Change of Face--part 2
by: Kitty Cat Demon
Disclaimer: Gargs ain't mine, I ain't making money, and I ain't using good English.
Note: Read Change of Face - Part 1 first for this to make sense.
Rating: PG
Chapter 2
The Escape
A loud crackling noise filled the room, it sounded as though a hundred eggs were breaking at once. I glanced over at the statue, it seemed to be breaking into a million tiny pieces. Then, I looked closer and saw the dark, rusty red colour underneath.
The bits of red started growing, suddenly stone chips went flying everywhere. Where only moments before there had been a magnificent statue, now appeared a flesh and blood...gargoyle.
The word just popped into my head. Yet, I knew it was right. What do you know, I thought. The tabloids actually got something right.
I took a closer look at our...project, from a safe distance, of course. His skin was dusky red, from the end of his tail to the tip of his beak. His hair was white, and he was dressed only in a loincloth.
I imagined how I must look to him. A small female, dressed in a white lab coat with short brown hair and dull brown eyes.
"Ahh, good morning!" Sevarius greeted the gargoyle in an extremely chipper tone. "And how are we feeling tonight?"
The gargoyle just glared at him. If looks could kill, I imagined Sevarius would have been quite dead by now.
The gargoyle startled me further by speaking. "What do you want now, Sevarius?" He growled in what was, in my opinion, a nice voice. "You wanna poke me with something else, or am I just here to endure more torture, having to listen to you talk about how brilliant you are?"
"Ahh, I see your wit has suffered for your stay here." Sevarius seemed to enjoy the sound of his own voice. "Ms. Kirk, if you will please pass me that large syringe..."
Uncertainly, I picked up the syringe and handed it to him. "You're not gonna hurt it, are you?" I was pretty sure the gargoyle was male, but I felt if I referred to him as an it, it wouldn't matter to me what Sevarius did to it.
"Of course not, m'dear. I'm merely taking a blood sample." As if to prove his sincerity, Sevarius began walking toward the gargoyle. However, his plans suffered derailment when the gargoyle snapped at him. All I saw was a flash of white, look at those teeth.
"Ah, I see you won't make this easy. A pity." Sevarius said to it.
"Yeah, like I'm just gonna let you near me. Right." The creature replied to the doctor.
The creature looked at me, for a brief moment I felt like he was looking into the depths of my soul. When he looked away, the feeling left me, just another lost moment in time.
It was then I knew that this wasn't a creature, it wasn't an IT, he was a person, with thoughts, feelings, a life.
"So, Sevarius, what did you do with your last assistant?" the gargoyle asked. Not 'what happened to your last assistant', but 'what did you do with him?'
While I had been lost in thought, Sevarius had drawn his gun.
"Well," he said, "Since you refuse to cooperate, we'll have to do this the hard way." He trained the gun on the gargoyle.
"Wh..what are you gonna do with that?" I stuttered.
"Not ta worry m'dear, it's simply a mild tranquilizer."
The gargoyle growled at Sevarius, his eyes lighting up with an eerie white glow. PSST! A sudden release of air was the only warning of the dart's release. With a moan, the gargoyle sank to the floor, fighting a losing battle with consciousness.
I looked over at Sevarius. He smiled at the slumped form of the gargoyle. Then he looked to me.
"Now, m'dear, we have work to do before he wakes up." Sevarius moved towards the still form of the gargoyle, syringe at the ready. With a grin he put the syringe in the gargoyle's arm and pulled the plunger, slowly filling it with the gargoyle's blood.
"Here," he handed it back to me. "Pass me another, just a few more and we should be done for the night."
A half-hour later Sevarius had five syringes filled with the gargoyle's blood.
Seemingly finished with his ghastly business, Sevarius turned to me, "Well, m'dear, my work here is done." he grinned at me. "I'll just leave you here to put things away, while I take my little goodies," he picked up his blood samples, "And put them to good use."
"Yes sir," I responded, but he was already out the door. I began tidying up. After a while I became aware of a soft moaning coming from the gargoyle.
I must be insane. I thought as I walked towards him. When I was just out of his reach I stopped.
"E...excuse me, are you alright?" I asked nervously. "C...can I g...get you anything?"
I thought I heard him chuckle. He tried to push himself up into a sitting position. Instead he got tangled in his chains and fell back into a heap.
"Ooooo...my head." he lifted his beak up off the floor and focused on me. "How about some water?" I could see the pain in his eyes.
Quickly, I walked over to the lab's sink, grabbing one of the paper cups, I filled it with water. I took the cup over to the counter where I'd left my purse, putting it down while I fished around for my package of aspirin. I found it and shook two out, taking them and the water over to the gargoyle.
"Here," I said, "take these, they'll make you feel better."
He glanced up at me, a smile on his beak. "Not afraid I'll bite you?"
Truth be told, I was deathly afraid of just that, but I wasn't about to let him know that. So, I did what he probably least expected, I smiled. Admittedly, it was probably a poor imitation of a smile, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances. I held my hand out, with the aspirin and water, to him, hoping he wouldn't bite.
Carefully, I assumed so he wouldn't alarm me, he took the water and aspirin from my hand. He swallowed the aspirin and water in one gulp, looked at me and said, "Is this where I say, 'take two aspirin and I'll call you in the morning'?" He smiled up at me.
"Actually," I responded, "I believe the line is mine." I finally managed to smile back at him, a real, honest to goodness smile, without a trace of fear or nervousness. I think he noticed the change for he tried to sit back up, albeit slowly.
