I do not own Gargoyles. No copyright infringement is intended with this work. Strong Language and Adult Situations, Reader Discretion is Advised.
Winds of Change
Chapter 4
Dominique all but bounced with glee as she watched the detective's car roll down the steep embankment. Bits and pieces of paper, glass and assorted items from inside the vehicle exploded from it with each bounce. It left a trail of litter all the way down to the beach below. Her all too human hands gripped the guardrail in anticipation as the car narrowly missed a rocky outcropping on the wet sand. She let out a breath of frustration. It seemed the human's uncanny luck was still intact.
Following the woman at a distance in her own car, Dominique noted Maza had clung to the road longer than she would have thought possible. Now, as she stood at the edge of the precipice looking down at the wreckage, laughter bubbled up out of her. It was a deranged laughter, the laughter of the truly insane. She did not care in that moment. Instead, she basked in it, drew strength from it and reveled in the reality that she was a creature of chaos.
Tapping a nail on the cold metal, she contemplated the idea of going down to the beach to be sure the human was dead. Sunset was still hours away, if she went now, it would be as Dominique. Her human form could not easily navigate the steepness of the cliff-face. It was with a great deal of reluctance that she decided against such a trek.
After a few moments, she regained a measure of the tenuous grip she maintained on sanity. Climbing back into her car, she eased it away from the twisted guardrail and drove off. Being found at the scene, should someone happen by, was not on her list of things to do today. The tide would pull the wreckage off the beach. When she returned at nightfall, there might be little sign left of Maza's passage from the world. If luck was with her, she would find one of two things; either the car was completely submerged and invisible to searching eyes, or it would still be in the shallows and the human's body would be inside, cold and decidedly dead. Either way, she had won.
/
When Elisa failed to make the checkpoint just after sunset, a rest-stop not far from the county line, Goliath recklessly took to the air. It did not strike him in that instant that she could easily be a couple hundred miles behind them. All he knew for certain was that she must be in trouble. She needed him and he was determined to go to her.
"Hey," Matt called to him from the ground and when he did not respond, the human grew bold and shouted, "Hey, blockhead!"
With an angry snarl, Goliath banked and dove toward the ground, toward the human in truth. He drew up short and landed with a heavy thump before the man with a furious glare. The human gave him a hard look, but did not back down. The gargoyle caped his wings and waited for the man to speak his mind.
"You can't fly that far and we both know it. Get in the van, we're going back to look for her." Matt snapped at him. He glanced at Morgan as he moved toward the van, "Morgan, stay here in case she shows up before we get back."
"I do not wish to be confined while Elisa is out there somewhere...in trouble...," Goliath grumbled, barely containing his urge to take to the air once more and search for her.
"Fine, ride on the roof, but I'm driving back the way we came," throwing a hand in the air in frustration, Matt climbed into the driver's seat of the van and the engine roared to life. He did not wait to see what Goliath would do before he had it in gear and moving.
Goliath hesitated for a heartbeat then leaped onto the roof as Bluestone had suggested. The gasp he heard from inside the vehicle told him that the human had not expected he would really ride on the roof. He had to admit to himself that sometimes he took things a bit too literally. In other circumstances it might have stricken him as humorous. Now, it only served to annoy him.
They traveled into the night. The road showed no sign of Elisa or her car. Goliath rode the air currents until his wings grew too tired to carry him. He resumed his position on the roof many times as the miles passed. Even with his keen eyes and a higher vantage point, he could pick out no other tire tracks but their own. It was clear that she had not yet made it this far. Concern kept him sharp and alert to movement around the fringes of the road. Several times he picked out faint movement and glided over to investigate only to discover a deer or some other animal among the trees. Still, there was no sign of Elisa.
/
As the sun sank below the horizon the change came upon her. Demona screamed her way through it as she did every night. Once it was finished, she wasted no more time. She took to the sky and glided toward the place the detective's car had met its end. Over the centuries her wings had grown strong enough to carry her farther distances for longer periods of time. It surprised her that the muscular structure of her wing-struts had not grown huge and bulky. She assumed it had something to do with her feminine nature. Perhaps there was just a limit to the mass a wing muscle might obtain before it simply grew to heavy for gliding. She did not know, nor did she care in that moment. Her wings would easily carry her one hundred fifty plus miles without much more than a little burning. That was what had made escape from her former clan so much easier over the years. They simply did not have enough gliding stamina to catch her. She found it amusing that even Goliath with his great wings could no longer keep up with her.
Demona reached her destination after only an hour in the air. She circled her target once before making her decent. Noting, as she landed on the beach, the vehicle had not been pulled out as far to sea as she might have hoped, she scanned the thin beach. There were few signs of the accident remaining to mark the sand. If the human had somehow crawled out of the wreckage, she would find her.
There was a storm rolling in, beating the lapping waves into a frothing frenzy. It would bring the sea near to high tide levels along the thin strip of beach. The entire area might shortly be under several feet of water. She realized she had little time in which to complete her distasteful task.
/
The hard impact on the beach drove the water from her lungs. Her gasp was a wheezing cough that screamed desperately for air. The coming storm was whipping the waves into a tempest. Her body was washed onto the beach a few hundred yards from her car. Clawing at the sand, she dragged herself away from the water's edge with all the strength that remained to her battered body. Panting, she lay there for an indeterminate amount of time. She knew little else save that time passed and with its passage she grew a fraction stronger. Her mind shied away from any thoughts of how or why she had survived. It was enough that she had and once again she slipped into blackness.
