With the cry of an eagle soaring upon the winds among distant mountains to signal angelic grace with wings the color of stormy night clouds, a figure with the frightening grace of an avenging night angel seized Wolfsbane by the scruff of his leather vest with the speed of a striking cobra and the strength of a great redwood tree to then soar high above the gathered crowd again and land upon the veranda roof, which shaded the large porch, with a whispered grace to stand in perfect view of all present and hold Wolfsbane by one hand and dangle him over open air as though to threaten dropping him.
Although the biker leader did not fear injuries he might receive from such a drop, for he can easily recover with his abilities, the one who threatened to drop him still greatly surprised him.
"You're trespassing," growled the creature who gripped his vest collar like a vice, its voice a female tone like silver velvet music.
Her eyes glowed a deep fiery crimson and her magnificent wings flared to reveal sunset lavender membranes to somehow enhance the hellish beauty of her deep blue skin and long flowing ebony hair like a starless silken night which came down to a strong waistline on an Amazonian hourglass shaped figure with round wide hips and a buxom chest, her long legs and arms showed a proud warrior's heritage, all which was accentuated by a bright red long sleeved leotard with a deep v-line and bright golden yellow belt; and her jewelry consisted of a purple choker with a diamond shaped ruby pendent with a golden circle, golden hoop earrings, golden wrist bands, and golden anklet of interwoven Celtic knotwork.
For a frozen microsecond the Streetwolves stared at the marvelous she-demon who stood holding their leader, uncertain if it was in awe of her dark beauty or concern for Wolfsbane's safety.
It only took Wolfsbane a moment to gather his wits as he suddenly began to foam at his mouth like a rabid diseased animal and snarl through his spit, "Attack, my pack! The creatures invade our territory!"
Below him and the blue creature, the battle between the Streetwolves and the demonic winged creatures resumed while Wolfsbane raised his iron crowbar to make with pounding his captor. He brought his personal make shift weapon down upon the blue demoness and nearly damaged her face, but she intercepted it with a single grab with remarkable speed as the metal weapon came within inches of her face.
She then tossed him hard away from herself, making him slide for a second across the roof of the veranda to another turret of the castle like mansion. Wolfsbane straightened himself from his body slide to then see the blue demoness bend his crowbar out of proportion as though it were made of plastic. She then tossed that away like it was less than important, where it made a metallic clattering noise and then lay motionless as the worthless piece of twisted metal it now was.
Though he and his 'pack' possessed of their own great bestial strength he was still amazingly impressed.
These creatures will indeed provide the challenge his gang needs, just as promised.
"C'mon and fight me, monster," he challenged with a smug tone, "I've been needin' a good challenge to prove my right as Alpha Male to my pack."
The blue demoness hissed at him like a cheetah, baring her sharp fangs, as she then leaped at him but he only side stepped away from her to then leap to another terrace with amazing inhuman agility. But this did not deter his female opponent, as she just as easily leaped to where Wolfsbane now was and he began to run, and she tailed closely behind him to give chase on all fours.
On the open grounds below, several near bloody battles raged between the Streetwolves and the winged monsters who appeared to be either protecting the defenseless humans or fighting the biker gang to claim them as their own prey. Either way it mattered not to the Streetwolves so long as their ultimate prize was won.
A Streetwolf nearly as burly and scruffy as his leader began assaulting a pretty young woman with auburn hair and glasses over her pale blue eyes as he grabbed her by her arms with a grip strong enough to keep her from escaping, his hands were large enough to hold both her wrists in a tight grip like a small constrictor with only one hand while the other reached for below her stomach to unzip her denim shorts or rip them apart.
The young woman cringed in fear of her would be rapist, even trying to hold back regurgitated bile she tasted from the back of her throat as she smelled the assaulting gang member's putrid breath, which smelled like years of eating nothing but raw meat and never having anything to do with dental hygiene for even longer.
