Chapter III
2013
There were a lot of police cars and
fire vehicles surrounding the Aerie Building. Probably due to the flames
billowing out of the third level, just above the street. Police rushed with a
man in handcuffs.
"Listen to me! I had nothing to do
with it!" David Xanatos struggled in the handcuffs as the door of the car was
closed on him once more. On the street, hundreds of employees, and a mother and
son stood in tears, on the street, watching in agony as their husband and
father was being taken away... Fox and baby Alexander.
Derek thought he saw through it.
Nice show. I'm sure you have the police force totally fooled, Xanatos. Look at
you, in cuffs once more. The only better place for you is dead.
Hiding on one of the pylons by a
darkened window, Derek listened to the news reporter standing out front.
"...that David Xanatos brutally beat
and raped police Detective Elisa Maza. Although the police refuse to give
details, eye witnesses, and an amateur video shows a gargoyle looking like
police Detective Elisa Maza crashing through the glass ahead of the fire still
blazing now, a day later. There is no word as to the Detective's condition.
Police Chief Maria Chavez of Maza's 23rd Precinct that, quote, 'NO ONE HITS A
COP IN NEW YORK, AND GETS AWAY WITH IT.' David Xanatos will be sent before the
Grand Jury on..."
That was all Derek needed to hear.
David Xanatos looked out with a
fearful expression at Alex and Fox... wondering what was about to happen to his
son...!
Matt Bluestone had never imagined
he'd ever see Elisa Maza in this kind of mood. Her arms were under the hospital
blanket, her wings underneath and out of sight, trying to make her current
predicament the least visual as she could.
"Could you do me a favor, Matt?"
Elisa asked in a small voice, as though it meant swallowing her pride.
"Sure! What is it?"
"Keep Goliath away from me... for
now..."
Matt paused. "Why...?"
"I... ... …want him to be working on
Xanatos."
"Don't lie to me." He didn't buy it
- it sounded like a line to him. Matt shook his head.
"You're afraid of him, aren't you?"
"I am not, I'm just..."
"You're afraid to admit it, too."
A red look appeared in Elisa's eyes,
and if Matt hadn't ever seen it before, he would have been frightened. "You
have a real habit of trying to read me, don't you?"
"I'm a detective. Can you blame me?"
Elisa growled. Matt backed off. "Alright... alright... I'll keep Goliath busy."
'What on earth is wrong with her?' Matt thought.
"But why?" Goliath's concern
overshadowed his usually straight demeanor. "Is it Xanatos?"
"It might be that."
Angela looked down at the rooftop
introspectively. "I think she liked being human."
Goliath turned to his daughter, who
met his gaze with a sad expression. "Elisa...? The one person in the world who
had all the reason to hate being human? Who kept talking about all the scum of
the earth she keeps bringing in and wind up back on the streets in a week?
Why?"
"It might be that she was more proud
of being human." Matt Bluestone sighed. "She once confided in me that she felt
special having Gargoyles for her friends. It made her feel needed in the
world."
Angela sighed. "And now someone has
taken that away."
"Who knows what else they did to
her. It could have been pretty traumatic..." Matt began to ramble. "If the
doctor's report was correct - that she was raped..."
Goliath's wings suddenly went taught
with a snap. "Angela, Lexington—you two stay and watch over Elisa.
Bluestone—what about Xanatos?"
"He's being held without bail for
trial. He's still pleading innocence."
Goliath said nothing for a long
moment. "I wanted to believe what he said."
"Should we leave the castle?" Hudson
asked with disappointment. Bronx whined.
"What're they gonna do with Xanatos
gone? Turn us into humans or something?"
Brooklyn quipped.
Goliath shook his head. "We're not
leaving again... not unless there is real danger there."
Angela looked across the night sky
at the hospital where Elisa slept. Goliath wished he knew what she was
thinking, let alone what she was feeling. "Angela, talk to Elisa." Goliath told
her, holding her shoulders. "Tell her she is still needed... by all of us."
