LIFE GOES ON
Revelations of the Labyrinth, Part II (Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?)
By Kimberly T.
(Author's Note: I'm not going to get into any "pro-life/pro-choice" arguments, okay? I just deduced from watching various episodes that, whatever's Elisa's opinion on the subject may be, gargoyles in general would definitely be "pro-life", if for no other reason than that they themselves can breed only once every couple decades. --KYT)
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"You're pregnant?" Goliath's face split in a wide grin as he looked at Maggie and Derek, who were still sitting dazed in the bathroom, staring at the test stick. "That's wonderful news!"
Maggie finally found her voice, but it was a soft and uncertain voice, with overtones of fear. "Is it?"
Goliath frowned puzzledly. "Of course! New life is always a cause for rejoicing."
"Not always, Big Guy," Elisa said worriedly. "But… Maggie, didn't you tell me once you'd always dreamed of having a family?"
"Yes…" Then Maggie started laughing, and the laughter had a definite hysterical edge to it. "Oh, yes! A good husband, a home of my own, and a little boy and girl to raise, that's what I've always wanted! But what have I got? FUR AND WINGS! And a hole in the ground to live in, and a boyfriend with fur and wings as well, who just got me pregnant with WHAT THE HELL AM I GOING TO HAVE?" she screamed out, causing everyone to flinch back. Then she collapsed into tears, sobbing into her hands.
"Maggie…" Derek whispered, reaching out to her, but his hand stopped short, trembling, before withdrawing to his lap again. His ears were laid back in distress, his eyes glistening with tears of grief and shame as he hung his head.
Once more, Elisa silently damned both Xanatos and Dr. Anton Sevarius to a cold and lonely grave. Then she said slowly, "Maggie… If you really don't want to have this kid, whatever it will be… I know of a discreet doctor, who could--" she stopped when she felt a heavy hand on her shoulder.
She turned to see Goliath looking at her with such a look of anger and disgust on his face as she'd never seen before, except when he was talking about Sevarius himself. "I am going to try very hard to forget you ever said anything," he growled at her, before pushing past her to get down on one knee before Maggie, taking one of her hands in both of his huge ones. "Maggie, listen to me, please. Whatever this child will be, whether human or mutate, it's a life to be cherished, and it will have a home among my clan if nowhere else. Grant this child life, and if you cannot bear to raise it, then we will, I promise you."
Everyone stared at him wide-eyed, and Maggie whispered, "You will?"
"Yes! A child with wings would be like a hatchling to us, and there is no greater blessing! Even if it's born without wings, we cherish all life, and would be happy to raise it as best we can."
"Um, Big Guy, aren't you forgetting something?" Elisa asked. "Such as the minor fact that you're stone all day?"
"Then we'll find a nanny for the daylight hours!" Goliath said impatiently. "By the Dragon, Xanatos owes both us and you at least that much!"
Derek jerked his head up at that last sentence, growling. "Like Hell I'm letting any kid of mine have anything to do with Xanatos." Then he got off his butt and shouldered Goliath aside, to kneel in front of Maggie and hold her hand. "Maggie, I know we didn't plan this, but I love kids too, and I swear I'll love whatever our kid turns out to be. And maybe I'm not your idea of a perfect guy, but I love you, and… Maggie, will you marry me? Please?" he said plaintively, while Maggie stared at him wide-eyed.
"Hold on, don't answer him yet!" Elisa said hastily, as she all but shoved Goliath out the bathroom door with her. "Give us five seconds to get clear, and we'll give you some privacy. See you later, we're going to the main kitchen!"
Goliath almost balked and dug in his heels at being shoved around so abruptly, but Elisa knew just where to jab her nails to get him to move his tail with all due speed. Once they were out in the corridor, he said querulously, "If he asked her in front of us, why can't she answer him in front of us?"
"Because if she says no, Derek will feel humiliated, and he wouldn't want us to be there to see it. And if she says yes, he'll probably take her back to bed to celebrate, and I wouldn't want us to be there to see it."
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So they waited in the kitchen. While wanting to give them privacy, Elisa was also determined to stay until she heard what Maggie's answer was, because she knew her mother and father would tear strips off her if she didn't give them a full report when she met them for dinner the next night. After nearly half an hour of waiting, while they made small talk with the other Labyrinth residents who were still awake, Goliath sighed heavily, acknowledging to himself that tonight just wasn't going to go as planned. And he'd had such delightful plans for a night of pleasure with his beloved, too; and they had most emphatically not included spending this much time with the residents down here, discussing their problems with city officials and his clan's problems with the Quarrymen.