The the curtain of night had been pulled across the sky when she awoke again. With the darkness came the tides. The storm was still some distance away, but even still, it stirred the sea restlessly. She managed to pull herself weakly to her feet and noticed she was missing a boot. Her coat was gone as well, but the cold barely seemed to touched her. Maybe, she thought, it's because I'm already half frozen to the bone. Perhaps it had more to do with how she had survived her little dip in the icy sea. Her mind skipped over that thought and refused to face it. There would be time enough later to examine the how and why of it all. Right now, she needed to find a way back up to the road.
Taking an experimental step, she staggered forward and sank to her knees. Her limbs were still not working properly, she realized. It was a struggle to climb back to her feet. She shivered when a gust of wind wrapped around her. It was cold, but somehow that seemed much more distant to her than it should be. By all rights, she knew she should be dead. The the accident, the extended dip in ice water, her lungs convulsing for air several feet below the surface...
Elisa closed her eyes against the thoughts and images. She was not ready to face any of it. Right now, she needed to get back to the road. The chances of getting help were better up there. She might flag down a passing car. If she did not find a way to get back up to the road, she knew she could die right there on that beach. High tide would wash her body out to sea and no one would know what had happened for weeks, if not months.
/
Demona wandered the beach for a time before coming across one of the detective's boots. She kicked at it in irritation. Where there was a boot, there may well be more, she knew. The beach had revealed little more to her in the hours since her arrival. She was about to head back to the wreckage and check inside, when she caught a glimpse of something lying a short distance away. It moved and she watched stunned, her anger rising as it stood. A human, the human she had hoped to destroy when she cut those brake lines, rose to her feet and staggered across the beach. Her rage pulled tight like a violin string across her nerves. It snapped in an instant...
/
"What does it take to destroy you?!" the female scream came unexpectedly.
Elisa gasped and turned just as an enraged Demona dove at her. There was no time to dodge out of the way. The gargess' hands impacted her collarbones, talons digging painfully into her flesh. She was slammed bodily against a slab of rock. The air was forced out of her in a grunt. Her head bounced against the rough surface as she was repeatedly shaken like a rag doll. Stars exploded across her vision with each impact. Disoriented, she tried to move, to fight back and could not.
Demona effectively pinned her to the slab. Her eyes blazed red with blood-lust. She raged at the human, "What is so special about you that I cannot kill you. Time and time again you survive when others have fallen before me. Why?!"
"I don't know...," Elisa gasped. It was hard to breath with an angry gargoyle all but sitting on her. "Maybe...I just like...pissing you off."
"Wrong answer, human. I think I will enjoy ripping your heart out. Maybe I'll even bathe in your blood, make Goliath watch... Would you like that? Do you like knowing that your protector cannot save you from me now?" Demona had lost her tenuous grip on sanity in that moment.
The gargess pounded the human's head against the stone once more forcefully. Then, as she held the human firmly with one hand, she raised the other to deliver a fatal strike to her chest. Elisa's eyes widened in fear. So this is how it ends, she thought. The unbidden thought was forced aside in the seconds before those talons began to decent. Her whole world was moving in slow motion. That hand was coming down, adrenaline rushed through her and she felt as if she were inside a bubble of sudden calm...then it burst.
/
Bluestone and Goliath had managed to find evidence of Elisa nearly fifty miles from the checkpoint. The tire tracks in the snow were not fresh. They became stuttering skid marks a few feet from a twisted expanse of guardrail. The human and gargoyle followed the tire tracks to the edge of the cliff. Here there was more evidence, debris lay scattered all the way down to the beach. The glint of chrome could be seen just below the surface of the lapping waves a short distance from that beach. A tire broke the surface with the ebb and flow of the waves.
Goliath did not wait for Bluestone, gave no thought for how the human might make it down to the beach before he launched himself toward the wreckage. Fear for Elisa gripped his heart like a vice. It spurred him onward, heedless of the gusting wind coming in off the bay. He guessed the drop at nearly one hundred feet as he dove for the water. Landing waist deep with a splash, he stared at the vehicle in disbelief for several seconds. There was no doubt that it was Elisa's car. He grabbed the vehicle and strained with all his mighty strength to haul it from the pull of the water and onto the beach. Ripping the door completely free of the crumpled car, he took a steadying breath and peered inside. Of Elisa, there was no sign, but he could see the belt had been cut. She may yet live, he realized. He scanned the length of the beach as Matt finally made his way to the water's edge. Nothing, he saw nothing of her along the beach. That meant very little, however. The tides could easily have washed away any prints she might have left. He knew that if they did not find her soon, she would freeze to death.
"Hey, you know, I could have used a lift down here...," Matt drew up just short of Goliath when he got a look at the twisted red and white mass of metal that had once been Elisa's prized Fairlane. He gasped and, running both hands through his hair, he started to pace with panic. "Oh man, ooooh, you don't think she...? I gotta call this in."
The Wyvern clan leader carefully scanned the beach for any marks as he made his way along the water's edge. He silently begged the dragon that there would be some sign, something, anything to tell him that she had survived. He knew the costs of hypothermia on the human body. He had witnessed them first-hand in Scotland long ago and again in Norway when Avalon had sent them to meet Odin. Elisa could not survive long in such temperatures without shelter. It would be made worse from a dunking in the frigid sea. He would not give up his search for her until the rising of the sun forced him into stone sleep.
/
The bubble of calm surrounding her burst with the suddenness of an explosion. One moment Demona was all but sitting on her about to tear her heart from her chest. In the next moment, she felt as if her very bones were melting. The heat was real, somehow she knew that. The snow, ice and even the water around the pair was rapidly boiling away. The steam rolling around the stone slab was much like a sauna.