She gave a scream as she struggled to get free of the stronger man's grasp, which just seemed to make him more excited and eager for his claim as he licked at the young woman's face to taste her like a freshly sautéed piece of beef. It was all the more frightening when she once or twice glimpsed his sharpened canines within his surgically altered muzzled face.
Just when she thought it was hopeless, her attacker was suddenly yanked off of her as he gave a yelp of surprise. The young woman quickly opened her eyes to see her assailant being held by the scruff of his soiled shirt by a big light blue monster with dactyl styled wings with teal webbing, three long sharp horns; one grew from the bridge of his nose, and the other two grew from his thick brow ridges at 45* angles, and the tip of his long tail was encircled with three sharp spikes, and wearing a brown vest with knee long brown pants with a brown loincloth over a strong wiry figure, and had glowing white eyes like bright fluorescent bulbs from a boyishly cute face and growling angrily at him.
"That's no way to treat a lady," the creature growled as he then punched the punk hard across the jaw.
The would be rapist managed to get free of the creature's grasp and was able to delve a punch or two of his own to the monster, but though they were hard enough to knock some of the wind from the winged monster they were still futile to truly do any harm to the creature.
The light blue monster then punched the gang biker hard enough to knock him to the ground to then throw itself on top of the would be rapist, grab his neck and began squeezing hard as color drained from his face. The biker chocked for a gasped of fresh breath as he struggled to provide oxygen to his brain, but within only a few seconds his eyes rolled back into his head and his head dropped to the ground as he then lay still.
The creature turned to the young woman as he lost the fearsome glow from his eyes to replace it with a look of concern and worry.
"Are you alright, Jules?" the light blue creature gently asked with a strange European accent as he reached out with a taloned hand to the frightened young woman.
She took a few deep breathes to calm herself and said in a shaky but relieved voice,
"I'll be fine, Rome, thanks to you."
Taking her mysterious friend's hand he pulled her up to her feet and then hugged her close.
They both then looked at the fallen biker's unmoving figure as Julia asked with a worried tone,
"Is he. . .?"
"No," the light blue creature said, "Just unconscious for a few minutes at least. You know I try to not go that far, unless it's necessary."
Julia gave a nod as her light blue rescuer, then he herded her off to some place safer.
In another part of the steadily bloodied yard, a group of six more Streetwolves surrounded another winged creature that looked an awful lot like a bipedal cheetah with dark brown bat wings, light sandy brown wavy hair that came down to her hips, and she wore tight blue running shorts with a white strip down the legs and a tight blue tank top.
"Here, kitty, kitty, kitty. . ." one of the mangy bikers heckled to her, making the cheetah creature growl angrily at them and her eyes glowed a bright iridescent white.
"C'mon, guys," another shouted excitedly, "Y'all know the ol' sayin', there's more than one way to skin a cat. Let's try one right now."
The others gave cheers of concurrence to their fellow biker's abusive declaration, but the cheetah like creature surprisingly gave what looked like a smirk as she warned them with a mocking tone,
"I wouldn't do that if I were you."
"Fortunately, yer not us," one biker malicely grinned as he and his wolf tattooed companions began a rather uncoordinated attack upon the winged cheetah.
They gave bloodcurdling battle cries as they raised assorted weapons of assault rifles, metal chains, large knives, and rusted crowbars; yet while they all tried to attack the winged cheetah with undisciplined random tactics, she was able to use this to her advantage.
With the incredible speed of the animal she was based on, one by one she was able to disarm or tackle her would be attackers.
With fluidic feline acrobatic grace she was first able to grab one knife wielding thug by his wrist to then twist his arm up behind his back enough to nearly dislocate his shoulder, and then use his figure to push herself up and swing her long dancer legs in a double swing kick, using her flared wings and long tail for balance, at four more thugs and knock them back enough to disorient them for a few moments.
She then pushed the first thug away from herself and made him trip over his own feet as he then dog piled into two of his previously kicked friends as they gave exclaimed yelps.