The gargoyles all nodded in assent,
and Bluestone smiled.
"If she'll listen to anyone, it
would be you." Bluestone told Angela, as she drifted off into the night.
"That's everything he said?" Elisa
asked with anxiety.
Angela nodded. The lights were out,
and Elisa was supposed to be sleeping. Angela had found her lying awake restlessly.
Angela was glad Doctor Sato was not around—he could treat a woman turned into a
gargoyle, but who could tell how he would react to a real gargoyle since the
destruction of the clocktower, the Quarrymen riots, the Phoenix Rising
bombings...?
Elisa sighed. "He's hurt, isn't he?"
Her gaze flickered to the window.
Angela seated herself in one corner.
"I don't know, but father was very worried."
"What am I going to say to him?"
"The whole truth is what is needed
right now."
"That it hurts to think about being
a gargoyle for the rest of my life? What will he think about that? Won't he be
offended?"
"He will understand. He knows who
you are deep down."
"I'm... not a gargoyle."
"You are Elisa Maza. Who you appear
to be does not matter - you are always Eliza Maza." The young gargoyle female
spoke with a lot of very adult intelligence.
The dark room was silent for a long
time, and Angela just watched the figure lying in the bed for some hint as to
her feeling, almost as though if Angela watched her long enough, she could tell
what Elisa was thinking.
"I guess I'm just afraid."
"Of being a gargoyle?"
"Of Goliath... I always thought 'No,
it could never be real—it US Me and Goliath can never happen.' So I
wouldn't let myself think it could ever happen. Then Puck turned me into a
gargoyle, and under that spell I had no idea that there could be anything wrong
with thinking that Goliath and I could be... in love."
Angela drew a breath at those words.
Elisa had long danced around the issue. She and Goliath spent more and more
time alone, talking in low voices, holding one another, constantly in a hurry
to see the other again whenever they were apart. This, however, must have been
the first time Angela had actually heard Elisa say the words. "And Demona..."
Elisa added.
"My mother." Angela echoed.
"She still hates me... if she knew
I'd stolen her lover..."
"Princess Katharine always told us
Gargoyles mated for life. Goliath would still be a husband."
Elisa sighed. "I envy you, Angela."
"Me? Why?"
"Because you grew up with the good
guys. I've spent my whole life trying to nail one dirt bag after another.
Humans were the always the enemy—I could never trust any of them. You grew up
with so many people you could trust..."
"You can trust Goliath."
"Can I? He's violent, hot tempered,
short fused... a bomb waiting to go off..."
"A leader, poet, dreamer..."
"A romantic." Elisa concluded.
Angela couldn't answer.
Elisa's tail twitched - a nervous
action which once again reminded her of her changed state. She sat up in bed,
looking at Angela. "What do you think I should do?"
"I cannot advise you."
"Do you want me as your stepmother?"
Angela's head turned to one side.
Elisa guessed Angela had never considered the possibility. "And if Demona
reforms, and finds you've come between Goliath and her?"
Angela turned away from Elisa,
looking steadfastly out the window, avoiding Elisa's eyes. Elisa slid back down
onto the bed. "The last thing I want to do is make things worse."
Angela, frustrated, stood up, and
prowled by the window. "What is it you want, Elisa? Isn't there something you
want?"
Elisa thought for a long moment.
"I... always want to be there for the gargoyles."
"What do you want us to do for you?
This is your time of need, and the others are concerned about our clanmate. You
told Bluestone that you want Goliath working on Xanatos - but is that really
what this is about?" Elisa looked away. Now she could not answer aloud. "We can
deal with Demona when it is necessary. You must learn to grow, Elisa. Become
more yourself now." Angela spread her arms, trying to convey her point. "If
this is a permanent change, then you must learn to become Elisa Maza again."
"I'm human, Angela."
"No, you are Elisa Maza."
"You're sound more and more like
your father, do you know that?"
"Stop changing the subject! What do
you want from Goliath?"