I noticed his slowness, and unconsciously reached over to help him up. In that moment, I forgot about the wings, the beak, the tail; he was just another person, in need of help. It was then I decided I had to help him get the hell outta Dodge, so to speak.
I spent the rest of the night in conversation with Brooklyn, which I learned was his name. Little did we know what fate had in store for us.
In a small room filled with monitors, a man sat, watching a girl and a gargoyle, when he saw her help the gargoyle to his feet, an evil smile passed over his thin lips.
"So it begins..."
I went home that morning feeling better than I had when I left for work. I'd made a new friend. Granted, he wasn't human, but he was nicer than some of the men I'd encountered.
When I reached my apartment, I was exhausted. I fed Shade and just made it to bed before dropping from exhaustion.
Where Dreams Reside
"Beware, beware..."
The tiger thing floated by on a cloud of darkness, calling out his warning to all who would listen. "Beware..."
Lights, colours, sounds, tastes; all floated by on the breezes of imagination. I turned around, to come face to face with Brooklyn.
"Help me..." A flash and he was gone. I turned again, only to spot him at the edge of my vision, I began running after him though the shadows, hoping to find him. I suddenly dropped to all fours to run faster. Why?
There he was, just over a rise. "Help...me..." I ran faster, the ground a blur at my feet. Colours, merging in the background, creating a rainbow. The ground just continued on, but I never seemed to get any closer to my goal. Suddenly, the tiger thing was back.
"Beware, beware the man who watches. Beware..." His voice flowed over me, causing pain, anguish, sadness, joy...
I awoke with a start. I glanced over at my alarm clock, I still had an hour before I was due to get up. Realizing I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep I began getting ready for work.
While I washed and dressed, my mind was forming a plan, a plan of escape for Brooklyn. I figured the worst GEN-U-TECH could do to me, would be to fire me for releasing their... specimen. The word left a bad taste in my mouth.
Well, I decided, If I'm gonna bust him loose, I'm gonna need a few things.
I cleaned up the breakfast dishes, fed Shade, and headed out.
Five minutes before sunset I was back in the lab with Sevarius, waiting for Brooklyn to wake-up.
Sevarius smiled at me, "Well, m'dear, today's the big day." he said.
"Big day?" I wondered what he meant.
"Yes, the big day. Today, we dissect."
I plastered a grin on my face for the doctor's benefit, all the while fighting down nausea. This...this... doctor...he wanted to cut apart a living being! I could tell by his expression, not only did he want to do it, but he would enjoy it.
Only moments before sunset, Sevarius looked at his watch, and seemed to remember something.
"Blast!" he yelled, "I have a dinner appointment with Ms. Destine in a half hour. Here," he handed me the syringe full of sedative. "When the gargoyle wakes up, inject him before he notices you. I should be back by ten at the latest. I expect to see him under and ready for operation upon my return."
He turned and headed out the door, presumably to see this Ms. Destine.
Well, I thought, I couldn't have planned this better. But still, some small doubt gnawed at the back of my mind.
Sunset came and Brooklyn awoke with a roar. I quickly ran over, and clamped his beak shut.
"Shhhhh!" I told him, "I'm gonna get you outta here." He raised his brow ridges at me. I let go of his beak.
"How?" he whispered.
"Dr. Sevarius has gone for a dinner engagement. I should have about..." I glanced over at the wall clock, it read 6:45. "At least two hours to get you outta here."
"What about these things?" he pointed to the chains.
"Not a problem." I walked over to the counter and picked up my purse. As I came back over to him, I rummaged around inside it until I found what I was looking for. I pulled out a case of lock picks I had bought earlier.
He smiled at me, something I found I was beginning to like. "You know how to use those?" he asked in a joking tone.
"Hey," I responded, "You don't date a locksmith for a year without picking up a few tricks. Now hold still."
I grabbed one of the locks, and set to work.
"Excellent. Things are proceeding according to plan." The man sat at his row of monitors, watching Catherine remove the locks from the gargoyle, one by one.
"Soon, very soon..."
An hour later, and the chains were lying on the floor in a heap, and Brooklyn was having a good stretch.
Yawn! "Now what?" he asked.
"Well, there's a window at the end of this hall, and we're about twenty stories up. I figure we make it the fifty or so feet down the hall, and we're home free."
"All right! Come on." he headed towards the door.
"Wait!"
He stopped and looked at me, "What?"
"Oh, I dunno, but I think maybe, the security monitors in the hall, might just pick up a large red gargoyle walking down the hall."
He looked down at himself, "Good point."
"Here," I handed him a trench coat that had been left behind by someone. "Keep your wings and beak down, your tail in, and we might make it further." I smiled at him.
He caped his wings over his shoulders and put on the coat. I noticed he had also wrapped his tail around one of his legs.
"What do you think?" he asked, posing like a fashion model.
"Hmm..." I pulled Sevarius's hat off the hook on the back of the door, and put it on his head. "Not bad, hopefully it'll get us outta here."
He watched the gargoyle put on the coat, the one he had left in the room. He laughed when he saw her place the hat on the gargoyle's head. With baited breath he watched as they opened the door and crept out into the hall.
"Just a little further..."
Carefully, quietly, I opened the door and peeked out. There wasn't a soul in sight. I waved Brooklyn forward and we began our trek to the window.
The hallway was eerily still, as though the very air was waiting for something.
Twenty feet to go, then fifteen, ten. Then, all hell broke loose.
©1999