It was fuzzy, like a distant dream. Demona shrieked as her hands unexpectedly erupted in flame. Green flame and hot as the fires of hell itself. The fire singed Elisa's flesh before the gargess released her and dove toward the water. The female thrust her hands into the lapping waves in an effort to extinguish the flames that were consuming them. She whimpered and hissed in pain as she pulled her steaming, near skeletal hands from the water. The fire had burned away most of the flesh. The immortality spell was working overtime, however as her hands began to slowly regenerate. As the muscle tissue grew back, her mind was teetering on the edge of real violence.
Elisa rolled off the stone onto the patch of dry sand she had inadvertently created around it dizzily. Her head pounded as if a jackhammer was eating into her brain with every wild beat of her heart. As the gargess turned back toward her, Elisa scooped a handful of sand up into her eyes and half ran, half fell the other way.
"I should have known you were a thrice damned half-breed Fae!" Demona shrieked after her. All her hatred for Oberon's children seemed bundled up in that one scream. She searched around wildly for her prey, half blind from the sand in her eyes. "Make no mistake, Maza, I will kill you when I find you!"
Even as Demona spat the words venomously, Elisa's head spun with questions. Frantically, she searched for some escape that would not be obvious, someplace that she could hide from the wild creature that raged behind her. She saw nothing so she ran, limping onward toward the cliff-face. With every step, she expected attack from behind. Every breath brought her closer to the cliff.
The impact, when it came, was not entirely unexpected. She was drilled into the sand hard and slid several feet. A heartbeat later, she was flipped over and lifted into the air by her throat. Her hands reflexively gripped the winged woman's charred wrists. The air froze in her lungs, she could not breath in that vice-like grip. In a futile effort, she kicked at Demona wildly. To her surprise, she made a hard connection with her jaw. The grip loosened with a scream and Elisa hit the ground choking in air. She did not let the opportunity slip by her, however. Heart hammering and lungs struggling to supply her body with oxygen, she kicked the gargess' legs out from under her. The other woman landed hard on her rump. It was not the victory it should have been.
Demona snarled and used her tail as much as her legs to propel herself forward, toward her prey. The hunt was upon her now. Only she and her prey existed in all of the world in that moment. Her eyes blazed red as her taloned hands made contact with the human's wrists. She locked them in an iron grip and pinned them high over the human's head as she straddled her. Transferring both wrists to one hand, Demona wrapped her other regenerating hand around Elisa's throat, talons digging into tender flesh.
"I'm going to snap your neck like a twig. Death will come quick, but it will come. It will be quicker than you deserve." Demona growled and began to apply a slowly increasing amount of pressure.
There was no escape Elisa realized. She could not repeat whatever it was that had saved her only moments ago. Her limbs grew weaker as her body starved for oxygen. Helplessness was a feeling she had little experience with, but she knew its cold hand now as Demona's grip tightened. She tried vainly to buck her off, but the gargess weighed too much and she strength was leaching away.
Just before her vision faded to oblivion, Elisa heard the thunder of heavy footfalls on the sand racing toward her like a raging bull. A familiar bellow of rage carried though the night air just as consciousness escaped her grasp.
/
Goliath's sharp ears had picked up the sound of voices and struggle over the crashing of the waves. As he rounded a section of rock sticking up several feet from the sand, he saw the source. Demona, her back to him, was pinning a struggling human to the ground. He could think of only one who might be on that beach. His eyes blazed white-hot as he drove into a dead run at her. The bellow that tore from his lungs was one of pure hatred and rage for the creature who had once been his lover.
/
Demona stiffened when she heard his bellow. She tightened her grip, attempting to snap Elisa's neck before the impact she knew must be coming. A choked sound escaped her when he hit her at a dead run. The shock seemed to deaden the nerves in her arms as her hands numbly released the woman's throat. She was driven into the stony sand. If not for her innate agility, the sand might have shredded her face. Instead, she twisted to fight the lavender male just as she impacted with the beach. Goliath was virtually sitting on her when their slide came to a halt. His weight effectively pinned her just as she had pinned the human only moments ago.
"Awe, what's wrong, Goliath? Don't you love me anymore?" a sweet smile spread across Demona's lips and she licked them, wiggling suggestively beneath him. "I'm sure I could refresh your memory..."
"The very sight of you sickens me, Demona," Goliath seethed and clamped his knees tighter against her hips in an effort to stop her movements.
"Oh, ouch, that stings," her smile widened when a growl of anger slipped past his lips. She wiggled again and the pressure of his knees increased to a painful point. There was a purr in her next words as she whispered seductively, "Do it again..."
Goliath, Demona firmly in his grip, stood and lifted her with him. He had had enough of her sexual innuendos. His disgust for her spilled over into his every action. The words, when he spoke them, contained such loathing it shocked him to hear it in his own voice. "My Angel of the Night died with our clan the night you betrayed them! You and I are...no more, Demona."
Demona's eyes widened as he spoke. He was about to officially breaking their bond. She could hear the it in his tone. It did not matter that the only conscious witness was a human. The break required only that there be a witness, any witness. There was real horror in her whisper, "No, you can't... What about our daughter?"
"She is none of your concern," The lavender behemoth held her upper arms in a tight grip as he had on another such night when he had declared his love. Now, however, he made a different sort of declaration, "I denounce you, Demona. I withdraw our mating pledge. You are free to choose another,...as am I."
