gargoyles with nearest my brother's blood group," the second explained calmly, and added a bit icier. "He told us not to go in."
Lana suddenly felt even more uncomfortable second by second, yet worse as she tried to look away from Brooklyn, her eyes meeting Queen's, and she had to turn them away once again.
"If he dies, at least we know who is responsible for this," Lana heard Kronos' voice, and like being beaten she suddenly looked up to him.
"Yeah, we know," Queens began, his eyes turning from Kronos to Lana. "She wanted us to go on this patrol."
The sudden silence came out of shock, but for the young half-Gargoyle just accused it seemed as if everyone was staring at her accusingly.
"I…" she stuttered. "I'm sorry."
With these words said, she ran away down the floor, not caring that her friends were calling her name.
14.09.98; 02:19; Castle Wyvern, Guestroom:
The four Gargesses walked in, Darlene and Desdemona who were leading Delilah to some chairs standing in the centre of the room, while Fuchsia closed the door behind them.
"You know why we wanted to talk to you?" Darlene asked the young hybrid, as they sat down.
"Because my brother got in trouble?" Delilah asked, pulling a string of hair away from her face.
"He isn't in trouble," Desdemona corrected the younger Gargoyle. "There was just a misunderstanding."
"A big one," Fuchsia threw in seriously, sitting beside the others.
Desdemona gave her sister a short look before turning back to Delilah.
"Look, there are some things that Talon probably doesn't know of, and we thought we should talk about them with you now," she explained. "Our mates are talking to your brothers about the same topic right now, so say… do you know what it means for two Gargoyles to be mates?"
Delilah nodded, looking a bit insecure.
"It mean the same as being married?" she asked.
"Yes," Darlene said with a smile, as she remembered her own marriage. "Exactly, except that the ceremony is done by the clan leader instead of a priest."
"Being mated is something wonderful," Desdemona explained. "It means that you belong with someone."
"Maggie said that belonging to someone is wrong," Delilah replied, looking curiously at the caramel-skinned gargess.
"Belonging to someone is wrong, but belonging with someone means something else," Desdemona noted. "It means…"
"Understanding someone completely," Fuchsia interrupted her sister. "Feeling the need to be always around him."
"Missing him," Darlene concluded.
Another Room:
"Feeling yourself as part of someone," Othello explained.
"Or hoping to get in with someone," Thersities suggested.
"Brother!" Diomedes rebuked him with a hard voice.
"Just joking," his beaked brother defended himself. "They know this, don't you?"
With this, the male Gargoyles looked at the four clones that were standing to the left of them, and watching them with a look that revealed little understanding.
"Okay, maybe not," Thersities noticed.
"Look, wanting to become someone's mate is serious," Diomedes said, ignoring his brother for the moment. "It requires a lot of trust, from both mates."
"Trust?" Brentwood asked.
"That you are there for her, to support her," Othello explained. "Especially if they are with egg."
"There problem if females are with egg?" Malibu asked, rubbing his beak.
Othello and Diomedes shared a look.
"They are more… delicate," Othello replied politely, just in the case one of the clan-females questioned the clones about what they were talking about later.
"You know how eggs are conceived?" Diomedes asked.
Guestroom:
"… and while I do this with my mouth, my tail moves around the region between his wings," Delilah explained, sitting on her chair.
The other females stared at her.
"This is… strange," Darlene commented in surprise, looking to Desdemona and Fuchsia. "Wouldn't you say so?"
"I should say so!" the caramel Gargess exclaimed, as her fuchsia sister could only stare. "You were really… programmed with this?"
"Thailog programmed me with dozens of techniques to please him," Delilah explained, not understanding what was the point in that question or why the other females were looking at her in bewilderment.
"Did you like doing this?" Darlene asked after a moment of shock.
The hybrid hesitated, looking at the earth for a moment.
"Sometimes," she admitted unsure. "But often he hurt me, and this wasn't good."
"For sure it wasn't!" Fuchsia assured her.
"The right sort of mate would never hurt you," Desdemona explained to Delilah.
Second Room:
"How can I find the right sort of mate?" Burbank asked.
"Maggie said you know when you see her!" Malibu remembered.
"This is only partly true," Othello explained, remembering the time he had once believed that. "You might be… attracted to a female when you see her, but that is not the same as true love."
"Where the difference?" Hollywood asked.
"This is sometimes very hard to determine," Diomedes noted. "You might once believe you have found someone you love and who loves you, but then you realise she puts other things over her relationship with you, or she doesn't trust you."
Othello watched his rookery brother with a strange look, remembering the story between him and Demona.
"The best thing to do is that you give both of yourselves plenty of time to learn of each other until you are sure," Othello told them. "But the most important thing to see if the female is returning your feelings, is simply by asking her… and to make sure she isn't mated or intended for someone else already."
Burbank sunk his head a little.
"How much time does this need?" Malibu asked, staring at the clan's hunter.
"Long," Thersities commented sulkily for his brother, earning him a look from both siblings.
"This is different," Othello replied finally. "It is the time when both Gargoyles feel the need that they are ready."
"But you know the females of your clan!" Brentwood commented, proud of discovering a flaw in the Gargoyle's logic. "You grow up together."
Diomedes sighed. "Yes and no," he tried to explain. "If say you and your intended were of the same clan, then while you were growing up with them, you were still just hatchlings. Both male and female hatchlings know the other is different, but they do not see them as adults do… When they reach maturity, it is kind of like getting to know each other anew."
