Impress Me
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Chapter 7 – Secrets
The moon shone through the vault of the heavens, gleaming and glistening. A few clouds brushed by overhead, carried by cool winds on a warm night. Below there were the sounds of the street, but above were nocturnal wings.
Angela met Haven in Morningside Park, finding her swimming in the pool. "Swimming is your thing, huh?"
"It's how I clear my head. I swam all the time back home." Angela helped her out of the water, "So are you ready?"
"I don't know why you still come. This is never going to work no matter how hard you try." Haven stated but Angela wasn't buying this act, "Then why did you meet me here? You can't convince me that you don't want to try when you're being this cooperative."
Haven hung and het out a sigh, her arms going limp. She really didn't want to keep going through this every night but the alternative would get her nowhere. Angela led her through the trees and to the edge of a baseball field where she pushed Haven up to the back fence, "Climb this."
She looked at her like she was losing her faculties but she gave Haven a reassuring smile. The loftiness of the fence was daunting but she fought to only focus on climbing since her feet didn't exactly fit like tennis shoes would through the links. Haven looked over the side hesitantly. "You can do this." Angela whispered. Haven swallowed hard and nodded, "I can do this. I can…Can't! Definitely can't!"
"You're right at the top." Angela yelled up to her. Haven was beginning to understand why Angela kept meeting her here at the baseball field. The fence hung over the Catcher's Box, forcing her to look down to see where her hands and feet were going. So now she was at the top and it only took 6 nights but her heart was still racing and she could hardly stand it. Angela joined her up there so Haven popped her question, "So now what?"
"We sit here until you're used to it. Want to talk about anything?" Haven tried to turn onto her back to talk but Angela was a strict coach and stared her down until she turned back on her stomach. She tried not to look straight down but her peripheral vision still caught the sight. Haven picked the first topic, "So how much of that night did you hear?"
Angela sighed; knowing what she was implying, "All of it. I won't ask though. Not unless you want to share it." Haven shook her head, "It's been years since I've had an incident."
"Is that why you were avoiding Kale?" Haven nodded, "How is he?" Angela sat up, "I haven't seen him around since the night you left. But then I could be getting back in after he's asleep."
"Don't get any ideas." Her words drew Angela's attention, "You may be making progress with all this but that's one thing I can't allow you to get involved in." Angela nodded in agreement, "I understand. Ready to move on to the other exercises?"
In two more nights, Haven was getting used to climbing to the top so Angela went through how to use her wing to gain lift and speed, make turns, and land from greater altitudes. Haven tried again and again to glide properly, but she made poor turns and even worse landings. However this time, three curious teens followed Angela, "We wouldn't be spying on them, exactly. We'd…just be making sure they're safe." Broadway explained.
"Yeah, the city can be a very dangerous place at night. They might need our help." agreed Lexington. Brooklyn groaned, knowing that his brothers sadly weren't That noble and that he wasn't much better himself. The three landed quietly, taking their places into the shadow of the bushes. The first thing they saw was Haven hesitating to climb to the top of the back fence on the field and hesitate more when leaping off, following Angela's instructions.
"Who knew she couldn't glide very well." Broadway announced. "Come to think of it," Lexington added, "Has any of us actually seen her glide before?"
"But if she didn't know how, why didn't she tell Goliath when we went after Demona? We're her friends, aren't we? Why'd she keep it a secret?" Broadway asked. "Maybe we stuck our noses into something we shouldn't." Brooklyn inquired.
Lexington nodded in accordance, "I agree, not knowing how to glide as a gargoyle is pretty embarrassing." Broadway tried to picture it for a while; a fish not knowing how to swim came to mind. "You're right. I don't think I'd tell anyone either. But how come Angie knows?"
"Angela's a smart gargoyle." Brooklyn interrupted, "She probably picked up on the things we didn't."
The practice went on for another hour before the girls decided to take a break. "This is hopeless." Haven affirmed. Angela nodded in agreement. "You're right. You haven't climbed to impressive heights all on your own once and there's been no improvement with your gliding at all."
Haven furrowed her eye muscles, as sarcasm wasn't a foreign concept to her. Angela snickered then frowned curiously, "I never asked how this happened to you…"
"And don't. The last time I shared a story, an eavesdropper probed it and hasn't let me off about it since." Angela looked away, "I apologized…"
"You did," Haven agreed, "And now Hudson knows…" Angela grabbed the back of her neck, "At least Brooklyn doesn't know."
