by Christine Morgan
christine@sabledrake.com / http://www.christine-morgan.org
Author's Note: the characters of Gargoyles belong to Disney and are used
here without their creators' knowledge or consent. Other characters may
not be used without the author's permission. This story is for mature
readers only due to adult content.
#46 in an ongoing saga.
Credits:
TarrenTech and New Wave Microtechnologies belong to John
Saul and Dean Koontz respectively.
Chas Yale and Eric are the creations of Christi Hayden.
"Now, this is the way it's supposed to be," Hudson said
contentedly as the group of females darted in and out between the towers
in a merry game of tag. "It's all well and good to know our clan continues
on Avalon, but our clan here needs its new generation, too."
"Yes," Goliath said, smiling. "And now that we have four
females instead of just Angela, we will have that new generation."
"Ye didna count Elisa."
He stayed silent for so long that Hudson cleared his throat and
made ready to apologize, but then Goliath spoke. "I only dare to hope, old
friend. It may not be possible."
"There's yer proof," Hudson said, pointing to Elektra as she
skillfully evaded Aiden. "It is possible. Aye, with magic, but that gift she
gave Elisa may be sorcery enough."
"It may be. If Elisa is willing. I know she is reluctant, uncertain.
If our love does create a child --" his fist closed yearningly, as if to grasp
that wish and make it real, "-- it is Elisa who must go out among the
humans every day. She would not cut herself off from them, from her job.
It is Elisa who must face the speculations, answer the questions."
Hudson nodded in understanding. "Ye're right, lad. I hadn't
thought of how it might be for her. I was only thinking of the rookery.
Counting the eggs before they're laid. Of course it'll be hard for Elisa.
But ye love her, and she loves ye, and if I've faith in nothing else, I have
faith in that. Yer love's saved her life once by a miracle; why not work
another?"
Goliath clapped him on the shoulder. "If only it were so easy."
"Ah, well, at the very least," Hudson chortled, "ye can have fun
trying!"
* *
"Good evening, detective," Xanatos said with his familiar
knowing smirk. "Ready for the big night?"
The other two people in the room turned to regard her curiously.
The woman had brown hair worn in a severe bun and overlarge glasses
that made her look bookish and unattractive. The man had striking green
eyes and a short beard a few shades darker than his auburn hair.
"You wanted to see me, Xanatos?" Elisa asked, ignoring his
smirk.
"Yes, I thought you might like to meet the medical team. Dr.
Irene Johnson, an expert in reproductive technologies and behavior, and
Dr. Kurt Masters, whose degrees are in genetics and anthropology.
Doctors, this is Detective Elisa Maza."
The auburn-haired man laughed. "I know just what you're going
to ask. No relation. Pure coincidence. But you'd be amazed how easy it
makes getting our research grants."
"They're going to be tracking the progress of the breeding
season," Xanatos explained. "Since we're not dealing purely with gargoyle
DNA here --" he caught her warning glare and hurried on, "considering
that both Elektra and Delilah have some human ancestry, we thought it
would be best to have some professionals on hand."
"_We_?" she said pointedly.
"Goliath is in full agreement with me on this," Xanatos said.
"The doctors will be monitoring _only_, no meddling. He was very
emphatic about that."
"I can imagine."
"I assure you, detective, we're nothing like Anton Sevarius,"
Kurt Masters said. "We're familiar with his theories, of course --
everybody who's anybody in the field today has to be -- and Mr. Xanatos
has given us access to some of his classified files regarding gargoyle
biology. But we're not interested in continuing his work."
"Then what are you interested in?" Elisa demanded.
"Observing. Though gargoyles have apparently been around for
thousands of years, they're a new species as far as science is concerned.
We know next to nothing about the only other sentient species to share our
planet --"
Elisa raised a questioning eyebrow at Xanatos and he shook his
head slightly. "One thing at a time," he said.
Barely noticing their exchange, Kurt went on. He had warmed to
his topic now. "There's no fossil record, all encounters with them in the
past has been discounted as superstition. They are evidently able to control
their fertility at will, yet they couple even when they know there's no
chance of conception."
"So do humans," Elisa said.
"Only very recently, in terms of our evolution. Most animals
have outwardly distinctive signals of fertility, and only mate during those
times. Humans were among the primate species who evolved differently.
The males had no way of knowing when or if the females were fertile, so
it was in their own genetic best interest to stick around instead of mating
and leaving. That was what helped us develop civilization and family
groups, which were necessary because our young required more time,
care, and attention."
"I think we're wandering from the point, here," Xanatos said.
"Yes, sorry. So, what we have here is a species with a very
clearly differentiated pattern of behaviors for reproductive sex and
recreational sex. It's new, it's fascinating. We don't know how it works.
We suspect the females stimulate sperm production in the males by
releasing pheromones, but the females voluntarily and ritualistically
choose the moment to begin doing so. That's the part we don't understand.
They are somehow _willing_ themselves to be fertile. Which is why we'll
be watching the readouts very carefully, trying to determine just what
triggers --"
"What readouts?" Elisa cut in suspiciously. "You're not going to
have them hooked up to machines, are you?"
Masters nodded happily. "Both Angela and Elektra have agreed to
be monitored during tonight's ritual. So has one of the males, Brooklyn."
"Does Hudson know about this?" Elisa asked Xanatos. "Tonight
is very important to him, possibly even more important than it is to any of
the others, and he's not going to be happy if the rookery's cluttered with
medical equipment!"
"He's agreeable," Xanatos said, taking the wind out of her sails.
"The devices are very small," Masters added, holding out a small
curved metal device the size of a deck of cards. "Clamps onto the calf.
They'll track temperature, heart rate, galvanic skin response, alpha waves,
and blood chemistry. It's a completely non-invasive procedure. Then we'll
just collect samples --"
"Samples?!"
"From Brooklyn," Masters went on, unperturbed by her outburst.
"He's already provided us with the 'before' vial ..."
"I don't think I need to know!" Elisa said hastily. "I can't believe
they're letting you do all this!"
"Why not? They're curious about their own species. It seems
perfectly understandable to me."
Elisa, utterly nonplussed, just looked at him. Then at Dr.
Johnson, who had yet to say word one.
"Speaking of which," Masters said diffidently, "the chance to
study the process in a gargoyle-human mating would be --"
"Forget it!" she snapped.
"I told you so," Xanatos told him.
Masters shrugged agreeably. "I thought as much. Goliath wasn't
very keen on the idea either. But I do hope that you'll accept our
assistance in monitoring any resultant pregnancy and delivery. You'd want
the best possible pre-natal care, and given the circumstances, that's not
something the average obstetrician is going to be able to provide."
"You're getting way ahead of yourself," Elisa said. "If something
were to happen, yes, I would want the best possible care. But that's an if,
a big if!" She headed for the door.
"Just so you keep it in mind. Nice meeting you, detective."
* *
"It's nearly time!" Angela called over the rushing wind. "We
should start back!"
Their game had taken them a couple of miles from the castle, far
above the twinkling lights of the city. They'd all been too excited to sit
still, unable to wait for midnight. Finally, Hudson had shooed them
skyward, telling them they'd best work off their nervous energy before
they got down to serious matters.
"Are you sure you know what to do?" Aiden asked.
"Hudson told me everything he knows. Besides, our sisters on
Avalon figured it out, didn't they, Elektra?"
"That they did, though I did not join them."
"Why not?" Delilah asked. "Is it not good to have children? I am
wanting very much to have children. Samson and I, we are often taking
care of Dee and Tom."
"I had no mate then," Elektra said softly. "And better so, for the
one I might have chosen would have proved unsuitable. Far gladder am I
now, for Broadway's heart is true."
"We're all gladder now," Aiden said.
They all smiled at each other, then winged their way toward the
towers.
* *
Elisa stepped out and saw Goliath, his silhouette blocking out the
stars as he stood staring into the night. She put her hands in her jacket
pockets and watched him silently, until he sensed her presence and turned.
"Elisa."
"I've just been talking to Xanatos and his doctors."
He exhaled heavily. "You do not approve?"
"I would have liked to know about it before. And I'm surprised
_you_ approve."
"We have the chance to learn more about our race. As long as it
does not harm my clan in any way, as long as those who volunteer to
participate do so willingly, I see no reason not to allow it."
"But you didn't volunteer us. Why?"
"You would have had me do so?"
"No, but I'm curious about your reasons for refusing."
He gently took her shoulders in his large hands. "What is between
us is ours alone. All that matters to me is that I love you. I don't want
anyone else trying to define our love in scientific terms."
"What about the breeding season? I know you want it to work for
us. I know you want a child."
"Not more than I want you."
Elisa smiled and let him draw her into his arms, resting her head
against his chest. "So, whatever happens, happens. And we'll still have
each other."
"Now and forever," he agreed.
"I just don't want you to be disappointed."
"I have a thriving clan, a beautiful mate, and I will see my
grandchildren hatch and grow. That is all that I need." He leaned close,
brushed a kiss against her brow. "Now I must go see that the females are
ready. It is almost midnight."
"Okay." She watched him go, and then her hand closed around
the amber pendant, feeling its faint tingling pulse.
* *
Hudson lit the final lamp, nodding to himself in satisfaction.
A series of wide ledges rose above the heap of fresh straw on the
rookery floor. The walls were ringed with shallow niches at varying
heights, each of which now held a smooth stone with a hollow in the
center. The hollows held not the tallow Hudson remembered from the old
days, but a colorless oil that Xanatos had provided. The light from those
lamps shed a faint, flickering glow.
He looked around at the large, empty space and his chest
tightened with old sorrow. Once, every adult in the clan would have come
in, the breeding females gathering in the center of the chamber, their
mates on the lowest ledge, and the rest of the warriors arrayed behind
them. In rare, special times, the prince might join them as a guest.
Now there were more humans in here than had ever been before.
On one of the higher ledges nearest the entrance, Xanatos' doctors
huddled discreetly with their devices. Xanatos himself stood near them,
with Owen on one side and Fox, her older son T.J. (the lad looking like
he'd rather be anyplace else), and clan-friend Birdie Yale on the other.
Standing a bit apart from them were Talon and Maggie, their
children upstairs in the nursery with Alexander. The last of their mutate
clan, Claw, was still deep in a coma, the result of an attack on the
Labyrinth several months ago.
Delilah's mate Samson came in, giving the doctors plenty of
room and a wary glance -- the lad had never quite gotten over his fear of
doctors, Hudson knew, small wonder. He'd been born human, born a
Sevarius, no less. Now, thanks to his own father's determination to save
his son from a crippling disease, Samson stood nearly as tall as Goliath,
with a shaggy pelt and a long mane of dark silky fur. His large eyes
became reflective gold-green disks as the firelight hit them.
"Over here, lad," Hudson called, showing Samson where to
stand. "The others'll be along shortly."
As if on cue, Brooklyn, Lex, and Broadway appeared and took
their places on the lowest ledge, not without a little bit of jostling and
joshing, until Hudson's eye fell sternly on them. Then all three cleared
their throats and put on innocent, respectful faces.
One person was missing, and that conspicuous absence did not go
unnoticed by anybody in the room. Hudson smothered a sigh. It was
midnight, and time to begin.
Goliath descended into the rookery and approached Hudson,
showing no sign of the pain that one absence must have caused him.
"Elder," he said formally, "the females of my clan wish to
breed."
Tradition normally would have given this honor to a female elder
with many successful breeding seasons behind her. But, since the only
older female associated with the clan was Demona, Hudson had decided
some changes in tradition were necessary.
He'd have to get used to changes, anyway, since Angela and her
sisters were determined to keep track of their own eggs and raise the
hatchlings to know who their parents were. He'd even heard them
planning to have their mates attend the laying, although that went against
all custom. Some mysteries of femalehood were not for the ken of males.
"Bring them forward," Hudson said.
The four females filed in, Angela in the lead. They were radiant,
beautiful and desirable, with their hair and wings shining in the lamplight.
Wreaths of heather, grown especially by Alexander and Puck for the
occasion, adorned their heads.
"Is the clan safe and well-provided?" Hudson asked.
"It is," Goliath replied.
"Have ye mates to protect ye when ye are with egg?"
"We have," the females chorused.
"Does the clan swear to look after the hatchlings and raise them
well?"
"We do," everybody else who had been properly coached said.
Slowly and with great ceremony, Hudson inclined his head.
"Then let it be so."
Angela, Delilah, Aiden, and Elektra folded their legs gracefully
to sit in a circle with linked hands.
A hush fell over the room, broken only by the muted sounds of
the medical equipment as the small silvery devices attached to Angela's,
Elektra's, and Brooklyn's calves began to transmit readings.
Hudson tasted minerals and realized slow tears were leaking from
his good eye. He couldn't help but think of Joy, his own lost love. He had
never had the chance to see her with heather in her hair, never had the
chance to stand on the lowest ledge.
A solemn but joyful anticipation began to build in the room. At
any moment, Hudson knew, one of the females would begin the
instinctive, ritual humming.
"Wait ..."
All heads turned as one.
"You're standing in the wrong place," Elisa said to Goliath, as
she stepped into the straw to join the others.
* *
Angela cried out in delight and sprang up to hug Elisa. She and
Elektra scooted sideways, opening the circle to make room. Aiden plucked
some of the heather from her hair and shyly offered it, and Elisa wound
the prickly white-purple tufts into her own. All the while, her dark eyes
never left Goliath.
He searched her gaze, wanting to be sure she meant what she did.
Instead of the uncertainty he had seen only a short while ago, there was
only love, desire, and acceptance.
He nodded once, not trusting himself to speak for fear he would
weep with happiness instead. He moved to the lowest ledge, among the
younger males who all wore foolish grins. Brooklyn even went so far as so
sock him playfully on the arm in congratulations.
Hudson cleared his throat. "Let it be so," he said again, thickly,
tears glinting like diamonds caught in his beard.
Elisa joined hands with the other females, and all five of them
closed their eyes. Once more, the expectant hush settled over the rookery.
Masters murmured into a tape recorder. "Alpha waves are taking
on a pattern consistent with heightened concentration ... BP dropping
slightly ..."
Angela began to hum, her body swaying gently. Elektra joined in,
then Aiden, then Delilah. Finally Elisa, too, added her voice. The hum
rose in pitch, then the females opened their mouths and it turned into a
steady, sustained wordless vocalization.
"Temperature starting to climb ... in humans, a change in body
temp is one of the indicators of ovulation ..."
A hint of a scent reached Goliath, a scent like cinnamon and
wine. As it grew stronger, he breathed deeply, drawing it into his lungs. A
spot of warmth blossomed in him, spreading and coursing through his
limbs, wings, and tail.
He started to hum, a low thrumming counterpoint to the females'
rising crescendo. He was dimly aware of Brooklyn picking up the
harmony, then Broadway and Lex, but most of his attention was fixed on
Elisa.
Elisa, her features so soft and alien in the shifting light, her form
so different compared to the others around her. Elisa, who had never
looked more beautiful to him than she did in that moment, with her head
tipped back and her heather-adorned hair streaming like a river of black
satin over her wingless shoulders.
He knew then that even if they were never to have children, he
would love her all the more for the wonderful gesture of devotion she had
offered him this night.
Finally Samson tentatively lifted his voice as well, the strange
eerie woodland quality of it somehow mingling perfectly with the rest.
The scent was everywhere. Rich, evocative, seductive. Goliath
knew that in the long-ago past, in the dim history of gargoyle-kind, that
scent alone would have been enough to drive males to a frenzy. They
would have competed amongst themselves for breeding rights to the
females, the leader of the clan able to claim as many as he could
reasonably sustain. He spared a moment to be glad that times had
changed, for he wanted only one, only Elisa.
* *
"I've never been up here before," Elisa said as Goliath unlocked
the door. "What is this place?"
"Prince Malcolm's great-grandfather gave this chamber to an
elder of our clan," Goliath said. "She had an interest in alchemy."
"You mean turning things into gold?"
"That was part of it." He was carrying a brass candleholder, and
used the flame to light the logs ready in the fireplace, banishing the chill
that stone-walled castle rooms tended to hold even on the warmest of
summer nights. "Which is why it is so removed from the rest of the
inhabited sections. Alchemy was not without its dangers, and so although
she seldom practiced it, she had a place of her own where she would not
be interrupted."
The smallest of Castle Wyvern's towers was built around a spiral
stair that continued in a single unbroken shaft from the dungeon to the
room at the tower's height. The room was round, with a flat roof
accessible by a trap door. Narrow windows were evenly spaced around the
curved wall.
Elisa looked amusedly at the massive bed. It was made from solid
rough-hewn oak, sturdy enough to support the weight of a gargoyle. The
draperies and bedclothes were most definitely _not_ tenth-century. "And
just why have you brought me here?"
"Can't you guess?" He touched her cheek, her chin. "I meant for
this to be our bridal chamber, had Xanatos not offered us the use of his
private retreat."
"You never mentioned it."
"I thought to surprise you."
"We were married over eight months ago. Why haven't you
brought me here before?"
"I wanted to save it, in case ..."
"Save it for a night like tonight?"
He nodded.
"Have you ever ..." she didn't want to ask, but she had to.
Before she could even finish the question, though, he was shaking his
head.
"I have brought no other females here."
"Why not?"
"It never seemed right, until now." He smiled ruefully. "She
whose chamber this was ... she did not much care for my choice in mates
back then. But I believe she would approve of you."
"Of a human?"
"Of _you_, Elisa, my Elisa."
"Tell me about her," Elisa invited, curious. "She was an
alchemist?"
"She was a scholar as well. It was from her that many of us
learned to read." He trailed his fingers along a wide shelf, the old wood
pitted and scarred with burns and stains in strange colors. "And I ... I was
her favored student."
"You don't sound very happy about it."
"When we were in Africa, I explained to your mother how it was
not the gargoyle way to show preference to one hatchling over another,
that we could not give special treatment. Yet I had known such special
treatment as a hatchling. I worried that my rookery brothers and sisters
might resent me for it. So, as I grew older, I spent less time with her." He
sighed. "We drifted apart. It was only after her death that I realized what I
had lost, what she was trying to teach me. I started coming back here,
alone, to continue my studies."
"Let me guess -- it turned out that's what eventually helped you
become leader."