Hearing a battle cry from behind, she twirled quickly enough to see another thug begin twirling a long metal chain around himself like a metallic lasso to then release it and have it strike her a crippling injury; yet instead she grabbed it in midair, kicked her slender yet muscular leg up to twist the chain around it and yank it down with her leg and use the thug's momentum to make his face land on her fist to then hear the disgusting wet sound of his nose breaking.
The next two thugs, who had recovered from her previous kicks, then tried to uncoordinatedly attack her by charging from opposite sides but she just stepped back and watched them run hard into each other and thump hard to the ground and begin groaning.
"I warned you," she said with amused smugness to them all.
They all just gave feral growls at her, making their faces look even more wild dog like, as they all rapidly recovered to their feet, surprising the winged cheetah with their stamina.
"Get 'er!" one of them shouted as he leaped at the winged cheetah, to then immediately be followed by his fellow Streetwolves as they attempted to dog pile upon her.
The winged cheetah used all of her strength trying to hold back the thugs as they dog piled upon her, but it failed as she squeezed her eyes shut and felt her knees begin to buckle under the stress of the weight of the burly bikers.
Drawing on all her concentration, she knew of one last trick she was sure will be a real literal shock to them, but it was an ability she only used as a last resort.
When she had willed and drawn up what she thought was enough power, she opened her eyes as they began to glow bright again.
The first sign of what was happening came as a slight staticey tingling on the attacking Streetwolves' skin, making their body hairs stand on end, to then be followed by a burning pain that startled and hurt their nervous systems as a sudden bright flash of light and an electric burst shot forth from their supposed victim, followed by a deafening drumming bang sound, to only throw them several feet back in all directions from her.
They all landed upon the ground with hard bodily thumps, some unconscious or groaning in near unconsciousness, as the winged cheetah looked at them with satisfaction as electrical sparks danced upon her body, making her fur stand on end in many places, yet she truly looked magnificent with her wings flared to their full length and she felt all the more bad ass.
"That's why I'm called Thunder Cat," she said proudly as the sparking surge steadily died down around her, making her collapse to her knees in exhaustion, yet she continued to smile with pride.
"Oh, yeah!" she gasped with confidence, "You just got schooled, dogs."
A ways away, several more Streetwolves took great pleasure in assaulting and tormenting an elderly couple as they pushed the old man around like a toy ball, and his wife was held by two more of their friends as she screamed and begged for them to stop.
The woman's begging and her husband's predicament only made them laugh maniacally more as they continued with their bullying game to torment whom they thought were helpless old people.
Yet this proved untrue when the old man gathered enough of his wits through his dizziness to give a hard punch to one and then two of his assailants, knocking them back enough to momentarily surprise but mostly annoy them as they stumbled back a step or two to look murderously irritated at the elder man.
The old man just gave them all a challenging look as he held up his fists in a readied boxer's style.
"Look, guys," one of the thugs laughed, "The ol' meat thinks he's all tough and stuff."
The rest of them just joined their fellow thug in a loud guffawing at the old man's boldness.
"I may be old," he said with a faint Mid Western accent, "But I've more than enough moxie in me to tangle with all of you punks."
The attacking wolf inspired gangbangers just laughed loudly again as they raised their assorted weapons for the next attack when a voice suddenly shouted in anger,
"Leave them alone!"
From the air above another winged monster soared towards the attacking Streetwolves, a teal colored female with dark brown , shoulder length hair, standard wings, small horns on her brow ridges, wearing a pinkish orange spaghetti strap shirt and denim shorts, and scarlet glowing eyes. She landed between the old man and his attackers as she fiercely gave a big cat roar to bare her fangs and display her sharp talons at them.
Within seconds, all she did was punch the Streetwolves hard enough to dislocate jaw bones and make them start spewing blood from their lips, which was enough to make them back off from the elderly man, for now.
They then just ran in other directions to find someone else to torment for their twisted amusement.
The next second she grabbed the two thugs who held the old woman between them by their dirtied shirt collars to then swing them in a wide circle in the air to then hit their heads hard against each other as the sound of bone hitting bone cracked between them as they then went unconsciously limp in her hands.