"You would choose a human whore over one of your own kind?! Let go of me! Unclean savage," the gargess raged and fought against his grip as the realization of his words sank in. She never thought he would actually denounce her. Always before there had been a hope of reconciling their relationship. Even he must have carried that hope at one time or he would have released her long ago. She had thought she only needed to open his eyes to the true nature of humanity. Now she knew otherwise. The human had thoroughly corrupted his heart, possibly even his soul. The thought of him rutting with the human sickened her beyond words and she screamed into his face.
Goliath shoved her away from him in disgust, his last word to her barely more than a whispered growl, "Go...,"
Demona glanced from him to the two humans beyond and screamed in frustration. There was no way she was getting past him to exact vengeance on the vermin that had stolen him away from her. That time would come, she knew, but not this night. "This isn't finished, Goliath!" she raged at him before turning to run for the cliff-face. In moments she had scaled the rocky expanse. Throwing herself into the currents, she disappeared into the night sky over the bay.
/
As Goliath had stormed toward Demona and bowled her over, Matt raced for Elisa's still form. He dropped to his knees beside her, kicking up sand with the force. It did not look good. The woman was bruised and bloodied both from the car accident and her struggle with Demona. She was not breathing and Matt was hard pressed to find pulse. There was an angry red hand-print around her neck that was bound to leave a nasty bruise and Matt worried her trachea might be crushed. He was never more glad of his CPR training than he was in that moment.
While Demona's attempt to seduce Goliath failed, the cop worked on reviving his fallen partner. He hoped it was not too late. Elisa's lips were turning blue with the lack of oxygen in her blood. He heard sirens off in the distance and prayed they were not arriving only to take her to the morgue. She was not responding to his treatment.
/
"C'mon, breathe, dammit! Breathe, Elisa!" Matt was saying in between compressions and breaths as the lavender gargoyle turned back toward them.
Goliath had not realized the situation was so dire when he confronted Demona. Now he saw Bluestone doing for Elisa what the woman had once done for his daughter. It took every ounce of his willpower to maintain a manageable state of mind. He glanced up at the road as the sound of sirens came to him. He put a hand on the human's shoulder to draw his attention. "Can they help her?"
Elisa's body suddenly flinched away from the pressure on her chest. A wheezing breath filled her tortured lungs. Matt sat back on his heels and wiped sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his trench coat. "I hope so. She's breathing again anyway. Let's get her up to the squad."
Goliath, mindful of her injuries, scooped Elisa's body up and headed for the cliff-face. He struggled to climb up to the road one-handed, Matt right behind him. His one driving thought was that Elisa would get the help she needed if only he made it to the road above. He did not think he could face a world that did not have Elisa Maza in it.
He laid Elisa gently in the snow above him as he climbed up behind her. It struck him then, he was finally free of Demona in a way he had not been since their first mating. It was in such a way that satisfied custom. A heavy weight had seemingly lifted from his shoulders when he had officially released his former mate. He was at last free to explore his relationship with Elisa without the guilt that had haunted him these last months. She need only survive this night. He would pull her into the regeneration of stone sleep with him if he had thought it was possible. It had never before been attempted. No human had ever been brave enough to maintain physical contact with a gargoyle in the moments when stone sleep overtook them. It was a risk he was not ready to take given her current unstable condition. He was not sure it would even work.
Instead, he hunkered down low among the trees as the squad pulled to a stop near Matt's van. Bluestone climbed to the top and carefully lifted Elisa in his arms. He hitched her up to gain a better hold on her limp form before moving toward the squad and the waiting medics. Sunrise froze Goliath in stone there just behind the guardrail with a worried look on his face as he watched the two humans.
/
Matt glanced back to where Goliath crouched in concealment just as the sun crested the horizon. Elisa's weight was slight in his arms as he carried her to the medics and the gurney they were pulling down out of the waiting squad. He laid her out on it and the medics wasted no time in hauling her inside the vehicle. They pulled the door shut and began on-site treatment.
The trouble with squads was they were not sound proof. Matt heard everything. He paced back and forth beside his van like a caged animal. The man all but swallowed his tongue when he heard the heart monitor suddenly shrilled a steady alarm. He knew real panic when the medics started calling back and forth for epinephrine, cardiac needles and paddles. We might really lose her this time, he thought.
The medics worked on her in a frenzy, performing one field procedure after another to revive her. Five minutes, then six ticked by and still the alarm screamed into the early morning. He heard one of them call an official time of death. Elisa's partner sank to a squat against his van, head in his hands. He did not know what he was going to tell Goliath. How he was going to tell the big guy when he woke up? What was he going to say? Oh, by the way, your favorite human died right after you went down for your stone nap. Sorry about that, he thought sarcastically. What as he going to tell the captain? It was not going to be easy. This kind of thing never was.
Ten minutes later the medics were filling out paperwork and ignoring the constant shrill tone of the monitor. They were readying her body and the equipment for transport to Manhattan General as time ticked by. It seemed an eternity and still that blasted monitor continued its shrill alarm untended.
Two of the medics were working Elisa's body into a body bag after disconnecting her I.V. one was working on untangling the monitor wires and removing them when a miracle seemingly occurred. More than twenty minutes after she was declared legally dead, Elisa Maza's heart gave a jolting thump that broke the monitor's persistent tone. Her body jerked and breath was sucked into her nearly collapsed lungs. She cried out sharply in pain and sat bolt upright on the gurney. The medics swarmed her.