"Yes. I think ... I _hope_ she would have been proud."
"How did she die?"
His eyes took on a remembering, faraway haze. "One night, as I
was out hunting with my brother, Coldstone, I thought I heard her calling
me. I knew she needed me. I reached this room just in time to say good-
bye. She put her knuckles to my brow ridges, and then she was gone."
Elisa put her arms around him. "I'm sorry."
"She had lived a very long time. She was of the generation before
the leader before Hudson. I did not grieve for her, but for myself, since I
had lost a friend."
"Goliath ... what did she look like?"
"Like I imagine Angela might look someday. Her skin was that
same shade, but her hair, which she told me had once been dark, had gone
the soft grey of the clouds."
"This might sound crazy, but ... did you ever think that maybe
she was your mother?"
"My ..." he began, then stopped, shocked. "My mother?"
"And that maybe she knew?"
"My mother," he said again, as if rolling the idea around in his
head. "I suppose you could be right. I never thought of it. But now that I
do, I hope it is true. And I am more sure than ever that she would approve
of you."
"Thank you. For that, for bringing me here. Now I understand
what this room means to you."
He stroked her hair, plucking an errant bit of heather from it.
"Now, more than ever, I am glad I did. I can think of no better place to
conceive our child."
"Well, I don't know ..." she said, unable to keep the corners of
her mouth from turning up. "In my mother-in-law's bedroom?"
"You'd rather we followed Brooklyn and Angela's example and
take to the high battlements?" He pointed to one of the windows, through
which she could clearly see two shadows twined together against the
moon. "_That_ is more in keeping with clan tradition."
"This will be fine," she quickly asserted, thinking about Xanatos'
security cameras that completely covered the outside of the castle.
He turned serious again. "What you did tonight, Elisa ... I
thought it earlier, but I will tell it to you now. Even if we do not have
children, for what you did tonight, I love you all the more."
"You didn't have to say a word. I saw it in your eyes the minute I
walked through the door, and I knew I was doing the right thing. Look,
Goliath." She pulled a fine chain from the collar of her shirt. At the end of
it, the amber pendant dangled. In its depths, golden light mirrored the beat
of a gargoyle heart. "During the ceremony, I felt it warm up. Like a coal
against my skin. And now it's glowing."
"The magic ..."
He took it between his thumb and forefinger in such a delicate
motion that Elisa shivered. She knew how powerful his hands were, how
he could crush the gemstone, yet he handled it so carefully ... just as he
handled her body.
His gaze shifted from the pulsing stone to her eyes. Her breathing
quickened; warmth flushed her face.
Almost of their own volition, her hands clasped lightly over his,
then slid up his arms to his shoulders. The coarse sable of his hair flowed
over them as he bent to kiss her.
Their first time together had been one of completion, she
remembered as he folded her into the twin embrace of arms and wings.
Completion of something begun years before. They had approached each
other then with desire underlaid by trepidation, the sense of treading in
forbidden lands. Concern had tinged their passion -- would they be
compatible physically? Would what they felt for each other be somehow
diminished by the actual act of lovemaking? Those questions had been
answered most satisfactorily.
This time was something different, something more. The passion
was still there, but with a new sense of purpose. Goliath's touch was awed
and reverent, as he understood and appreciated far better than she did
what a miracle it was to bring new life into the world. For gargoyles, she
realized as he lifted her to the bed, the breeding season was the closest
they had to a religious rite.
Elisa gave herself over to his caresses. Although she knew every
telltale sign of his arousal and all were readily apparent, he was in no
hurry. His hands moved over every inch of her, undressing her as if
unwrapping a long-anticipated gift, tracing and molding the curves of her
shape.
He knew her signs of arousal, too, knew just the moment when
she was at her most responsive, just before her cresting desire would slip
over into a frantic jumble of need. He lowered himself over her, bracing
himself on his elbows. As he began to push gently into her, as she began
the inward-spiraling glide of her climax, she pulled him down to feel the
delicious press of his weight.
"Elisa," he murmured, trying to rise. "I'll hurt you."
"You won't," she said, her breath coming in shallow sips. "You
never will."
"Never," he agreed, the strain of holding back now evident on his
face.
She stroked along his back, along the velvety folds of his wings.
"Now, Goliath. Please, now."
His reply was a shuddering growl of consent. Her upturned face
was bathed in the glow of his eyes as his body tensed, held the tension for
a short eternity, and then loosed.
"Oh, yes," Elisa sighed.
She reached for the amber pendant, had a bad moment when she
thought it might have been caught between them and crushed, and then felt
it nestled in the hollow of her throat, where it had rolled.
"Well, Avalon," she whispered, "now it's up to you."
* *
Fox was on the phone when her husband came in. She flashed
him a smile and waved him to wait while she wrapped up her
conversation. "Yes, thanks again! I know he'll have a great time. I'll talk
to David about the arrangements, and call you back when everything's set.
Yes, uh-huh. Okay. Good-bye."
"Who was that?" he asked as she hung up.
"Lydia. I wanted to see if she and Petros could take Alex for a
while."
He faltered in the act of removing his tie and looked at her. "You
mean, send him to stay with them? By himself?"
She nodded briskly. "Why not?"
"Why?"
"How long is this breeding business going to go on?"
He blinked at what he thought was a sudden change of subject,
but replied, "According to Hudson, the last season went three or four
months. It's supposed to continue until all the eligible females have
conceived."
"Three or four months!"
"Well, they did have twenty females, so it probably took longer.
But what does that have to do with anything?"
"David, darling, it's been two weeks already, and we can't keep
Alex from noticing forever! I've already asked Angela and Brooklyn to try
and keep their voices down, but they can't, not even when I threaten them
with a bucket of cold water. It's waking Alex up, and me too, for that
matter. I don't think he's ready to look out his window and get a firsthand
view of the birds and the bees, gargoyle-style."
He chuckled. "Funny to hear you being the prude."
"I'm not being the prude, I'm just being a concerned mother.
Actually, as far as the gargoyles go, I'm very impressed. If the
pheromones they produced worked on humans and we could bottle it ..."
"What makes you so sure they don't work on humans?" He
slipped his arms around her. "After all, the past two weeks have been
fabulous for some other mated pairs of which I know."
"That could be psychological," she said, nibbling at his ear. "It
could come from seeing, hearing, and just generally being aware of what's
going on. They are awfully sexy, and so uninhibited!"
"Whatever the reason, we're not immune. Neither is Owen, for
that matter. He hadn't been up to the Academy in a month, and then he's
gone the past two weekends and twice more during the week, on urgent
errands that sounded terribly unconvincing."
"All the more reason for Alex to not be here. This castle has
turned into Peyton Place. I'm just glad T.J. moved out --"
"Sure, into an apartment with Birdie," Xanatos cut in with a grin.
"I'm sure _that's_ purely innocent."
She pinched his rear. "The point is, this isn't a place for children
right now. I think Alex would be better off having a vacation with his
grandparents. Buy us some time before we have to answer all those big
questions."
He hesitated, frowning.
"David, what _is_ the matter? I thought you liked Lydia."
"It's not that. I'm thinking about what happened last time. I don't
like the thought of Alex being so far away. And before you ask, I can't
leave the city right now. Not with the tasty government contracts coming
up for bid over the next few months."
"Alex and I could go," she suggested.
He laughed. "And leave me unsupervised with all these raging
gargoyle pheromones in the air? I didn't think you trusted me that much."
"Good point. But what are we going to do, then?"
"I think Alex can handle it. Medieval kids did."
"Medieval kids also handled the Black Plague, privy trenches,
and Viking invasions."
* *
Broadway glided down into the garden and saw his mate, sitting
on a bench and plaiting flowers into a chain.
He paused and watched her for a little while, unable to believe
his good luck. That she would be his friend? Sure, that was no problem.
That she would be his mate? Surprising, but wonderful. That she would
turn out to be an enthusiastic lover who wasn't the least bit put off by his
admittedly rotund physique? More than he could have hoped.
Elektra sensed him and looked up with a sweet, beautiful smile.
"There you are! How was patrol?"
"Terrible."
Instant concern flooded her delicate features. "Are you hurt?"
"No, but it was terrible being away from you. Brooklyn says
Goliath's being sadistic."
"He's being a leader," she said. "We cannot spend every minute
of the night making love."
"I wouldn't mind." He tipped her chin up and kissed her, part of
him still marvelling that he was actually doing so and she was actually
letting him. Months of yearning from afar weren't easy to get over, even
when the dream came true.
"You know," she said when he ended the kiss and sat beside her,
"we don't need to be quite so diligent about it anymore."
"About what?"
She held up the chain of flowers. "Silly, isn't it? But I felt the
need to make something with my hands, and as I cannot knit, I couldn't
make booties."
"Afraid you lost me," he said, rubbing his scalp.
If her earlier smile had been sweet and beautiful, this one was
breathtaking. She set aside the flowers, grasped his hands, and led them to
her waist. "You're to be a father! Dr. Masters confirmed it this evening."
He gaped at her, then broke into a wide, happy grin. "You're --"
"I am!"
"Elektra!" He swept her close, then froze and gingerly set her
down. "Are you ... is it okay?"
"Of course 'tis all right! I'm not made of crystal, my love. I can
yet do anything I could before." She brushed her lips against his cheek.
"Anything at all."
He pulled her close again, rubbing their brow ridges together.
"Glad to hear it. Hey! We're first? We're first! Brooklyn owes me a
pizza!"
"Oh, you rogue!" she laughed. "Rogues the pair of you!"
"Rogues the three of us," he confessed. "Lex was in on it, too."
* *
The thing about tinted glass, David Xanatos thought amusedly,
was how easy it was to forget that it was only opaque on one side.
He crossed his office, laced his hands behind his back and
voyeured for a few minutes, then slid open the door and poked his head
out.
"Sorry to interrupt," he said, "but I am trying to work in here.
Think you could find another ledge?"
Aiden Ferguson sprang up, realized the state of her apparel, and
swiftly folded her arms across her chest like a sleeping vampire, thereby
bringing her wing membranes concealingly around herself. "Mr.
Xanatos!"
"Oh, oops," her mate Lex said, far less concerned about
modesty.
Aiden squealed and hopped sideways as Lex's tail slipped under
her wings. "We're so sorry! We weren't paying attention! We were
gliding, and ... and ..."
"And I can guess," Xanatos replied with an indulgent smirk. "Just
not in front of my office windows, all right?"
"I told you we should have gone inside!" Aiden hissed, trying to
swat at Lex's hands and tail without letting anything show.
"You did not," he said. "You started to, but then you got
distracted."
She spun around and did some quick adjusting, getting her tunic
more or less in place. "Well, _now_ we'd better!"
"Not if I distract you again first!"
Aiden jumped from the ledge with Lex in pursuit, and Xanatos
chuckled and closed the window.
* *
Kurt Masters consulted his notes one final time. "I'm sorry," he
said, "but the tests show that the two of you just are not genetically
compatible."
Her breath hitched, but she was determined not to show him how
upset that news made her. With a single nod, she got up and left the
office.
* *
Angela skimmed over the skyscrapers, reveling in the feel of the
wind sluicing over her skin, rippling through her hair. It constantly
amazed her how alive all of her senses felt now. The city beneath her was
a kaleidoscope of light and color (and also of smells ranging from the
enticing to the truly appalling, but she chose not to notice the latter).
Her destination appeared before her, and she descended toward
the roof. It had changed since the last time she was here, and she regarded
the dark-glass pyramid-shaped skylights with curiosity as she landed.
She pressed her face to one and peered in, puzzled at what she
saw. Towering sculptures of obsidian stone, faintly shimmering pools ...
"What is this place?" she wondered softly to herself.
"My sanctuary."
Angela gasped and whirled, readying her claws. "Jericho!"
"Hello, sister dear. How good of you to pay a visit. It's been a
while." Her brother let the roof access door swing shut behind him, and
strode forward with a welcoming smile. "You look well."
She backed away from him. "I was looking for our mother." She
put a particular, hard emphasis on the last two words, a disapproval that
he couldn't have missed.
Apparently untroubled by it, Jericho shrugged. "She's out of
town for a few days. We've opened a new facility in Atlanta, did you
know? Despite those troubles we had last year, Nightstone is coming back
bigger and better than ever. I know she'll be sorry she missed you. Maybe
you should come by the house sometime?"
"I don't know where her new house is," Angela replied icily.
"There was, I believe, some fear that I might tattle. Seen as how you
killed all those people in the Labyrinth and stole the clones!"
"The clones are doing fine," he said, as if he hadn't heard the rest
of it. "Hollywood's death was a blow to their morale, but we've resolved
to be far more careful in the future." He gestured at the skylights. "Would
you like to come in?"
"No, thank you."
"Still harboring grudges, I see."
"A trait I inherited from _our_ _mother_."
He laughed and leaned against the slope of glass, propping one
foot up behind him and crossing his arms over his chest. It was a pose she
remembered well from their youth on Avalon. How far away that all
seemed now! A literal world away!
"I imagine," Jericho said, "that a fair amount of the grudge-
holding genes came from _our_ _father_, too."
"How can you stand there as if nothing's happened?" Angela
demanded, starting to shake in irritation that would soon turn to fury.
"After all you've done?"
"_I_ can deal with what I've done. You're the one that can't."
"You tried to kill my mate."
"I was provoked." He leisurely drew a knife, and she wasn't
alarmed because she was familiar with that habit of his too. He began
cleaning his talons with it, then looked over at her from beneath a lock of
hair that had fallen across his brow. "Tell the truth, Angela, when you
first heard of his ... shall we say, liaison ... with Demona, didn't you
want to choke the life out of him yourself?"
She flushed. "Not at all!"
"You never were a good liar, sister dear."
"Jericho, what's happened to you?" she asked pleadingly. "You
never used to be like this. Why do you hate my clan?"
"Do we have to go over it again?" He ticked them off on his
fingers. "Goliath's gluttony for glory and refusal to listen to his own
second-in-command destroyed the clan, then he abandoned our eggs, gave
us over to be raised by humans, and when he did finally get around to
checking up on us, he had the nerve to be ashamed of us. Never mind how
he and the rest of his clan treated Demona."
"Yes, I know all that!" she said, exasperated. "You're as bad as
she is; all one note like a broken record! With her, it's 'the humans' this
and 'the humans' that, with you, it's all Goliath. And it's getting old. I
was just hoping I could get through to you somehow! You were one of my
favorite brothers once, and now you're a stranger. You were never like
this on Avalon."
"Oh, yes, Avalon. Home sweet home." He started on the other
hand's talons. "That was the cocoon, the chrysalis. I slept on Avalon like
a caterpillar. Now I've emerged. This is who I was truly meant to be,
Angela. This is my place."
"Why do I keep trying?" she queried of the skies. "Why do I
bother?"
"Because your heart knows better than your head," he said. "You
always did have a good heart, one that wanted the best for everyone you
cared about. Your heart still wants to love us, despite all your head does
to tell you otherwise."
"For all the good it does! All the love in the world won't change
the two of you! Don't you think I've tried?"
He returned the knife to its scabbard. "I know you have, Angela.
It makes Demona weep to think of how hard you've tried. She loves you,
but her heart cannot do what you would want of her. Her heart cannot
forgive all the wrongs she's done, and _been_ done. Sometimes I think
she'd be happier if you hated her."
Angela drew in a hurt breath. "I don't want to hate her!"
"But she can't accept your love with all the terms you attach.
You'd wish her to give up everything, return to the clan -- who would not
accept her anyway, Angela, you must know that! She can't do it, not even
if she loved you more than life itself."
"Is it so wrong to want us all to be happy?"
"It's not wrong to want it, but you have to see that it can't
happen, not the way you want it to." He flipped back his hair and faced
her directly. "Look at me, sister. You know what I am to Demona, what
she is to me. Would your clan tolerate that?"
Her shaking this time was not of rage, but of revulsion. "No."
"See how you've changed them, in such a short time," he said.
"Before you learned of your parentage, no one would have cared."
"It's not right."
"By whose standards? Humans?" he scoffed. "They do the like,
and worse, all the time."
"It's not the same ..."
His grin was devilish. "Why, because we're gargoyles, and better
than them?"
"That's not what I was going to say!"
Jericho stepped toward her. "Angela, don't you remember what it
was like back on Avalon? We were all brothers and sisters, and no one
paid any mind to who might be close blood kin to whom. You played at
mates with many of our brothers. If you hadn't been so infatuated with
Gabriel, you might have even done so with me."
"No! That's horrible!"
"Maybe to your ears now, it is, but then, you wouldn't have
known, you wouldn't have cared. If I hadn't been so resentful of him --
you see, I can admit it freely now! -- I would have certainly been willing.
But I couldn't stand the thought of being compared to Gabriel, of possibly
being ranked second to him in that as well. That's why I refused
Tourmaline when she, failing to win him for her own, came crawling back
to me."
"Jericho --"
"But on Avalon," he persisted, "it wouldn't have mattered,
_shouldn't_ have mattered, to either of us that we might have the same
parents."
"It matters now! Or does to me at least!"
"Does it?"
"You're my _brother_!"
"And I find you beautiful."
She stared at him, too stunned to pull away when he took her
hand.
"Beautiful," he repeated, lifting it to his mouth. He kissed the
back of it, then turned it over and kissed the tender palm.
"Jericho, stop!" She tried to withdraw her hand, but he held it
firmly.
He nuzzled along her wrist, licked the sensitive flesh. Angela's
mind reeled in sudden horrible arousal and confusion. Even through that,
she saw his nostrils flare, knew he was breathing her scent. The scent of a
breeding female, designed to intoxicate a male.
She tugged her arm away and backed up. "Don't touch me," she
said weakly.
"We're only rookery siblings," he said, advancing one step for
each one she took backwards.
"We're not on Avalon anymore!"
"It still doesn't matter. Not to me. You know how I feel about
ties of blood."
"Have you no loyalty to Demona?" she threw at him, wincing
even as she did so -- what a terrible, ugly way to make her point. "Aren't
you her ... mate?"
"You do favor her, you know. Especially in this light, that helps
to hide your coloring. I can see her in your features."