It rather appeared that whatever answer Maggie had given, Derek was not rushing out to share it with them. Goliath glanced sideways at Elisa, as she listened to a rather incoherent statement from one of the residents, and wondered if he could persuade her to leave with him now and come back for the answer later. Since she seemed to be a bit embarrassed by "PDA's" and public talk about mating, he'd have to be subtle about it. But that could be even more fun… He wiped the momentary wicked grin from his face before she could see it, then folded his hands in plain view on top of the table. But underneath the table, his tail slowly inched towards her seat…
Elisa suddenly gasped and stiffened in her seat, but before the man she had been talking to could say anything about it, the door swung open and two of the clones charged in, loudly but good-naturedly arguing with each other about who'd brought home the most meat so far tonight.
"Eight rats!" Malibu said loudly, swinging his sack in the air. "You got only seven, we both counted!"
"But mine's bigger!" and Hollywood dumped his catch of the night on the table to illustrate. "See?" Only then did he notice the two new people sitting at the table, namely Goliath and Elisa.
Elisa swallowed hard, looking decidedly green at the sight of the bloody rat carcasses dumped almost in her lap. Goliath just sighed and closed his eyes, knowing that it was definitely not his lucky night. Hollywood swallowed nervously at the sight of Goliath, then brightened and picked up the biggest rat in the pile, and held it out to him hopefully. "Present?"
Goliath suppressed another sigh and slapped a polite smile on his face. "Thank you; I accept. A clean kill," as he took it and looked it over with a critical eye. "And I'd say it weighs at least ten pounds; a good-sized one indeed." Hollywood beamed and thrust his already massive chest out even further. "Since we seem to be staying here for a while longer," as he smiled sweetly at a still greenish Elisa, "I will add this rat you have given me to the rest for cooking, and we will all eat together." And if he had any paper money on him, he'd bet it all that Elisa would find a really good reason to leave before dinner was ready, whether or not Derek and Maggie showed themselves again.
"Is good!" Hollywood and Malibu agreed, as they sat cross-legged on the floor and began skinning the rats they'd brought.
Goliath eyed the way they were clumsily skinning the rats for a minute or two, then couldn't stand it any longer and stood up. "Here, let me show you." He sat cross-legged beside Malibu and grabbed an unskinned rat from the pile. "Watch closely; this is the easiest and fastest way." And within seconds, his talons had both skinned and gutted the rat, and even broken the joints to make it easier to stuff in the pot later.
Malibu and Hollywood looked intently at his work, then tried to duplicate it. Malibu did his next rat in less than half the time it had taken to do his first one, and his chest also swelled with Goliath's praise. "Keep practicing, both of you, and soon you'll be able to do them as fast as the best of my clan," Goliath said as he got up and went back to where Elisa was still sitting. "Broadway can skin, gut and joint his rat kills in less than eight seconds! We timed him once," he said to Elisa in an aside. For some reason, she did not seem duly impressed by that fact.
Just a minute or two later, Dana and Claw showed up. Dana's sweatshirt had a few new tears in it, Claw's fur was in serious need of grooming, and both of them seemed embarrassed to find so many people smiling knowingly at them. But Dana just shrugged and headed for the kitchen counter, hunger overcoming her embarrassment, and Claw reluctantly joined her.
Just a few minutes after that, Derek came into the kitchens and asked where they'd hidden the tins of smoked oysters. "At least it's not pickles and ice cream she's craving!" he said with a grin, as he grabbed a tin and prepared to head back out.
Elisa literally pounced on him, grabbing his left wing and bracing her feet to keep him from going any farther. "You're not leaving this room until you tell me what the answer was!" Claw and Dana stared at her, then shrugged at each other, not having been filled in on the secret yet.
Derek blinked at her innocently and asked, "Answer to what?"
"Derek!"
"Oh, that. She said yes," he said off-handedly. Then he couldn't hold it in any longer and grabbed Elisa, spinning her around and whooping for joy. "She said yes! We're getting married! I don't know how yet, but we're getting married!"
"That's great, Derek!" Elisa said as soon as he set her down. "Listen, instead of me going to our parents' house for dinner, why don't you and Maggie come to my place right after sunset, and I'll cook dinner for everybody while you tell them the good news?" When Derek agreed, she said brightly, "Great! My fridge is almost empty, so I'm going to the grocery store right now to buy some things for the dinner and bake a cake to celebrate ahead of time, so sorry I can't stick around for supper here but I've gotta run!"
Goliath and Derek's eyes met in perfect understanding and mutual wry amusement as Elisa hurriedly grabbed her jacket and headed out the door. Yes, she'd do anything, even cook dinner for her parents and bake a cake, to avoid the rat stew.
Goliath made his apologies to the clones for not staying for dinner as well, and followed Elisa up to the surface. The night still had several hours left to it, and he had hopes of salvaging some of his plans for their night together. But after they had ascended a few levels towards the surface, the communicator strung around Goliath's neck began squawking. At first they heard mostly static, but after going up another level, they were able to make out Hudson's voice, saying in a tired monotone between surges of static, "Call Goliath. Lad, if you me, I'd appreciate "
Goliath thumbed the transmitter switch, and said, "Goliath here. What's happened, Hudson?"