Elisa turned away. Angela, agitated,
sat down again. However, in several moments,
Angela heard a muffled sound from
Elisa's bed. Angela walked to that side, folding her wings about her. Elisa's
eyes were stinging and her face had a tear on it.
"What is it?"
"I don't want to be the only person
I can trust. I don't want to be alone. When he's around I'm never alone..."
"You love him. That's more than
Goliath can say about my mother."
Elisa paused, not speaking again. "Is
it that obvious?"
Angela smiled, and hugged Elisa.
"Yes."
Goliath was poised on the parapets
when Elisa hobbled up the stairs on crutches...
AGAIN - only this time with wings
and a tail.
"If you need anything else, Ms.
Maza..."
"Thanks for your help, Mr.
Burnette."
Goliath turned around, to see the
determined Elisa Maza work her way up the steps on a pair of crutches—perhaps a
rather comical sight to anyone else, to see a gargoyle hobbling on crutches.
Goliath turned around, with a face of surprise.
"Are you alright, Elisa?" he asked.
"Doctor Sato says that at the rate
I'm going, I should be back to normal after another day's stone sleep—if you
could call this normal. We need to talk."
"Yes, yes we do. Will you be
alright?"
"Look, Derek's out there going after
Xanatos, determined to find me a cure."
"If he found one, would you take
it?"
Elisa brushed a bit of hair out of
her eyes from the climb. "Let's be honest for a moment, Goliath - about you and
me, about humans and gargoyles. I wanted Puck to just keep us both human, but I
knew that would make you unhappy."
"If I were human I could not protect
you from Demona. I think you are right - I would not be happy as a human in any
case."
Elisa smiled. Something about the
straight way he said it made her laugh. "What would you do if I stayed this
way?"
Goliath spontaneously picked up
Elisa in his arms like he used to, causing Elisa to forget the crutches on the
stone floor of the tower. "Yikes... What about Xanatos? He's still in jail. I
think... I think Derek's after him..."
"The same thing we've always done.
We continue on, just like we did before." Goliath spread his wings, and swept
off into space with Elisa in his arms.
Elisa sighed to herself. 'We always
seem to make these things work out.'
Chapter IV
Once again, the dreaming time had
betrayed her.
Elisa remembered trying to cry out.
She was engulfed in liquid - it was boiling hot, and scalding against her skin.
She fought for breath until the device forcefully slapped across her mouth
began to force air into her lungs.
Then it began. The first diode,
attached to a small, snakelike metal wire, made a rushing noise in the water
and implanted itself inside her ankle. She howled in pain at the pain. Then
another attached itself to her other ankle. Elisa floundered in the water,
moving to swipe to blasted wires and get them out of her, when suddenly she
began feeling more of them, in her back, in her stomach, in her neck, under her
arms, and finally in her head, attaching to every major vein in her body they could
reach. Some kind of electrical device was attached to her head, rooted in the
base of her skull, and there was a shooting pain in the back of her head.
There was a very large tube
connected to her arm, pumping something into her. There was some sort of foul
tasting chemical in the water. The water became cloudy with it - it stung at
her eyes. She felt herself burning up in the hot gelatin-like liquid. She
became dazed, half coherent. She fought to keep conscious. The temperature
thankfully was dropping. Occasionally she heard the sound of cloth tearing in
the water-like liquid, and thought of the little wires tearing her clothes
apart. Slowly, she fought for more strength, more awareness, struggling against
the beckoning of the darkness.
Then something happened. Somewhere,
outside, an Alarm Klaxon could be heard. She became conscious of a new,
stinging pain in her arm, and realized it was no longer attached to the diode
and bleeding into the vat. She struggled more, and managed to tear the second
arm device out of her skin, bathing her in a soup that was darkened with her
own blood.
Realization came to her she could
break free! Then, she did something she had never done before. She pushed
against the water with her wings. The sudden force pulled the other diodes
free, tearing their way out of her flesh. She emerged above the surface of the
nutrient bath, sputtering and coughing.