"I have a mate too," she said. "We started our breeding season a
month ago. Brooklyn and I are trying to have hatchlings of our own."
"You'd do better with me." He moved quickly, caught her and
pinned her arms against her sides.
For the first time, she realized that he was nearly as strong as
Goliath, for the first time she saw what a powerful male he was. And
while that thought frightened her, it also spoke on a primal level to her
instincts. Thousands of years of evolution programmed part of her to
respond, even while her mind recoiled in sheer horror.
"No ..." she moaned, struggling in his grip as he unerringly
found the inner curve of her wingjoint with one hand, and cupped a breast
with the other. Her knees threatened to buckle, her bones threatened to
melt. Her own heightened senses became her enemy, for they didn't
know, didn't care who brought them to such an excited state.
"I could give you more eggs than that scrawny gargoyle ever
could."
Something snapped in her. What building passion she'd
unwillingly felt was dashed to steam and ashes at his words, and she raked
her foot talons viciously down his shin.
Jericho sprang back with a surprised, pained cry.
"That's the second time someone's called him that, and it's twice
too often for me!" She emphasized it by whipping her tail against Jericho's
other leg. "I thought Goliath was mistaken to forbid me to see you again,
but he was right! You're evil, Jericho, and even I can't see any point in
trying to redeem you."
Drawing himself to his full height despite the stinging pain he
must have felt in both legs -- and a quick glance showed her three parallel
claw marks oozing blood -- he looked ready to leap at her. She stood her
ground furiously.
"I should tell her what you tried to do tonight," she continued.
"What would she think of you then?"
"She'd blame you," Jericho said confidently. "She'd think you
were still trying to win me away from her, by ... how would _you_ put it?
... by 'stooping to her level.' That's what she would think, Angela. I'd
make sure of it."
She shook her head slowly while never taking her eyes off him.
"I cared for you once, Jericho. But that gargoyle, that brother of mine, is
dead." She kept retreating, until she felt the updrafts at her back and knew
she'd reached the edge of the roof. "Stay away from me, and my clan."
"I'll do what I please, _sister_," he sneered. "As always."
She turned from him and sprang into the night, willing her wings
to carry her as far and as fast as they could, willing the wind to scour her
clean of the vile lingering sensations of her brother's caress.
* *
Summer was coming to an end. It would still get hot later in the
day, Elisa knew, hot enough to bump the usual tempers and arguments of
the citizens of Manhattan up a few notches, but the hints were there in the
brisk chill of the pre-dawn air, and the dusks that came steadily earlier.
Six weeks since the breeding season began. Which meant Elektra,
the first of the gargoyles to conceive, was already thickening around the
waist. Aiden would begin to show soon, too. Six months, give or take,
until there were eggs in the rookery.
The sun sank beneath the curve of the earth, and the clan awoke
with their customary roars and stretches. Even Aiden, after several weeks
of practice, was finally working up a respectable little roar, though she
still reminded Elisa of a kitten snarling and spitting at a bigger tomcat.
Just like her nephew and niece, she thought with a grin. Little
Tom Maza had thrown a genuine tantrum over bedtime rights the other
night, and even gone so far as to hit his father, Talon, with a junior zap of
lightning. Which, while it did demand immediate parental intervention and
discipline, settled once and for all the question of whether the mutates'
electric abilities had been passed on.
Goliath stepped down from his perch and started toward her, then
stopped as he saw the smile on her face. The smile she no longer kept
concealed in case it should turn out to be a false alarm.
"Elisa ...?"
"Congratulations, big guy," she said. "We're going to have a
baby."
The rest of the clan erupted in cheers. Goliath came to her
slowly, wonderingly. "Am I still sleeping, still dreaming?"
"Nope. The results came back today. Six weeks pregnant." She
winked over at Broadway and Elektra. "Which edges you two out by about
a week."
"Well, hey, I guess now we owe you a pizza," Broadway
beamed.
"Six weeks? Since the ..." Goliath broke off, cleared his throat as
he realized the others were still crowded gleefully around. He raised his
eyes significantly toward the small tower.
"Since then," Elisa confirmed.
"But why did you keep it so long a secret?" Elektra asked.
"I wanted to be sure. And I wasn't too eager to let the doctors
start poking and prodding and drawing blood. But when I missed my
second visit from the cardinal, I thought I'd better get a professional
opinion."
"Visit from the --?" Hudson started.
"It's a human thing," Aiden hastily cut in.
"Well, I'm glad to be hearing it anyway," Hudson said, giving
Elisa a grandfatherly peck on the cheek.
"That goes for all of us," Brooklyn said. He finally pretended to
pick up on the looks Goliath was sending his way. "Hey, who's ready for
dinner? I'm starved!"
"Do we have any raw calf's liver?" Angela asked. "That sounds
really good!"
Everyone turned to her, and her mouth opened in surprise as she
realized what she'd said, what it might mean.
"Oh, hey ..." Brooklyn stammered.
Angela grabbed his hand. "Dinner can wait! Let's go see the
doctor!"
The rest quickly took the hint and scattered, leaving Goliath and
Elisa alone on the roof.
"My Elisa ..." he couldn't find any other words, didn't need any
more.
She went to him, and he took her in his arms as the first
twinkling stars came out in the faded denim of the evening sky.
* *
"Yes, Mom ... no, Mom, it's okay ..." Aiden covered the phone
with her hand and rolled her eyes at Lex. "She's crying again."
"Happy crying, right?"
"I think so. She keeps saying 'my baby, my little girl, all grown
up.' Oh, wait --" She held it to her ear again. "Daddy? Yeah, I just told
Mom the big news. What? That you're going to be grandparents! Well,
not right away, I mean, there'll be an egg next spring, but don't go out
and buy baby stuff yet, okay? It's still a long wait."
She sat down beside Lex and snuggled under his arm while she
got to tell the news all over again to Aunt Mary. After getting a headful of
advice: "I do, Aunt Mary, I get plenty of exercise ... frozen fish sticks ...
still frozen, why?" Aiden eventually escaped the conversation with a
heartfelt, "Whew!"
"I'm glad they're not upset," Lex said.
"Me, too."
"Hey, Aiden ... this is getting way ahead of ourselves, but you
remember how we were talking about names? Well, if we _do_ have
twins, like we saw in the future, I don't think we should name them Luke
and Leia."
"Me either. We should come up with something else. I was
thinking ... you know how we both love the X-Files ..."
"Yeah, I was thinking that too. But I don't know if it's such a
good idea."
"Why not?"
"Well, for starters, we don't even know if the show's still going
to be around in ten years. It might be a fad."
"Lexington!" She gaped at him. "I can't believe you, you of all
people --"
"Hey, I'm just saying it could happen!"
"Okay, okay, I'll accept that it _could_ happen ... it happened to
other good shows, so I guess it's possible. But what's your point?"
"I think if we do have twins, we should name them after your
folks. Kenneth and Finella."
"Oh. Oh! Lex, that's _perfect_! They'll be so proud!" She seized
him in their favorite hug, the one that linked her fingers behind his neck
while letting his arms go around her, so that their wings overlapped, and
pressed their brow ridges together.
"Why shouldn't they be?" he said. "I already am."
* *
"Here ye go, boy," Hudson said, setting down the huge
galvanized steel bowl of meat scraps. Bronx tore into it with a right good
will, tail stub flapping.
"Maybe that'll keep ye from jumping all over me while my
video's on."
He didn't watch nearly as much television as he used to, but this
time he was determined to see the entire film and find out just what all the
fuss was about. He patted Bronx, then headed back toward his private TV
room. Normally, he'd watch it in the suite the rest of the clan used, but he
could do without the rest of the smartmouthed youngsters who had already
seen it spoiling the best bits for him.
He settled himself down comfortably in his old, seat-sprung
rocker and hit the remote. On the screen, a pretty woman in a fancy, big-
skirted dress said disdainfully, "You, suh, are no gentleman!"
"Forgot to rewind last time I tried to watch it," he muttered to
himself, and punched the remote again. The image vanished, replaced by
an ad for fat-free salad dressing as the tape rewound. A third tap on the
remote muted the sound of ecstatic singing vegetables -- and why they
should be so merry, Hudson wondered, when they were about to be
drenched in ranch flavor and then devoured, was beyond him.
In the momentary lull of quiet, he could hear even through the
thick layers of stone Brooklyn's telltale howl, echoed by Angela's operatic
reply.
He chuckled. The optimism of the breeding pairs. As long as the
season continued, they might as well do all they could. Give them a better
chance at more eggs, even though there was at least one already growing
in Angela's belly.
The VCR clicked to a stop.
"All right, then," Hudson said. "This time, no interruptions."
Someone rapped on the door.
"Och, what now?" He raised his voice. "Aye, what is it?"
The door opened and Delilah peeked in. "Hudson?"
"Lass! What are ye doing here? Come to give us some good
news, have ye?"
She shook her head. "I am sorry to be bothering you, but I have
questions. I am needing help with breeding."
He nodded sagely. "Aye, I should've expected that, having ye go
back to the Labyrinth instead of staying here. Maggie didna give you any
advice, then?" He patted the ottoman. "I'll tell ye what ye need to know."
She came in, and he smiled approvingly at the pale green gown
flowing from her shoulders. "Ye look lovely enough to tempt any male.
Now then, ye do know how hatchlings are made, don't ye?"
"Yes, I know." She laughed softly, like rain on the water. "I am
thinking you are mistaking me. Samson and I, we have often been lovers.
It is not advice on breeding that I need. It is help."
"I'm not understanding ye, lass."
She ignored the ottoman and knelt at his feet. "Samson and I are
not being genetically compatible. The doctor says we cannot make a
hatchling. To do that, I am needing a gargoyle." She laid her hand on his
knee and looked up at him appealingly.
Hudson's breath lodged firmly in his throat, and he had to cough
heartily before he could speak. "Delilah, lass, what are ye saying?"
"You are a wise, brave, strong, handsome warrior," she said.
"And you are not having a mate."
He coughed again, because his mouth had gone dry as a sand
dune. "I'm far too old for the likes of ye, Delilah. Ye must know some
other gargoyle --"
"Only the clones," she said. "And they are gone, and I would not
be choosing one of them even if they were not. You are always being kind
to me, Hudson. Won't you help me?"
"Ye already have a mate, lass. What about Samson? What would
he think?"
"He is knowing where I am, what I am asking." Her gaze was
steady, serious. "He is wanting to be father to my hatchling for the raising
of it, but he cannot be the father for the breeding of it. I will keep it secret
that you are being the father, if you wish. No one else is having to know."
"Now, wait a moment ..." Just moments ago, he'd told her she
was lovely enough to tempt any male, and by the dragon, it was true.
What she was saying, combined with the heady scent of breeding that
filled the castle, woke up long-slumbering feelings.
He had lost his first love, Joy, a long time ago. While there had
been occasional trysts with others of his rookery sisters in later years, he'd
never taken a mate. His relationship with Maria Chavez was one of
undemanding comfort and companionship, neither of them particularly
desirous of moving it beyond the infrequent kiss. Now he had this
incredible offer before him, was so tempted it made his wingjoints ache,
and he didn't know if it was the right thing to do. Indecision batted him
back and forth.
Delilah saw, and cut right through all his mental dithering with
one simple action. She stood, unfastened her gown, and let it fall away.
She extended her arms. "Breed me," she pleaded.
Hudson felt like he'd been socked in the chest with a Quarryman
hammer, and for a split second wondered if this was going to be how he
left the world. He could have had worse final sights before his eyes, that
was true!
"Delilah, lass, any male would be a fool to refuse such an
invitation," he said huskily, and threw the remote across the room.
* *
"Well, thank God for birth control," Birdie Yale said pertly,
looking around the dinner table. "Am I the only one here not preggers?"
"You and me, Birdie," Fox said. "But at least the season's over
now! I can bring Alex home, no more late-night caterwauling --" Angela
had the good graces to blush at that, "-- and things around here can get
back to normal."
"As normal as they ever were," T.J. amended dryly. "Which
isn't very."
"I'm glad Delilah decided to keep her eggs here, when the time
comes," Angela said. "The rookery looks so empty."
"I can't believe she and Samson managed without magic,"
Brooklyn remarked. He glanced at Aiden, who was nibbling on a frozen
fish stick with as much decorum as possible, given the weird crunchy
sound it made. "Wonder if they had magical help?"
"I didn't," Aiden said.
"I don't imagine it's any of yer business, either," Hudson scolded
the red male. "No one's asking ye how ye and Angela managed."
"Hey, I was just curious! No need to bite my head off!"
"It seems some other congratulations are in order," Xanatos said
as Owen came in. "Isn't that right, Owen?"
All eyes, human and gargoyle, turned toward the blond man.
"I don't know to what you might be referring, Mr. Xanatos."
"The Grandmaster happened to mention something interesting last
night at our meeting," Xanatos said, clearly enjoying himself. "About his
niece."
"Miss St. John?" Aiden looked worriedly at Lex. "Sebastian."
* *
Dominique Destine uttered a short, polite laugh. "I'm sorry,
doctor. For a second there, I thought you said 'pregnant.'"
"That _is_ what I said, Ms. Destine," Pamela Kohlberg said, her
expression changing from one of smug bearer-of-good-tidings to that of
one who might've committed a social blunder and wasn't sure of the best
way to get out of it. "Of course, I'd have to run some tests, but it would
explain all of your symptoms."
"What symptoms?" Dominique demanded sharply.
Dr. Kohlberg consulted her notes, apparently glad of having some
excuse to look elsewhere. "You mentioned nausea, tenderness in the
breasts, a change in eating habits, and you told the nurse you hadn't had a
period in the past couple of months."
Dominique nodded, thinking to herself that she certainly hadn't
attached any importance to that last bit -- the less she had to deal with that
monthly messy human indignity, the happier she was. "I just have a touch
of the flu, don't I? Pregnant -- doctor, that is simply impossible."
The awkward expression was back. "Um ... Ms. Destine, are you
currently sexually active? With a ... with a man?"
Now Dominique sighed, this being not the first time someone had
made the assumption that a powerful, confident businesswoman who had
no publicly-known affairs had to be a discreet lesbian -- this assumption
usually generated by the wounded egos of men who'd asked and been shot
down.
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I am," she said. Trying to explain the
precise details would be far more than the doctor needed to know, and
would likely put Kohlberg in a situation where she'd be unable to resist the
temptation of violating the doctor-patient confidentiality. "But I certainly
never decided to breed."
Dr. Kohlberg regained her composure enough to chuckle. "If
only it were that easy! Ms. Destine, no birth control method except
abstinence is foolproof. Your records show that you're not on the Pill and
you haven't been fitted with an IUD, which leaves the barrier or
spermicidal methods. And those do have a higher failure rate."
"Doctor, you're not hearing me. I cannot be pregnant. It simply
isn't possible." But even as she said it, she turned it over in her mind,
wondering.
Wasn't it? She was, after all, human half the time now, and
humans had no conscious control over their fertility (which could explain,
she thought bitterly, why there were so damned many of them). If she
suffered the other inconveniences of a human cycle, even if it was thrown
off-kilter by the fact that she resumed her true form every dusk, wasn't it
within the realms of possibility ...?
"I'd like to run those tests, just to be sure," the doctor was
saying.
"Yes, all right," Dominique agreed absently.
If it _was_ true, that meant ... that meant Jericho was the father!
Her brief predatory affairs with humans had ended once she'd brought him
back from Avalon. The thought that she could have risked getting pregnant
by a human sent a splash of cold horror over her; bad enough that she had
enjoyed her dalliances with them, but to have had a child?
She put that right out of her mind. It hadn't happened, and she
would not upset herself by whipping up a case of retroactive fright.
Instead, she clung to the chance, the startlingly appealing hope, that the
doctor was right.
She pressed a palm to her flat stomach, trying to sense if there
was new life growing within. A new member of her clan, one who would
be as singularly devoted to her as Jericho was. A daughter, perhaps, to
replace Angela.
A torrent of sudden questions and worries flew through her mind,
mostly centering around how she would be able to keep the child's nature
a secret. But she shoved them all aside, concentrating on the thought of a
hatchling, a tiny blue-skinned, scarlet-haired bundle of joy. And how
happy Jericho would be when she told him.
* *
Several blocks away, another pregnant woman also sat on an
examining table in a paper gown.
"So far, everything looks good," Kurt Masters told Elisa. "The
baby's demands for certain minerals are higher than normal, so I'd like
you to start taking iron, calcium, a boron-selenium tablet, and this multi-
vitamin. You should also be eating plenty of leafy greens and red meat."
"Finally, a doctor who says red meat is okay," Elisa said,
smiling.
"In your case, it's necessary. Gargoyles have a diet high in
protein. Try to stay away from excess sugars and fats, though."
He rolled a tall skinny machine over to the table and motioned for
her to lie back.
"Okay, what's that one?"
"Going to listen for a heartbeat." He unhooked something that
looked disturbingly like a kids' play microphone, all blue and white
plastic, and gooped up the end of it with some clear jelly from a tube.
"Here's where we find out if your baby is turning to stone during the
day."
She obligingly reclined and opened the gown. There was just a
hint of a swelling, so far only noticeable to herself and Goliath, though
she'd had to go up a size in her jeans. "Wouldn't I notice? It would get
heavier, wouldn't it?"
"At this point, you might not be able to feel it. That's why we
want to check, though. That's the biggest possible complication we're
looking at. Your womb might have trouble supporting a full-term stone
infant. We might have to consider a premature Caesarean." He must have
seen her alarmed look, because he shook his head. "But I don't want you
to worry about that. If it does become necessary, you'll have the best
treatment medical science can provide."
"All thanks to Xanatos. It wouldn't have been too long ago,"
Elisa muttered, "that I'd have been wondering just what his angle was,
what he hoped to gain."
Kurt Masters shrugged. "Just between you and me, some people
only know how to say they're sorry with their checkbooks. Maybe he
considers it a way to try and make up for all the hassles he's caused you.
Okay, here we go." He put the cold, slimy head of the microphone on her
stomach and began moving it around.
Elisa made a face. "Feels like a slug crawling on me."
fwoosh-fwoosh-fwoosh-fwoosh -- a watery rushing throb.
"Ah, there we are! Hear it?"