"Goliath!" Hudson roared back. "Lad, where you? What's and Elisa?"
Hudson sounded near-frantic; something must be seriously wrong. "Wait 'till I'm closer to you, and try again!" Goliath shouted into his communicator before dropping to all fours and galloping for the surface at full speed. "Elisa, head for home and I'll see you there later!" he shouted over his shoulder.
Elisa ran after him, even though she knew she'd never catch up; Goliath was in full gallop mode, and nobody on two legs could keep up with a gargoyle in a real hurry. "I'll call you from my car set; let me know what's happened!" she shouted after him.
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Delilah was still at her post at the entrance to the Labyrinth, keeping watch over Elisa's car, when Goliath thundered past her so fast she was almost bowled over. Startled, she reflexively took a swing at him, but he dodged it without breaking stride, burst out the entrance and galloped right up the nearest wall, digging all four sets of talons into the brick at top speed, and launched as soon as he was high enough to catch a strong breeze under his wings. Only when he was in the air did he finally grab for the communicator again, to cut into Hudson's nearly nonstop demands for information and say, "I've been underground, in the Labyrinth! Elisa is safe, but what's been happening with the clan!"
"Quarrymen!" Hudson growled back at him. "They've got new weapons now, a device that shoots out electrified nets! They snagged Lexington with one, and Brooklyn barely got him away before those scurvy rats could beat him to death with their hammers. We first tried to contact you to warn you about the nets over an hour ago; with no response at all, even when Broadway went to Elisa's apartment, we've been fearing the worst!"
"I'm sorry, old friend," Goliath apologized sincerely, while inwardly cursing at the abysmal timing of his trip with Elisa, being out of contact with his clan when they needed him. "I didn't realize the communicators wouldn't penetrate to the heart of the Labyrinth. How is Lexington, is he badly hurt?"
"Hurt he was, but he'll live till sunrise. We were fair worried about him for a while there, but he woke up just a few minutes ago, and he can answer questions and count how many talons we're holding up. He's got some nasty burns from the net, though, we've been trying to find the medical kit for him, to ease his pains a bit until sunrise. I don't suppose ye know where it's kept?"
"No, unfortunately. Why can't Xanatos or Owen find it for you?"
"The entire family left for a vacation this last morning, lad; mother, father, babe, and their Fey nanny with them." Ever since the revelation of Owen Burnett's true nature, and Puck's binding by Oberon to use his powers only to protect and teach Alex, Hudson liked to subtly tease Owen by calling him that. So far, Owen had done nothing more than give him a chilling glance in return, but Goliath was half-fearing that Hudson would find himself the subject of Alex's next magic lesson. "Xanatos said they were going to the Bahamas, wherever that is; I gather 'tis a bit warmer there than New York is right now. Ye left just moments before he came and told us last night, and it wasna an emergency, so we didna bother ye with it at the time."
"Guys, it's me, I'm in the car now," Elisa's voice broke in. "What's happened?" Hudson filled her in, and when he was finished she said decisively, "Bring Lex to my apartment; I've got stuff for burns in my first aid kit."
Nearly the entire clan ended up converging on Elisa's apartment in ones and twos, splitting up while still blocks away and approaching from different angles; these nights, paranoia was a good thing. Lex came in carried in Broadway's arms, gritting his teeth against the pain from the burns crisscrossing his back, arms and wings. Elisa used the entire tube of burn ointment on him, slathering it on every electrical burn as she commented, "It's a good thing you guys are way tougher than the average human. The average man would probably still be comatose after that kind of attack." Or just plain dead; she did not say it but everyone knew it without her saying.
"Right now, being comatose doesn't sound too bad," Lex groaned, but he felt better almost immediately as the salve cooled and eased the pain of his burns. "Gahhh… Those rotten Quarrymen. Here we were trying to save a lady from a mugging, and they started firing at us as we glided past! I hope the lady got away from that guy with the knife… or at least didn't get hurt by him," he sighed, before scowling again. "Why are they picking on us, anyway? What are they all, reincarnated Vikings or something?"
"Now, that's a nasty thought," Hudson said with a wince. "Just the one ghost with Wolf was bad enough!"
"Talon has speculated that they may have ties to Tony Dracon," Goliath rumbled as he scowled. "But if so, Dracon has acquired far more information about our way of life than I had believed he knew. For now, describe that new weapon to us again."
