"Wait," Elisa burst out, shaking her head. "It's been a wild night for me, so...run this by me again?"
"We made a copy," Xanatos patiently repeated. "We had an exact replica of Pandora's box created, and will store it at an outside location. I let it slip to a few…shall we say, shady associates from my colorful past, and we wait for Apate to try to steal it."
"And why wouldn't she, because she's stolen every other box from tightly secured locations?" Elisa asked, more to herself than anyone in the actual room.
"Precisely," Xanatos said with a smirk. "But it will be our fake, and allow us to track her with this." He held up a small round device, similar to the one she'd pulled from Goliath's shoulder years ago. "We follow her and catch her before she can figure out that it's a fake."
"As much as it pains me to admit," Elisa said, shaking her head and looking down, "this is a good idea. I just wish the timing could have been better," she said, glancing at the double doors leading to the courtyard.
"Agreed," Xanatos said. "But we will make the most of the time that we have before the storm hits."
"Easy for you to say," Elisa said with a sigh. "It's all hands on deck until this thing hits."
Xanatos nodded, then moved to sit at his desk. "We should get started," He said, and motioned for Elisa to sit in one of the chairs. For a few minutes, the only sound in the room was a combination of computer keyboard keys clacking and the clicks of the mouse as Xanatos moved to put his plan in action.
"You've already told the clan, right?" Elisa finally asked.
"Of course," Xanatos said. "They are behind it all. They asked me to bring you up to date as soon as you got in if it was after sunrise."
"Alright," Elisa said, standing and stretching, her arms reaching towards the ceiling. "Then, while you get all of this started, I'm going to try to grab some sleep. I'll have my phone on me, or you can send one of the kids to come wake me up."
Xanatos nodded, but said nothing as he focused on the task at hand.
Elisa, knowing that some of what he was doing was going to be tap dancing in a grey area where the law was concerned, decided it was better if she did not ask questions.
Plausible deniability and all that.
She sighed, making her way through the silent halls of the castle. For the last few months, ever since she'd first been contacted by Pandora, the residents of the castle…well, the human residents anyway… had become almost completely nocturnal in order to work in tandem with the Gargoyles. With the exceptions of Xanatos (who never seemed to need a human level of sleep) and Owen (who apparently never actually needed to sleep at all), those in the castle were asleep. Because of the possibility of Apate hunting Elisa down, it had been decided that Elisa, the kids and Skyler were to move into the castle until the whole situation was resolved.
One way or another, Elisa sighed. She'd tried to fight it, insisted that she could take care of everyone, but reason and a mother's instinct to protect her children as well as a healthy dose of Goliath Guilt had changed her mind.
So… they were, once again, living at the castle.
Elisa moved to the doors of her room and gently opened the door. Cagney was confined to her room and had a bad habit of sleeping at the base of the door. She'd discovered this when, a few days ago, she'd opened it a little too quickly and spent the better part of an hour soothing the ruffled fur of a very startled and irritated cat.
She spotted Cagney sleeping in the center of the bed, and sighed in relief. She went inside and closed the door quietly but firmly behind her.
She'd just take a nap, she assured herself. A power nap to help her recharge before the sun began to set.
Elisa toed her boots off, removed her jacket and shoulder holster, before tucking her gun away in the bedside table.
She changed into an old NYPD shirt and a pair of soft cotton shorts before sliding carefully into the bed so that she didn't disturb Cagney. With that completed, Elisa closed her eyes, felt her body begin to relax and drifted off.