"That's my baby's heart?" Her throat tightened and happy tears
stung her eyes. "If we can hear it, that means it's not stone, right?"
"Right. It stands to reason that in a hybrid case like this, the
mother's race would dictate the prenatal development of the fetus. I think
you'll be able to carry it to term."
"Will it be a baby, or an egg?"
"Too soon to tell. In another few weeks, we'll be able to do an
ultrasound and see if there's any shell formation happening. That'll also let
us figure out if you'll be waiting the whole nine months, or doing it in six
like the gargoyles."
* *
"Were the females like this last time and I just didn't notice?"
Brooklyn asked desperately.
"What, you mean with the mood swings and everything?"
Broadway replied.
"Tell me about it!" Lex exclaimed. "I forgot to bring Aiden the
new book she wanted, and it was like I'd killed her best friend! I told her
I'd get it tonight, but she started crying that it was too late, that it didn't
matter now."
"Angela asked me if I thought she looked fat --" Brooklyn began,
and his brothers groaned in sympathy. "What was I going to say? She's
_supposed_ to look fat! She's got an egg in there! I tried to tell her she
looked beautiful, because she does, she really does, but she threw one of
Bronx's chew-toys at me and told me I was just saying that."
"Elektra's still throwing up a lot," Broadway reported worriedly.
"No matter what I fix for her, she can't keep anything down. The doctor
even wants to start her on those canned nutrition drinks, because he
doesn't think she's gaining enough weight."
"Jeez, could we get him to tell Angela that? She made me perch
on the other side of the wall yesterday!"
"The gargoyle equivalent of sleeping on the couch, I guess," Lex
said. "I'm surprised Aiden didn't make me join you."
"She will if you don't get her that book," Broadway said.
"But she said she didn't want it anymore!"
Brooklyn thwapped him on the brow. "And you believed her? If I
were you, I'd bring her _two_ books and a box of candy. Or fish sticks."
"She's off those now," Lex said. "Now it's turnips. Can you
believe it? Turnips! I thought we'd never have to see another turnip after
we woke up in Manhattan."
"Still, Brooklyn's right," Broadway said. "You'd better get the
book."
Hudson came around the corner, and his barely-hid grin informed
them that he'd heard every word. "For what it's worth, lads, this whole
business is nothing new. My rookery sisters, yer mothers, were just as
bad. I remember once the lot of them teamed up and had half the males
out combing the countryside for berries, and this was in the first snow of
winter!"
"Did they find any?" Lex asked.
Hudson shook his head. "Some dared not even come back to the
castle for most of a week."
"I know the feeling," Brooklyn grumbled. "No matter what I do,
it's the wrong thing."
"But it'll pass," Hudson assured them. "Soon they'll be plump
and merry, and start their nesting. They'll be down in the rookery shoving
straw around, getting it all set. Ye'll see. When that time comes, they're
all but glowing. Make ye forget all the hardships they've put ye through."
* *
In the top room of the smallest tower, Goliath held Elisa close as
they watched the rain and sleet run in rivulets down the leaded glass. The
fire was warm against their backs, and his hand rested possessively on the
swell of her stomach.
"There!" she said. "Did you feel it?"
He pulled his hand away, startled, then put it back with an
amazed smile. "I did! It moved!"
"It kicked," she corrected.
"Does that happen often?"
"Ooh! There it goes again! I think someone's recognizing
Daddy's voice. I get kicked a lot at night, but hardly ever during the day.
The doc thinks it's because the baby's more lethargic, sleeping, when the
sun's up. Like me. It's all I can do to stay awake once dawn comes."
"Where is the picture? I want to see it again."
She unfolded the printout of the ultrasound. Goliath's head tipped
next to hers as they regarded the tiny curled form. There was no shell, not
even the beginnings of one, which led the doctor to believe that their child
would be born without an egg.
It was hard to make out details, but they could clearly see one
well-defined foot with three small grasping toes and a raised arch.
Spidery-fine wing struts were wrapped around the small body.
"I'm kind of glad the doc couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl,"
Elisa said. "And that we won't have to wait ten years for an egg to hatch."
"Even waiting these next four months seems a long time,"
Goliath said. "The doctor is sure it'll be that long?"
"The time will go fast. The holidays are coming up, and then --"
she broke off and sighed in mock despair. "The holidays! Aunt Agnes is
coming to visit!"
"I should think she'd be happy," Goliath growled. "This is what
she wanted, after all."
"I guess so. Anyway, the holidays, and then the others will lay
their eggs, and it'll be time to wheel me into the delivery room before you
know it."
"You sound more hopeful than I think you are," he observed.
"Well, yeah. You're right, it _is_ a long time to wait. Especially
now that everyone at the station knows."
He glowered. "And do they still think Rick Alvarez is the father
of your child?"
She covered her eyes. "Oh, God."
"I'll take that as a yes."
"Matt says that the rumor is I started wearing a wedding ring to
scare off the guys, so I could carry on my affair with Rick."
"Who is spreading these rumors?" he asked darkly.
"Now, stop. We've had this talk before, remember? You can't
flatten everyone who says something bad about me."
"I can try. They should not be talking about you like that."
"Hey, workplace gossip is one of those extra bonuses. The only
way to stop it is to tell them the truth, and that would only give them more
to gossip about."
"Won't it be something of a tip-off when you bear a winged
child?"
She smiled ruefully. "Sure, but I don't have to worry about that
until April, and by then, I'll have come up with a story. I hope."
"And Rick? He allows this talk?"
"I deny it, he denies it, and nobody believes a word of it. And
this, mind you, is coming from a station full of cops, who are supposed to
know the difference between truth and a lie." She patted his cheek,
smiling. "What, you don't like him taking credit for all your hard work?"
"I don't like anyone even pretending to take liberties with my
mate."
Elisa laughed softly and rested her head against his arm. "You're
so cute when you're possessive."
"I'm concerned about you."
"Look at it this way. As long as everyone thinks it's Rick, the
Quarrymen aren't going to get wind of a human woman pregnant by a
gargoyle. You know they'd go ballistic if they found out."
"I know. And that worries me, too. They've been too quiet of
late."
"That's because Xanatos and T.J. got into their communications
network and told the cops whenever they tried to set up a meeting.
They're in hiding."
"I doubt they'll stay there. People like that never do. Fanatics do
not just go away. I can't help but fear that they're planning something,
lying low and planning something."
* *
"The end is coming!"
"Look at the funny man, Mama," Alexander Xanatos said as the
limo rolled down Fifth Avenue under the strings and garlands of
Christmas decorations.
Fox nudged her husband just as he was settling into a satisfying
doze. "There's another one, David. One of those New Year's nutcases."
David Xanatos peeled one eye open. His nerves, if not his bank
account, had taken quite a beating, thanks to store clerks that instantly
recognized the darling and precocious heir to the Xanatos millions, and
swarmed Alex with every new toy they could get their hands on.
"Millooniums, isn't that what Elisa calls them?"
Rather than predicting Armageddon by asteroid, last year's pet
apocalypse, these wild-eyed prophets and doomsayers were convinced that
civilization was going to go belly-up on New Year's, when the world's
computers failed to handle the rollover to the year 2000. A wave of
catastrophe would roll across the globe, timezone by timezone, devouring
all in its path.
"There sure are a lot of them," Fox remarked. "I think they'd
have the Salvation Army Santas outnumbered if it came to a fight."
"But those red kettles on chains would make better weapons than
those big placards," Xanatos said. "If they had room to get up a good
swing."
Alex sat upright as a thought struck him, and he turned to his
parents with awe. "Is Santa one of Oberon's Children?"
"Look at that one!" Fox pointed to a sign advising the reader to
kill a computer today, complete with illustration of a sledgehammer
slamming down onto a monitor. "And they're actually going up to him
reaching for his tracts, instead of trying to avoid him!"
Xanatos ruffled his son's hair. "Maybe, son, maybe." To his
wife, he said, "It makes a certain amount of sense. The wrath-of-God
message doesn't reach everyone, because a lot of people don't believe. But
computers -- hell, everyone believes in computers, but deep down, very
few people trust them."
"That sign ..." she said, turning in her seat as they drove past.
"You know, David, I'd swear that's an old Quarryman sign, with a
computer pasted over the picture of Goliath."
* *
"Ms. Destine? Are you all right?" Stephanie Greene said.
"Does it sound like I'm all right?" Dominique shot back. She hit
the flush, swirling away this morning's breakfast, and got unsteadily to
her feet.
"Shall I get your anti-nausea pills?"
"Don't bother." She winced as she levered herself up from her
knees, and waited for a cramp to pass before she opened the stall door.
"They don't work."
"Maybe we should reschedule the meeting," Stephanie fretted.
"Until you're feeling better."
"And how long do you think that will take?" She maneuvered her
swollen self over to the sink, stared at her reflection.
Only four months pregnant, she looked six or seven. Puffy,
bloated. All the makeup in the world couldn't hide the sallowness of her
skin, or the dark shadows beneath her eyes. Her hair had lost much of its
former lustre despite its impeccable styling. She hadn't been sleeping well,
and it showed. Her dawn and dusk transformations had become a greater
ordeal than ever.
At least by night, she felt better. Looked better. She regained her
energy and appetite with the setting of the sun, and having Jericho to rub
her aching lower back and tender feet made a big difference. His absolute
joy at the prospect of an egg of their own was undeniable, something she
could easily share with him at night even if she regarded it as more of a
burden to bear by daylight.
"No," she said to Stephanie, who hovered over her like a nervous
hen. "This meeting is too important. We have to present our bid today.
Besides --" she showed her teeth in a cruel grin, "-- I can't wait to see the
look on Xanatos' face when I walk into that room. If anything's going to
put him off his stride, it's this." She gestured down at herself, in smart,
fashionable maternity wear.
Stephanie blinked. "Xanatos ... you can't mean that _he's_ --"
"No, of course not!" she snapped.
"Sorry," Stephanie said meekly, swiftly busying herself making
sure the handouts for the presentation were in order.
Dominique splashed cool water on her face, wanting nothing
more than to go home, put on a comfortable robe, and rest on the couch.
If today went well, she promised herself a few weeks off, or however long
it took until she was over this.
She tried a touch more lipstick, but the red she normally favored
looked clown-garish against her pallid complexion. She wiped it off with
weary anger. "I look like absolute hell."
Stephanie said nothing, but the pity in her eyes was nearly more
than Dominique could stand. It did, though, give her a surge of irritation
that proved enough to get her moving. She patted her hair into place and
picked up her slim leather briefcase.
She waited to enter the stark-yet-sumptuous room where the
meeting was to be held, letting Halcyon Renard precede her in his
motorized chair, then made her way in. Xanatos was engaged in a friendly
debate with the TarrenTech and New Wave Microtechnologies
representatives over whether a private jet was preferable to flying the
Concord.
Everyone looked casually up to appraise the new arrivals.
Xanatos favored his father-in-law with a warm smile, which Renard did
not return, and then his gaze fell upon Dominique.
His customary smug grin was slapped off his face, and the
shocked gape that replaced it did Dominique more good than all the
medicine in the world. She affected unconcern as she watched Xanatos
grapple with his composure as if it were a lost bar of soap in the bath.
So, he did know. Knew, and couldn't handle it. Even his flexible
morals didn't allow for casual acceptance of someone pregnant by her own
son.
Owen Burnett caught the expression on his master's face and
turned her way. His pale blond brows went up in surprise, but then he did
something thoroughly infuriating -- he caught Xanatos' eye, and the two of
them nodded as if they understood something she didn't.
She wanted to storm over and demand to know what they meant
by that knowing look, but dizziness spun through her and she plunked
gracelessly into the nearest chair. Clammy sweat dampened her forehead.
She clutched the armrests, suddenly sure that the nausea was going to
come back, even though there couldn't possibly be anything left to throw
up.
"Water," she whispered to Stephanie, who rushed to the linen-
draped side table where ice-choked pitchers and glasses awaited.
The rep from TarrenTech, a man that Dominique had dealt with
before but whose name she could not recall, grinned cheerfully at her.
"My wife's just had our third, a nine-pound baby girl."
"How nice," she said.
She was saved from further meddling questions by the arrival of
the government people, four men and two women all cut from the same
cloth. Agents from a newly-formed internal-defense outfit. Dominique
didn't particularly care about their politics, and she knew none of her
competitors did either. What mattered was that the agency was the flavor
of the month as far as Washington was concerned, with unlimited funding.
Perfunctory greetings were exchanged all around, and then it was
down to business. The government people kicked things off with a slick
promotional video about what their agency was about and what it hoped to
accomplish. After that, it was up to the presenters.
Dominique sat back and listened, knowing that it was already
down to her vs. Xanatos. The government thought Renard was too old, his
ideas obsolete, and weren't about to enter into a long-term contract with
someone who might very well die and hand over the company to someone
with different ideas. The other two companies weren't focused in this
direction of military tech, and would take years to get up to speed.
As the meeting went on, she began to wonder if she was going to
make it long enough to get her chance. A low, hot ball of pressure seemed
to have formed in her stomach. Her mouth was dry, tacky with a taste like
old envelope glue. A muffled ringing roaring in her ears made everything
sound as if it was coming through a cheap radio, the frequency fading in
and out. When she reached for her pen to make a note about something the
New Wave rep said, her hand shook.
"Now we'll hear from Nightstone Unlimited," one of the
government men said.
Stephanie leaned over. "I can do the presentation."
Dominique shook her head. "I'll do it." She made her way to the
front of the darkened room, casting a pudgy shadow on the screen that
now displayed a slide of the Nightstone logo. Heartburn bubbled in her
chest, a cramp lanced across her back. Her feet felt like they were
swelling even more, that they would burst right out of her shoes.
No one asked if she was feeling all right. She would have been
surprised if anyone did. But she could tell they'd all noticed. That
infuriated her, even though there was no way she could hide it.
"At Nightstone," she began, picking up the remote clicker that
would let her change the slides, "we ... we are dedicated to ..." damn it,
she couldn't remember the rest of her mission statement!
At the back of the room, Stephanie was watching in agony, and
Dominique was now really regretting not letting her do it. But she was up
here, and she would have to muddle through.
Get with it! she scolded herself. You've been through worse
hardships than this!
That steadied her, and her prepared speech clicked into her mind
in perfect order. She heard herself begin to talk again, amazed at how
steady she sounded. She could see the government people nodding and
tipping their heads together to comment on the bold, innovative projects
she was outlining.
"With the 9000 Series," she went on, "you'll have the latest in --"
An iron fist clamped inside her, crushing the breath from her
lungs so that her sudden cry was more of a gasping squeal. She reeled
back into the screen, making the image billow and contort. Needles and
coals, a terrible heaviness and wrenching. Her legs buckled and she
clawed at the screen as she fell, ripping it aslant.
The lights came up and the others all jumped to their feet.
Stephanie ran to Dominique, helping her sit up. No sooner did she do so
than another searing twisting pain shot through her, and she toppled onto
her side, keening like an animal with its foot caught in a trap.
"Somebody get a doctor!" Stephanie shouted.
"I'm fi--" Dominique started, but couldn't finish. She felt wetness
and her first panicky thought was that she'd lost control of her bladder,
but then she detected not the acrid bitter scent of urine but a richer,
thicker scent. Blood.
There came a deep awful tearing unraveling sensation, and she
understood that the fragile web of life inside her was popping free, one
strand at a time.
Babbling and pandemonium all around. In the midst of it, she
knew what she had to do, and somehow found the strength to lurch to her
feet. One single ruby bead had slipped down her leg and half the people in
the room were staring at it and its scarlet trail as if hypnotized. Staggering
like a wounded soldier, she seized her bag from beside her chair, then
burst out of the room and down the hallway.
"Ms. Destine!" Stephanie chased after her.
"Leave me alone!" she shrieked, and the effort of the shriek or
the running caused a new cramp that laced up to her ribs like a corset.
She misjudged the corner leading into the bathroom, rebounded
off the wall with a body-wide howl of pain, and swept the door shut.
There was a thumb-bolt and she turned it, a tiny rubber wedge and she
kicked it into place.
She collapsed onto the pale mauve couch with a ragged gasp.
"No, no, no," she heard herself chanting, as if that alone would
be enough to change things. She upended her purse and pawed through the
items, panting. The cushion beneath her was growing sodden and sticky.
Pounding on the door, and Stephanie's voice calling for her to
open it, calling for someone to bring a key.
"There!" She desperately snatched up a plain red leather lipstick
case that did not hold lipstick, and pulled out a small cylindrical wad of
tissue. It shredded beneath her fingernails, and left her holding a lock of
silken white hair caught up in a metal clamp. An iron clamp, to be
precise.
She closed her hand around the strands. She'd never thought she
would have to use them like this, never thought she'd have to be begging a
favor, but this was her child's _life_!
She began the spell of summoning.
* *
"So much for Nightstone's
chances," the New Wave rep said in a
tone of mean satisfaction.
The TarrenTech rep, the new
father, whirled on her. "She's
having a goddam miscarriage!"
David Xanatos touched Owen's
sleeve. "Call Dr. Masters."
"Sir?"
"Call him. I don't care if she's
an enemy. I don't care who she
sleeps with. Nobody should have to go through that."
Owen nodded and pulled out his
phone. He punched in the direct
line to the med suite, then his whole body twitched. The phone jumped out
of his hand.
Xanatos caught it before it
could strike the tabletop. "Owen?"
He had gone more pale than usual,
and his lips moved
soundlessly as if answering some question that Xanatos couldn't hear.
Then his eyes focused. "I'm afraid I have to leave rather quickly, sir.
The
lights, please."
Xanatos opened his mouth, decided
he could get answers later,
and flicked off the lights. The room, already escalated by excitement and
confusion, now boiled over into chaos. Which meant that nobody but
Xanatos saw as Owen was yanked backward out of reality, his form
changing, shrinking, as he vanished.
*
*
*pop!*
Puck tumbled, regained his balance,
and flung his long white hair
out of his eyes. He was hovering in the ladies' lounge, all tasteful decor
in
dove grey, mauve, and turquoise accents, but one of the couches and a lot
of the carpet was drenched maroon, and a coiled comma-shape of a
woman was huddled on the floor.