She dropped them from her grip and watched their bodies lay motionless on the ground for a second.
The freed old woman embraced her husband with tangible relief, and he hugged her back to reassure his beloved wife. When she had released him from her embrace, the next thing the old man knew he was having the breath squeezed from his body in a bear hug by the teal colored she monster who seemingly had rescued them.
"Are you okay, Pa?" she whimpered with a faint fearful sob.
"I will be when you stop trying to crush my ribs and let me breath again, Honey," her Pa said with a croaking struggle for breath.
"Oh, sorry," she said with an embarrassed smile, and they just shared a laugh when she released the old man from her tight grip.
"That's my brave girl," said the old woman as she pinched the teal creature's cheek, to which she stated with embarrassed annoyance,
"Ma, stop it, I'm not ten anymore."
"But you know no matter how old you are, or how unusual you are, you'll always be our little girl, Tea," her Pa practically cooed with pride, further embarrassing his teal colored 'daughter' and making her blush in front of everyone else.
Hunched tightly together in a nearby shadowed corner of the mansion's covered porch, more than a dozen or so frightened children, several of them smaller versions of the winged monsters looking no older than toddlers, another Streetwolf member, Slasher, the gang's unofficial 'second-in-command,' cornered them with an insane blissful hunger in his glowing amber colored eyes, practically drooling from his 'snout' as he came threateningly closer to the fearful younglings.
A jade green creature from earlier then suddenly landed between him and his prey and growled warningly at him as her eyes glowed bright red.
"Harm these hatchlings, human, and I shall make you regret it," she dangerously warned with a far eastern accent.
Slasher's face twisted into a dirty look as he inhumanly growled from his throat, "We're not human, freak."
He then began waving a large serrated hunting knife at the jade colored winged creature as though to slash and cut her deeply, hence his name. But the next moment what felt like a living battering ram hit him from his left side to pin him tightly to the ground with heavy weight.
Slasher's mind became momentarily blurred until he shook it off to clear his vision to then see the strangest creature he had seen among these invading monsters yet. It looked like an amalgamation of a huge dire wolf and a sabertooth tiger with spikes growing from its head and three sharp spikes from its back, and a long tuft end tail and was a beautiful deep shade of emerald green.
It growled at Slasher viciously as its eyes glowed a deep fiery red.
"Cu Sidhe takes her duties as watchbeast very seriously," stated the other green creature, "Especially with the safety of hatchlings."
Slasher could only stare in fear of the watchbeast as it snarled at him. The last thing he remembered was it suddenly opening its maw to reveal a mouth full of teeth strong enough to rip him apart.
Upon the rooftop of the progressively remodeled chateaux, the battle between Wolfsbane and the blue demoness had come to a stalemate; in more than one way she had proven to be as strong as he was, if not stronger.
Any attack he delved to her she would just shake off or recover much more quickly from to then return an attack even harder to him in the most unpredictable manner. For every punch or kick he tried to blow to her, she easily dodged to then give her own blow with grease lightening fast speed and a combined feline and serpentine grace at one with the wind and the night.
Though Wolfsbane was able to recover quickly from his own injuries easily enough, it was still made all the more difficult with the creature's sharp elbow or knee spikes cutting deep into his skin to make near fatal wounds that would have killed an ordinary human.
Having lost his crowbar, Wolfsbane drew out his personal revolver with a 20 slug magazine. Surely these creatures were not bullet proof, he was really willing to bet.
But before he fired the first shot, the dark haired creature grabbed his hand with a grip like steel around his wrist, making him loosen his own grip on the gun and giving a groan of pain as she took the gun from him with her other taloned hand and easily crushed it to pieces like a salty cracker.
When she released his wrist, he cradled it close to himself and snared at her with an angered dirty look that enhanced his already lupine features.
He will see to it the blue demon will pay for harming him, but for now he needed a few moments to lick his wounds, so to speak.
