"You told him how to find her?!" Angela practically screamed into the phone in disbelief.
In hindsight, this conversation had gone downhill extraordinarily fast, threatening the shaky truce mother and daughter had enjoyed for the last hour. Angela it seemed, was a temperamental young one, and though she was loath to admit it, Demona had to concede this wasn't a trait she'd inherited from Goliath. As much as she wanted them to be friends, this relationship was more than difficult. It was as if nothing she did was right for this child! To be fair, there was really only one concession her daughter demanded: that her mother learn to live in peace with all humans. But after all her years of living, the extermination of the human race was hardly a negotiable point!
Demona's voice was cajoling in answer to her daughter's hysterics. "Try to understand; we were partners, lovers. I thought his goals were the same as mine. It only made sense to share information."
Unfortunately, her daughter was in no mood for explanations of any sort. "What Iunderstand is that you set Thailog on my friend!
"That human is not my friend, nor should she be yours!"
"How could you do this? You knew she was important to me."
"I've told you before that humans have no place in gargoyle clans. I know this from experience! Anyway, her protection is Goliath's problem and no concern of mine."
"Did you even consider how I would feel if something happened to Elisa?"
"If she was too stupid to move after I found her apartment, she deserves whatever she gets!"
"You, you-" Angela stuttered in ruby-eyed rage, her voice choked with both growls of anger and desperate tears. "You don't understand anything, do you? You're just exactly what father says, you only see your own agenda! Do you know what he could do to her?!"
Presuming correctly that the Maza woman had been the coveted female all along, Demona felt she had every idea what Thailog would want to do with the human. It was a nauseating picture, but she could console herself with the knowledge that the detective probably wouldn't enjoy it as much as she had. "My daughter, you're obviously very upset-"
"Of course I'm upset! Elisa is my best friend. She is clan! Her protection isn't just father's problem, it's mine!"
There was an audible sniffle, followed by a wet sounding sob from the other end. Demona was surprised to actually feel her heart crack at the sound of her hatchling's grief. What had brought on all this emotion? Had something actually happened to Elisa Maza? Strange that the idea didn't bring her any happiness…
"I don't know why I expected you to understand that, you only ever look out for yourself!" Stabbing at the off button with a thumb talon, she forced herself to take a long, slow, deep breath. Lexington, who had become silent as soon as Demona had said Elisa's name, remained as small and unobtrusive as any gargoyle could while Angela glowered at the cordless phone she still clenched in her palm. The sudden appearance of her father was what ultimately kept her from hurling the receiver across the room.
"Angela? Owen gave me a package fo-" He stopped immediately, taken aback by her cross and tear stained expression. "My daughter? What's wrong? Didn't Demona want to talk-"
"Oh," she let go of the phone, letting it drop to the floor with minimal damage. "Don't even mention her name to me!" Angela brushed by her father, brusquely relieving him of the package she had been expecting and inadvertently reminding him more of Princess Catherine than he liked. Goliath let her go, knowing she would be on her way to the Music Room and that he could obtain any pertinent information from Lexington.
Angela was on her way to the Music Room, where she had been spending most of her time since Elisa's kidnapping. While this particular room boasted several instruments, and a mini recording studio, Angela was more interested in the stereo system, and the sound proof privacy provided by these walls.
The young gargoyle missed Elisa more than she could describe in words, and had been motivated by her loss to 'borrow' a few of Elisa's CDs. Despite being specifically told not to go there, Angela had slipped off to the detective's apartment the night following the police woman's abduction. Detective Bluestone, Elisa's partner, had already been there, hovering over the destruction of the bed room when Angela let herself in. They had said their polite hellos and she asked after any news he might have found, though she knew he'd have reported anything he had. Going through the motions of responding, Matt seemed so distracted, lost even, that she might not have been there at all. He stared around without touching, looking through, rather than at, the things around him, and she had decided not to bother him. Bluestone might have come looking for clues, and he didn't need her help with that.
In any case, she was there for her own reasons. She had come to find some piece of her friend, a sign or symbol that she could take away with her, something to help her hold on to hope for Elisa's safety. After a little harmless snooping, she found what she was looking for in the form of Detective Maza's CD collection. Two neat stacks of brightly colored plastic cases caught her eye through the glass doors of the TV stand. In going through them, she quickly discovered they were all mix disks, but Angela didn't recognize any of the song titles. In fact, they didn't seem to be song titles. What kind of disks were these?
"Did you want to borrow those?" She jumped in surprise; Bluestone was right behind her!
"Well, I was thinking about it. I didn't think she would mind."
Matt shrugged. "She probably wouldn't, since it's you, but it's private stuff."
"Private? I thought it was just music."
"It is, but it's also her way of coping." Angela looked from him to the CDs without understanding. The detective tried to explain. "Being a police officer isn't just a job, it's a way of life. We see the worst of what people are capable of. We see good people go bad, get hurt, get desperate, and bad people some times get away. That kind of thing goes home with you when you leave and it's rough on a person to do live through that every day. Most of us need some way to deal with the stress. Elisa makes these CDs. See, the songs go along with a memory, an event, or a feeling."