Dominique looked up at him,
her face conveying a tremendous
diversity of emotion. Under the raw pain there was pleading, and anger,
and resentment, and fear, and a glint of hope.
"Save my baby!"
Sorrow filled his eyes. "I cannot.
It's too late."
"It's dying! My baby is dying!"
"Your transformations were too
much for it. Your human
body --"
"Is your fault!" she said. "Your
trick, your magic, that did this to
me! If not for you, I'd be a gargoyle and my baby would be fine!"
He nodded soberly.
Someone banged on the door.
"Ms. Destine! Somebody get a
key!"
Puck spun, fear of discovery
making him sift through the
loopholes in Oberon's decree. If he were found out, he wouldn't be able
to
protect the boy. Besides, the hair that Demona had stolen from him pre-
dated the Gathering, so he could argue that he was bound by that
commitment first.
He made a sweeping circular
gesture and a bubble of fey light
surrounded himself and the woman.
When the door skidded open moments
later, the rubber wedge
squeaking, they were both gone.
*
*
Dominique screamed and scrabbled
on the cold, dusty boards as
the world crashed back in on her. The agony that had for a split second
utterly disappeared now ground into her like broken glass.
When it abated enough for her
to sit up, she realized she knew
this place. The window opposite her was the one through which she'd
witnessed her first morning, the old cracked mirror was the one in which
she'd discovered Puck's malicious humor. Her old house, the mansion
she'd had to sell to try and hang onto her corporation.
Puck floated in front of her,
without a trace of that malicious
humor now. "Demona, I'm sorry."
"I don't want your apologies!
I want my baby!"
"It's too late. If I'd known
sooner, there might have been
something ..."
"I won't accept that!" She lunged
for him, but fell short when
another belt of spike-studded pain cinched around her.
Now, worst of all, a new sensation
of something sliding, pushing,
emerging. She clamped her thighs together, willing it not to be so, but
she
couldn't stop it. A river of blood washed her child onto the dirty floor.
Its shell hadn't thickened yet,
the translucent membrane like a
thin-shaved curve of milky quartz, splotched with faint spots that would
have eventually darkened to violet. Within, she could see the poor helpless
thing, wizened and frail, a fetus mummified in stone.
It would have been a boy.
Already, the shell was turning
black, seeping fluid. Dominique
plunged her hands into the spoiling mess and lifted out the tiny figure.
She
could cradle it in one palm.
It crumbled to a soft, gritty
mush while she held it and wept,
while Puck looked on with bright tears shining in his eyes.
*
*
Stephanie stood in the lounge,
staring at the bloodstain and the
litter of items from Dominique's purse.
"Hey, ma'am!" the custodian
called. "Everything okay in there?"
"Sure, fine just give us a minute,"
she called back, amazed at
how normal she sounded.
People gabbled in the hall,
making her think of turkeys. Then she
heard a woman's voice, one of the no-nonsense government people, and
knew that the rest of them were waiting out there uncertainly because this
was the _ladies'_ room and they didn't dare barge in, not in this age of
sexual harassment.
Stephanie sprang back to the
door and locked it again, thankful
that she held the key. "We'll be out soon!"
"I have medical training!" the
woman on the other side said.
"That's okay, we've got everything
under control." She caught
sight of herself in the mirror, and what was meant to be a wide reassuring
smile was a lunatic mask.
Where _was_ she?
Stephanie checked the stalls,
but they were empty. There were no
other ways out, unless Ms. Destine had gone out one of the air vents. That
was impossible, because all the screws were firmly seated and there would
have been ... there would have been ...
... a trail of blood wide as
a freeway, her mind insisted on
finishing, and Stephanie ran back to the stall in which Ms. Destine had
only a few hours ago offloaded her own breakfast, to do the same with
hers.
*
*
Puck made a circle of his forefinger
and thumb, and looked
through it to see the place they'd left. To his surprise, the door was
still
locked, and the room was empty.
"I'll take you back now," he
said, as gently as he could.
A few years ago, what he'd just
witnessed wouldn't have affected
him; he might have tossed off some flippant remark about how she could
have another one, as if she was a little girl who'd dropped her ice cream
cone. But now, after seeing first Alexander and then Patricia come into
the world, he had an inkling of what Demona might be feeling. It was all
too easy to imagine Cordelia there instead.
She didn't argue and didn't
agree, just carried on with soft,
wracking sobs as if her heart was crumbling away just as the baby had
done.
He clapped, and once again the
light bubble surrounded them,
depositing them in the lounge. From outside, human voices raised in
concern and confusion. Soon they'd break down the door. He couldn't be
here when it happened, but before he left ...
"Do you want me to take back
my spell? Make you as you were
before, as you were born to be? A gargoyle, not just by night, but
always?"
"Oh, my God!" a very faint whisper
replied.
A human, Demona's assistant,
came halfway out of one of the
stalls and clung to the side, as if that cool painted-steel wall was the
only
thing keeping her upright.
"No, just go," Dominique said.
She tossed the strands of his hair
at him. "I release you from the oath-binding."
"But she --"
"She can keep a secret." Dominique
raised her head and looked
evenly at the human. "Can't you, Stephanie?"
Her mute, dazed nod was the
best they could hope for under the
circumstances, as the door leaped and shuddered in its frame.
"I really am sorry," Puck said
to Dominique, pausing to give her
shoulder a compassionate squeeze.
"Thank you." With that, she
broke down again, burying her face
in her hands.
He hesitated a moment longer,
then, as one of the hinges tore
free and the door canted inward, Puck whirled like a top and took himself
away.
*
*
"This will help you rest," the
paramedic said.
Dominique did not resist as
he injected something into her arm,
although, having spent several years in the company of the Brothers
Sevarius, she was much more wary than the average person about anybody
coming at her with a syringe.
Right now, though, she didn't
care. Didn't care what poisons the
humans might be shooting into her veins, didn't care what irregularities
might show up on the blood tests they drew. All that mattered was the
pain, the pain she was immersed in like a hot bath.
Whatever the injection was,
it worked quickly. By the time they'd
gotten her loaded onto the gurney, the flourescents had taken on a hazy
dreamlike quality, and the tense voices of the humans around her had
faded to a meaningless drone. The crushing throb wrapped around her
midsection dwindled to a lingering ache. Even the raw stab of her grief
went sepia-toned like an old photograph, although she knew it would be
back in Kodachrome the moment the drug wore off.
They wheeled her into the hall,
and she was dimly aware that she
was covered to the neck in a pristine white sheet so that no one could
gawk at the blood that soaked her legs.
Stephanie trotted beside her,
having somehow successfully shoved
aside everything she'd witnessed and taken refuge in her brisk, efficient,
executive-assistant demeanor. Dominique was absurdly touched at
Stephanie's evident concern, and in her drug-fog, kept calling her
'Angela.'
Two faces swam out of the blur,
faces she knew. David Xanatos,
leaning in to ask if she wanted to be taken to the castle, and behind him,
his dogsbody servant, Burnett. With bemused detachment, Dominique had
the silly thought that the expression in Burnett's eyes exactly mirrored
the
last look she'd gotten from Puck.
She mumbled something, not wanting
to go to the castle, not
wanting to be beholden to Xanatos or have the clan see her like this.
Stephanie turned him down politely, and the next thing Dominique knew,
the cold wet kiss of snowflakes landed on her cheeks as the gurney passed
from the skyscraper's awning to the back of the waiting ambulance.
The only part of that ride she
recalled was a glimpse of a man on
a streetcorner, waving a sign proclaiming the end of the world. Then they
were at the hospital, more humans swarming around her, being lifted,
moved, bright lights shining down at her, merciless metal poking in sore
places, questions about the baby, Stephanie spinning some yarn about how
she'd found Dominique in the bathroom stall where she'd dragged herself,
where the fetus must have been flushed away into the sanitized blue.
Through it all, Dominique drifted in fields of grey.
She surfaced briefly in a hospital
bed with an IV taped to the back
of her wrist and a view of snow falling on Central Park. The television
mounted on the wall was tuned to a talk show, the volume down low.
People came and went. More doctors.
Stephanie, still holding up
remarkably well. A snoopy, intrusive brunette named Deanna who insisted
on trying to counsel Dominique.
The clock -- something about
the clock was nagging at her mind.
3:00, 3:15 ...
Winter. Sunset by 5:00 at the
latest.
That brought her out of the
fog. With the ruthlessness born of a
thousand years' suffering, she pushed this fresh loss to the back of her
mind and set about getting herself discharged over the doctors' objections.
*
*
"Where's the gargoyle?" Jon
Canmore said in a high, singsong
voice. "Wheeerrre's the gargoyle? Oh! There it is!"
He brought the small plastic
monster out from behind him, and
Bryce squealed and bashed it out of his father's hand with a toy hammer.
"Good boy!" Jon cheered, kissing
his seven-month-old son on the
top of his fuzzy red head. "You got him!"
Margot Yale sniffed disdainfully.
"Aren't you starting him a little
young?"
"Never too young to know thy
enemy," Jon replied, picking up
the toy again. "Any news?"
"Everything is still on schedule
for Operation Champagne," she
said. "I told you that my way would work better than your in-the-face
propaganda."
"Yes, dear heart, you've been
an absolute Godsend. I'm looking
forward to ringing in the new millennium."
"Technically, this _isn't_ the
new millennium," she said with the
weary resignation of someone who'd tried to explain this countless times
before. "_Next_ year is. The first year of the 21st century. Not the last
year of the 20th."
"Margot, Margot, Margot. You
know that and I know that, but
the common man on the street prefers to mark this milestone. We might as
well go along with them."
"I don't think you should stay.
What's the good of setting up
ironclad alibis for the rest of the high-ups if the main man is going to
be
right in the thick of it?"
"Don't you see that I can't
miss this? This night of all nights? My
people need me to lead them. They can't go up against Xanatos alone."
"You don't have a big enough
army to storm that castle. Besides,
Xanatos is human. He's not the enemy."
"I beg to differ. Bad enough
that he snatched those creatures right
out from under me, but then he invaded my house, got into our
communications, damn near crippled our organization. Who knows what
he'll do next? He must be shown the error of his ways, forcibly."
"You could bring legal action
against him," Margot suggested.
"It's well-known that he's harboring those beasts. There are laws against
keeping vicious animals."
"Once a lawyer, always a lawyer."
Jon grinned. "I thought you
left City Hall behind!"
"I still have my contacts there.
They don't know I'm working
with you now; they think I'm taking time off to work through this nasty
divorce settlement."
"Little do they know how accommodating
and insultingly
generous your father-in-law's attorneys would be. I do believe that the
senior Mr. Vandermere was eager to shake you out of his family tree."
"And I was happy to go!" she
said bitterly. "Brendan used to be
the perfect husband. Rich, spoiled, vain, shallow. Now he's gone and
developed a _personality_, the jerk! His insufferable sister's rotting
in the
boobyhatch --"
"Nice clinical term, that,"
Jon said in an aside to Bryce. "Can't
you just see her before a judge, when a client is pleading insanity?"
"The point is, all my friends
think I'm trying to pick up the
pieces of my shattered life. They still keep me posted with what's going
on at City Hall, figuring I'll come back someday. But if you get yourself
arrested, everything might come out."
"I hardly plan on that."
"Does anyone?"
"I thought you believed in this
crusade," he said, leaving Bryce to
play with his blocks and going to Margot. "You've heard the reports. You
know what's going on in that castle. They're spawning, breeding! We
have to strike now, before they can raise up whole litters! Just one of
those things destroyed my entire family. Imagine what hundreds of them
could do."
"I do believe in it! But I don't
know if this is the right way to go
about it. People could get hurt. Not just our people, but innocent people.
You'll be setting the perfect stage for looting, rioting."
"I'm aware of the risks. In
fact, I'm counting on them! While
those winged menaces are out looking for excuses to deliver their
punishment, we'll be waiting for them. We'll single them out. And when
we've killed them, we'll descend on that castle and eradicate every last
trace of their nest. It's far too late to back out now, not when we've
been
planning this for months."
She sighed. "I suppose you're
right. Stage fright. End game
jitters. I'd probably worry less if I knew I was going to be here with
you.
Going away makes it feel like I'm running, like I'm losing control."
"I would rather have you by
my side too, but there's no one else I
trust to look after Bryce. You mean very much to us, Margot." He bent
and kissed her cheek. "Very much indeed."
*
*
"Last night the moon had a golden
ring," Gustav Sevarius said.
Instantly, Stephanie's tense,
worried features relaxed into
calmness. "And tonight no moon we see," she finished, after which she
lapsed into an expectant silence.
Dominique sighed. "I almost
hate to do this."
"You should be abed, my lamb."
"Why? I'm completely healed
by now, which would have caused
problems if I'd stayed at the hospital."
"Physically, yes, you seem in
perfect health. But your
immortality can't heal your heart as quickly."
"Look who's waxing sentimental,"
she sneered.
He failed to be fooled. "I know
how much this child meant to
you."
"I don't need sympathy from
you, Sevarius. Are you going to
reprogram Stephanie, or stand there all day?"
"Are you sure you want me to?"
he asked. "After all, I'm not a
young man, and it could be useful to have another trusted ally, one who
knows your secret and can look out for your interests by night."
Dominique regarded Stephanie
thoughtfully. "She did do well
today. I think you're right. Very well. Do what you need to. I'm going
upstairs. It's almost dusk."
As she left the sterile white
dungeon of the doctor, she heard him
speaking to Stephanie in soothing tones, telling her that she would
remember nothing of the past few minutes, asserting that Ms. Destine
needed her loyalty more now than ever.
Alone in the elevator, she studied
her reflection hatefully in the
mirror on the back wall. What a difference since this morning! Her figure
had regained its former shapeliness, so that her clothes hung on her like
billowing sails. Her hair was vibrant again, her skin a healthy hue. Only
her eyes, her bleak, red-rimmed eyes, gave any indication that something
was wrong.
She let herself into Jericho's
sanctuary, the dark Avalon on the
top floor. With winter here, the two of them spent most of their time at
the Nightstone Building, since the weather was chancy to make the glides
back and forth to the house on the lake. The clones were left mostly to
their own devices, and it was a testament to both Jericho's diligent training
and Sevarius' behavior modification plan that they hadn't managed to
destroy the place.
Her son and mate was perched
atop one of the obsidian
sculptures, wings half-spread, claws raised in a fearsome pose. A heavy
melancholy settled over Dominique as she felt the telltale sparkles of
heat
in her bones that heralded the change.
Moments later, she had half-spread
wings of her own, and the
pain of her transformation seemed shockingly less than she'd been used
to
over the past several months. It was true, then. The magic that shifted
her
from human to gargoyle had been more than her baby could withstand,
making her body fight against itself.
Jericho cast off his stone skin,
which pattered down the sides of
the sculpture and plinked into the pool. He saw her, and leaped down with
a welcoming smile. It faltered after his third step.
"Demona? What ... ? Did you
lay the egg already? But it wasn't
supposed to be for --"
"No," she said softly, and that
one word seemed to punch him in
the stomach. "It's gone, Jericho. I miscarried."
"No!" He sprang to her, clutched
her hands in his. "It can't be!"
She bit her lip, nodded. "This
morning, at the presentation. There
was nothing anyone could have done. It ... it would have been a boy."
He searched her face, as if
hoping that this was some cruel joke.
When he saw only the truth and the pain there, a terrible rage and grief
made him whirl away. He roared, brought his fists down on one of the
obsidian pillars with cracking force. His rage vented, he gave in to the
grief, and sank to the ground.
Demona crumpled beside him,
and they clung to each other in a
shared storm of tears.
*
*
"You know, you're crazy," Matt
Bluestone said, passing a
Starbucks cup over the back of the seat.
"Why, because I wanted decaf?"
Beth Maza replied.
Elisa laughed as she tried to
wedge herself more comfortably
behind the wheel. They were parked not far from Times Square, watching
people in party hats getting ready for the big event. The police-band radio
spat a constant but low-key string of bulletins.
"No, because a sexy single girl
like you ought to have better
things to do on New Year's Eve than tag along with her big sister on the
job."
"I told you, it's research for
my sociology paper. Besides, it's not
like I had a date or anything."
"Yeah," Elisa said, as if the
thought had just occurred to her,
when in fact their mother had been fretting about it for months. "You
haven't been dating much, not that you've told Mom about."
Beth grinned wryly. "I don't
tell Mom everything! But this time
she's right. I've gone out a few times, but I'm just not clicking with
anyone."
"Hey, how about Rick?" Matt
suggested. "He's between
girlfriends."
"Oh, wouldn't that look good
around the station," Elisa said.
"The guy everyone thinks is the father of my baby, dating my sister. Very
cool."
"I guess Coyote just spoiled
me for mortal men," Beth shrugged.
"You should know what that's like. Once with a non-human, and you can
never go back."
"No wonder all us mortal men
have such a hard time finding
women," Matt said.
"Oh, please!" Elisa said. "You
retrieved yours from the
Underworld, so don't come whining to me!"
"Just for that, I might not
give you your present." Matt produced
a large foil-wrapped box from beneath his seat.
"Matt! I thought we agreed,
no presents!"
"That was for Christmas. This
is your birthday. Different
occasion altogether. Go on, open it!"
"If it's something stupid like
a size 4x T-shirt that says 'Egg on
Board,' you're walking home," Elisa warned as she tore into the paper.
Inside, she found a bunch of scented bath oils from a ritzy boutique, a
large tin of toffee-chocolate almonds, and a new novel by one of her
favorite authors.
While she was still gaping in
delighted surprise, Matt said, "If
there's one thing I learned while Edie was carrying Orph, a pregnant
woman can get real sick of being treated like an incubator. You're still
you, but people sometimes forget that because they're so focused on the
baby. Happy Birthday, partner."
"Thank you, Matt! I love it!"
She gave him an impulsive, chaste
kiss on the cheek, feeling truly happy for the first time since the horrible
night two weeks ago when Xanatos had told them about Demona's
miscarriage.
That news had fallen upon the
clan like an avalanche, yet no one
had said another single word about it. They hadn't been able to. What was
there to say?