They did, Lexington even drawing a sketch on a pad of paper of what he and Brooklyn had seen of it; it looked a little like a hand-held rocket-launcher, though with a longer projection tube that flared wide at one end. The electrified nets it shot out were roughly the width of Brooklyn's wingspan. The shot fired by the Quarrymen hadn't been dead on target, but the net had fanned out from the projectile head and slapped against Lexington as it shot past, and its electrical charge had knocked him unconscious. If Brooklyn hadn't caught him before he'd hit the ground and whisked him out of their reach, he would likely be dead by now. Apparently, though, the net-launchers only fired one shot before needing reloading, and they weren't as ubiquitous as the Quarryhammers yet; only one of these new weapons had been in use in that pack, and Brooklyn had glimpsed and heard one Quarrymen exhorting another to load a new net in as he got away. "But even one shot can be enough," Lexington growled as he examined the crisscrossing burns on his left side. The others had to agree with him.
Goliath sighed heavily, then decided it was time for some good news. When he said as much to the clan, they brightened and looked at him and Elisa with expectant expressions. "And what could that be, I wonder?" Hudson said with seeming innocence, much as Derek had earlier.
"My brother and Maggie are having a baby!" Elisa said hurriedly, before Goliath could announce anything else. "And they're getting married soon, though they haven't worked out the details yet."
"A baby mutate?" Brooklyn perked up, even though it hadn't been the news they'd been waiting for. "D'you suppose it'll have wings, too?"
"That'd be almost like having a hatchling around," Lex said wistfully. He'd assisted in the rookery a lot in the old days at Wyvern, before he'd qualified as a warrior, and as much as he enjoyed playing with and acting as 'night nurse' to Alex lately, the kid simply didn't have wings; there'd be no gliding and hunting lessons to teach in the near future. But a baby version of Derek or Maggie would be a whole different story… "When will it hatch, I mean be born?"
"We don't know yet; Maggie just found out tonight that she's expecting."
" 'Tis good to hear of new life being made, especially tonight," Hudson agreed. "Now, as I recall, it takes nine months to birth a human child, though there's no long wait afterwards for it to break its shell and take its first breath." He grinned. "That still gives us some time to make a few playthings for it, to welcome it to the world!"
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Later on, just an hour before dawn, Claw found himself Topside and looking at the building in front of him with mingled awe, suspicion and worry. Dana, also in front of him, was tugging impatiently on his hand, trying to get him to step out of the alley and cross the street. She signed at him that there was nothing to fear, but he wasn't so sure of that. He didn't know this neighborhood, not to mention that he always felt exposed outside the Labyrinth. He hadn't been out since the last time he'd taken the clones out for exercise (an exercise in frustration, since he couldn't shout after the clones when they started wandering off. He'd finally caught up with Malibu just moments before he would have landed in the middle of Times Square.)
Dana finally got fed up with him, and signed for him to Stay there! Then she hurried across the street, and disappeared into the large church on the corner. Claw waited anxiously for her to come out, wishing he'd insisted on knowing just what she'd wanted him to come up here for. But noooo, she signed that she wanted to surprise him… He hated surprises. He'd never much liked them before, but the last big surprise he'd gotten had been a furry hide and a pair of wings. Why, oh why had he let her talk him into this? Stupid question; because he was hopelessly in love with her, and she was the first woman to love him in return, ever. Even as an ordinary human, he'd never had a real girlfriend, just blind dates arranged by buddies and coworkers that had rarely resulted in second or third dates. He just couldn't believe that this vibrantly beautiful woman was actually interested in him, furry hide and wings and all. He kept wanting to pinch himself, then deciding against it, because if he really was just dreaming all this, then he didn't want to wake up.
If he wasn't still sporting a collection of bruises and cuts from his fight with Fang last night, he wouldn't believe it had happened at all. He'd never actually fought like that before, ever. When he'd been fighting the gargoyles, way back when, he'd been scared halfway out of his mind the entire time, firing off electrical blasts just to make sure that nobody came close enough to hurt him. When Fang had tried to take over the Labyrinth last year, Claw had gone along with him because Fang was a tough guy, who knew how to fight and wasn't afraid to kick anybody's butt. But last night, when he'd seen him threatening Dana… He didn't really remember the fight; it was like somebody else had been running his body for him, from the moment he saw Dana in Fang's grip. There was just a blur of fangs and snarls and punches, that stopped when Goliath had grabbed his hand, to keep him from ripping the unconscious Fang's throat out.
Then Dana had come running up, signing that he was her hero, and they'd gone to his room, and they'd actually… really… had sex! They'd made love, gone all the way, hit the home run, whatever you want to call it, and it had been FANTASTIC! If it meant that Dana was perverted for wanting to make love to a guy with fur and wings, he didn't care, because at long last he'd actually made love to a real woman, and it was a hundred times better than just doing it by hand had ever been. No, he definitely didn't want to wake up! Not when there was a chance that he could dream of Dana and him doing that again!