Wolfsbane would have made a tactical retreat from his female opponent had he not been suddenly blocked by something in his way which gave him a momentary startle, something big.
A shadowed figure with star white glowing eyes, skin the color of dark dusky twilight, nearly seven feet tall with a robust figure that told of a love child of an ancient Greek God and a military arms tank wearing a tight gray short sleeved shirt and tight denim shorts down to his knees, shoulder length dark brown hair and a handsome face with a square shaped jaw line and high cheek bones, stepped from the shadows cast by one of the mansion's several towers and gave a deep earth shaking growl at Wolfsbane.
His elegantly caped standard male wings, the color of a mysterious darkening twilight sky, smoothly rose from his broad shoulders to then cocoon him for but a half second before they unveiled from him like curtains with a leathery snap to then flare up to their full length in an intimidating matter, his body language speaking of someone in a ready stance for a fight and who may be an expert at martial arts with his feet positioned apart and his large hands in tight fists.
"If you enjoy fighting so much, gang banging brigand," the larger creature growled in a challenge, "Fight me."
"I'd like that very much, monster," Wolfsbane mocked, "But there's just this little problem with my wrist, that blue bitch broke it."
"That 'bitch' is my lifemate," the larger darker blue creature growled dangerously, giving Wolfsbane a hard punch in the face for the insult, making the biker gang leader stumble back into the blue demoness and pushing him off of herself.
Wolfsbane turned back to her to see her standing with her arms across her impressive chest and an amused look on her beautiful face, her eyes had stopped glowing red to reveal eyes the color of a deep ocean crystal blue that held the mysteries of the ocean in the night.
"I see you've met my husband, Danger," she said.
Wolfsbane just snarled again as he spit out, "I won't be stopped by a couple of demon freaks!"
"We are not demons," stated the darker blue creature called Danger, "and we are not monsters, we are Gargoyles. You will learn to respect the name."
Wolfsbane just gave a challenging yell as he prepared to attack Danger, but the larger gargoyle rapidly grabbed his injured wrist and twisted his arm to his back and pushed Wolfsbane to his knees with an unrivaled strength of a living mountain.
"Who the fuck do you think you are that can do this to me?" he demanded.
"I am Athena," the blue female stated with a great warrioress dignity, "The elected leader of the new Chicago Clan, and Danger is my second-in-command. We are Gargoyles, and we protect, that is all you need to know."
She then grabbed Wolfsbane by his leather vest and shirt, her talons digging deep enough to leave holes.
"This fighting is pointless," she hissed as she brought him close to her face that she could smell years of unwashed body odor, "And grows tiresome. Take your gang and leave here. This is our home, not your turf. It was stupid to try it. If you even dare to come back here, we won't hesitate to kill all of you. Now be gone!"
Athena then dashed to the nearest edge of the turret, caught the wind under her bat like wings to soar over the open grounds of the old chateaux and soon dropped Wolfsbane several meters outside the iron gate and onto the dirt road. She was soon followed by several more winged gargoyles doing the same with his men as one by one they rained down from above and dropped hard to the dirt road.
Only seconds afterwards there came a rain of motorcycles crashing all around them like a metallic torrent or miniature meteor shower from the heavens; many broke apart on impact with the ground to need extensive repair or were completely destroyed now to be beyond repair.
When the last of his men and their motorcycles stopped raining like death from the sky, Wolfsbane gave a deadly glare as the last of the Gargoyles' silhouettes faded from the dark sky.
Now he had more reason to seek vengeance upon those monsters that dared to claim something he knew he should rightfully have.
Sooner or later he will show them who truly rules the night.
From the dark skies above the previously attacked celebrants, a small legion of winged creatures descended from above as though a hoard of conquering demons. But this was not so, for the humans knew these creatures to be their guardian angels and saw their frightful dark beauty and grace for what it truly was as smiles and applause reverberated throughout the small crowd as they landed amongst them triumphantly.