No sooner had she cleared her
vision, than a laser bolt shot past her head. She ducked down. Another bolt
impacted the glass of the chamber. It began to leak out the hole. Elisa began
to beat against that hole with determination, breaking it apart, making it
bigger. Finally, the entire casing fell apart, and Elisa landed on the floor in
a heap of broken glass, fluid, and her own blood from where the diodes had torn
her skin, and the breaking glass had cut her.
There were more security guards
taking shots at her. Suddenly, she felt her eyes fill with flame, but she could
still see clearly. Racing forward, she took out two guards before making a mad
dash for the nearest way out. She found herself in a corridor, as blood and
bio-chemicals dribbled down all over the floor.
She spied a window in this part of
the hallway.
The succession bangs announced
gunmen firing bullets at her. She dodged some, but felt several hit her. She
was not fast enough to get out of their way. She made a mad dash for that
window.
"DON'T HURT MY CREATION, YOU FOOLS!"
a voice echoed down the hall. Elisa wondered if it sounded like Anton Sevarius
before she dived through the window.
Instinctually, she opened her wings,
and began to glide.
SHE HAD WINGS!
She looked at the glass windows of
Xanatos's office building. Reflected by moonlight was the feline shape of a
gargoyle with her face.
Elisa screamed in horror.
The table was not meant to be that
of a war room conference table, but that's what it felt like to Dr. Sato as he
adjusted the slideshow and checked the lights. He was on display in front of
Detective Bluestone and Police Captain Maria Chavez. The victim's family was
also there, Detective Peter Maza and Diane Maza, as well as the hulking feline
form of Derek Maza, or Talon. They were all waiting for Dr. Sato to give them
answers. Answers which he... simply didn't have.
Rubbing his glasses on his lab coat,
he began. "I...I really don't have anything to tell you, except that it appears
she has stabilized, we were able to help her make it until dawn, and thanks to
the remarkable rejuvenating effect of her daylight-hibernation she will pull
through. Stone-sleep appears to be the only sleep she's getting, as any other
sleep is too troubled to be of much good for healing." He paused, in the depth
of his humiliation. "I have called on a specialist, someone who I knew
personally would keep the tight security of this case." he said. Turning, he
opened the door to the room once again, admitting a slim young woman of no more
than Beth Maza's age. She had long, wiry brown hair and a perky but cynical
disposition. "This is Grace Robbins, a graduate-assistant from the university.
Her major was in experimental human genetics, and seems to have some...
personal interest in the case."
She nodded to Dr. Sato, and turned
the lights down, and began to run the slideshow. "Most of my work has been done with the theory of using the human
immune system to implement a genetic change. Our bodies defend us from diseases
using lymphocites and other specialized cells to destroy infections. The way
these cells determine what is a hostile disease, and what is a benign cell that
belongs in the body is simple - if it belongs in the body, it carries the
body's genetic code. If it is hostile, it does not."
The two police officers and the Maza
family all nodded that they understood. Ms.
Robbins went on, using a small laser
to point to the screen where the slides were displayed.
"This photograph is of a normal,
healthy lymphatic cell., taken from Detective Maza's blood. There are no signs
of her immune system fighting any kind of foreign organism, nor has it in the
past for several months since the Detective last had a flu, besides the normal
flim-flam of everyday living. This is very unusual. The traditional technique
for genetically manipulating a human being or an animal is to introduce a
home-made virus, if you will, into a person's body, and cultivating it. These
custom made retroviruses will infect the body's cells with new genetic
material, but unlike a naturally evolved virus, it will not attempt to destroy
the cell, and will die out without outside intervention."
"So what your saying," Matt Bluestone
deduced, "Is that she was changed by something not presently known to science."
"That's correct, detective, but it
is not beyond the bounds of scientific explanation. It appears that whatever
happened to the Detective could very well have been a natural function of her
body's immune system, like the type of theory I have been developing. How? I
don't know. Why aren't other people
affected? I don't know."
"Is it contagious?" Diane inquired.
"Have any of you felt any urges to
jump off rooftops or turn to stone during the day?"