"Hatchlings not attracted to each other?" Hollywood asked.
"No," Othello explained. "Usually this starts during the second Breeders Moon after the hatching turns about 30 years old."
"And then they mate?" Brentwood guessed.
"No," Diomedes explained patiently. "Although you may feel the urge, this does not mean you have the maturity to make such a decision, to see the consequences for both of your lives."
"I and my mate declared ourselves as one at the age of 36," Othello joined his brother. "We were the first of our rookery and near the youngest in our clan to ever be mated, according to the elders."
"It made you happy?" Hollywood asked.
"Yes," Othello said earnestly, but with a slight smile on his face. "Every night."
14.09.98; 02:32 Castle Wyvern, Outside:
High above the courtyard, on the battlements, three Gargesses were trying to argue sensibly with one who was half of their own.
"They are idiots!" Lana's web-winged friend told her. "They are… How do you say it… nuts?"
Lana didn't respond, her arms crossed and pressed against her stomach as if to contain the pain she felt in it, and though she looked at the yellow-skinned Gargoyle through her wet eyes, her thoughts were somewhere else.
"It was not your fault," Ruth tried again, laying an arm around Lana's shoulder in an attempt to console her. "That damned Hunter is to blame… and Lucifia!"
"Don't forget it was them who wanted to go out there," Mary added, seeing that her friend's eyes were still far away.
"I sent them out there!" Lana cried out, burying her face in her claws, feeling fresh tears beginning to well up. "I told them to do something useful and then, then…"
The half-Gargoyle felt close to vomiting, as she remembered the blood, but just as she believed she could not hold it in any longer… she felt the feel of warm, soft and yet strong palms on her head, forcing her to look up.
Mary's brown eyes caught Lana's own, and were latched onto them like in an iron lock, and for a moment the brownish-orange Gargess seemed to look straight into her soul.
"Kick this out of your head, will you?" Mary said calmly but firmly. "The only one to blame is the one who pulled the trigger!"
"They should not have been there," Lana said flatly, feeling powerless and so very tired. "It's because of me, because they got on my nerves…"
"Our smoky-black brother knows the truth," Ruth told Lana from her left side. "At least he did know, and whatever happens, believe me he has… "
"He will live," a male voice stopped the dark blue-skinned warrioress, and together they discovered Brooklyn stepping out of the shadows of the door leading into the castle "Dr. Moore isn't sure if he will be able to use his left lung fully again, but his right one is strong enough to do the job."
Lana breathed out a sigh of relief, feeling a shiver running through her whole body down to the end of her tail, and she heard the other Gargesses doing the same, just as Mary embraced her strongly.
As the embrace ended, Lana looked around to see the same relief in the others' faces, happy to learn that their brother would live, and washed some tears of happiness from her face.
~ God, I must look terrible! ~ she thought, and had to laugh out when she realised how unimportant this thought was at the moment.
Brooklyn watched this scene with a slight smile at his sisters' relief, but his eyes remained earnest and fixed at Lana.
"Let's talk for a moment," he suggested to the half-Gargoyle, as she calmed down a little.
Lana looked at the beaked Gargoyle and nodded, giving her friends a short smile while following him down the battlement until they were out of earshot of the others.
"You didn't send them out there," Brooklyn said finally, stopping. "I did."
Lana was baffled for a moment.
"That is your job," she pointed out. "I just suggested it to them because I wanted them to leave me alone."
Brooklyn shook his head. "Maybe, but this time it was different," he explained. "I saw that they weren't thinking straight, but let them go out because I believed they could handle it… I was wrong."
Lana remained silent for a while.
"Look, is this some sort of psychological crap? The sort where you're trying to make me think that it wasn't my fault because it you played some part in it?" she asked sternly, looking at the red-skinned Gargoyle.
"I don't know, is it?" the second of the clan asked with a slight grin.
Despite herself, Lana had to smile a bit on this.
"We both might have sent them," Brooklyn added, once again serious. "But it was they who wanted to go. Don't forget that, and I won't either."
She thought about it for almost half a minute, until finally she just nodded. But despite that and the smile she threw at him, she still felt the knots of guilt tied up in her stomach, which tightened all the more whenever she remembered the blood.
Suddenly, Bea appeared and embraced the surprised half-Gargoyle.
"Lexington wants to speak to you," Bea said, without turning around to Brooklyn. "Now!"
14.09.98; 02:37; Rooftop in Front of Hotel:
The three Gargoyles landed in the shadow of a large advertising panel, and their leader released a human from his hold as they melted into the shadow.
"No light," Deborah noticed, looking at the apartment on the other side of the street while taking care to stay in the shadow of the large panel.
"They will still be on their way back from the hospital," Elisa said.
"Would not count on that, lass," Hudson replied, crossing his arms while looking around over the darkness of the ceiling.
"Hmm…" Goliath frowned. "We'll go in when the lights come on."
"Goliath, lets forget that," his mate threw in. "If you storm in there like an attack party, this won't help us if they are innocent."
"And what do you suggest?" Goliath asked in return.
"Once they arrive, I'll go over and knock on the door, showing my badge if needed," Elisa told him, shrugging her shoulders. "Chavez will want a report anyway."
Not noticed by both of them, Hudson and Deborah exchanged looks.
"If they had something to do with the attack, then it will be dangerous," Goliath replied, crossing his arms. "We won't be able to get over there fast enough in case of an attack."