Athena finally landed among the applauding crowd, though she stumbled a bit as she gripped the side of her waist as though in slight pain, but it was a small inconvenience to be ignored for now. She was then joined by her bigger and darker blue lifemate who embraced her with his muscular arm to hold her close.
She always appreciated how much he always showed his fathomless affections for her, but sometimes it felt too much like he was trying to smother her.
"Well done, my brothers and sisters," she congratulated to the rest of the gathering clan as they began to give their own cheers for their victory over the invading Streetwolves.
Laurie stepped up to Athena and gave her a friendly light punch on the shoulder as she said,
"Cuttin' it pretty close again, arncha, A-girl?"
"Don't I always," the blue gargess returned with a wide smile.
"Daniel!" shouted a matronly looking woman, with a pleasantly plump figure and dressed in an expensive looking tailor made and professionally designed fashion clothes, came running up to Danger and hugged him tightly as though having feared the worst.
"Honey, are you okay?" she practically demanded with a choked sob.
"I'm fine, Mom," he said while trying to loosen her grip on him without making her completely letting go, "Do you always have to be so protective of me? I can take care of myself."
"I can't help it," his mother said, "It's what mothers do."
They both laughed, then Danger looked to the bespectacled young man called Melvin as he brushed dirt and soil from his figure from being attacked by the thugs.
"Are you okay, Mel?" he asked his oldest friend.
"I'll be fine, Dan," Melvin answered, "You know it'll take more than a bunch of hooligans to scare me off. I just want to know who the hell they were and how they got into our home. I didn't hear any alarms go off."
Through the chatting and assessments of assaulted people and their injuries, slight murmurs of concern and apprehension replaced the brief moments of gladding calmness in this aftermath.
Dozens of nervous eyes looked to Athena and Danger for any guidance of what to do next, which always made Athena very uncomfortable largely due to her inexperience. She could only return the same look of concern to the gathered clan and their human friends.
Montoya then stepped forward as he dragged an unconscious Slasher, abandoned by his gang, into view of the rest of the humans and gargoyles to say,
"I suggest a thorough inspection of the alarm system immediately, they may've sabotaged it somewhere and it allowed them to enter the grounds."
"We first need to gather our wounded and tend to them before anything else," the jade green gargess spoke up, "As well as get the children inside and assessed first."
"I think we should follow those human bandits to their lair and slay them where they stand," spoke up a brawny sienna colored gargoyle, a few voices raised in agreement.
"No," spoke up Montoya, "they must be arrested within the full power of the law. You know killing them in cold blood will only create more problems on both sides, Spike."
Spike just growled at Montoya as talks around the veranda steadily began to grow into heated arguments about what to do next.
As people became more agitated from what action to take about this confrontation, Athena could only stand nervously in place as she watched and listened to her clan's growing outrage with the attacking gang and now each other.
She could only think about what her father would do in a situation like this, because to her he had always been and will always be a clan leader, where as she was just a young gargoyle trying to find her place in the world and just got thrown into the leadership role.
As arguing among the humans and gargoyles nearly reached a shouting match, Athena's own tolerance level finally reached its end.
"QUIET!" she shouted with amazing power in her voice.
Immediate silence rolled over the crowd and looked in surprised awe at the young would be clan leader.
She stepped into the open space in the middle of the crowd and began to say,
"Those are all good suggestions, so this is how I am going to prioritize. Kwan Yin and Gale will gather up the wounded and take them to the medical wing, tend to the worst first and how to handle it from there I'll leave up to you. Mrs. Galloway and the other elders will gather the kids and get them inside while Melvin and Ben will take our best technicians and look over every centimeter of that security system."
She then looked to an Amazonian tall and well built Gargoyle female with bright turquoise coloring, moon white hair, sharp fins on her lower arms and thighs, tall curving goat like horns, and wearing a maroon short skirt tunic with a single strap over her right shoulder and tight shorts.
"Callisto, take a small group of the best warriors and trackers you know of in this clan and follow those punks as far you can, but no killing. Find out whatever you can about them, but be discreet, this city may not yet be ready to know we're here."