Grace asked, smiling.
Derek was not amused, and pointed a
talon at the young assistant. "I cannot believe that her body just suddenly
decided to change itself. Something happened to her, we know that."
"I agree, but I'm still working on
the details. Let's try and look at the bigger picture here what on earth could
cause a person's body to suddenly start to go through this kind of
human-to-gargoyle metamorphosis completely on it's own? And why a gargoyle? Why
didn't she become a felinoid like her brother, for example?"
"Why indeed?" Peter agreed, brushing
his chin thoughtfully.
Grace turned the lights back on,
brushing a loch of hair out of her eyes.
"Mom?" Elisa's voice still wavered a
little, but it was sounded a lot more hale now. Diane took her daughter's hand, remembering the warm, leathery
feel of Angela's paw back in Nigeria.
"Elisa, how do you feel?"
"Pretty good for a cop who got
pounded on." she replied with her usual wry sarcasm she had picked up after so
many years of being a police detective.
"They are trying to use all this...
science to help you." Diane interjected. "These friends of yours are magical
creatures. Could all that magic have touched you somehow? I saw two people turn
into panthers with my own eyes, and my own son..." She tried not to look at
Derek.
"I don't know mom, but I've heard
what they're saying - that my body did this all by itself. You can't believe
that." Elisa replied angrily. "I heard Sevarius's voice!"
"Sevarius!" Derek exclaimed,
infuriated. "How can he still be alive?"
"Huh! I sometime wonder how I've
managed to survive." Elisa thought aloud, bitterly.
Matt Bluestone, however, had a far
more introspective look on his face, leaning against the doorpost, rubbing his
head. His red hair had been mused up for his visit to Elisa in the hospital. "I
admit that Xanatos and Sevarius are great suspects, but they're not the ONLY
suspects."
Elisa sat up in bed. "Who else has
messed with genetics?"
"Dominique Destine." Captain Chavez,
who had been listening from the doorway, answered professionally, holding open
a manila folder. She handed it to Peter Maza, who looked at her mug shot, and
her rap sheet. "Anton Sevarius has been under her employment for quite a while,
it seems - even through the present time. She's been paying him quite a
considerable sum of money."
"She created the clones..." Talon
observed.
"And the plague virus she was going
to use to wipe out humanity." Bluestone added.
"The one we brought back from the
Cathedral Battle."
"Demona!" Elisa exclaimed. "It's got
to be her doing!"
"That's crazy, sis." Talon argued
with her. "She's hated you for years now, and thinks of gargoyles as some kind
of superior race! Remember the last time this happened...?"
"Thailog died in the clone wars, and
Anton's been working for who ever will pay him - take that Maddox Company, for
example. Until you've investigated Dominique Destine, there's nothing the Grand
Jury can do with Xanatos." Chavez closed the manilla folder.
"Just let me talk to Xanatos!" Talon
replied.
David Xanatos had one chance to
visit his family, Fox, and Alexander. When he was told Elisa wanted to see him,
he accepted. With Goliath and Angela at her side, Elisa was collected, glad to
finally be away from the her hospital bed. David was handcuffed behind his
back, and around his ankles.
"I DON'T CARE ABOUT ANY PROOF THAT
YOU COULD SHOW ME, XANATOS!" Elisa scream irately, half on the verge of tears.
"I SAW YOU! I HEARD You!"
"What you saw was a lie, detective!
All I want to do is prove it to you!" David protested hotly. The security
guards were getting itchy, unsure if they should attack Xanatos or Elisa. "We
were making a homevideo of Alexander, and there's a timestamp on it that shows
I wasn't there."
Elisa snarled, grabbing the man's
collar, and looked about to do something highly vicious when suddenly Fox
interposed herself between them. "STOP!" Elisa felt Angela's paw on her
shoulder. "Elisa, stop. If you hurt him, you become just as guilty as Demona.
Not when he is determined to prove himself to you."