Elisa knew that Xanatos had
arranged for flowers to be sent, and
she suspected Angela might have written to her mother, but the rest of
them could not bring themselves to discuss it. Even she and Goliath,
alone, had never spoken of it. She had never been more conscious of the
delicate balance of biology and magic keeping her baby safe. She knew the
vivid awareness would haunt the rest of her own pregnancy, and possibly
reach into the next several years thereafter.
Beth leaned into the front seat.
"My birthday's June 11."
Elisa gave her a look. "Shouldn't
you have your belt on? Seen as
how you're riding in a cop's car with two cops?"
"Oh, all right, all right."
She buckled up. "'Egg on Board' ...
I've got to remember that."
"You really want me to tell
Dad about your tattoo, don't you?"
Elisa teased.
"No good, sis, he saw it at
Christmas when I was trying on the
slippers Maggie gave me. He thought it was neat. Hey, have you seen
Delilah lately? I thought Aiden was getting big, but _whoa_! Derrek says
she can barely glide."
"Speaking of kids ..." Matt
pulled a thick sheaf of photos out of
his trenchcoat.
"Awww!" Beth crooned.
"You should've seen him when
he was born," Elisa said, giving
Matt a teasing wink. "Blotchiest, squashiest baby I've ever seen."
"Well, he's adorable now," Beth
said. "Look at those big dark
eyes! I just want to pick him up and hug him!"
"Everyone falls for that look,"
Matt boasted. "Even people who
normally hate kids -- I mean, hate them like they'd just as soon see them
all mailed to Tibet -- go nuts over Orph."
Beth admired all the photos,
then passed them back to Matt.
"Yo, partner," Matt said. "Check
it out. Isn't that Harry the
Hammer, our favorite fanatic?"
Elisa peered through the snow-speckled
windshield toward a
group of sign-wielding people gathered on a corner. "Damn! When did he
get out of the hospital? And what's he doing with the anti-computer
fruitcakes?"
"He always was a sucker for
cults and con men," Matt said. "But
yeah, I wouldn't have expected him to be with this bunch. Unless they've
convinced him that Bill Gates is the Antichrist."
"It's only half an hour until
midnight," Beth said, checking her
watch. "They must be waiting to see if they're proved right or wrong."
"I don't think so," Matt said
slowly. "Call it a hunch, but ..."
The crowd swelled as last-minute
stragglers flooded into the
already jam-packed Square. It was pickpocket's paradise, Elisa knew from
previous years. Every available badge was out tonight, ready to keep the
peace and save the drunken revelers from themselves.
As the moment drew nearer, Harry
the Hammer and his friends
didn't budge from their spot on the streetcorner. Harry himself was
standing right beside a pay phone. When it rang, at 11:57 by the clock
on
the dashboard, Harry picked it up.
"I don't like this," Matt said,
reaching for his door handle.
"Wait," Elisa said. "Let's see
what he's up to first."
The babble of the crowd suddenly
changed from meaningless
noise to thousands of voices counting down as one: "Ten ... nine ... eight
..."
Harry raised two fingers like
the barrel of a gun and tipped them
toward one of the other millooniums, who reached into his coat.
"Huh-unh, no way." Matt opened
his door.
The milloonium pulled out something
that looked like a controller
for a kid's radio-powered car, twiddled the knob.
"Two ... one! Happy New --"
Before the crowd could holler
"Year," from around the city came
the sound of explosions. First one, then a pause. Then four, six, ten,
a
dozen smaller ones.
The great glittering apple with
"2000" emblazoned across it
sputtered and went dark. The power went out, whole city blocks at once,
plunging Manhattan into ghostly snow-blackness.
"Shit!" Elisa, Matt, and Beth
cried together.
"Blackout, the bastards staged
a blackout!" Matt added.
"Everyone'll blame it on the
computers," Beth said.
A startled hush lay over the
city for about five seconds, and then
everything went to hell.
*
*
"Two ... one!" Angela ran her
hand along Brooklyn's thigh,
letting him know she was thinking of their last New Year's Eve, hoping
to
elicit a smile from her mate. Maybe this new year would close out the old
and give them all a chance to start fresh.
"Happy New --" the rest began,
and then the television went
dark. So did the room. So did the castle.
"Damn it, that's not supposed
to happen!" David Xanatos rushed
from the room, calling for Owen and demanding to know what the hell
had happened to the building's internal power supply.
Hudson shot to his feet. "Come
on, then, lads, we've work to
do!"
"What about us?" Angela hauled
herself off the couch on her
second try, then sank sheepishly back as she realized that was answer
enough.
"Goliath and Broadway are over
by Times Square," Elektra said.
"We'll hook up there, then."
Brooklyn brushed his knuckles
against Angela's brow, then patted her tummy. "Back soon, junior!"
"Be careful!" Aiden told Lex,
hugging him around the neck.
"Hey, it's just looters and
rioters. Nothing we can't handle," he
assured her.
"Look after them, boy," Hudson
ordered Bronx, indicating the
females. Bronx whined in disappointment, but trudged over and stood at
Angela's feet.
The lights flickered, then came
back on in a steady glow. But the
television only blared static, and from the windows they could see only
a
well of frosted night scratched by automobile headlights.
*
*
"Want a pretzel?" Broadway offered.
Goliath shook his head, his
attention fixed on the sea of humans
below, popping champagne corks and confetti streamers all over each
other as the enormous golden apple began to lower and the countdown
started.
It would have to be a golden
apple, he thought with bitter
amusement.
KRRR-ZZZZ-BAMMM!
A few blocks away, a tall power
transformer geysered sparks. A
string of smaller explosions went off at relay stations strategically situated
around the city, like dominoes in quick succession.
The Square was still lit, but
only with an insane Wonderland of
glow-in-the-dark necklaces and cheap flashlights adorned with sprays of
plastic filaments, all sold by vendors at ten bucks apiece.
The crowd reacted as if a hoard
of yellowjackets had settled onto
them, screaming and shoving in all directions. Glass shattered as people
threw wastebaskets through store windows. And in the midst of all the
lunacy, the Aerie Building suddenly came to life, a bright beacon.
*
*
Right around 11:30, T.J. Lawton
suffered a premonition.
"Oh, hell, what now?" he wondered
unhappily to himself. This
sort of psychic crap was not part of his usual repertoire, and he didn't
much care for the thought that he might be developing new abilities that
would make him even more of a freak.
Yet there was no denying it,
this was a premonition. Goose
waddling over his grave, the shivers, the whole deal. Something was about
to go down, some serious bad shit.
He looked around to see if any
of the others felt it too, although it
would have surprised him. They were the normal people, after all. And
just as he'd expected, they all kept on with their conversations as if
nothing weird was happening.
His roommate Birdie was bringing
in a jug of punch and a fifth of
vodka to add to the punchbowl, resplendent for the occasion in a curve-
hugging velvet dress the exact shade T.J. and his pals back in Joshua Flats
had referred to as "hello, officer" red. Birdie was a whole lotta chick,
probably too much chick to be wearing a dress that tight, but she had the
right attitude to pull it off.
Her brother Chas was sitting
on the couch with his roommate
Eric, in a good-natured argument about each other's musical tastes as they
tried to decide on a new CD. T.J. momentarily almost forgot his
premonition as he kicked himself again for not having figured it out
sooner, but then, _all_ those preppy guys had sort of a faggy air about
them, so how was he supposed to have known?
Cindy, a stone-gorgeous babe
who had gone right from the
Sterling Academy drama program into a plush movie deal opposite the one
and only Leo, was the only one looking toward T.J. Smiling, too, which
a
year ago might have sent his pulse rate into overdrive. However, he'd had
some bad experiences with stone-gorgeous babes recently, so he wasn't all
that moved.
The rest of the gang -- Tina,
Jeff, Patsy, and some other of
Birdie's former school chums whose names he'd forgotten -- were hanging
out doing the party thing. None of them gave any sign of noticing anything
out of the ordinary. But for T.J., the feeling was only getting stronger.
He went into the tiny kitchen,
where it was a little quieter, and
tried to get a handle on his whacked-out senses. Puck and Alex kept telling
him he had to pay attention to the weird shit, even if he'd just as soon
ignore it. Because, they'd said and he'd grudgingly had to admit they were
right, the more you ignore it, the more likely it is to blow up in your
face.
Hot in here. When Birdie entertained,
she went a little berserk,
so stuff was simmering on all four burners and there was a clunky old
fondue pot that looked ready to detonate at any minute, showering the
room with melted chocolate.
T.J. opened the window that
gave onto the fire escape, and all at
once the feeling got stronger. Way stronger. He could even center on it
now -- the bigass old antenna tower that stuck out of the top of the
building next door.
That was part of why he'd lobbied
for this particular apartment.
One of the other things Puck had explained to him was that there were
lines of power in the earth and air that magic-freaks could sometimes tap
into. He didn't know squat about the earth and air, but he understood the
concept of power lines just fine, and being near that thing made him feel
strangely at home.
He wasn't even sure what it
was called. An electric transformer,
a power relay station, something like that. He understood, though,
intuitively (more of that psychic crap), that it was a central point, a
juncture, a hub. Being near it, he felt connected.
Now, though, he felt troubled.
"Hey, studmuffin," Birdie said,
tapping him on the shoulder.
"Enjoying our spectacular view or something? You've been standing there
twenty minutes. It's almost midnight! And it's freezing in here; you're
getting snow on the floor."
"Yeah, okay, be right there,"
he mumbled absently.
Something wrong at the power
tower. It pulled at his brain.
Something wrong.
He crawled out the window onto
the icy fire escape. A thick
cable ran just over his head. He reached up and closed his fist around
it.
Juicing up. Energy surged and crackled into him.
From inside, he heard a cork
pop, heard Birdie filling glasses.
The countdown began.
Another premonition smacked
him, and he let go of the cable two
seconds before the explosion. He screamed without knowing he screamed,
sensing the current short out, sensing the sudden blind idiot blare of
machines seeking, seeking, their lifeblood cut off.
Dead darkness slammed down like
a coffin lid.
*
*
"Stay in the car!" Elisa shouted
at Beth.
"You, too!" Beth shouted back.
"No can do. It's my job." She
slammed the door behind her and
looked across the roof of the car at Matt, both of them sharing the same
wry thought: so much for the coffee break.
Her partner jumped into the
glare of the headlights and flashed
his badge. "Police!" he bellowed through the bullhorn he'd retrieved from
the trunk. "Everybody remain calm! Return to your homes in an orderly
fashion --"
"Shut up, pig!" Someone bounced
a can of beer off his shoulder,
and an ugly rippling murmur of approval greeted this show of defiance.
"Do people still call cops pigs?"
Matt wondered at Elisa, then
turned and grabbed the offender and wrestled him up against a wall.
She didn't answer, because just
then she saw Harry the Hammer
and his group start moving. Many of them were carrying flashlights,
the
long-handled kind the police themselves favored because it was good as
a
baton in a pinch.
More people materialized out
of the chaos to join them. She
recognized several faces from want-sheets and photos from various
Quarryman activities, but none of them were wearing their bodysuits or
toting their hammers. That failed to reassure her; in fact, only made her
more wary. Whatever they were up to, they didn't even want it traced to
the Quarrymen, who had never before been shy about taking credit for
their mayhem.
She grabbed the bullhorn that
Matt had dropped, and began doing
her best to restore order. Some people listened to her and fled indoors,
but
the Quarry-mob didn't disperse. Their attention seemed to be fixed on
something behind her, and when she risked a quick glance, she saw the
Aerie Building shining in the night.
"Behold the Tower of Satan!
His minions fly among us!"
Elisa whirled. "Harry! You're
under arrest!"
He looked her way, and his face
was transformed by loathing,
dread, and an eerie revelation. She took a step forward, and only then
realized that he was staring at her stomach.
"Devil-lover!" he yelled. "Bride
of demons! She's carrying the
inhuman spawn of one of those monsters!"
His flunkies were willing to
be convinced, and surged toward
her. Many of them recognized her from other rallies and events she'd
broken up, and hated her even if they didn't believe Harry's impassioned
claim.
Elisa stumbled back against
the car, for the first time in her law
enforcement career utterly terrified for her life. And moreso for the life
of
the child within her.
Matt, having cuffed his heckler
to a mailbox, waved urgently at
her. "Get inside!"
The rush of wings and the crumple
of metal as a very large
gargoyle landed on the roof of Elisa's car was music to her ears.
The advancing Quarrymen fell
back, horrified, very few of them
having ever seen an actual gargoyle in the flesh. Harry managed to look
at
once scared to death and exalted.
"Good timing!" Matt turned to
wink at Elisa's personal guardian
angel, then his eyes widened in surprise just before a taloned foot caught
him under the chin. The kick sent him flying back, denting the mailbox
and landing on top of the cuffed man.
Elisa froze in shock. That foot
had been twilight-blue. "Jericho!"
He leapt from the car, seized
her under the arms, and whipped
the legs out from under Harry the Hammer with one swipe of his muscular
tail. Still carrying Elisa, he jumped back onto the Fairlane -- the two
front
tires blew and the hood caved in when he landed on it -- and from there
to
the roof, then to a van, then to a ledge.
And then into the air.
*
*
"See how the devil snatches
his own from the wrath of the
righteous!" Harry ranted. "But we are stronger! We are not afraid to face
the devil on his own turf!" He leveled his flashlight at the distant glow
of
the Aerie Building.
His mob, its numbers swelled
by hangers-on caught up in the
crazed fever of the moment, cheered and followed as he led them toward
the Aerie Building, which drew him like a moth to a flame.
There, he would root out and
destroy every last trace of the
devils. Including the Maza woman, whom he should have known all along
was the Dark Madonna. If he survived, the Chosen One would honor him
greatly on earth, and if not, he would reap his reward in the glory of
Heaven.
*
*
"I thought you didn't go in
for this superhero stuff!" Birdie
shouted, slipping and sliding after T.J. as he ran across the roof.
He didn't slow, didn't answer,
just kept on busting his buns
toward the source of that dark, dead emptiness. He'd never been up here
before but he followed his instincts and knew just where to go.
Birdie's brother was close behind
her, having shown sense long
enough to grab his coat -- an act that put him a couple rungs above Birdie,
who was courting pneumonia in her sleeveless dress, and T.J. himself,
who was wearing a joke T-shirt with a tuxedo design printed on the front.
The rest of the party-goers were still inside, having a higher weirdness
threshold than the three of them.
Shapes in the slowmo static
of the falling snow -- man-shapes like
cutouts of black construction paper. Now T.J. slowed, startled by the
possibility that this was some sort of crazy commando-terrorist thing
instead of just an overload or something nice and ordinary like that.
The man-shapes didn't even look
his way, but went off the far
side of the roof so fast they either jumped or repelled. Once they were
gone, T.J. hurried past a big cup-and-prong that looked like a satellite
dish, and stopped at the foot of the tall silvery spire.
The sense of weirdness increased
tenfold as he picked up on a
flicker, like letters burned into his head, letters in white fire that
spelled
out "Puck was here."
"Do you see that?" he asked
Birdie.
"What?"
"Never mind." He filed it under
M for "More weird shit" and
turned his attention to the tower. A large metal box built against the
side
of it was burst open and smoking, the lid hanging warped and askew. The
hum that he should have detected was gone, utterly gone, flat, dead,
never-gonna-eat-barbecue-again.
All around him, the city was
a wailing horrorshow. Not just the
people; to T.J., who had grown up in a town whose population had never
exceeded two hundred, there were just too many people to seem real. Like
the stars. You just had to accept it without thinking about it, or it would
drive you out of your mind. It wasn't the people that got at him now, it
was the machines, the electricity. The starving, flayed sizzle of exposed
and seeking nerve endings.
"Mind telling me what you're
doing?" Birdie sounded exasperated
but not terribly surprised.
"Stay back," he told her. "This
might get ... pyrotechnic."
"Oh, yes, very nice," Chas said
as if they were discussing the
weather, and pulled his sister in the other direction.
T.J. threw his arms wide, embracing
as much of the base of the
tower as he could reach. He thought insanely of those people who chained
themselves to redwoods to spare the axes, knowing he must look a lot like
that. A save-the-power-lines techno-druid. He wasn't normally much of a
reader, but for one of his last school assignments he'd done a book report
on Lucifer's Hammer, plodding through it with moderate interest. Now a
line from it popped into his head in bright neon.
"For the lightning!" he shouted.
Birdie, who would probably be
a wiseass on her deathbed,
shouted back, "Spoon!"
T.J. gave it everything he had.
Once, when he'd been a little kid,
he'd zapped himself a good one on a frayed lamp cord. He remembered
his frantic adoptive mother swearing up and down that he shouldn't have
survived -- and now he knew why he had -- but there hadn't even been any
pain. A ticklish tingle, a weird pre-sexual jolt.
This was just like it. He tripped
something in the guts of the
transformer, bringing it to sudden, sparking life, and the current fed
into
him, then he poured it back in, creating a loop with himself as a living
conduit.
St. Elmo's fire made a blue
and white Spirograph in the sky. It
dimmed, laboring, as T.J. struggled to cope with the heavy draining
demand of lights and televisions and appliances all glomming onto the
trickle of energy like millions of mosquitos on one pathetic vein.
He reached deeper, reached outward
from this central hub, and
found the others. Dominos falling in reverse. A mental image -- series
of
switches, the big ones with perforated rubber handles, getting thrown into
the 'on' position one by one.
His back arched and his hair
stood on end. He saw his hands
gloved in white, saw sparks leaping from his skin. Just when he thought
he couldn't take it anymore, that he was going to explode like a mouse
in
the microwave, something seemed to _catch_ and took over.
T.J. reeled back a few steps,
smoking, his thoughts an electric,
senseless hurricane.
"Tropical island in the sun,"
he warbled with a passable Jamaican
accent. He flopped over bonelessly and soft blackness like warm felt
enveloped him.
*
*
The city groaned and brayed
as the power came back on. The
Year 2000 Blackout (as the papers would snidely call it the next day) had
lasted all of fifteen minutes.
All over Manhattan, emotions
that had been rising to a fever pitch
were cast into confusion. Those who seized on any excuse to loot had only
started into motion when the lights came on again, leaving them awkward
and embarrassed as burglar alarms howled.