Daydreaming about having Dana in his arms again, he almost didn't notice when she came back out of the church until she was halfway across the street. And she had a strange man with her! He shrank back into the shadows, but she came right for him, almost dragging the other guy by the hand.
The strange man had obviously dressed in a hurry. He was also wearing an eyepatch over one eye, and sporting a priest's collar under his mis-buttoned shirt. He looked as bewildered as Claw felt, though not apparently apprehensive. Claw blinked when he got a closer look at the eyepatch; it had a little smiley face on it, of all things! Dana stopped the man—the priest--once they reached the sidewalk, then walked boldly into the alley and grabbed Claw by a hand, dragging the reluctant mutate out into the dim light from the street lamps.
The priest's one eye nearly popped out of his head, and he muttered to himself, "Dear Lord, she wasn't exaggerating at all!" But he quickly composed himself, and began signing. Hello, I am Father S-u-l-l-
Claw decided to take a chance, and interrupted him with a fast signed, I can hear. Not speak, but hear.
The priest blinked again, then said out loud, "Well then, I am Father Sullivan. Dana, child, I trust you can still read my lips well enough?" When Dana nodded, he turned partway to face Claw again and said hesitantly, "Dana has informed me that you are human, er, despite your appearance?"
Claw signed, Yes. Scientist, experiment, changed me and others. All have wings, fur, fangs.
"Our Father in Heaven," Father Sullivan breathed in horror, his eyes wide. "H-how many?"
Four survived. Claw tried hard not to think about the ones he'd seen in their cages and spread out on the tables when he'd first been mutated. When Sevarius had finished with him, he'd been left with fur and wings but without a human voice, but he knew all too well that he could have been a lot worse off. At least he could still walk upright, he could still use his hands, and he didn't spend every waking minute silently screaming in pain… By the time Fang had arrived and been mutated and caged next to him, Dr. Sevarius had deemed the others as failed experiments, and… disposed of them. Every once in a while, Claw thought about telling the others about what he'd seen, if only to get them to stop asking him why he kept having nightmares. But all it would do is cause them to hate Sevarius and Xanatos even more, and what good would that do?
Father Sullivan echoed out loud, "Four survived. Oh, my… Who did this—no, I won't ask that. I am a priest now, and Vengeance is the Lord's," he said half to himself. Then he squared his shoulders, and asked Claw, "My son, are you a good Catholic?"
Despite the fact that he was 'talking' to a priest, that was absolutely the last question Claw had been expecting, and he just stood there with his mouth hanging open like an idiot for a good five seconds before signing, L-u-t-h-e-r-a-n.
"Ah. Well, I'm not opposed to interfaith marriages; I've performed a few in the last few years, and—yes, Dana?" he asked, because Dana had jumped between them, blushing furiously and signing so fast her hands were almost a blur. "Oh, I see! I misunderstood earlier; you want me to marry two other changed people to each other!" He blinked, blushed and muttered to himself, "Stuck your foot in it again, didn't you, Johnny boy?"
Dana, in the meantime, had turned to Claw and was quickly signing that she'd tried to tell the priest about Maggie and Derek, but he'd misunderstood because she'd said earlier in the confessional that she was in love with a 'changed person', and how she wasn't trying to pressure him into anything, really, and…
Claw reached out and gently grasped her hands; he'd gotten the idea. He was blushing beneath his fur, not that anyone could tell, but he also was filled with a sudden wild energy, a craziness a little like what he'd felt last night, and this time he went with what it suggested knowingly, and most willingly. He signed to Father Sullivan, Excuse us; please wait here. Then he pulled Dana deeper into the alley.
When he was halfway to the alley's hidden entrance to the Labyrinth, he stopped and turned to Dana, who was looking at him worriedly. He deliberately flared his wings out and angled them so Father Sullivan couldn't see what either of them were signing, then sank down on one knee. Looking Dana right in the eyes, he asked her with his hands, Will you marry me?
YES! Dana gave her answer loud and clear when she hugged him tight and peppered his muzzle with kisses. Then she stepped back and, grinning from ear to ear, started pulling him back to Father Sullivan. He grinned a tigery grin and pulled her back to his side with a wing, and they walked back together with their arms around each other.
Father Sullivan was smiling when they returned to him. "I couldn't see what you were saying to each other, but I trust you have good news for me?"
Grinning from ear to ear, Dana signed that her man had just asked her to marry him. Father Sullivan congratulated them both, then asked if Claw would pardon him, but he had another item he wanted to clear up with Dana. He gently turned Dana and himself around, so Claw couldn't see what he was signing, then apparently asked her a question. Dana grinned, and signed back with her hands up high enough that Claw could see them clearly. Baby coming for others, not yet for me. Wait a few months, ask again! Claw blushed beneath his fur again.