Elisa, eyes aflame and burning red,
flared her wings. "I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT! I'm sure he could find somebody
that can tell me the president himself organized this conspiracy! ALL I WANT IS JUSTICE! JUSTICE FOR WHAT HE
DID TO ME, WHAT HE DID TO DEREK! ALL FOR HIS PETTY LITTLE WISHES!"
Then Goliath was beside her, leading
her away. "You don't want justice anymore, Elisa. You want revenge. Listen to
yourself. Is this anger the voice of Elisa Maza, or of someone else?"
Elisa sputtered, and finally broke.
She covered her face in her hands, trembling. After a moment, she looked up at
Goliath. "But I'm not Elisa Maza anymore, Goliath. I'm a gargoyle and gargoyles
don't have names." she looked at the floor with a very forlorn expression, eyes
stinging with tears.
There were several long moments as
Goliath held her, and David stared at the floor morosely. "While I was away in
Paris, someone broke into the computer network. Lab 14 had been shut down for a
year or so, but they brought it back to life. A lookalike android that I
designed was the man you met with the night of crime. All the rest of the
guardsmen were just obeying what they thought were genuine orders. Sevarious is
not even on the payroll, and hasn't been for years. I think it was a tape recording
- or an impersonation."
"Judging by the remains of the
equipment they left, they have developed some kind of technique that just
stinks of Sevarious." Fox snorted. "He was able to determine the exact genetic
differences between a human and a gargoyle, additional sequences to add to your
DNA. You still retain all the qualities you had before, your face, voice,
fingerprint, everything that was uniquely you."
"Except my very identity!" Elisa
protested. "I can't even have children anymore! I have been robbed of myself!
Raped!"
"You can have children, at least
until you hit menopause. Whoever designed this program, they solved the problem
of previous genetics experiments. This person was a genius." Fox said. "The
only geneticist I know with that kind of brilliance is Sevarius." Goliath and
Elisa looked at each other. Elisa's
expression was puzzled. Fox continued, "We think it had something to do with
the level of this genetic manipulation. He convinced your immune system that
your DNA was supposed to be this way, and your own body made the changes, with
some help from the accelerated growth factor he uses to grow his clones."
"Why would Sevarius want to attack
her?" Goliath cut in.
Angela nodded. "I remember hearing
him rant and rave about the creature farm he wanted to create. I think that
Elisa was just another victim in a long line of experiments before some final
goal. It's possible Elisa tried to kill him one too many times for his taste."
"Goal?"
"To use subservient humans to become
the creatures he wants, and then masquerade them like pets." David suggested.
"I've ordered all of my resources to find out what happened that night."
"According to the information they
gleaned," Fox cut in. "The technique he used did not use the standard
retrovirus technique of delivering the changes. That would have taken too
long. He introduced a virus to your
body, that ate away your immune system like an AIDS virus, but instead of
making more viruses, the captured cells made more white blood cells of the new
gargoyle code. The virus died out, but the new white blood cells took over the
old and it was all natural from there on out. This virus could be released onto
the world if made to be passed in the air."
"A weapon?" Goliath surmised.
"A possibility, but why would
someone want to turn humans into gargoyles?"
"We need to keep Elisa under guard.
If he wants to make an example of her before the world, we need to keep her
protected." Goliath announced. "He'll not use her to threaten us."
"You are NOT going to lock me up
again! I can take care of myself!" she protested hotly.
However, all it took was one look
from Goliath, and all her determination wilted.
Chapter V
News travels quickly in the Big
Apple. The following night, the gargoyles had not been awake an hour, when the
automatic defense guns activated, firing at a bat-winged figure, closing in on
the castle. It fired back, damaging the defense guns. Goliath took to the air,
to confront their attacker.
The panther scream was heard as
Demona closed in for her attack.
"Why do you bother us again, Demona?
Do you really want to risk injury to our daughter again?"
"I am not here to make war against
you Goliath, not this night. I come in response to the outrageous accusation
that I could have been responsible for Detective Maza's beating! The wretched
human deserved every blow...!" Demona was suddenly silenced, when Elisa rose up
and stood atop the balustrade, and Demon's face visibly paled.