Matt lost his footing and sat down hard against the side of his van as much in relief as shock when he heard her. She was dead, he thought, twenty-two minutes, thirty-five seconds, I kept track. she was dead and now she's alive. He did not know how it had happened nor did he care. All he knew was that it had happened. He let out an unsteady breath and offered a silent thanks to the heavens. As soon as the monitor started to blip with a normal heartbeat, one of the medics hit the siren and the vehicle sped away toward the local hospital.
/
"An accident?! What do you mean she had an accident?" Chavez barked into the phone.
Matt sounded frantic on the other end of the line. He said something about Maza being dead and Chavez had barely managed to hit her chair when her good leg gave out under her. As he continued to clarify his statement, she managed to catch her breath.
"I swear to you, Captain, she was clinically dead for over twenty minutes. How the hell does a thing like that happen?" even as he said it, he knew it sounded crazy.
"You said yourself she was suffering from hypothermia, Matt. Couldn't her heartbeat have been too weak for the machine to pick up?" Chavez asked.
"No, I don't think so. The medics called time of death. They have a death certificate that was being processed on the scene. It would have been filed as soon as they wheeled her into the morgue. It'll be with the rest of her paperwork when they wheel her into triage." he paused for a long moment. "Captain, they were freaking out when her heart started beating again..."
Chavez considered his words for several long moments. She knew him well enough to know the different tones of his voice. He believed every word he was telling her. "Ok, Bluestone, I'm heading to General now. That certificate needs to be buried and fast."
Matt sighed in relief, "Yeah, that was my thought too. I'll meet you there."
"Stay with Goliath. Unless I miss my guess, I'm betting he's beside himself with worry right about now," the captain said.
"Actually, he's asleep...," Matt began and was cut off by Chavez's outraged exclamation.
"Asleep?! How can he sleep at a time like this?!" she demanded.
"He doesn't have a choice, Captain. Didn't the gargoyles tell you when you met them?" Matt cut in.
"Tell me what?" she barked.
"Captain, they turn to stone during the day. That's why we were moving Goliath to the safehouse by van. It wasn't just because his wings would wear out before he made it on his own." Matt clarified.
"You're kidding, right? Tell me you're joking because if you're not...," there was a half-hearted threat in her voice just then.
"It's true. I'm looking at Goliath's stone mug as we speak," Bluestone said and as an afterthought, he gently rapped the cell phone against Goliath's stone form.
"Alright, stay with him. When he wakes up, bring him back to Manhattan General. I'm sure he's going to want to see Maza," Chavez sighed before hanging up the phone.
/
Elisa jolted awake. The burst of pain that followed her ripped a cry from her burning lungs. There was too much sensory input bombarding her. Her senses were raw, her very nerves felt like they were overloading. The sounds of cars, a blaring siren, people yelling orders back and forth. It was all jumbled together and out of place. Then there was the poking, the probing, the residual tingle of electrical fire coursing through her nervous system, and she was so incredibly hot. If felt as if her flesh was melting away from her bones.
"Normal sinus rhythm," an unfamiliar voice relayed information.
"How is that possible?! She was dead, dammit! I had no heartbeat for over eight solid minutes before I called time." someone demanded.
"I don't know. BP low, body temp way below normal. We need to stabilize her. Get her to General asap. Let them sort it out." the first voice said.
"Welcome back. Do you know your name? Your date of birth?" a big bald dark man dressed in a paramedic uniform said in a deep voice as he hovered into view.
She blinked at him groggily, her voice weak, her words slow and slurred, "Detective...Elisa Maza, 23rd ...," she paused, trying to clear her head. "Born...12-31-68."
"Good, good. How about the year?" the big man nodded.
"1996...," she breathed as her vision began to fade in and out again.
"You just sit tight. We'll get you to the hospital as soon as we can," the big man said as he glanced back toward the front of the vehicle.
The accident, Demona's attack, and her escape were all a blur. She vaguely remembered hearing Goliath's bellow before it had all gone black. Early morning light poured into the compartment she was strapped into and she knew he would be encased in stone. She would not see him until well after sunset. The vehicle bounced once too often on its way to its destination and darkness consumed her again.
/
Demona managed to make it back to Nightstone just before sunrise. Now she raged and screamed through the private portion of her office. He had really done it! Goliath had denounced her and withdrawn his mating pledge to her. Had he taken his human whore yet? Did he truly intend to mate with her? She found the very idea revolting. How he could even consider such a thing was beyond her. It was a violation of nature. In her mind, humanity was no better than vermin. They had to be exterminated! The sooner the better by her way of thinking.
Her rage finally melted away when her eyes lit on the sparkling blue crystal from Atlantis. The very crystal that had lain at the heart of the prey gargoyle statue Goliath crushed. It hovered an inch above the stand she had placed it in. Already its power was working to restore the statue. That statue, the crystal in truth, was imbued with the power to protect the gargoyle race. She had attempted to use that power once. Would it protect them without the statue, she wandered. She doubted it. The statue was the embodiment of the gargoyle people. Without it, the power of the crystal could not be channeled.
Taking the crystal in her hand, she walked to the wall of windows and held it up to the faint winter sunlight. Energy was energy whether it be produce by magic, science or natural. There were ways to tap energy no matter what its form. She just needed to find the way to tap what was locked away within the crystal. It was too bad the Atlanteans were all gone. They could have provided her with the knowledge she needed. She would have to settle for the scrolls and books she had collected over the centuries. There were many from the lost isle in her private collection. She hoped one of them might prove enlightening. The humans were good for a few things. One of those was their obsession with writing things down. She stalked toward the hall and the elevator that would take her to the parking garage. The scrolls she needed were tucked away at her estate. The sooner she got to work on them, the sooner she might rid herself of every last human on the planet. She would be rid of one human in particular; Elisa Maza, even if it cost her the immortality she had come to enjoy.