Father Sullivan's good eye seemed troubled when he turned back to Claw, but he still smiled when he said, "Well, then, can I meet these other two 'changed people' who want to get married?"
Claw nodded, and led the way into the Labyrinth. It was a short walk to the entrance they'd used, but a long walk down to the main areas of the Labyrinth, and along the way Dana told the priest about their home and the people who shared it with them. She was walking nearly backwards to use her hands in talking to the priest and to see his responses, but Claw had done this with her before and kept a hand on her shoulder, steering her past obstacles without a break in her conversation. Father Sullivan considerately both signed and spoke aloud his questions, so Claw could understand at least half of the conversation while he guided them down.
"Amazing," Father Sullivan said and signed for the umpteenth time as they came to the main assembly hall. "I'd very much like to meet these other sentient creatures, these… what did you call them again?"
Claw paused and took a moment to stoop in the ever-present dust and write with a clawtip, GARGOYLES. Then he signed, Too late today. Sun up outside, they sleep. But Dana argued that he could at least see them in stone; the gargoyles didn't mind if someone looked at them during the day, so long as nobody tried to chip or damage them. Claw considered, then nodded and led the way to their chamber.
"Amazing!" for the umpteenth-and-one time, as Father Sullivan walked around the five statues posed in the chamber, studying them from every angle. "I can scarcely believe it… But the news cast a few weeks ago very clearly showed winged creatures leaving the ruins of St. Damien's. Another sentient species! Father O'Malley, may he rest in peace, would have turned cartwheels all the way down 42nd Street for a chance like this."
By this time they had attracted an audience from the Labyrinth residents who preferred the daytime, and Dana was kept busy signing explanations to everyone who could understand her, while they relayed the information to everyone else. After he'd seen the gargoyle clones, Father Sullivan asked if he could talk to the prospective bride and groom, and a fair-sized crowd trooped with him down the hall to Derek and Maggie's quarters. Grinning from ear to ear, Dana did her distinctive knock, a rapid tattoo played on the door. After a few moments, they heard movement inside, and a male voice groaning, "Dammit, Dana, let a body sleep once in a while!" The door opened to reveal Derek still in his sleeping shorts, and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "All right, already, I'm up--huh?" as he saw the priest.
"Good morning, and I'm sincerely sorry to disturb you; Dana didn't tell me you would be sleeping now," Father Sullivan said calmly as he held out his hand. "My name is Father Sullivan. And you are?"
Still staring, Derek numbly held his clawed hand out, and stammered as the priest shook it without even blinking, "Derek Ma--Talon."
"A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Matalon. I understand you've recently become engaged to be married?" By this time, Maggie had scrambled out of bed as well to stand behind Derek and stare at the mysterious stranger. Father Sullivan smiled at the feline head poking out from behind his wing and said just as pleasantly, "And would you be his fiancée?"
Maggie nodded dumbly, then found her voice and her courage a moment later, stepping out from behind Derek's wing and holding out one hand while clenching her tattered bathrobe shut with the other. "I'm Maggie Reed. Um, pleased to meet you?" as she blushed beneath her fur at being caught 'living in sin' by a man of the cloth.
"The pleasure is mine," was all he said as they shook hands as well. "When exactly are you and Mr. Matalon planning to marry?"
"We, uh, haven't set a date yet, and my name's actually Derek Maza, but folks down here call me Talon. And I've just got to ask you, why is there a smiley face on your eyepatch?"
Father Sullivan merely smiled benignly and said, "Why not?"
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Roughly two hours later, Elisa was sound asleep when the phone rang. "Ohhh… Oh, not again," she groaned as she came more-or-less awake and lifted her head slightly. This was the second time in two days that somebody had woken her up from a sound sleep. If this was another telemarketer, she'd take savage pleasure in informing them that their product was now on her never-touch-again list, she thought as she reached for the phone. "…Hello?"
"Good morning, and I'm sorry to disturb you," a man said pleasantly. "My name is Father Sullivan, and I'm calling on behalf of--"
"I gave at the office!" -click- and Elisa rolled over and buried her head in her pillow again.
But a few seconds later, the phone rang again. Elisa thought for a moment about simply yanking the cord out of the wall, but that would involve actually getting out of bed. She snarled as she picked the handset up again, "Whaddaya want!"
"To speak with you on behalf of your brother," the man said bluntly, with just a trace of annoyance in his own voice. "That is, assuming you are the sister of Derek Maza?"
"Derek! Oh yes, I am, and I'm sorry about earlier!" Elisa said as she sat bolt upright. "What's happened?"
"There's no need to panic, miss," Father Sullivan said soothingly. "He and his fiancée were both doing well when I left them an hour ago. But they asked me to telephone you, as their phone is, ah, currently inoperative, and let you know to expect three more for dinner tonight. They wish for, ah, Dana, her gentleman and myself to attend as well, so we and your family can discuss the upcoming nuptials."