"So the songs are titled by what they mean to her?"
"Right. This way, she can assign her thoughts and feelings to a song, store what's important to her and take it out to relive or re-examine later."
Angela found herself blinking back tears unexpectedly. These things were a direct link to her friend, this was exactly what she was hoping to find. "Can I borrow these? I promise I won't let anything happen to them."
"Sure. She has a few more in the car, I'll get them out and send them to you."
The gargoyle left for home a few minutes later, clutching the compact disks to her heart, much as she was doing now, in her rush to the haven of the Music Room.
Once inside, the brown paper wrapper was shredded, and Angela was soon spreading the six disks in front of her, wondering where to start. Some of the titles were telling, like, 'The Happy Apprehension of Gliding', but others were listed as emotions, places and sometimes people. Her eyes ran over the lists of what was on each CD, written in the small, neat script of Elisa's hand. 'Despair', 'Longing', 'Devotion'….. And then she stopped looking. The silver disk in the blue case contained a song with her name. Angela started with this disk, track number four.
*****
Thailog was close behind her, the door snapping shut automatically behind him. A card key was needed to get in and out of this room as well, the mechanism locking the sliding double doors with a short beep. There had been no necessity in heaving her to the floor, but from his slow, strolling strut, Elisa's captor had enjoyed the experience immensely. He walked casually past her when she had expected him to pounce, flicking on lights as he went around the perimeter of their clinical surroundings. As she was now being mostly ignored, the detective judged it wise to get to her feet while she could.
Lit by fluorescent fractions, the cavernous room began to take shape. Mixed feelings of uncertain dread and cautious curiosity brought her quickly back to her feet. It was a laboratory. Blinking lights of machinery peppered the floor space; unidentifiable apparatus hummed a cacophony of working rhythm. There were a few things she did recognize though, like the four huge maturation chambers used for clone production. The lighting remained around the walls, making the rooms' center comparatively dim. Even so, it was enough to see the machine at the heart of Thailog's laboratory: an incubator. Chest high, and lit from the inside, there could be little doubt of what it contained. Thailog stepped up beside it, proving that this was the highlight of the tour.
The gargoyle infant within lay still and lethargic. Without anything soft to cover it's little body, it was clearly a 'she' to Elisa, who tread cautiously closer for a better view. Her little eyes were hooded and unfocussed, leading to the suspicion that something was clearly wrong with her. Medicated perhaps, or just under stimulated; there was no way to tell how long Thailog had left her in there. However, despite the child's apparent disinterest in her surroundings, to the detective she was flawless. Her skin was closer in color to Goliath's than the charcoal of Thailog's, but there was a rosier aspect to her tone that made it an almost human shade. The downy black hair on her little head already had a cowlick at the front, and that hadn't come from either of the male gargoyles. Did that mean she had a mother, since she obviously wasn't a clone without abnormal coloring? Curiouser and curiouser.
"She's beautiful," the human breathed reverently with her palms against the transparent dome. A baby, how wonderful! She could almost forgive him for everything else.
"Do you think so? If you like her, she's yours." The detective turned a startled look on him. "I said I could give you a child," he said looking pleased with himself. "I would have preferred more traditional means, of course, but this will do for the present. We have plenty of time for other possibilities."
"But, you can't just give her to me; I don't know anything about hatchlings. I've never even seen one before! I can't-" In the space of a heartbeat, Thailog's expression changed, contorted with malice. His thick tail lashed out from behind him, muscles snapping like a whip. The incubation chamber pitched backwards, the thick plastic shell split with sharp crack that echoed in the vaulted ceiling above, broken pieces sliding away across the polished floor. The baby spilled out too, the fall rousing her enough that she began to cry. Elisa rushed to scoop her up from the wreckage, immediately checking for any hurts.
Thailog was triumphant. "There, you already care more for her than I do. Alive or dead, she's nothing to me, but I'll wager Goliath would do anything for such a child." He stared appraisingly at the detective who now held the squalling infant cradled against her chest, seeming at once, to come to a conclusion. "And so would you." He watched her gaze at the infant a few moments. "You will take her?"
The connection was instantaneous. Touching the tiny gargoyle was all that was required for the beginning of a bond so apparent, even Thailog had seen and taken note. Eight small fingers reached out, grasping, for affection and comfort, even as a fresh pair of hazel eyes searched the face of a new protector. "Yes," Elisa said breathlessly, inspired by such a warmth of feeling that she was rendered nearly speechless. They were together now, irreversibly, as mother and child, an idea which gave birth to a silent vow on Elisa's part, to give whatever of herself was required for the sake of the little life in her arms.
"Then it's settled; as long as you're here, I will allow you to take over her care. You'll want to name her of course; I'll leave that to you, provided you come up with something tolerable. The only question that remains, is what you will do for me in return."