/
Chavez made her way into the hospital emergency room just as the medics were wheeling Maza in. She saw the clipboard with its all important documents lying haphazardly across the woman's legs. Tapping the big dark medic on the shoulder, she held up her badge and smiled sweetly.
"Got no time here...," he squinted at her badge and I.D. as he maneuvered the gurney, "Captain. This woman is in critical condition."
"Look, I'm going to need you to keep her death and the circumstances of her revival under wraps. We can't have a thing like that getting out, especially now," Chavez said, tucking her badge back into her jacket.
"Can't do that. All her info goes to patient information. The doctor will need to review it to treat her. Now, if you'll excuse me, I really need to get her settled." with that, he pushed the gurney down the hall.
"I'm coming with her...," Chavez began.
"Sorry, Miss, you just can't be here right now. No visitors until she's stabilized." the big man grumbled.
Chavez glared at him. She did not care that he was nearly as big as Goliath without the wings. "You'd really deny her aunt access to her room when she might be dying? Are you that cold?"
"Fine, but stay out of the way," he grumbled as he looked her small stature up and down, "or you might get stepped on."
Nodding, Chavez followed him at a slight distance. The bit about being Elisa's aunt was a white lie, but she knew the Maza's would vouch for her once they arrived. She pulled her cell phone from a pocket and dialed them as she stepped into the exam room.
/
Xanatos sat in his office watching the sun set and thought how best to break the news to the clan. He never liked sugar-coating the facts, it did nothing to change them. At least the rest were not as touchy as Goliath was with this sort of news. He wandered how the lavender behemoth would take it. Maza still lived, at least there was that, but her prognosis was not good.
As soon as he heard the roars of awakening, Xanatos stood and straightened his jacket. No time like the present, he thought as he headed out the door toward the elevator. He would soon see how well they took the news.
/
Brooklyn did not like the look on the man's face when he came up to the parapets. It was a grim look, one that spoke of trouble for the clan. The first thought to cross his mind was that something had happened to Goliath along the route to the safehouse. He was not ready to assume the roll of clan leader permanently. It was too soon. Goliath was still young and vital with a good many years before him as their leader.
The others surrounded Brooklyn as the billionaire came to a stop before him. They all noticed the look on the human's face, the tension in his shoulders as he glanced at each of them. His eyes locked on Brooklyn's and he took a breath.
"There's been an accident," he began and the gargoyles seemed to gasp collectively. He held up a hand to stall the questions he knew were about to assault him, "Goliath is fine, the detective, however, is not. Maza is at Manhattan General. She's in a coma. They're not sure she'll survive the next twelve hours."
The silence was punctuated by Angela's single sobbing breath as she leaned into Broadway for support. Hudson put a hand on Brooklyn's shoulder and Lexington wrapped his arms around Bronx. The cat's out of the bag, Xanatos thought bitterly. He had come to respect Maza, even like her spirited way. It did not seem right that she lay in a hospital facing possible death surrounded by strangers.
"Does Goliath know?" it was the only question Brooklyn could bring himself to ask in that moment.
"He does. Apparently Demona attacked her shortly after her car rolled down an embankment. It was fortunate that Goliath and Bluestone doubled back to look for her when she missed her check-in time. They prevented Demona from murdering the detective outright." Xanatos paused as if to compose himself. "I won't lie to you, her condition is grim."
"That night Demona was in the parking garage, she must have done something to Elisa's car." Lex voiced the thought that sprang to his mind.
"I agree, which is why I have a crew going over the detective's car looking for anything the police might have missed." Xanatos nodded and directed his answer toward the smaller gargoyle.
"Where is Bluestone? Is he bringing Goliath back? He'll want to see Elisa in case...," Broadway asked and could not finish the last. They all knew what he was getting at, but no one wanted to give voice to it.
"Aye, Goliath be in a bad way if somethin' happens to Elisa," Hudson finally put words to what everyone else had been thinking. "He be needin' his clan 'round him more th'n e'er."
/
It was nearly midnight when Bluestone and Goliath arrived at Manhattan General. Gargoyles might have become a reality to the world, but that did not mean they were accepted. The hospital staff refused to allow Goliath inside. They feared he would frighten the patients. As Elisa had yet to be moved to a more private location, he would have had to pass through the ER waiting room. He was informed they would be sure she was moved to a room with large enough windows to accommodated him. Until then, he was to remain outside and out of sight. It rubbed him the wrong way, but his hands were effectively tied.
So it was that the Wyvern Clan leader stood silent vigil on the rooftop. The wind pulled at his wings and hair, but he had no heart to answer its call. A deep sadness had settled over him. Matt had come in search of him a couple of times to update him on Elisa's condition. There was little change. The doctors called it a coma. They suspected it was a combination of traumas that had triggered. Her body's defense against the injuries of her doubled ordeal, they had claimed. They could not say when or even if she would awaken from it.
Matt had told him they were not even sure if she would survive the night. That little piece of information gnawed at him, tore at his heart in a way nothing else could. He could still lose her. How many time had her life been in danger because of him and his clan? He wandered then, would she have been better off if she had never met them? True, her job was dangerous. She might still face death if he were not apart of her life. Demona might never have had reason to attack her so many times over the years. She would have had no reason for her attempted murder the night before. He shook his head, dismissing the thought. She still would have faced many dangers without him. There were several instances he could recall that she might not have survived if he had not been there to save her. It was a tangled web of thought he was navigating with no right or wrong answers.