Elisa blinked at his cautious phrasing, then decided that somebody who didn't know about the mutates or the Labyrinth was close enough to overhear on the priest's end of the line. "Well, sure. And it's a good thing you called ahead; I wasn't ready to feed three extra people."
Father Sullivan chuckled. "That's quite all right; if you have enough place settings, I can provide enough food. My parishioners keep me well supplied with casseroles."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Before she'd gone to bed at dawn, Elisa had called her parents and asked them to come to her apartment for dinner instead, because Derek and Maggie were coming as well. So, shortly before sunset, Peter and Diane Maza showed up on her doorstep with a pot roast in a warming dish and curious, half-excited, half-dreading expressions on their faces. Diane handed the pot roast over to her daughter as she asked just a little too casually, "So, will anyone else be coming to dinner besides Derek and Maggie:"
Elisa stuck the pot roast in the oven to keep warm with the side dishes she'd made as she looked at her mother in surprise. "How'd you guess? Yes, Claw and his ladyfriend are coming too. I don't know if you've met her yet; her name's Dana. Also one other guest they're bringing with them, I think." Elisa decided to keep the identity of the last guest a mystery for the moment, so she didn't inadvertently spill the beans about the engagement ahead of time.
Peter and Diane looked at each other for a moment in surprise, then back at her. "And… that's all? No other guests?"
"Such as Goliath?" Elisa smiled wryly. "No, he's staying with the clan tonight." Realizing that she'd just implied that he spent some nights elsewhere, she hurriedly went on, "Last night was a pretty rough one for them; Lexington was almost killed in a Quarryman ambush while on patrol." She explained about the ambush and the Quarrymen's new weapon as she set the table, then shut off the motion-sensor alarm for the balcony, successfully diverting their attention from her earlier slip.
Her parents didn't know yet that she and Goliath were lovers--at least, she thought they didn't know--and tonight was not the night to tell them. Part of her wondered about announcing it just after Derek and Maggie told them about the baby, speculating that it might have less impact while they were still reeling from the shock of having a winged grandkid on the way, but it would hardly be fair play. No, just one bombshell at a time, and the one her brother was about to drop on them would be plenty.
As if her thoughts had cued them, two heavy thumps were heard from the balcony. Elisa hurried to open the door for them, and Derek and Maggie tucked their wings close about them and came inside. Once they had cleared the balcony, Claw came down with a heavier thump, carrying Dana in his arms. Both Derek and Maggie looked a combination of happy and nervous, but both Claw and Dana were just grinning from ear to ear.
Over the past year or so, Diane and Peter Maza had learned to deal with a lot of surprises and unexpected events: their son's mutation, the existence of gargoyles, and mythological figures suddenly appearing and embroiling them in their Fey schemes. So when they learned that Dana was deaf, they didn't even blink; Diane merely dug into her purse and pulled out a small notepad and pencils for herself and her husband to share in writing down whatever they wanted to say to her. "Actually, Dana's pretty good at reading lips," Derek offered, adding with a wry feline grin, "for those folks who have standard lips, anyway."
"I'd still better write it down," Peter said matter-of-factly as he put the notepad in his shirt pocket. "Your mother's told me more than once that I have a tendency to mumble."
Shortly after the first round of introductions was over, the doorbell rang. Elisa opened the door to find a man standing there with a priest's collar under his casual clothes, an eyepatch (with a smiley face?) over his right eye, and two covered casserole dishes in his arms. "Good evening! Would this be the Maza residence?" he asked cheerfully.
"It would be indeed, assuming you're Father Sullivan," Elisa said once she wrenched her gaze away from that smiley face. "Come on in!"
Introductions were made once more, but conversation was rather stilted, with no one quite sure of what everyone else knew and not wanting to unwittingly spill secrets, until the food was put on the table and everyone invited to come and sit down. Claw tested his chair with a heavy hand on the cushion before sitting in it, apparently unsure it would hold his weight, but Elisa assured him that he'd have no problems. (He might have before, but the moving company Xanatos had hired for her in moving to her new apartment had accidentally damaged a leg on one of the old chairs, and Elisa had seized on the excuse to buy a whole new dining set, selected with Goliath's massive frame in mind. It had been expensive, and she had toyed with the idea of presenting Xanatos with the bill since he had hired the movers, but ultimately decided she'd rather not be beholden to him for anything.)
Elisa herself wasn't in the habit of saying grace before meals, but since there was a priest present, she decided to cover her bets by asking Father Sullivan to say it. He nodded solemnly, then folded his hands on the table and closed his eyes, while everyone else hurriedly assumed the same reverent posture. After a few moments of letting awkwardly reverent silence reign, the priest said solemnly, "Good food, good meat! Good God, let's eat!"