"Yes, leader," Callisto acknowledged as she then began walking into the crowd to pick her group.
"The rest of us will all help get this mess cleaned up and start fixing the gardens later," Athena concluded.
As the rest of the clan began to disperse with their given orders, the ones named Tea, short for Gallatea, her elderly human father and mother, Thunder Cat, Officer Montoya, and Kwan Yin gathered around Athena and Danger to first give more suggestions or tell of their suspicions about the Streetwolves.
"What do you plan to do about those hooligans if you find them or they come back?" Mr. Johnson, Tea's human father, almost demanded.
"They can be turned over to the police," Montoya answered, "I may have only transferred from New York a couple of months ago, but this is still within my jurisdiction. To turn in the Streetwolves to the police by the clan will be a show of good faith."
"That might be a good idea," Thunder Cat spoke up, "But I dunno if it's true. When I kicked the asses of some of those bitches I could tell something was totally whack with 'em. They were a lot more animalistic than some gangbangers I used to be familiar with."
"I fought with one that said they were not human," said Kwan Yin, "And I am sure from the way he moved it was true. My old clan may have been isolated for a long time, but they were not like any humans I have been told of."
"They were human alright, we could all smell it," Tea said, "But I agree there was something really weird about them. Did you see their faces? They almost looked like dogs or wolves or some other kind of canine."
"Maybe they're some kind of unfinished mutates," Thunder Cat said with a hint of excitement in her voice.
"I do not believe they are mutates, Sister TC," Kwan Yin stated, "I noticed much scarring around their faces, they must have had poorly done surgical alterations by under practiced human doctors."
The others gave murmurs of agreement, then Athena said,
"That may be true, but there is something strange about them. My magical powers may not be as strong as some people, but I could still sense something supernatural about them, like they were possessed. Their leader, Wolfsbane, kept calling his gang a pack."
The others then gave agreements, wondering what it all meant.
"I have another suggestion," Montoya said, the others then looked at him, "If we can't get answers about all of this on our own I may know of someone who could help. The department I'm currently working in, Special Investigations, has called in this guy, Harry Dresden, as a consultant about things like this all the time. He's rumored to be an expert on the supernatural, and knowing you guys and all our friends back in New York, I wouldn't be too surprised."
"That's a good idea, but for now this has to be an internal clan affair," Athena said, "We'll only ask for this Harry Dresden's help if he can be trusted. Being in a new city, we must be cautious with trusting possible new human friends. You remember how long it took my father, Goliath, to trust you, right, Randy?"
Although he had grown a lot since that experience, Randy could only blush with embarrassment and give a goofy smile he once only gave to a beautiful older woman whom he had a great puppy dog crush on once.
The group then dispersed to tend to other important matters, leaving the two clan leaders alone with only each other.
Danger held his lifemate close as he felt her curvaceous body touch his strong muscular form, her long arms wrapped around his thick neck. They looked deep into each other's eyes, ocean blue to dark fiery brown, their hearts needing no words as their souls merged to become one with but a single look.
"It hasn't been easy, has it?" Danger asked.
"No, it hasn't," she said quietly.
"We'll get through this, we always do."
"I hope so, but I don't know if I can do this leader thing. Goliath made it look so easy, but these people. . . they're all just so different."
"If tonight proved one thing, they're capable of working together and becoming the clan we know they can be. That's why they all came here, for the second chances at having a clan they lost or uniting the Gargoyle race more."
Athena smiled up at her lifemate, knowing he was right and always admiring his rare optimism.
"Maybe you should be the new clan leader," she teased.
"You know why they chose you over me," he just said with a smile, "Being second in command isn't so bad. But maybe Callisto, or Clash, or even Rocky would make better choices, they've had more leadership experience."
"Maybe," Athena sighed, "But as long as you're by my side, I know I can do anything."
They chuckled as their wings warmly embraced each other and they stroked each other's long dark hair, then they shared a long and passionate kiss that was like a brightly burning beacon in the night.