"Oh why not, Demona? You're the one
who transformed me last time!"
Demona snarled furiously. Landing on
the tower in front of Elisa, the laser weapon pointed at her chest. Elisa did
not flinch. Goliath landed beside the two females, to separate them. The rest
of the clan, alerted by the weaponsfire came running and surrounded them. "WRETCHED HUMAN! Why is it you always defile
our very bodies?"
"Hey, this wasn't my idea." she
returned. "You've got the means..."
Demona laughed. "But I lack the
motive. You do not deserve the be one of us! The last thing I would want!"
"I'll be sure to tell the Grand Jury
that you've entered a 'Not Guilty' plea."
Goliath realized that the two
gargoyle females were about to come to blows, Goliath broke them apart.
"ENOUGH! Elisa, Demona would not have risked a confrontation that might have
injured our daughter unless this was important to her. Demona, if you are so
quicky to claim your innocence, then prove it to us by finding the real
culprit."
Demona roared catlike fury. After a
moment, she turned to Elisa and concluded, "It's too complicated to be an
outside job, your perpetrator is on the inside."
"But Anton was on your payroll!"
Elisa retorted.
"But I don't build lifelike human
robots. It had to be Xanatos himself!"
"Spoken like a true detective." Came
a new voice. The gargoyles on the tower turned to see a pillar of light
coalesced atop one of the balastraudes to form none other than the graceful
green skinned figure of the queen of the fair folks herself. Elisa Maza reacted
by pulling out her sidearm, causing the queen to flinch, but Goliath put a hand
on the weapon, holding her hands down.
"Titania." Goliath breathed. "So
you're the one behind this."
"I only want the protection of my
daughter and her family, and it is this clan which protects them. My grandson
was in danger because a member of that clan was in danger. I couldn't allow
that to happen." she explained.
"How was she in danger? Your
changing of Elisa Maza endangered your grandson."
Goliath pointed out. "By causing his
father to be taken to prison."
"The one who caused my son in law to
be put in jail has already seen to his release." she smiled, gesturing towards
the stairs that exited onto the tower. From the stairs stepped Owen Burnett and
David Xanatos himself. Elisa's eyes broiled, as she was about to rush forward
and attack the rich business man, until Goliath once again had to stop her.
"Owen?" Goliath inquired, turning
back to Titania.
"Not exactly." she replied, looking
back at David's majordomo.
There was a twinkling of energy, and
Owen disappeared, and was replaced by Puck.
Elisa stood upright. "I think I get
it. I know how Puck loves to impersonate people, and the Xanatos I saw was
probably no more than Puck in disguise. But why not use magic - like you did
before?"
"Me? Do the things the same way
twice? That's so... uncooth!" he almost laughed, waving her question off. "I
couldn't do things the same way twice if my life DEPENDED on it!"
"The police reported a beating and a
rape. I couldn't imagine Puck would be capable of..." Brooklyn thought aloud.
"I could - but I didn't. That was
all the machine Owen had built to complete the project.
The police are going to go after
Anton Sevarius on this one!" he laughed this time.
"What?!!!" Demona raged. "I need
him!"
"It wasn't hard to do. Owen
discovered Demona was paying Sevarius to implant the detective with a slightly
different disease, this one intended to kill her, and so I simply gave the
research to Captain Chavez. That's how I got Xanatos released." Puck smiled a
beaming face at the queen.
"You fool! I paid him for that job!
I was the only one who knew about it! He'll come after me now!" Demona raged at
Puck, eyes aglow. She leapt for Puck, who just whizzed out of the way.
"Precisely. I owed you one." Puck
replied with an evil tone.
Demona snarled in rage one last
time, before leaping into the space beyond the parapets.
Goliath looked after Demona for a
moment, and sighed, turning to Puck. "I owe you my thanks for protecting Elisa
from Demona."