Goliath only nodded in satisfaction
-- less work for his clan -- and
kept gliding determinedly.
A streetlight cast a pool of
radiance over Elisa's car, showing the
mangled metal to good advantage. At the periphery of the light was Matt
Bluestone, out cold on top of a struggling, indignant man handcuffed to
a
mailbox.
Goliath swooped down, his heart
in his throat. "Elisa! Where are
you?"
Someone banged on the car door
from the inside. Goliath bent
down and saw Beth trying to force it open, but the roof had been bent
inward and the doors were jammed. He yanked one off, and Beth
practically fell into his arms.
"Where is Elisa?"
"Another gargoyle flew away
with her," Beth said breathlessly.
"She called him Jericho."
*
*
"I suppose there's a perfectly
good explanation for what we just
saw," Chas Yale said, gallantly removing his coat and draping it over his
sister's bare shoulders.
"Yeah, but it's a long one,"
Birdie replied, gingerly approaching
T.J. He had melted the snow around him into a smeary guy-shaped
puddle, and he wasn't sparking or smoking anymore, but she still wasn't
too eager to touch him.
"Please, take your time and
tell us," a voice invited, a crisp,
classy, British-sounding voice.
A man in a black outfit that
looked like a Kevlar ninja-suit
stepped into view. He had a neat blond moustache and was wearing a
mask/headscarf, and Birdie would have had a major 'Princess Bride'
moment if not for the gun the newcomer held cradled in his arms.
Chas was wearing a don't-I-know-him?
look, and Birdie grabbed
his hand, squeezed it tight, trying to warn him to keep quiet. If Jon
Canmore, Aunt Margot's new main honeybunch, knew that they
recognized him, he'd blow them away. And if they thought their mother
had a hefty Valium prescription _now_ ...
"Please, mister, we didn't do
anything," Birdie said, letting her
voice shake. It wasn't hard; she didn't have to act. She'd been in some
scrapes before, faced down killer unicorns and Quarryman hammers and
thugs with switchblades, but this was the first time anyone had actually
pulled a gun on her.
"You might not have, but whoever
that little bastard is, he's
ruined _months_ of planning and hard work, and I'd like to know just how
he did it."
She wanted to say it, wanted
to quote at him _so_ bad. But now it
was Chas applying crushing force to her hand, picking up her thoughts
with the stress-telepathy close friends and siblings sometimes shared.
So, instead of suggesting that
Canmore 'get used to
disappointment,' she gulped and stammered, "I don't suppose you'd
believe it was magic?"
"Ha, ha, I think not." He was
peering at the two of them now,
his mouth curled down as if trying to figure out where he'd seen them
before.
Birdie didn't know if that would
be a good thing or a bad one.
Surely Aunt Margot hadn't told him anything friendly about her niece.
Chas, though ... she'd never had anything against Chas ... oh, except for
that yacht incident. Her spirits sank. She was not seeing a way out of
this
for the Yale kids that didn't end up with at least one of them shot.
Unless maybe T.J. ...? She threw
a quick hopeful look his way,
but he was still totally out to lunch.
"Well, Roberta?" Canmore asked,
dashing her hopes that he
hadn't recognized her.
She had no idea what she was
going to say, just that it would be
some wildly inventive lie, and since it would be her last performance,
she
might as well make it a good one.
"I --" she said.
A snowball the size of a pumpkin
plummeted from the sky,
knocking Canmore flat on his face. The gun went off, searing a clear
streak in the snow.
Brooklyn landed and planted
one talon on the barrel of the gun,
brushing snow from his palms. "Happy New Year."
"You have the best goddam timing,
red, I could kiss you," Birdie
said in a relieved rush.
He winked. "Later. Who's the
jerk?"
"The man called Castaway," Chas
said, and Brooklyn jumped
like he'd been shot.
"What?!"
Canmore lunged up, shedding
his coating of snow as if it were a
stone skin. He tried to bring up the gun but Brooklyn's tail lashed it
away,
sending it sliding through the slush and over the edge of the building.
"I'll kill at least one gargoyle
tonight!" Canmore vowed
vehemently.
"I don't think so." Brooklyn
landed a perfect punch, a textbook
roundhouse that sent Canmore flying backward.
With nearly balletic grace,
he managed to keep his footing. He
flicked a small sphere at the gargoyle, the savage grin on his face clearly
stating that he expected it to have painful consequences. But as the sphere
flew, electricity arced from it to the unconscious T.J., making him spasm
like he just got hit with a defibrillator. The sphere, harmless now,
bounced off Brooklyn's chest.
T.J. bolted upright, but the
dazed look on his face proclaimed
that he had no idea where he was or what was happening. Birdie had seen
that happen before. When he tried a major stunt, it sometimes blanked out
his short-term memory, and this was the most major stunt to date.
Brooklyn went after Canmore.
"Got any other ideas?"
Canmore backed up steadily.
He looked torn between genocidal
hatred and the discretion that was the better part of valor. When two other
figures, Lex and Hudson, swooped low and landed, Canmore decided.
He flung down another sphere,
not taking his chances by tossing
it near T.J. this time. A miniature sun bloomed, baking with heat. The
gargoyles cried out and covered their eyes. While they were blinded,
Canmore fled through the roof access stairwell door.
*
*
It had been a long time since
she knew fear in the arms of a
gargoyle, Elisa Maza thought as her feet dangled far above the streets
of
Manhattan.
A long time. Probably not since
the first time, when she'd fallen
and Goliath had come after her. At the time, she hadn't been sure which
was the worse fate -- pavement pizza, or being torn apart and devoured
alive by the fierce-looking creature that grabbed her.
She still wasn't sure which
was the worse fate.
Elisa didn't struggle, didn't
fight, didn't reach for the gun. Not
that she could have gotten at her gun anyway; Jericho's hands were seated
firmly under her arms, pressing the gun in its shoulder holster painfully
into her side. Which meant that he knew it was there. Even through her
bulky winter coat, he was bound to notice.
She didn't try to talk to him
either, partly because she would have
to shout to make herself heard above the rushing wind, and partly because
she had no idea what to say. All those classes, those cop psychology
classes on dealing with the reality-challenged, didn't offer much that
would be helpful in this case.
He veered left, soared high,
and descended toward the wide
stone-railed balcony that marked the refurbished clocktower of the 23rd
Precinct station house. The hands of the clock -- funded by a private
donation from the Xanatos Foundation -- stood at 12:18.
Jericho landed, released her,
stepped back. He caped his wings
and studied her with an unreadable expression.
She could have gone for her
gun then, but something made her
wait.
The silence between them became
unbearable. His gaze shifted to
her stomach, and his jaw tightened with pain and anger.
"Why?" she asked when she couldn't
stand the suspense a
moment longer.
"They didn't deserve the honor
of killing you," he replied flatly.
She swallowed. Tried to think
of what she could say that
wouldn't enrage him.
"You're afraid, Elisa Maza,"
he said, apparently pleased by it.
"Did you fear I would drop you?"
Elisa nodded. "But you didn't."
"And now you're wondering if
it was so I could kill you at my
leisure."
"The thought crossed my mind."
She willed herself to stay calm.
"There's nothing I can say that will change your opinion, Jericho, so I
won't try."
"No appeal to the legendary
nobility I supposedly inherited from
my father?"
She shook her head.
"Good. You'd be wrong."
"I know. Tell me what you want.
If you want me to beg for my
life, I will. For mine and my baby's."
"Why should your child be allowed
to live when ours wasn't?"
His soft, intense whisper conveyed more anguish than any thundering
roar.
She shrank back, suddenly terrified
that he would rip the amber
pendant from her, strip her of the magic, make her body reject the
pregnancy just as Demona's had done. Somehow, she kept her voice
steady.
"I can't answer that. There
isn't an answer to that. But killing
mine isn't going to bring yours back. All it would do is make me feel the
way Demona must be feeling right now. Do you hate me that much?"
"If you felt as she did, you'd
be dead. There's no immortality to
make suicide a futile thought for you. Since the day she lost the baby,
nothing brings her joy."
Elisa felt colder, not just
from the chill seeping into her body
from the snow-covered stone she leaned against, but spreading from
within. "And you think my death would accomplish that?"
Jericho's smile was sharp ice.
"You misjudge me, detective. I've
never intended to harm you."
"What game are you playing?"
She knew it was unwise, likely to
provoke him, but she couldn't stop the irritation from tingeing her tone.
"Simple." He moved forward,
and she had nowhere to flee, so
she pressed herself against the wall. Jericho stopped in front of her,
lightly
pinched her chin between his thumb and the knuckle of his forefinger. He
regarded her with mixed fascination and revulsion. "I don't understand
what he sees in you. But I know that you mean everything to him. As long
as Goliath has you, there is no way he'd ever go back to Demona."
"Even if he didn't, he wouldn't!"
she protested.
"I think you're wrong. I think
if he lost you, he would be
devastated. His best and strongest tie with humankind would be torn away.
He would eventually come to see the truth, come around to Demona's
way. There's a chance she might take him back. I can't permit that."
"I don't know what you're talking
about."
"As long as you are his, she
is mine. Is that clear enough?"
She recoiled, staring at him.
"So that's it. You think he could win
her away from you."
"He couldn't," Jericho said
through gritted teeth. "He cannot
offer her what I do -- the dedication, the obedience that she desires.
But I
won't share her. I won't. She is mine, and I am hers. We are one. Now
and forever. That is how it is meant to be, and I will not let Goliath
ruin
it. Which means that I must not only spare you, but protect you."
The words fell between them
like stones. Elisa gaped.
"Yes," he said. "Protect you.
Ironic, I know. And if Demona
learned of it, I can't imagine her fury. She hates you with a fever that
would burn cinderblock. But I see, as she does not, that your death would
only bring her temporary happiness. While I can bring her a lifetime of
it.
As long as I keep you alive."
*
*
"This is unbelievable," David
Xanatos said, shaking his head.
"Shouldn't they have torches and pitchforks?"
"Flashlights and sledgehammers
aren't good enough for you?"
Angela retorted, peering down from the battlements at the encroaching
mob.
"It is rather a sorry showing,"
Elektra said. "I thought there were
more."
"There were, until the power
came back on," Aiden said. "I
guess the others didn't think it was fun anymore, once there was a chance
they'd get caught."
"Is there aught we should do?"
Elektra wondered.
"The building's defenses should
prove more than adequate,"
Owen replied.
"But they mean to break the
glass!"
"Let them try." Xanatos smirked.
"They'd need a tank."
True enough, the first attempt
with a hurled trash barrel
rebounded off the lobby doors and rolled through the front line of the
mob.
"I've always wanted to drop
a water balloon off of here," Aiden
mused. "But I always worried I might hit somebody."
"The way they're packed down
there, you could hardly miss,"
Angela said, grinning.
"But I don't have any balloons.
Guess I'll have to improvise."
The small grey gargoyle conjured a sphere of water that hung wavery and
ripply in midair. "Bombs away!"
From far below came a startled
outcry.
"More," Elektra urged. "'Tis
that, or start throwing rotten fruit
and dumping chamber pots."
Xanatos drew himself up, pretending
to be offended. "Chamber
pots? In _my_ castle?"
"More?" Aiden looked at Owen,
who tilted his head indifferently.
"Well ... it is to protect the castle ... okay." She conjured again, this
time
bringing forth enough water to fill a swimming pool, and let it fall.
KA-PHAAAASH!
"Owen, make a note; we'll need
the window-washers in
tomorrow," Xanatos said as the drenched, freezing mob scattered like
quail.
*
*
Jon Canmore, unable to believe
that it had all gone wrong so
suddenly, flew his hoverbike around a skyscraper just in time to see his
army dispersed under a torrent. He caught a brief glimpse of Harry the
Hammer, one of his most loyal underlings, bounding in the opposite
direction from the castle in panicked gazelle-like leaps.
Disgusted and hurting from the
red gargoyle's punch -- he was
lucky his jaw hadn't been dislocated -- Canmore turned around and left
the
Aerie Building behind him.
Hopelessness snuggled up to
him, whispering its seductive tune.
Give up, it wheedled. You'll never win. Forget about the gargoyles.
"Never!" he shouted into the
driving sleet, instantly regretting it
because it caused a blossom of fresh pain in his wounded mouth.
Badly in need of some inspiration,
he headed for the police
station. The sight of it would remind him how it used to be, how it was
when he wasn't alone. When Jason had been in charge, so confident.
When Robyn had been the constant comfort and support, making herself
Wendy to her Lost Boys brothers. When they had been a family, joined by
their common cause.
He could not have asked for
a better reward than the sight that
met his eyes.
A gargoyle of impressive wingspan,
and a woman. In the
shadows and snow, he couldn't be one hundred percent certain it was
Goliath, but that didn't matter.
He swooped to the attack.
*
*
"Broadway, take Matt and Beth
to the castle. Have Aiden seek
for Elisa. I will begin here." Without waiting to see that his order was
obeyed, Goliath clawed up the side of a building and took to the air.
His desperate terror and rage
at the thought of Elisa in the hands
of his insane son were too much to deal with, so Goliath shoved his
emotions aside and concentrated on his search. He went first to the
Nightstone Building, and while he was busy finding nothing, heard a
hoverbike motor.
Although the rider was all in
plain black, he knew one of the
Hunters' vehicles when he saw it. He followed.
*
*
"And so, good night." Jericho
made a slight bow and prepared to
leave.
Elisa reached into her pocket,
hoping one of her station keys
would work on this door, or else she'd have to pick the lock.
A high buzzing whine filled
her ears, sending her memory
spinning back to the day she had entered this very same building. Then,
she'd heard it in the hallway, turned, been scooped up by Jason Canmore
moments before the clocktower turned into a fireball.
Now, it was coming from above.
A harsh white beam stabbed down,
pinning Jericho in a circle of
light. He flung his forearm over his eyes and leapt to the side as a machine
gun chattered.
*
*
It wasn't Goliath. It wasn't
the demon.
But it looked like them both,
and Jon didn't have to be shown a
family tree to understand that it was their son. Both his worst enemies,
rolled into one big package.
"Die, monster, die," he breathed,
and fired.
The beast dodged, then whirled
and plucked up the woman --
Elisa Maza, of course, the woman who had poisoned Jason's mind and
turned him against his family and his cause -- and dove over the rail.
*
*
"There!" Lex shouted, pointing,
as the hoverbike they'd been
chasing zipped between two buildings.
"Head him off!" Brooklyn called.
They dipped low as they came
around a corner, which saved
them from a nasty midair collision as a huge gargoyle swept by right
overhead with Elisa in his arms.
"Goliath!" Lex hailed, but it
went unheard as he kept on going.
And here came Canmore, his spotlight
slicing the night.
And behind Canmore ...
"Goliath?" Brooklyn gasped.
*
*
Goliath would have thought he
couldn't imagine a worse situation
than Elisa captured by Jericho. But this was worse. Elisa captured by
Jericho, with the Hunter in pursuit. If he went after one, the other would
either get away or have the opportunity to kill.
Two figures soared to meet him.
He braced for an attack, then
recognized Brooklyn and Lexington.
"What's going on?" Lex yelled.
"Stop Canmore! I'll take Jericho!"
"Oh, shit!" Brooklyn exclaimed
succinctly as he jerked his head
around to stare after the departing gargoyle. "It _is_ Jericho!"
"Where is Hudson?"
"With T.J. and Birdie. T.J.'s
messed up," Lex hastily explained
as he and Brooklyn came about in tight formation and went after the
hoverbike.
Goliath nodded curtly and spoke
a word he'd never said out loud
before, which brought wide-eyed shock to the faces of his younger
clansmembers. He spread his wings and let the updrafts carry him high.
If only Hudson had been here
... of all the clan, he alone had
something approaching a rapport with Jericho. But Hudson wasn't here,
which meant they couldn't bother with diplomacy.
Goliath clenched his fists and
flew onward.
*
*
As if things weren't crazy enough!
Elisa thought, cringing against
the shelter of Jericho's broad chest as bullets whizzed past them. This
was
pretty much the last way she'd expected to spend the first hour of the
New
Year. The only way things could get worse would be --
She made herself shy away from
that line of thinking, because
with her luck, it would happen.
*
*
Gargoyles to the left of him,
gargoyles to the right of him.
Jon Canmore cursed and snarled
as they closed in, the red one
who had punched him, and his smaller companion. He took evasive
action, but the red one passed under him and ripped with his talons at
the
underside of the hoverbike.
Smoke belched from the steering
column, and all at once the bike
went where it had a mind to, like a crazed bronco. Canmore fought with
it, to no avail. The throttle jammed, the bike screamed as it accelerated,
and the plate-glass window of a pricey Park Avenue apartment complex
towered dead ahead.
The gargoyles split off from
the doomed bike as it crashed
straight into the window and kept on going.
Canmore shrieked and ducked,
covering his face. The bike tipped
wildly back and forth, nearly throwing him, as the furnishings of a ritzy
living room passed in a blur.
A closed door.
The bike went through; Canmore
didn't, peeled off on the top of
the door frame.
A hall, then another door. Again
the bike went through. On the
other side was another apartment, this one full of partygoers who jumped
out of the way as the hoverbike sped by.
*
*
"Where did he --?" Brooklyn
began, and then the hoverbike came
smashing out a window on the other side of the building, slammed into a
brick wall, exploded, and began to rain down on Park Avenue in a shower
of burning metal.
"Wow, just like in a movie!"
Lex said. "He wasn't on it, so let's
go!"
Faces beneath party hats had
appeared at the jagged hole that used
to be a window, but they scrambled back as the gargoyles appeared.
"Hi, Happy New Year," Brooklyn
said as they crunched over
broken glass and mangled furniture as hastily as they could. "Don't mind
us; just passing through."
Although they could easily trace
the bike's path, Canmore was
gone like smoke.
*
*
Goliath was aware of the hoverbike's
spectacular crash, but it
stirred nothing in his heart except the mildest relief. All that mattered
to
him was Elisa.
Ahead of him, below him, Jericho
wove a course among the
skyscrapers. He landed atop a department store, in the shelter of a
weatherbeaten light-festooned aluminum Christmas tree that had yet to be
taken down.