Elisa wanted to answer, when a voice interrupted her…
"Luckily this won't be necessary," Jason's voice sounded clearly, and close by, making the three Gargoyles spin around, their eyes blaring, while Elisa's hand was near her gun.
A moment later, Hudson looked above where, resting well hidden on a part of the panel, sat a mechanic hawk, identical to the one they had fought in their first confrontation with the Hunters.
"Come on over. We'll open a window and have a chat," Jason's voice came out of the beak of the small robot.
10.09.98 (Four Days Previously); 21:57; Canmore Estate in Northumbria:
Robin Canmore's brain went into action, as she once again checked the control-pad of the wheelchair lift.
It had been a good idea to install the lift, which all family-members had agreed on. Though this one of their family's estates hadn't been built for wheelchairs, the floors and staircase were large enough for such an installation.
The lift was a great help for her disabled brother… if it would work.
"Forget it and come sit beside the fire!" the voice of her brother called to her from the distance of the living room. "We'll call a mechanic tomorrow!"
Robin sighed. Her brother was right, as even without the lift he could easily climb the stairs himself by using his strong arms, though it broke her heart every time she saw him moving that way with his crutches, but this wasn't the only reason why she had been trying to get the machine working for hours…
"I'll call the mechanic and sue the company," she shouted back, giving up on it for now. "They can't sell us crap such as this! Imagine what would have happened if you would have been in it when it stopped."
"Would have climbed off it and you know it!" Jason voice came through she door.
Robin smiled, walking down the floor…
*KLIRRRR*
The former Hunter turned around, and discovered a large Gargess with blue skin, landing beside the wheelchair lift and growling at her.
Robin reacted quickly despite the shock, as she had been trained to do, grabbing a sword hanging from the nearby wall and pointing it at the Gargess.
"The Canmores have abandoned the hunt!" she shouted on the Gargess. "Why do you attack us?"
The Gargess just grinned, grabbing a halberd from the suit of armour nearest her, showing she was more than willing to begin the fight.
Robin was ready to make the first move, but then she heard the sound of a snarl coming from behind her, making her stomach grow cold. Yet despite this she didn't take her eyes off the Gargess, for all her senses told her that this would be a deadly mistake, and slowly walked backward instead.
She wouldn't have made it, for the gargess was moving toward her quickly, but fate intervened when the wheelchair-lift began to swerve suddenly, showing signs of reluctant life.
The sudden and unexpected sound made the Gargess turn around in surprise, allowing Robin in return to turn and run for the living room.
Shortly before entering it, she threw herself down on her knees, sliding the last few metres, which resulted in her evading the thrown halberd, which flew over her just where her neck would have been.
~ Just like when we were kids, ~ raced through the former Hunter's mind, together with an image of her, Jason and Jon playing and training in this house.
Not letting these thoughts waste her precious seconds, she closed the door behind her and looked ahead, seeing…
14.09.98; 02:49; Hotel, Canmore's Apartment:
"Lucifia," Goliath said, stopping Robin's tale.
The former Hunter nodded, sitting on a couch beside her brother in his wheelchair, with Elisa, Goliath, Hudson and Deborah on the other side of the glass-table, on which Jason had put the headset he had used to control the robot-bird.
"She was holding my brother hostage with a gun at his temple," Robin explained. "Besides her were two Gargoyles, one with a white mask and another who strangely resembled you."
"Roland and Thailog," Hudson noted, not too surprised. "What did they want?"
"They… she told us to come to New York," Jason answered. "Or she would kill our brother."
"More ruses," Deborah commented.
"We learned of strange things in the hospital, which led us to believe he had been kidnapped," Jason said without going into much comment. "But we wanted to be sure he wasn't there anymore, else we would have tried to free him and bring him to safety."
"Why didn't you tell us?" Elisa inquired angrily.
"Why didn't you warn us of such a danger near our home?" Robin snapped back, and added while looking at the Gargoyles. "We didn't want to get involved in a fight between Gargoyle clans."
"They are no clan," Goliath replied coldly. "And is it your brother who is out there now hunting us. He gravely injured one of our young warriors!"
"Don't be so sure of that," Jason replied, his eyes fixated on the large Gargoyle. "Lucifia stole something from the estate, which could explain this new Hunter, especially if she is as capable in magic as you describe her."
"What do you mean?" Goliath asked. "What was it that she stole from you?"
"The mask of the first Hunter," Jason revealed. "It's been in our family for hundreds of years, collecting dust. According to legend, the scratches on the mask are of his own blood, which came from the wounds the demon inflicted on him."
"You don't assume…" Elisa began.
"You mentioned her power over blood," Jason said. "And from what I heard, you have a scientist who is very capable in cloning."
Shocked silence came from the other side of the table.
"Whoever the Hunter is," Goliath broke it. "We must coordinate to fight him, we can't allow…"
He stopped, as he heard the slight vibrating noise of Elisa's cellphone, as she stiffened and went to grab it out of her jacket.
"Maza," she answered.
"Detective, good to hear you," Chavez's icy voice ran through it. "Since Xanatos's major-domo told me you were out, I guess you are at the Canmores."
"Captain?" Elisa replied, trying to hide her shock. "How did you know that?"
"Turn on Nightwatch," the voice ordered, and as Elisa had told Robin to do so she continued. "I assume you brought your friends with you?"
"Yes," Elisa replied, while watching the television.