Haven faced Angela's remark with curiosity, "What does Brooklyn have to do with this?" The boys listened in closely to Angela, "Well, he likes you." Broadway and Lexington looked back at Brooklyn. Brooklyn who had, up until this point, wanted to stay out of their business listened the closest. Thankfully, it was too dark in those bushes to tell that the natural hue of red in his cheeks suddenly got darker.
"I know." she countered bluntly. This bit of info beguiled the trio. Angela urged her to continue, "So~…"
"So what? I don't know how to feel about him. I think it's cute how nervous he gets and I really appreciated the stunt he pulled with the roses and in the kitchen, but I can't get involved." she conveyed while hugging one leg close to herself.
"If I do develop feelings for him, I…" With that, Brooklyn hopes returned but they didn't have a chance to get far. In that instant, a rustle came from the bushes and footsteps were fast approaching. Their attention was drawn to the sound. Suddenly, they saw Kale running just a short distance away. "Kale!" Haven called. Kale heard and stopped in his tracks. Haven and Angela rushed to him, "What are you doing here?"
They gave him a moment to catch his breath, "That lady in the red jacket found out who I was and chased after me. I'm not going back to dad until I find my mom!" he bellowed.
"It's okay, Kale. I'm sure she just wanted to help. Calm down." Angela comforted the boy gently until Haven took hold of her shoulder and led them into the darkness. She was on edge as she looked beyond them. "What is it?" Angela asked. Haven never averted her eyes, "Isn't that the gargoyle we were chasing a week ago?"
They all looked to the direction she faced. It was Demona. She seemed especially suspicious as she hurried silently through the shrubbery, checking again and again to see if she was followed. "Kale, stay here." Angela ordered. "But…" he tried to object but Haven back Angela up. "No but's, stay where it's safe."
They left him hiding in the shadows of the shrubbery and quietly moved closer to investigate where Demona was going. She stopped over a large stone in the ground interrupting the flow of grass and chanted whatever Latin witchery was necessary to make it move. Behind it, an ancient staircase revealed itself to her. She took no time to descend down into the deep, dark tunnel below.
Kale slumped down against a tree, folding his arms and building up a sulking expression. The trio took note of all this; Brooklyn sending Broadway back to warn Goliath of what's going on while he and Lexington followed after the girls.
In the darkness, Demona had lit a torch for light. Angela and Haven stayed well behind and followed that light as a beacon of her position. It was a fairly long tunnel so the boys were lost in the dark most of the way, as was Kale who decided to follow all of them anyway. At the end of the tunnel, Demona crossed upon a stone door. With her mystifying Latin words, the door opened unto her.
Inside was a room, empty of anything with the exception of an artifact worthy of the adorning alter that it rested upon. It was a dual-bladed dagger encased within a mauve crystal with the mark of an ancient seal. "The Fulgorite Dagger, finally. With this and the Crest of the Fallen together, I can destroy humanity at last. First I'll have to break the seal."
"She's going to try to destroy the humans again." Angela whispered. "Again?" Haven examined, "Is this a regular thing for her?"
"Yes. She has an undying hatred for humans." Angela replied. Haven half chuckled, "Been there." At that moment, they were interrupted. "She must be stopped." Haven and Angela gasped loudly on sight of the sudden Brooklyn and Lexington in the dim light.
"What are you doing here?" Haven asked in an agitated whisper. Before they knew it, the torch light was brighter now as it grew closer. "Yes…" added the 'demon', "I was just wondering the same thing."
(A/N) SOOOOOO, I got to a certain point and had a realization: Do gargoyles have eye brows? In many cases the answer is no, the only exception I've seen being the horse-like London gargoyle. So I looked at my character and sure enough, she had eyebrows so I took a few hours to fix it...my OCD nature kicking in when I don't need it to. But the night is still young so I can do more and should have chapters 8, 9, and 10 done without further interruptions.
Go to my deviantArt page to see the updated Haven. I gave her an earring, fixed the eyebrow problem, and made the wings a little larger. My sister's a budding animator and she drew the original but I upgraded it and changed quite a bit. I've never taken an art class to learn how to do this stuff so I'll ask for help from time to time but the more recent ones and some of the old ones are purely my work...A~nd then there's that one I just cheated on all together. The link is below, copy and paste, delete the space, and don't forget the dot-com. And enjoy.
xai16. deviantart
/gallery/33636029