Elisa looked a little crestfallen,
but turned to Xanatos. "I was wrong about you this time, Xanatos. I admit that.
But you can't expect me to forgive you for the past."
David nodded. "Thank you, Detective.
I hope I can earn your trust."
"Like we haven't heard that before."
Brooklyn muttered.
"You are essential to this clan,
Elisa Maza." Titania's voice broke in. "I will not let anything jeopardize my
family, and so I will be watching over this clan. You must learn to overcome
your distrust and anger, and learn to forgive."
Elisa said nothing, but her jaw
worked. "Fine." she turned to Puck. "Will you return me to my proper form?"
Goliath could not decide if it was a request or a demand.
"You'd better ask her." he said
flatly, gesturing back to Titania.
"I ordered your transformation, and
only if you learn to forgive will I consider your request, for your anger and
distrust is a distortion which you will now wear."
Elisa jerked back a little at this
comment, and one could see a light fill her eye. She turned to Goliath. She
walked up to him, and put one paw aside his face, a smile crossing her face.
"But they aren't distortions... gargoyles are beautiful things, if you know
where to look."
"Then start looking closer at
Xanatos," Titania smiled, nodding and placing her hands over her hand. As she
began to shimmer and vanish, the words lingered, "...and at yourself."
Elisa Maza was never a heavy coffee
drinker like many of her fellow police officers who often spent an hour before
work at the Starbucks Coffee shop on the corner and bringing them into work.
but she would always make exceptions for the taste of a mocha frappacino. It
had something to with the chocolate and estrogen, her combined ancestry, or
just being a gargoyle at the moment. Broadway had produced them in the middle
of their conversation, and then left the room once again.
Goliath, David Xanatos, and the
gargoyle that was Elisa Maza sat in a circle of chairs facing one another. "I
don't get it. The time frame doesn't match. Would Puck - as Owen - have needed
weeks to build this machine, or did Puck just wave his hand and it appeared?"
"Lab 14 was anything but closed,
detective. Remember all those projects like the Steel Clan and Thailog? Well,
the goal was to create my own clan of gargoyles to guard the castle after..."
Xanatos motioned at Goliath. "...your clan left here. But then the plan
changed. I was angry about being put in jail, and while I rotted in jail, I
wanted to be a gargoyle, and be able to fight back against Goliath."
"I thought you always said revenge
was a suckers game." Elisa asked incredulously.
"It was just words... until Fox and
I started seeing eachother. I arranged with Anton to design the mutagenic
formula that transformed Derek because I wanted to be a gargoyle, but I wanted
to make sure it got tested before I used it, so I drew Derek in to transform
him and get revenge on you for throwing me into prison."
Elisa's jaw was set. "Then I got
what you wanted? Why don't you go rebuild that machine so you can try it
yourself?" she snarled angrily.
"Because my son needs a father." he
sighed, holding a hand out to her. "Truce?"
Elisa sighed in frustration, looking
pleadingly at Goliath. Goliath was impassive. Elisa sputtered for a moment, and
finally gave up. "Fine, truce." she grumbled, neither looking at Xanatos, nor
taking his hand. "But this doesn't mean I'm going to trust you."
Near sunrise, Elisa found Goliath
staring out into the night thoughtfully. She found herself putting her hands on
his shoulder. "I just got off the phone with Captain Chavez."
"What did you tell her?"
"That I'm someplace safe, but I
couldn't afford to tell anyone where, what with the danger of Quarrymen and all
that. She agreed. She managed to put me on disability leave, and fortunately
working for the county gives great medical benefits."
Goliath nodded, then turned to face
the former human woman. "Do you trust me?"
"I don't trust anyone, Goliath."
Goliath looked at her, long and hard. Feeling guilty, Elisa added, "...but I
trust you more than Xanatos."
Goliath gently took her chin in his
hand. The other were gathering below them, awaiting the sunrise. Angela happened
to pause and look up at them for one moment as the sun rose, and happened to
see Goliath pull Elisa into a kiss before the stone sleep claimed them all.