"…we are continuing to get reports of sightings of a fight between a group of Gargoyles and a masked man, dressed like the terrorists who were involved in the attack on the police precinct." Lorraine Maccancy reported, standing in front of the 23rd precinct. "We still don't know if this has any connections with the events of this year or if it is a new group based on the Quarrymen, but according to eyewitnesses of a nearby party, a Gargoyle was seriously injured…"
A quick exchange of looks with her mate told her that he realized, too, how much more complicated it had become now.
"Was anyone wounded?" Elisa's boss asked, and by the click in the wire Elisa realized that Chavez was checking her gun.
"No one was hurt," she replied, taking a look at Goliath again. "We were just talking."
"So they weren't involved. Have you any suspects then? What about their brother?"
"He is one possibility," Elisa reported. "But we have also been talking about another… unofficial one."
The following moment of silence gave her time to think about how insane their second suspect would really sound, and thus she was nearly relieved to hear the next words.
"Fine, we will talk at the precinct. I will send two of my officers to the hotel, where you will wait until they arrive and drive you directly to the precinct," Chavez ordered. "Your friends leave now! And tell your mate that if I find any of his clan out there hunting masked criminals, I will have them detained also. I will not… *KLIRR*… AAAAARRRRKKKK!"
"CAPTAIN?" Elisa shouted into the cellphone "CAPTAIN?"
The answer consisted out of a dead wire, which told her more than she wanted to know.
14.09.98; 03:31; Castle Wyvern, Great Hall:
"No, no," Jarred said eagerly, as he chewed his gum. "You must put it between the lips and try to hold it there, see?"
With this he opened his mouth, revealing a mass of bubblegum before his sharp teeth.
Hollywood tried to do the same, but only managed to spit the gum out on the floor.
"Me sorry," Broadway's clone said, looking depressed.
"Who cares?" Jarred replied, using his tail to push the gum away behind a vase, after making sure that no adult was looking at them.
He didn't have to do that since, after checking that there would be no trouble, the adults who had come together in one corner of the Great Hall were paying the clones and hatchlings little attention.
It was a state both groups were used to.
For now it didn't matter much, for as Jarred and Jane showed Hollywood, Malibu and Brentwood how to make bubbles with their gum, they had already forgotten this. A little outside this group stood Delilah and Burbank on one side, and Connor and Eve on the other, the hybrid clone and Demona's son looking at their siblings and trying to figure out why the elders were in such a bad mood.
"He got it!" Jane exclaimed excitedly.
Distracted, Delilah looked to the centre of the group, discovering Malibu had managed to make a large purple bubble at the end of his beak.
She smiled at the success of her sibling, and looked in surprise at the cheering of the hatchlings while Brooklyn's clone just beamed with pride.
Burbank, who had been looking around the hall, had meanwhile wandered off after discovering someone washing the floor on her knees.
The grey and hairless Gargess was not having a good time at all. First that idiotic rookery brother of hers, now the clan Second, had given her this demeaning chore because of that harmless little prank she had played on that friend-stealing bitch, and when she could finally relax in the arms of her mate, her rookery mother had stormed into their happy room like a scary dream from her early hatchling days and pulled her out by her ear… while she had been completely naked.
Indeed, she last time she had been punished by her had been back in her early hatchling nights shortly before the elder had left for what was supposedly her final battle with the Vikings. That had been years… no, centuries ago, and now she felt like a little hatchling again. But at least back then she would have felt no such red-hot embarrassment like she was feeling right now, not to mention the numerous tasks now assigned to her, making any free time even in the distant future an illusion.
And now that she was consumed with all this work, she had very little or no time at all for her mate, so for all she knew, that blonde half-breed could be chatting him up right now.
Angrily, she splashed some more water on the floor and began scrubbing it in, when she felt someone watching her.
"Happy to see me like this?" she asked, looking up and discovering that it was her rookery father's clone.
"Me not," Burbank insisted.
"Then get out of the way!" the Gargess ordered, lowering her face to her task, muttering, "Fucking ret…"
Even though she was whispering, she held off the last remark, knowing too well it could only increase her trouble.
"Why did you trick me?" the clone asked, wanting to know, but hoped not to sound stupid. "This wasn't nice."
Realizing the clone wouldn't go away, she looked up again.
"Because you got on my nerves!" she snapped.
"We are Gargoyles," Burbank replied. "Why not be friends?"
"No one here wants to be your friend," the Gargess replied, feeling the last of her nerves fading, as she saw the other clones walking nearer in interest. "So why don't you just go away?"
Burbank didn't know what to respond on this, and suddenly a furred claw lay on his shoulders.
"Time to go home," Talon told him.
14.09.98; 03:36; Castle Wyvern, Battlements:
Lana sat on one of the castle's battlements and looked out over the city.
The wind played with her white-blonde hair, whirling it partly over her unusually thoughtful face, but she didn't register it, just as she didn't register the city beneath her, and it was only the sound of a voice behind her that caught her attention.
"Lana?" someone asked.
Turning around, she discovered the currently healthy member of the Wild Four looking at her and, under big pressure it seemed, Queens stepped forward.
"I…" he began, only to stop, and Lana almost believed his arm and knee spikes would become entangled as he rubbed them both together. "We wanted to say we were sorry."
"Yeah, it wasn't your fault," Edward added. "We should have been better prepared."
"A warrior always takes blame for his own mistakes," the one with the shark's fin on his head, whom Lana secretly called Finn, added, citifying his teacher.
"And what should I say on this?" Lana asked.
The three members of the quartet looked at each other in surprise.