That night dragged into more than a week. Goliath barely left that rooftop during those long nights. He rarely ate as he remained steadfast in his vigil. The hospital staff had failed to move Elisa to a room with working windows. He was unable to enter her room. His only means of seeing her was through a large window that did not open. Then he had to glide down several floors and dig his talons into the cement wall near that window. It took great care to grab onto the same set of marks each time in order to prevent the structure from being weakened.
The clan hounded him to return to the castle, but he could not bring himself to leave. Bluestone made regular trips to the hospital and brought him updates on Elisa's condition. From time to time he also brought food and waited until the gargoyle had eaten at least a portion of it. Goliath decided Matt had missed his calling in those moments. The human could be quite the bully. The man should have been a rookery mother.
/
Owen Burnette stood staring curiously at the woman in the bed. She seemed so much smaller, less intimidating than the detective he had come to know. In a way, he had grown to respect her. She proved an interesting challenge to the puck within him. Never in his wildest imaginings had he ever thought there was more to her than a simple human. Now, however, he could smell it on her, the distinctive scent of Avalon's magic. The same sort of hybrid magic that Alexander possessed. Magic like that only made its presences known in times of great stress. Though the Maza woman had been in many such situations, never before had her life hung so delicately in the balance.
Puck had sensed her the moment her human life had been severed and though he could not interfere in human affairs, there were no such restrictions on him where the Fae were concerned. He had been collecting an artifact for Alexander's training out in the bay when he had felt the snap of a life's thread nearby. When he had realized it was Maza, he could not resist the urge to push her back toward the beach. It had taken some doing, but he had managed to entice the spark of magic within her enough to rekindle the flames of life. He had risked Oberon's wrath in doing so, but there was no doubt that it was a worthy cause. Once the lord of Avalon realized he had missed one of their blood, he might reward Puck.
"My but you are a strong one, aren't you? One wanders how the lord of Avalon missed you," Owen whispered as he brushed a stray strand of hair from Elisa's bandaged face. He raised his right hand to his lips and blew a faint green mist over the unconscious woman. "It's time, Miss Maza. WAKE UP!"
/
Green fire surrounded her from all around. She had drifted peacefully in a shell of nothingness until now. This fire she knew, it was Avalon's magic. Somehow this did not feel as if it came from an outside source. It felt as if it came from the same place as her intuition. This was hers, it was a part of her. She thought this might be some bizarre representation of her soul. Demona's words swam through her mind. She had called her a half-breed Fae. Could it be true? As the flames enclosed her and slowly collapsed inward, her mind seemed to explode.
/
The water was freezing and the surface was so far above her. She struggled toward it making next to no progress. Her lungs could take no more and the last breath she had sucked in on the surface exploded out of her. She tried not to inhale, fought it with ever ounce of her being...and lost. Her body shuddered, her lungs convulsed and the water rushed in. Drowning in sea water burned like hellfire. She lost her grip on reality, it spun away from her as blackness engulfed her. Thought ceased to exist. She did not know how long she drifted in darkness. It could have seconds or an eternity. Another presence touched her mind briefly an instant before the ocean surged and vomited her out onto the beach. A hand made of waves pounded her until the water poured from her lungs. She could feel the magic behind it all. It was something she had only ever been aware of as a tingling across the back of her neck. Now it raced over her nerve endings like a warm summer breeze, caressing her, encouraging her to seize the life that was slipping away. She could have pointed to the source in any direction it decided to move. Something within her answered its call and she shied away from it. She was a cop, she was human! How could she be aware of Avalon's magic? It just was not possible. And yet, she had been...
/
As the green flames drew closer, Elisa realized there was no escape. They surrounded her. The fire would consume her in seconds. These flames had surrounded her mind on a number of occasions and always before she had had an escape of sorts. She had been able to draw a sort of bubble around herself. Reaching for that part of herself, she found it missing. There was only the flame within her. She screamed as the bubble of fire collapsed in on her, searing her flesh, her bones, her very soul in its green light.
/
A scream ripped its way out of the depths of her chest as the detective sat bolt-upright in the bed. She panted with fear and reaction to the turmoil roiling through her very core. Wildly, she cast her eyes around the room, her head swiveling to allow her to take in her surroundings. Her eyes burned with a light that cast misty green over everything her sight fell upon. She shut them and firmly gripped the sides of her head. The fire no longer burned in her mind. Instead it washed her with a warm glow that seemed to sooth all her hurts at once. It felt similar to the bubble of calm she normally surrounded herself in, but different somehow. The flames had tucked themselves away in a corner of her mind, but would not vanish completely.
After a moment, she slowly opened her eyes again. The green light was gone. The world was slowly returning to normal around her. She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them in relief. What the hell is happening to me, she wandered. Why was she suddenly blasting green light out of her eyes like some comic book reject? Unless, she thought, Demona had been right. She needed answers and there was only one person she knew who could provide them: Puck.
/
Matt was about to step into the hospital room when he saw the green light flashing everywhere at once. Cautiously, he peeked around the door. When he saw the source of the light, his jaw nearly hit the floor. Elisa was awake and her eyes were glowing with green fire. She seemed as if she were in a panic when she grabbed her head and shut her eyes tightly. When she opened her eyes again, the light was gone.
Taking a breath to steady his nerves, Matt stepped through the door making sure his footfalls were slightly louder than normal. He did not want to startle her. Who could tell how she might react or what might happen. Her eyes snapped to his and he flinched before catching himself. He saw recognition cross her face and he knew a moment of relief. Whatever was happening to her, Elisa was still in there.