Six pairs of eyes snapped open wide for a moment, not quite believing what they'd heard. Then Maggie started giggling, while Derek and Peter nearly fell out of their chairs laughing. Dana had been sitting quietly with her eyes half-shut, waiting for a visual cue that the grace was over; now she eyed everyone else as they broke up, then gave Father Sullivan an impatient look; she hated not being let in on the joke. Convulsing in his seat with silent laughter, Claw quickly signed to her, Priest say funny kid's prayer! Dana smiled and nodded in understanding; she knew well that Father Sullivan knew how to break up tension in a room like nobody else.
After that, everyone dished food onto their plates and began eating with good humor and good appetites. And now that the ice had been broken, Derek had no problems in saying as he served himself some of the seafood casserole, "Mom, Dad, Maggie and I are getting married. So are Claw and Dana, and we'd like to make it a double wedding."
"Well, that's wonderful, Derek! Congratulations to both of you, that is, to all four of you!" Diane said with a smile. "Have you set a date yet?"
"Not yet; Father Sullivan said this morning that he'd look at his calendar and get back to us," as all four of the affianced turned to look at him questioningly.
Father Sullivan consulted a small notebook he'd pulled out of his pocket and said, "The church is, I'm afraid, booked solid for the evenings of the next fourteen weekends. But the Tuesday and Thursday evenings of next week are available… or I could conduct the ceremony in the Labyrinth. I'm available to do so every night the next week after nine o'clock, except Saturday and Wednesday. Since there won't be a Mass involved, the ceremony can be conducted elsewhere beside the Sanctuary. One of the rooms I saw in the Labyrinth this morning would make an excellent locale for a chapel."
"So soon?" Diane asked in surprise. "I thought that Catholics required a long waiting period and pre-marital counseling before…" she stopped, and looked at both Dana and Maggie with narrowed eyes. "All right, I'll be blunt about it. Which one of you is pregnant?"
Maggie cringed in her seat but timidly raised her hand. Derek said defensively, "But I was going to ask her to marry me anyway; this just moved up the timetable a little!"
Peter and Diane just looked at each other for a few moments; then Peter sighed as he dug out his wallet and handed Diane a ten-dollar bill. "You win. We're having a grandkid with wings after all."
Elisa couldn't help blushing, and Diane's lips quirked in a wry smile as she put the bill in her purse.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Elsewhere in town, two more people were sitting down to dinner. "It's quite kind of you to invite me to dine with you here," Jon Castaway said with a polite smile as he sat in the chair the maitre d' had pulled out for him at the Four Seasons.
"Not at all," his companion, a man named Oliver Grimm, said as he glanced over the wine list. "I'm a firm believer in mixing a little pleasure into business affairs." Once they'd made their selections and the maitre d' had left for the wine cellar, Grimm asked, "Have the net-mortars been given a field test yet?"
"They have," Castaway said with a half-smile, half-frown. "Squad Three reported that theirs worked exactly as we'd hoped; the gargoyle they shot dodged part of the net but was hit by the expanding edge, and just that glancing blow was enough to knock him unconscious. Unfortunately, he was caught by another gargoyle before he could hit the ground, and they escaped before we could finish loading another net-pod into it. We're going to need to equip the teams with more than one of those net-mortars for them to be effective against those beasts, if they continue to travel in pairs instead of solo."
"I'll see about stepping up production, then. My staff is limited, however, and it may be a few weeks before we'll have as large a quantity of net-mortars as we do of Quarryhammers."
"I don't think it'll be necessary to equip each member of the hunting squads with a net-mortar as well as a Quarryhammer; to be blunt about it, not all of them are good shots at the practice range, and we'd end up wasting rather expensive ammunition. I was thinking more along the lines of two to four mortars per squad of eight Quarrymen, with enough net-pods to load each one twice. The poor shots would be useful reloading the used mortars while the expert shots fire them, and once their prey has fallen out of the sky and into range of their hammers, can put them to proper use as well."
"Excellent tactics!" Grimm said admiringly.
"Merely making the best use out of the materials you've supplied me with," Castaway said modestly. "And I must tell you again, those Quarryhammers are the work of genius, as well as the net-pods! One of our most recent recruits is an electrical engineer, and he spent some time marveling over them after the last meeting."
Now Grimm frowned. "You'll need to discourage such curious souls from tampering with the equipment. It's entirely conceivable that an explosion could result, not just a fatal shock."
"Yes, I made that quite clear to the gentleman in question. And he was indeed careful about handling them, but it wouldn't hurt to caution my lieutenants about other curious souls joining their squads."
"Yes, safety must come first. After all, isn't that what the main goal of the Quarrymen is, to make the streets safe for humanity once again?" and Grimm smiled, a hard and cruel smile.
TO BE CONTINUED…