"Look, guys, I didn't want any of you to get hurt, but I also... " Lana paused momentarily. "You three… just wouldn't leave me alone. That's why I sent you out, but I never expected any of you to be harmed."
Edward sighed.
"We only want you to choose between us," the small Gargoyle explained.
"We like you," Queens added.
"Can't you give us a chance?" Finn added.
Spontaneously, Lana wanted to shout 'No', but then she remembered the blood.
~ They almost got killed because of me, ~ she thought, memories of the small black one gasping for breath, as blood was coughed up from his throat, filling her mind.
"Look, guys," she then said. "I have an idea… "
14.09.98; 04:11; Air Space Over Manhattan:
Hollywood wasn't sure if he understood the idea...
"We attack Lucifia?" he asked "Why not more?"
"Because we can not risk that Lucifia sees us all attacking and leaves," Talon told him and the rest of the clones again. "We will meet Goliath, Deborah and Hudson there. Once we attack, the others will depart from Wyvern, but we will lead the battle, so listen to us and follow orders."
"We follow orders," Burbank said, feeling good at being able to at least show Deborah that he was good at that.
Talon gave him a hard look, and then he looked over at the rest of the clones and sighed.
"I wouldn't put any of you at risk, but Chavez has been kidnapped, and there is a good chance that she is still in the building. We will get the signal, so time is important," the Mutate explained. "Be careful."
With this, he glided forward to the top of the group where Achilles, his mate Emilia, a slightly blue male and a grey-blue female with dark blonde hair, and two who were of Brooklyn's generation, were leading the group.
"They are ready," he told Achilles who right now had one of the clan's communication sets in his ear, trying to hold a neutral tone.
"And we are nearly there," the slightly blue male said, looked up from the detector that Lexington had given them and pointed on the abandoned office building in front of them.
"Leader, we are there," Achilles reported through the communicator. "It is the building you suspected."
The Gargoyle with the fin on his head seemed to be listening to something coming from the communicator, upon which he looked around, and as Talon looked in the same direction he found Goliath coming in fast, with his sister in his arms and Hudson with Deborah quickly following.
"You, the clones and you both will guard the building on each side," the leader of the clan ordered, pointing at the mates. "The rest goes in."
"My sister won't…" Talon raises his voice in protest.
"I have a gun, you have wings," Elisa stopped him angrily. "But Chavez has no time!"
Knowing there was nothing he could say on this, Talon nodded in defeat and watched his sister, in the arms of her mate, land on the top of the building, followed by four Gargoyles.
"Better take care of her," Talon whispered to Goliath as he vanished into the building, and then he turned to the clones and Gargoyles gliding around him.
"You two stay here," he pointed to the mates. "Delilah and Hollywood guard the west side, Burbank and Malibu the north, I and Brentwood will go to the east…. We let no one through until support arrives. Now GO!"
14.09.98; 04:17; Inside the Office Building:
"We part in pairs," Goliath ordered, as they reached a point where the way split in three different directions. "Be careful."
Everybody nodded, and while the leader and his mate chose the way ahead, and Achilles and Emilia chose left, Deborah and Hudson turned right.
The warrior elders had walked maybe fifteen seconds when a hissing sound suddenly came from around them, stopping them in their tracks.
"What in the…" Deborah began, and was stopped when she had to cough heavily.
Beside her, her mate suffered the same symptoms and had to lower his head.
"Gas," Hudson noticed, looking up as mist seemed to come from the ventilator systems, yet behind the mist he could see before tearing eyes a figure moving. "There!"
Dragging his mate with one arm, he followed the figure through the mist until what was now only a shadow kicked open a door at the side, giving them time to catch up.
Reaching the door that lead to a staircase very much free of the gas, Hudson discovered the shadow was indeed his former rookery son, having already managed half a level downwards.
"Stop, boy!" the former leader ordered, and to his large surprise Roland did just that. "Where is Chavez?"
"I don't know," the bandit replied, turning around and looking at his rookery father with an unmasked face, having been forced to remove his usual mask for the oxygen one. "You are perhaps a bit too old for catching me, father."
"And where are you going, lad?" Hudson asked in return, letting his mate step besides him. "You know that it won't turn out to be a good end with Lucifia… Don't delude yourself."
"More unhappy than I have been with you?" Roland snapped back. "I'll take my chances."
With this the young Gargoyle jumped down the staircase, and though the older Gargoyles did their best to follow him, they only arrived at the end of the stairs in time to see the sleek Gargoyle jump into a manhole cover and let it fall into place, a click revealing that it had been sealed.
"Damn!" Deborah cursed, as they both gave up trying to lift the cover. "Do you think he spoke the truth about Chavez?"
"Who knows?" Hudson replied honestly, looking up the staircase. "Let us just hope that the others have more luck.
14.09.98; 04:19; Other Floor of The Office Building:
Goliath and Elisa had a hard time trying to fight through the mist, and the coughing didn't make it any easier. With the large Gargoyle going on ahead, Elisa had her gun drawn to cover his back.
Suddenly, as they passed another empty office, a figure appeared ahead of them where the floor parted in two.
"Now there, father," Thailog said, his voice twisted by the oxygen mask, pointing a laser gun at Goliath. "Let us talk."
"Where is Captain Chavez?" Goliath growled, his eyes lighting up white.
"I have no idea," his clone replied. "But I know where Lucifia is, and who the most important members of her cult are, and… who the Hunter is."