Jericho released Elisa and moved
a few paces from her. Just the
opening Goliath had been hoping for. He thrust his fists out in front of
him
and dove, letting gravity and momentum turn him into one gigantic
projectile.
The force of the collision reverberated
down Goliath's spine.
Jericho cartwheeled backward, head over tail, into the base of the
Christmas tree. It tolled like a gong. The mass of the tree tilted over
with
a slow squeal.
Goliath glanced quickly at Elisa,
she all wide dark eyes and
streaming dark hair. How close he had come to never seeing that beloved
face again! How close he had come to losing her, their child, everything!
Just as Aiden had foretold!
He would not let that future
come to be. He stalked toward the
groaning, moving pile of limbs that was Jericho, claws eager to rend and
ruin.
"Goliath, no!" Elisa cried.
"He saved my life!"
He stopped, incredulity washing
over him. "What?"
"He saved my life," Elisa repeated.
Jericho sat up, wiping blood
from his lip with the back of his
hand, and met Goliath's eyes with a challenging glare. "Do you have a
problem with that?"
He looked back and forth between
them, uncertain. "But ..."
Jericho laboriously got to his
feet, wincing. "Don't think you
know everything, Goliath. Don't think you know _me_! Your ... mate has
nothing to fear from me."
Incredibly, unbelievably, he
almost thought that Jericho spoke the
truth.
Elisa came to Goliath's side,
took his arm. "He means it. If he
wanted me dead, I would be by now."
"I ... he ..." Goliath floundered,
then shook his head and faced
Jericho. "Thank you."
"I didn't do it for you, so
keep your thanks." Jericho limped to
the edge of the roof, unfurling his wings with a hiss of pain as the bruised
flesh moved and stretched.
Goliath drew Elisa close against
his side, feeling her tremble
from reaction and from the cold as the snow began falling more heavily.
"Jericho ..."
The younger male stepped off
without pausing, reappearing
moments later on an updraft, a dwindling shadow against the winter's
backdrop.
Elisa rested her head against
his chest. "What a night, huh?"
He sank his fingers into her
snow-speckled hair and ran his palm
over the bulge of weight that cradled their child. "When Beth told me ..."
"I know. I thought so too."
"But we were wrong about Jericho,"
Goliath said, feeling a
strange warmth of hope. "He is not beyond redemption."
Elisa sighed. "Actually, he's
even crazier than we suspected. But
right now, I'm glad."
*
*
"They're waiting for you," Margot
Yale said impatiently.
"Let them wait," Jon Canmore
slurred. He reached for the bottle
of scotch and knocked it over. The liquid ran across his prepared speech
and dribbled onto the floor.
Margot snatched up the papers.
"You can't go on like this, Jon.
They're depending on you."
"Why? Haven't I failed them
enough yet?" His gaze weaved its
way up to her as if unable to decide which of two Margots to focus on.
"After that New Year's debacle, I'm amazed any of them ever showed up
again! We make our plans, and we fail. Every time, we fail!"
"So you're going to let them
win?"
He finally noticed the spilled
bottle, and stood it upright again.
"Haven't they?"
"I guess they have." Margot
took a folded piece of construction
paper from her purse. "Look at what my niece sent me."
He opened it and stared at the
newsprint headline about the
blackout, pasted above a photograph of himself from last year's VIP
magazine. Someone had added a magic-marker moustache, long and stiff
and curled up at the ends, and a word-balloon with "Curses! Foiled
again!" scrawled inside.
"I really hate that girl," he
said.
*
*
"I don't care if it _is_ tradition!"
Angela said, waddling toward
Hudson with one finger poking at him threateningly. "I want my mate
right here in the rookery with me!"
"But lass ..." He gave up. "Aye,
verra well."
Aiden and Elektra giggled and
went on patting and rearranging
straw until it was piled to their liking. Over the past couple of weeks,
each
female had insisted on bringing various items to make the place more
homey. Aiden's stuffed toy Gizmo, a watercolor Elektra had done of
Avalon, photographs of the clan and their friends -- in Hudson's opinion,
it was all far too cluttered and they'd have scant room for all the eggs,
but
he had to keep reminding himself that there weren't going to be three
dozen eggs this time. He couldn't even really hope for more than five or
six.
Outside the castle, February
doldrums held Manhattan in a dreary
grip. The snow that had blanketed the city white in January had now
become heaps of brown mush. But inside, as the females grew near their
term, all was happiness and excitement. The moodiness was behind them
now, though they were getting weary of being landbound.
Angela could still glide short
distances, but was acutely conscious
of how funny she looked when she did. Aiden looked like a top view of an
opened umbrella, the poor lass barely able to get her arms to her sides
on
account of how round her middle had gotten. Elektra was still much too
thin for Hudson's liking, but at last her nervous stomach had settled and
she'd put on a few pounds.
"Look who's here!" Elisa called
from the top of the rookery
stairs.
"Delilah!" Angela waved in welcome,
then goggled as Delilah
made her way carefully down.
Hudson's jaw dropped. He'd not
seen her much over the winter,
and while he'd heard she was getting big, he wasn't prepared for the sight
of her. She was almost shaped like an egg herself, a smooth curve belling
out her flesh. And beautiful! If there was anything more lovely to behold
than a female at the height of her breeding season, it was one who
brimmed with new life.
Her eyes touched his briefly
and warmly, then flicked away. She
joined her sisters in arranging straw, and he moved to the rear wall to
watch them with what he hoped seemed grandfatherly indulgence.
Elisa laughingly declined to
join them. "I'll use a crib, thanks
anyway!"
As they worked, Elektra and
Angela began to sing an old Scottish
cradle-song that they must have learned at Katherine's knee. Halfway
through the third chorus, Elektra broke off with a startled exclamation
and
pressed her hands to her belly.
"Elektra?" Aiden reached for
her.
"Would someone be so kind as
to fetch my mate?" she asked.
"Methinks 'tis time!"
"I'll get him," Elisa said,
hurrying for the door.
Hudson felt acutely out of place.
A male in the rookery, when the
eggs were being lain? It just wasn't done that way!
But, evidently, now it was.
Broadway came in all anxious
and jittery, holding Elektra's hand
while she smiled and reassured him. Dr. Masters, who had endeared
himself to all the females over the past six months, checked each of them
and announced that he wouldn't be surprised if they all clutched tonight.
Had something to do with those pheromone things again. He launched into
a complicated lecture, but Hudson told him to save it for later.
The news sent the castle into
a tizzy. Owen was hastily
dispatched to retrieve Samson from the Labyrinth. By midnight, the upper
hall was crowded with friends and well-wishers. Aiden's family in
California waited by the phone to hear how many grandchildren they could
be expecting in ten more years.
Below, in the rookery, the only
ones in attendance were the
mated pairs, Hudson, and the doctor. That was for the best, given the
modesty of some of the females.
At five past twelve, Elektra
birthed one small egg, its shell soft
and pale, mottled with large purplish spots.
"A lad, most likely," Hudson
said.
Dr. Masters looked up with interest.
"How can you tell?"
"The pattern o' the markings,"
he explained absently, keeping a
close watch on Delilah. Samson was doing well, supporting her as she
strained.
"A boy!" Elektra fell back into
the straw, gasping from her
exertions, and caressed the shell with one slim hand. She gazed
rapturously up at Broadway, who wasn't ashamed to have all his brothers
see him cry. "Malcolm."
"Malcolm," Broadway agreed,
touching the egg.
Hudson smiled, remembering his
friend the prince, Elektra's
father. It seemed right and fitting that her child should be named for
him.
Nothing more happened until
after one in the morning, and then
several things happened at once. Four hours passed in a blur, with Birdie
and T.J. running back and forth carrying news of each new development
to the others waiting upstairs.
Finally, at five-thirty, Dr.
Masters exhaled wearily. "I do believe
we're done."
Hudson sat against the wall,
stunned.
Nine eggs rested in the rookery.
One for Elektra. Two for Aiden,
a male and a female. Two for
Angela, also a male and a female. And for Delilah ... an amazing total
of
four! Three males and a female, their shells sturdy, their markings clear.
Fine, strong eggs.
_His_ eggs! He wanted to go
to Delilah, hold her and
congratulate her and thank her, but Samson was doing that already, and
if
he did the same, their carefully-kept secret of the past several months
would be out and undone.
But, as he watched her, exhausted
and magnificent, curling her
body amid the shells to give them her warmth, he almost did it anyway.
*
*
"We were down. We were beaten.
But now ..." Jon Canmore
paused, letting the tension build. "We live again!"
Full-throated roars answered
him. Not as many as there once
might have been, true. Membership had dropped off a bit. But what these
remaining Quarrymen lacked in numbers, they made up for in sheer
bloody-minded fanaticism.
Oddly, he could thank Harry
the Hammer for it all. Following
the blackout, Harry had been found by the cops and detained in the psych
ward, raving with what they thought were standard end-of-the-millennium
religious delusions.
But Jon, once he deciphered
the man's babbling, was stricken
with a cold, dark certainty. His thoughts flashed back to the brief glimpse
of Elisa Maza, realizing that it hadn't been just a coat and sweater
thickening her normally trim figure. Once he'd gotten over the repulsed
shock, he had quickly seen ways to turn her blessed event to his
advantage.
It would have been an easy matter
to abduct her from the police
station. Well, perhaps not an easy matter, but possible. He had even gone
so far as to begin planning the assault.
And then the answer had come
to him, clear and perfect. There
was no way she would be able to keep a half-gargoyle monstrosity
concealed. The world would know. He would see to that. Perhaps the
gargoyles themselves were no longer sufficient to strike fear in the hearts
of men, but the news that they were tainting humanity with their evil seed
... that would bring about a whole new wave of terror.
Terror was good for business.
The people would cry out for
the Quarrymen to protect them.
The Quarrymen, who had known this threat for what it was all along.
Who had tried to stop it and been mocked, jeered, treated like criminals.
Now the world would see that everything the brotherhood of the hammer
had done was in humanity's best interest!
So he would keep an eye on the
degenerate Ms. Maza and her
horrific mutant child. Sooner or later, she would slip, and he would be
there.
There was nothing like a renewed
sense of purpose to make a
man feel like himself again.
*
*
"Are you getting enough sleep?"
Goliath fretted.
"As much as you are," Elisa
said, yawning. "All day long, like a
stone." She grimaced.
"What is it?"
"Another of those Braxton-Hicks
contractions, feel."
He touched her stomach, which
was hard as a drum, the flesh
drawn taut. It remained that way for the better part of a minute, then
relaxed. An immediate kick was felt by both of them.
"Someone is protesting," he
rumbled, smiling.
"Someone's probably bored and
ready to come out," Elisa said.
"God knows _I'm_ ready!"
"It is still a week until the
due date," he reminded her.
"I'm counting the hours," she
assured him, shifting to try and
find a more comfortable position that didn't put pressure on her back or
her bladder. There weren't any. Finally she rolled onto her side, cradling
her stomach in one arm.
Kick, kick, kick.
"Okay, all right, okay already!"
Elisa said, rolling onto her back.
"Strong little thing! Takes after Daddy. Would you get the tape?
Sometimes the music helps."
He obliged, fitting the headphones
onto her abdomen. Elisa still
couldn't believe she was doing this, but Maggie swore by it, and she had
to admit, it did settle the baby down. The soothing music of Mozart began
playing.
For about thirty seconds, and
then the music turned into a garbled
mess. Goliath popped the cassette out, trailing intestinal coils of tape.
"Oh, great," Elisa laughed and
groaned at the same time. "Now
what?"
Goliath rested his head on her
like a pillow, and began to hum.
The deep, low tones seemed to sink into her like heat. The pulsing glow
of
the amber pendant around Elisa's neck slowed. The baby calmed.
So did Elisa, lulled into sleep.
She surfaced briefly, aware of
Goliath's tender kiss brushing her lips, and then he departed to take his
place on the battlements before dawn.
She let sleep claim her.
Wakefulness came completely
and suddenly. She saw the last red-
gold rays of the sun beaming through breaks in the rain-heavy April
clouds.
She struggled to sit up, her
bones aching from several hours in
the same position. A cramp dug into her side and she paused until it went
away. But it didn't go away -- it intensified into a vise that made her
fist
her hands in the sheets and gasp.
"Uh-oh," she muttered to herself.
"That was a real one."
She picked up the phone at the
bedside. "Doc? It's showtime."
*
*
Goliath woke with a roar, breathing
the rainwashed air. All
around him, his clan did the same.
"Let's patrol the park!" Angela
said. "I love the park after a good
rain!" The females had regained their former sleek shapes, and now that
the weather was being cooperative, they relished every chance to get out
and glide.
"Good evening," Xanatos said,
emerging onto the battlements.
He popped a cigar into Goliath's mouth.
"What is this for?" Goliath
spat it into his hand and regarded it
with distaste.
"It used to be the custom for
the expectant father to pace the
waiting room handing out cigars. Just thought I'd help you get the custom
out of the way." He proffered a box.
Aiden squealed. "You mean, now?"
"Now," Xanatos said.
Goliath drew his brow ridges
together. "What are you talking
about?"
Xanatos clapped him on the shoulder.
"They just wheeled Elisa
into the delivery room."
"What?!" He flung down the cigar.
"And you waste my time with
this nonsense?" Without waiting for an answer, he shoved past the
smirking Xanatos and loped for the stairs.
Dr. Johnson, who still had not
said a word to any of the clan, or
indeed spoken at all in their hearing, was just coming out with a clipboard.
She ducked out of the way as Goliath charged past. He caught the door
before it could close.
Elisa smiled at him, though
her face was tense with pain.
"Someone's decided to come early."
"Only a week," Dr. Masters said.
"I feel that's comfortably
within the margin for error."
"Are you all right?" He took
one of Elisa's hands in both of his.
"What can I do?"
"Just -- ooch!" She clamped
down hard on his fingers. "Just be
here."
Now he understood why males
both human and gargoyle
traditionally had avoided the rookery and the delivery room. It was
terrible to see his mate in pain, to know he was partly responsible, and
to
have there be nothing he could do.
The murmur of voices in the
hall told him the entire clan was
gathered outside, eagerly awaiting the birth of their newest member.
"Can ... can you have someone
..." Elisa panted, "... get my
folks? I'd like ... to have Mom here."
Goliath passed that duty along
to Angela, then asked the doctor
how long it would be.
"She's already five centimeters,"
Masters said. "Moving along
pretty quick. Before midnight, I'd think. So far, she and the baby are
both
doing fine."
Rather than call, Angela drafted
Brooklyn and Broadway to come
with her and literally pick up the Mazas, while Lex contacted the
Labyrinth to inform Talon he was going to be an uncle.
Goliath still felt helpless,
even as he was sponging Elisa's
forehead with cool water and helping her walk between contractions. The
rest of the females had made it look easy, thanks to the design of their
pelvises. None of their labors had been this severe, yet Masters swore
this
was a quick and simple labor. Goliath's estimation of humans went up a
notch.
Diane Maza brought an air of
take-charge competency with her,
which eased Goliath's nerves quite a bit. Together, they helped Elisa into
the birthing-chair, which supported her in a more or less upright position
and let her body work more efficiently to deliver the baby.
"You didn't give her any painkillers?"
Diane asked.
"We weren't sure what effect
it would have on the baby,"
Masters replied.
"I'm okay, Mom, really," Elisa
said, breathing steadily and in
sync with Goliath as they'd practiced from the Lamaze videos.
The digital clock proclaimed
it to be 11:53 when Masters
announced that the baby was crowning. Elisa bore down hard, shaking
from the effort. Her sweat-slick back was pressed against Goliath's chest,
his arms around her as he looked down over her shoulders.
"Again," Masters urged.
"Come on, honey, you can do
it," Diane said.
She pushed again, every muscle
rigid. The baby's head emerged,
and then the shoulders, and then the entire body sliding loose into the
doctor's capable hands.
11:58.
"It's a girl," Masters announced
jubilantly.
Elisa sobbed and laughed, clinging
to Goliath, who was
awestruck and amazed by what he'd just witnessed. "Let me see her!"
"Let me clean her up a little
first," Diane said, whisking the baby
to a waiting plastic tub of warm water. As she immersed her
granddaughter, a wail rose to the ceiling.
"Okay, let's get rid of the
placenta," Masters instructed.
"Another good push ought to do it."
Moments later, Goliath carried
Elisa to the waiting hospital bed
and smoothed back her hair. Diane approached, carrying an infant
swaddled in a clean towel.
"Elisa, honey, she's beautiful,"
Diane said, placing the baby on
Elisa's lap.
Goliath peeled back the folds
of the towel, and they looked upon
their daughter.
Wings that shaded to deep lavender
were wrapped tightly around
her tiny body. Her skin was a touch darker than Elisa's, her head covered
with fine silky/downy sable hair. At the outer edge of each eyebrow was
a
single bump, barely more than a nub, hardly noticeable. Her feet were
delicate and clawed, three-toed and high-arched as they'd seen on the
ultrasound, but small, no bigger than the feet of a normal human baby.
She wailed again, waving little
five-fingered fists.
"Hey, there," Elisa said, tears
of happiness running down her
face.
"Hello, my daughter," Goliath
said.
At once, the baby stopped wailing
and opened eyes that were so
dark they were almost black. Her lips quivered as she searched the faces
above her.
Goliath extended one finger,
and gently caressed the soft cheek.
The baby's mouth turned toward him, seeking.
"She's hungry," Diane said,
and helped Elisa put the baby to her
breast.
"Yowch!"
"Good nursing reflex," Masters
observed. He was standing back,
making rapid notes.
The door inched open and Angela
peeked in. "Can we see?
Please, Father?"
"Come and meet your sister,"
Goliath said.
The clan crowded around, startling
the baby into flaring her
wings, but she quieted and returned to the business of feeding while the
others oohed and aahed. Elektra burst into an alarming fit of joyful tears,
Broadway patting her on the back.
"Ye've done well," Hudson told
Goliath and Elisa.
"What are you going to name
her?" Aiden asked.
Goliath and Elisa exchanged
a glance. "We hadn't discussed it,"
Elisa said. "But I know what I'd like to call her." She clasped the pendant
Elektra had given her.
"Yes," Goliath said. "Her name
will be Amber."
*
*
The End