"Maza. Bluestone. Office. Now."

The harsh male voice barked the order one clipped word at a time above the general noise of the early evening shift changes.

Elisa and Matt had only just taken their seats at their desks when the shout had come, causing the two of them to glance at each other warily.

Captain Marcus Carlin was on loan to the 23rd precinct from a New York City location on the mainland while Captain Maria Chavez was out on maternity leave, and there wasn't a single person who wasn't counting the days until Maria came back.

Captain Carlin was the kind of by-the-book hard ass that made everyone cringe. Everything from wrong punctuation on reports to maintaining professional radio protocol language. He had even gone so far as to monitor internet usage as an excuse to yell at people for using the internet on their down time.

It had been almost four weeks, and somehow both Elisa and Matt had managed to stay off of his radar.

"Any ideas what we did?" Matt asked her.

"No," Elisa said, getting up from her chair. "You?"

"Nope," he said. "Not a clue."

"Sit," Captain Carlin snapped at them as they entered the office. He was sitting behind the desk, a pile of folders and papers littering Maria's normally organized desk.

Elisa mentally cringed at the mess that Maria was going to come back to.

As Elisa and Matt took a seat, he openly glared at the pair of them. "I have made it my personal mission in life to stay out of the whole gargoyle mess that you all have here in Manhattan. That being said," he growled, "I was just contacted by a pair of reporters from that City Watch Nightly program. It seems that they have information on a new gargoyle. They want the NYPD liaisons to the gargoyles to answer their questions."

Elisa frowned at him. "A new gargoyle?" she asked slowly.

"I didn't ask questions," he said, dismissively. "As the official liaisons between the gargoyles and humans, I'm passing this to you. Take care of it," he demanded, "And keep the NYPD out of it."

Matt and Elisa shared a brief look.

"Alright, captain," Matt said, getting to his feet.

"Here," Carlin said, passing the paper with the telephone number on it. "Call them and deal with this."

Elisa clenched her jaw so she could stay out of trouble. She rarely got in trouble by staying silent, and applied that theory now.

As she followed Matt back out to the bullpen, she huffed a breath. "How long until Maria comes back?"

"Three weeks," Matt looked at his watch, "two days and roughly twenty one hours."

Elisa groaned. Loudly.

"Do you want to call," Matt asked, waiving the paper, "Or should I?"

Elisa sent him a withering look.

"Right," he said, taking a seat at his desk. "I will call them now."

Matt was dialing the phone, when Elisa got the alert on her phone. Elisa looked at the small screen and frowned.

"Emergency. Call home when you can."

Elisa looked at Matt. "I've got to call home."

He waived for her to go ahead as he introduced himself to the person on the other end of his call.

Elisa dialed the condo and waited impatiently for the call to be picked up. After the mentally draining events of last night, Nayeli had collapsed into such a deep sleep that neither she nor Goliath had the heart to wake her. She'd had to return to the condo so that she'd have the things necessary for work the next day, so she'd gone back alone and left Nayeli with Goliath and Liam, as well as the rest of the clan. Skyler had gone with her to grab an overnight bag, and had returned to the castle after Elisa had finally gone to bed.

Elisa had laid there, staring at the ceiling, fears and doubts clouding her thoughts so that she hadn't had a whole lot of sleep before her alarm had sounded to wake her up.

What could have happened? And when had they returned to the condo?

The telephone was answered after two rings.

"Elisa?" Skyler asked, sounding a bit breathless.

"Yeah," she said. "What's wrong?"

"Something happened this afternoon," Skyler began. "If you can come by, both Liam and Nayeli are really upset."

"Uh, sure," Elisa said, glancing at the clock on the wall. "Just give me about…"

"Elisa," Matt called, her red jacket in his hands. "We've got a situation, and we need to go out for a bit."

Elisa frowned at him. "Hold on Skyler," she lowered the phone to muffle the conversation. "Sorry, Matt. What?"

He shoved her coat at her. "We need to go," he said quietly, his voice insistent. "Somewhere we can talk. Now."

Without hesitation, Elisa lifted her phone again. Tucking it between her ear and shoulder, she hurried to slip her arms into her red bomber jacket. "Skyler, Matt's with me, but we're coming now."

She hung up the phone and hurried out the door of the precinct. Digging her keys out from her coat pocket, sped up just enough to keep up with Matt's long legged stride.

"Tell me," Elisa demanded, unlocking her red Ford Fairlane.

Matt sighed, climbing into the low car, closing the door as he did so. "Are we going to your condo?"

"Yeah. Something's wrong with my kids," Elisa said shortly.

"Then they're at home?" he asked.

"Yes," Elisa answered slowly as she pulled out into traffic.

"Why don't we wait to talk until we get there?" he suggested.

"Fine," Elisa said, wishing she could use the lights and sirens for personal use and get home faster.

"Liam is there, too?" Matt asked cautiously.

"Yeah," Elisa said with a frown. "Does all this have something to do with the kids?" Elisa asked.

"Yes," Matt said reluctantly. "I'll tell you the full story when we get to your place."

Elisa tried taking three deep breaths, then huffed out a harsh breath.

"Screw it," Elisa muttered, and flipped on her lights and siren. If her kids were in some kind of trouble, and it had something to do with that damn City Watch Nightly show, then that made this technically police business.

As the cars ahead of them began to move out of the way, Elisa wove her way expertly through and managed to make it home in a fraction of the time.