"How much do you want?" Goliath asked in a nearly resigning tone.
14.09.98; 04:22; Another Floor of The Office Building:
Achilles and Emilia were taking a look in another room, or as much as they could do while in the fog, when they saw a large figure running away in front of them.
With a snarl Achilles took up the hunt, his mate quick behind him, and despite the gas making quick breathing a near impossibility they weren't far behind, when they heard the sound of breaking glass.
Breathing heavily they reached an abandoned office, discovering Thailog gliding away only to be engaged by Burbank and Malibu, and Achilles was about to join them when he heard the sound of something humming in the bag of his belt.
Grabbing the communicator, Achilles had time to see that though the clones had forced Thailog to glide lower, they suddenly stopped.
"Leader, we follow Thailog north," he spoke into the communicator, his voice as calm as his being. "Inform Talon that we…"
"No," Goliath's calm voice stopped him, this time coughing.
"Once the rest of the clan arrives, we…" Achilles continued, seeing Malibu and Burbank land, leaving Thailog to glide away freely.
"I will explain later," his leader replied firmly, and angrily Achilles watched Thailog escape, forced to stay behind while around him the gas leaked through the broken window, and his mate looked at him in surprise.
14.09.98; 04:25; Castle Wyvern, Medical Station:
Lana stood before the door of the medical station and felt her breaths coming in and out quicker.
~ Breathe, ~ she thought to herself, and then thought, ~ Geez, I wonder how he is breathing now? ~
A scene played out in front of her inner eye, where the small black Gargoyle that she called Smokey was lying on a medical bed with a breathing mask, his whole chest heaving in pain, as though his life were barely holding on by a thread and….
~ Stop it! ~ Lana ordered herself, knowing that if she went down this road then she would soon loose her nerve and just run.
She quickly grabbed the knob of the door and entered, soon seeing Moore sitting at his desk who was looking at a sheet of X-ray pictures, holding them against the light so Lana saw that they were of a chest.
"No visitors, for the second time!" the Human doctor shouted, putting the sheets back on the table and adding more calmly. "Xanatos should send a watchman here, as if this were my job."
Lana looked on him a bit baffled.
"You are the hybrid," he said after a few seconds.
"How did you guess?" Lana replied jokily, raising her claw with five talons.
"You learn that at university," the doctor said, smiling, causing the half-Gargoyle to smile back.
"Okay," the doctor gave in, still grinning. "Five minutes then I'll come for you, and try not to engage him into too much conversation."
Lana blinked. "He is awake?" she asked
"Yeah, he is," the doctor replied in a sarcastic tone. "The anaesthesiologist is still having problems trying to find the right dosage for you Gargoyles. Cutting someone up is in another league than an amputation, and he was in a much weaker state than Hudson."
Lana swallowed, something that didn't happen to go unnoticed from the doctor, but he didn't respond on this, and Lana was thankful for it as she walked into the other room.
There she found that her mind's image of Smokey's present condition was not totally accurate, but not far off. The barely sown wound that she had imagined was mercifully hidden beneath the white bandages that spanned over his upper body, giving a stark contrast to his smoke-black skin.
And yet he still had enough resemblance to her nightmarish image, especially with the tube in his short wide beak.
With all her attention focused on him, Lana only noticed the person sitting beside him when she stood up…
"Ruth?" she asked in total surprise, her friend not having said that she had planned to visit him.
The red-haired Gargess looked a bit awkward at Lana's look, but that was the moment when the Gargoyle on the bed opened his eyes. Coughing a bit, and visibly in pain, he pointed at the table beside his sister who thus quickly gave him the pen and paper that had been lying on it, on which he began writing something and then showed it to her.
*Hello*
"Mmm…" Lana began, not knowing what to say. "How do you feel?"
He gave her a quick look.
*I'll survive… How are you? I heard about my brothers… idiots…*
"Fine… I'm fine," she replied, giving a quick look at Ruth. She was finding it hard to look upon him with all his wounds and bandages so, for when she saw the obvious pain he was in it brought her pain also. "Look, you and your brothers may have been wrong in leaving the castle, but I was the one who got you to leave and I feel guilty about causing you so much trouble. So I want to make it up to you, and at the same time bring this infatuation with me to an end before…" she swallowed. "Before someone else gets killed because of me."
Lana paused for a moment, in which Smokey looked at her, though he seemed to have problems in holding his eyes open.
"I want to give you all a date," she explained, causing Ruth to look at her surprised.
*?*
"I will go out with each of you," she said. "One at a time, and once it is done… No more attempts to impress me, no more races or trials, and definitely no more stories of what great warriors you are, okay? It would be all over."
*about time!*
Lana smiled a bit, totally agreeing.
"And don't worry, I will begin it once you are back on your legs…" she noted. "Or rather your wings, if you prefer that?"
Smokey looked at her surprised, but then he shook his head.
"Look, I know that you probably don't want to have anything to do with me," Lana said in a sad tone. "But please give me the chance to say I'm sorry."
The wounded Gargoyle continued to stare at her, and then he emitted something like a groan.
*I'll do it*
With these words written, he began to cough heavily, the pain now most obvious on his face.
"You'd better go now," Ruth told her friend in a strange tone, bowing over her wounded brother and trying to calm him down.
Lana nodded and left, but not before giving one last look on the scene, as her friend tried to see to her brother whose eyes were now watering in agony, as though he were crying.
As she watched them, or more precisely him, Lana felt her heart fill with so much sorrow that she feared she would break down and cry herself.