"How you feelin'?" he asked quietly.
"Like I was hit by a bus," she answered with a wan smile. Her expression changed slightly and she looked past him expectantly.
"They won't let him, said he'd scare the patients..," Matt explained as he realized who she was looking for.
Elisa snorted and threw her legs over the side of the bed. She pulled the blankets aside and was shocked to see a cast that went all the way up to the mid-thigh of her right leg. She looked up at Matt with the question clear in her eyes.
"Yeah, you were pretty banged up in the accident. Doc said it was a miracle you managed to take two steps on that." Matt explained, indicating the leg as he continued. "Dislocated knee, broken tibia, fractured fibula and a ton of strained muscle tissue. Doc says you're lucky it wasn't ripped off in the accident. "
"Figures... How long have I been here?" Elisa grumbled and carefully slid off the bed onto her good leg.
Matt rushed forward and tried to stop her. Instead he ended up supporting her as she gripped his shoulder. The cast ended at her ankle so she tested how much weight the leg would take. After a moment, she seemed satisfied and let go of him. Using the edge of the bed for support she made her way to a cabinet she knew would hold any clothing she might have left. When she reached in and grabbed the dufflebag that she had originally tossed into the trunk of her car, Matt bulked, holding up his hands.
"Just what do you think you're doing, Maza?" he snapped at her. "You've only been here a week. That leg is nowhere near ready to take the kind of weight you're trying to force on it!"
"I'm leaving. I have questions and there's only one person I know who has the answers. You can either help me or get out of my way." Elisa barked.
Neither of them had noticed the doctor stepping into the room. Now he made himself known, "Miss Maza, you really shouldn't be up on that leg. You've been in a nasty accident and clearly attacked by a gargoyle. I don't think leaving is a good idea."
"Too bad. I can't stay here...," she grumbled even as the doctor gently, but firmly pushed her back into a sitting position on the bed.
"At least let me take a look at that leg before your transport shows up," the man seemed perturbed with his own words.
"Transport? To where?" Matt suddenly asked.
"To the Eyrie building, Detective Bluestone," Owen answered as he stopped just outside the doorway. The room seemed a bit to crowded for his taste. "Miss Maza's transport is ready and waiting, doctor. I assure you, she shall receive the best care possible in the Eyrie infirmary."
The expressions that played across Elisa's face ranged from shock, to gratitude, to outrage seemingly all at once. "You're just the person I want to talk to..."
"You will, no doubt, require some information. I will be more than happy to answer any questions you may have once we are safely back within the walls of the Eyrie." Owen stressed his last words.
The meaning was not lost on Elisa. She knew the puck within him could not act unless he was training Alexander. If Oberon sensed his magic otherwise, there were bound to be consequences. She nodded her understanding.
Holding up a bra, she waved it like a flag before the three men. "I'd like to get dressed, if you boys don't mind. This hospital gown is drafty."
There were disgruntled mumbles from the men as they turned and vacated the room. In a matter of seconds, Elisa was alone and searching through the duffle for something loose. She silently thanked whoever had been thoughtful enough to retrieve the bag after the accident. Wiggling into a pair of sweats, she realized her jeans would not have fit over that cast even if they had been in one piece. Once dressed, it became painfully obvious that she was shy one boot and a coat. As she carefully eased herself down into the wheelchair that awaited her, Owen dumped a heavy coat into her lap along with a new pair of boots in her favorite style.
"Courtesy of Mr. Xanatos," he simply stated. "You're going to need them."
Elisa held back the complaint she was about to unleash as she squirmed into the coat. When she was wheeled to the elevator and saw him push the up button, she knew for sure what, or rather who, her transport was. Her heart tingled in anticipation. It felt like an eternity since she had been in his arms.
/
Goliath waited on the rooftop. Matt had come racing to him from the single door. With much huffing and puffing, the human had informed him that Elisa was awake and being transferred into Dr. Sato's care at the Eyrie building. The gargoyle was to be her means of getting there. There was more, but the man had been reluctant to continue.
When the door opened again, Owen Burnette was helping Elisa out onto the roof. Goliath wasted no time in rushing over to her. He took in the cast and other bandages sadly as she levered herself up out of the wheelchair onto her good leg. Delicately, he scooped her up into his arms as if she were made of glass. When she wrapped her arms around his neck he buried his face in her shoulder and inhaled deeply of her scent. It was her, but something was different. He could not quite put his talon on what it was. It did not matter. She was alive and awake, something the doctors had doubted would come to pass in the many nights since her accident. Now, she was anxious to get away from the hospital. In truth, they both were.
He did not realize tears were rolling down his cheeks when he raised his head to look into her eyes. There was a tender expression on her face as she gently wiped them away. "I'm ok, Goliath."
"You nearly died." he whispered back to her as he carried her toward the roof's edge.
"But I didn't," She paused, a look he could not read passing over her features, "Something happened, I don't know what, but I have a feeling Puck does."
"Puck!" Goliath spat the word. "What has he done now?"
"I think he might have saved my life," Elisa said soothingly.
A look of shock replaced the resentment that had been so evident on his face. "Then we shall find out what he knows when we return to the castle."
With that, Goliath stepped off the edge and snapped his wings wide to catch the currents of air. He held his heart's treasure close as the wind carried them high over the buildings. Perhaps one day soon, she will finally know what she truly means to me, he thought, My Angel of the Dawn.
/
More to come. Stay tuned.