14.09.98; 04:32; Castle Wyvern, Floor Before The Rookery:
"Here you are," Broadway said, as his mate neared him from the other side.
Angela's face looked stressed, as she held the small bald and green-skinned hatchling in her arms, but when she saw her mate her face lit up a little.
"She wanted me to bathe him after he got soiled," she explained, as she approached him. "I never thought that drying someone without hair could be so difficult."
"Yes, we are tricky," Broadway replied, cooing to the hatchling in his mate's arms before pressing his eye-ridge against his mate's. "They got the last bug."
Now Angela's face showed a true smile.
"At last," she said, enjoying her mate touching her hair.
"The yellow beast caught it in mid air," he explained. "I think I will give him an extra bone later."
"Any news of Goliath?" Angela asked, moving a bit away from her mate as the hatchling protested over the lack of space.
"Not so far," Broadway replied, and as he saw in his mate's eyes he quickly added, "One good news at a time."
"Yes, but…" she began.
"Ähem…" a voice stopped her. "I certainly didn't send you here to spend time with your mate."
Turning around, both young mates discovered the white-haired, yellow-skinned elder coming out of the rookery, or what some in the clan called her kingdom behind her back.
"No, elder," Angela sighed subconsciously, stepping a little away from her mate.
"Good, is he dry?" the elder asked, but before Angela could say something she added, "Let me check him."
Wordlessly, Goliath's daughter handed the hatchling over to the rookery mother while exchanging a look with Broadway.
"Seems fine," the elder noted, almost as though she were disappointed. "Now come in, we have to put them all to sleep."
"Yes, elder," Angela replied in a more weary tone.
"Better watch your tongue, young one. You know why you are here," the elder snapped before turning to her rookery son. "And you have duties, too, or shall I give you some?"
"No, elder," Broadway said, knowing this tone all too well from his hatchling nights, before turning to Angela. "We'll talk later."
Angela watched him go with a smile.
"There are more important things to do than that," the elder said harshly at the look in the younger Gargoyle's eyes, feeling a slight sadness in her. "Now come."
14.09.98; 04:47; Ceiling of The Office Building:
The group of Gargoyles, clones, one Human and one Mutate who strangely were siblings, watched the discussion continuing.
"This was wrong!" Achilles roared. "We had him."
"Thailog is not our primary objective at the moment," Goliath replied, his voice calm yet hard. "Any chance to get Lucifia must be used."
"You told us he can not be trusted," his rookery brother replied angrily. "And now you let him go free to attack us again."
"We can trust that Thailog does what is best for himself," Elisa jumped in. "Believe me, he is more than willing to trade Lucifia in for money."
"You are taking too large a risk, leader," Achilles said.
"It is mine to take," Goliath replied. "And at least we finally…"
The sound of a large motor stopped him, and all the people gathered turned to look in the direction north of them where a large helicopter was nearing.
"Xanatos's team," Brooklyn commented. "Maybe they will have better luck and find something."
Goliath looked back to his brother who had kept his centred eyes on him.
"Prepare yourself to leave," he ordered all of them.
A short distance away from him, Elisa noticed Talon's look.
"It is our best chance," she whispered to him. "Had we captured him, Lucifia might have moved Chavez already."
"Not if we had brought him here and got him to speak quickly," Talon replied, his eyes still fixated on Goliath.
Elisa was about to ask what he meant by that when she felt her hairs starting to lift and smelt the taste of ozone, which were coming from her brother's claws that had begun to sparkle slightly.
"Derek…" she began, more than shocked by her brother's behaviour and unspoken suggestion.
"This is Chavez we are talking about," he replied angrily. "You remember how often she came to Thanksgiving with us."
Caringly, Elisa laid a hand on her brother's furred chest, trying to calm him down.
"Should we trust the same Gargoyle who did this?" Talon asked, pointing at Burbank whose head showed a heavy bruise, and Malibu whose beak and left arm were slightly bandaged by Delilah to hide the claw-marks.
"Mmm," Burbank said, having risen from where he and his sibling had been sitting. "No, leader, it wasn't our fault he flew, Thailog spoke and…"
"It is all right, boy," Talon stopped Hudson's clone. "No one blames you."
"But…" Delilah began.
"We'll go home," the Mutate told them, ending the discussion. "I think we've all had enough excitement for one night."
Elisa smiled and embraced him.
"See you later," she told him.
14.09.98; 05:01; Castle Wyvern, Outside:
The grey hairless female was sitting on the outside of a large window of the Great Hall, a bucket with water, a clout and a wiper at her side. She showed no sign of willingness to use it, but instead she looked out to the sky in front of her.
~ Please bring him fast and alone, ~ she silently prayed to the Great Dragon. ~ I don't want any hatchlings to find me here. ~
Fortunately, she didn't have to wait very long before she saw a male shape coming quickly over to her.
"About time, my love," she greeted the brown-skinned male with a wide-open smile, almost exclusively reserved to him. "It is lonely down here…. But this is a good thing, too."
With these words, she pressed him against the wall and began softly rubbing the back of his neck, around his small horns, just as she knew he liked it. Yet this time it didn't seem to work, as his brown skin didn't warm up in the spot where she touched it, and his eyes stayed hard while something else stayed soft, too.
"My mate, what is it?" she asked. "Aren't you happy to be spending some time together at last?"
"We would have had plenty of time if you hadn't insisted on your prank," Tom replied. "I thought we wanted to leave that behind."
His mate groaned, letting go of his neck and allowing him to sink down under her arms and step beside her, or as much as the little space allowed to anyway.
"I'm sorry about that, okay?" she said, turning to him. "He knocked over my bucket and got on my nerves…"
"Like Lana?" Tom added. "This doesn't justify embarrassing him in front of the clan, especially since you know how tense the situation is between our elders."
"By the dragon, he's just a clone!" his mate snapped. "What's the matter with you?"
"He may be a clone, but he seems to feel the same about love just like everyone else does," the spiked male replied in a suddenly very serious tone. "Just as I thought we did."
The sudden silence left the unspoken hang between them.
"Maybe some time alone wouldn't hurt either of us," he finally said.
Before his mate could answer, he turned and jumped into the night, using an updraft to glide out of sight, leaving her to stare after him.
~ Damnit! ~ she thought, and lashing out with her tail she kicked the bucket over the edge. ~ Why did he have to mention her?! ~
The hairless female allowed herself a moment to think about this, before the realisation about what might happen if the bucket reached the ground and actually hit someone made her jump after it.
~ Oh crap, ~ she thought.
14.09.98; 05:07; Destine Mansion, Outside:
Demona sat at a table outside her living room, Shade by her side, and went through the business reports concerning the failed deal that Taro Industry had gotten instead, trying to see if there were other ways to break into this market.
She didn't need a bunch of 'experts' to tell her that her chances were small, and all the coldness of the night and fresh air didn't help to calm her anger over this.
~ This region seems to want to stay hostile territory, ~ the immortal thought, though quickly banishing the memories that came up with these thoughts.
It was in that second that Shade looked up, gaining Demona's attention, for she was awaiting the return of Darlene and the children.
However, it wasn't the awaited sight of wings nearing, but a small motorcycle-like hovercraft coming at her at rapid speed, and looking up she discovered a laser pistol being directed right at her.
A quick jump to the left, in which she also took Shade with her, brought Demona out of the line of fire, just as the table exploded.
"I see the years haven't cost you your reflexes," the person on the hovercraft noticed.
"Hunter!" Demona screamed at him, her red shining eyes staring at the mask with the three red lines while she moved her body in front of Shade.
"The first and only one," he replied. "Ready to resume the Hunt on my own turf, demon?"
~ The first? ~ Demona asked herself, but these thoughts were soon stopped, as the Hunter came at her again, but then turned his hovercraft and left, no doubt as a ruse to try and get her to follow him.
~ Well, he will not have to wait long, ~ she thought.
"Stay in the house," Demona ordered the garg-beast, and began quickly racing up the wall to make certain that this Hunter would soon become her prey.
Shade watched her friend leaving with a mournful whining, but soon vanished inside the house.
14.09.98; 05:16; Undisclosed Location:
Roland felt darkness threatening to gulp him down, as he was dragged forward through the passage between the standing Humans.
The men who held him did so with remarkable strength, yet it wasn't just their unnatural strength that restrained him, but the strange gas that they had sprayed on him when he had first entered Lucifia's headquarters also, leaving him somewhat weak… not to mention the knock he had got on his head.
"Just in time," a voice ahead of him said, and looking up Roland discovered Lucifia standing in front of the sacrifice-basin on a stone-altar, holding a dagger. Thailog was kneeling in front of her, and only barely conscious.
"What is this?" the captured Gargoyle managed to say, though having witnessed this ritual often enough to know it all too well.
"Simple," Lucifia told him coldly. "You have outlived your usefulness, and now you will serve me in another way."
With this, and not wanting to watch Roland's helpless attempts to free himself, she turned to the man standing closest to her.
"Is she ready?" Lucifia asked, her eyes not blinking.
"She is still fighting," the man with dirty black hair and grey eyes said, and while he spoke Thailog's eyes seemed to become clear again.
"We have time," the Gargess said, looking down at Thailog.
With a slow movement of her dark blue-skinned claw, she almost lovingly stroked the clone's face.
"How could you think that I wouldn't have had the whole building monitored?" she asked softly, sounding disappointed while Thailog stared at her. "I had planned to keep you around for at least another couple of weeks. Pity you proved too incalculable for my taste."
"Listen, I…" Thailog began, his mind racing, but Lucifia simply nodded to the men holding him who then raised him and forcibly dragged him to hold his neck over the basinet.
~ I should have asked Goliath how he managed to get rid of the gas's effects, ~ the clone thought, recognizing the gas that had been used on him as Sevarius's, which he himself had once used on Goliath during their first encounter on the oil tanker.
"I never really believed this sacrifice would work with a clone," Lucifia mused, staring for a moment at the dagger and then at Thailog's throat. "But even if it does fail, at least your sacrifice can make me and my… herd stronger, and maybe then convert our young friend there."
With this she threw a look at Roland who could only gulp in fear, as the words of his former leader and clan-elder began to sound through his head, warning him of how his alliance with Lucifia would lead to nothing good.
~ Oh shut up already if you can't help, ~ the former bandit-lord thought angrily.
"Wait!" Thailog screamed, as Lucifia held the dagger to his throat. "I can give you more than just my own meaningless death!"
"And what, pray tell, would that be, my lamb?" the dark Gargess asked, moving her face nearer to his so that she could see and taste his sweat.
"The Labyrinth," Thailog answered through clenched fangs. "I'll give you the Labyrinth and all the clones within it."
To Be Continued…