Part Two
The Vandalized
Evening fell on the great city – the moon was already quite visible and a few stars peaked out through the smog as the sun slowly dipped down over the horizon.
On this same clock tower, a nightly ritual was taking place – the five Gargoyles, powerful sentinels of the city, broke free of their stony prisons with a habitual roar. The roar served two purposes. One: to great the night with both joy and primal rage. Two: because they liked roaring.
One roar was cut short, however.
Indeed, Lexington had barely broken free of his stone form before his roar turned into a startled yelp as he tumbled forward, right off the building.
Astonished by this unusual move, Brooklyn, having been roosting next to him, instinctively grabbed to catch him with his right hand and, much to his surprise, missed. Acting quickly, he lunged and caught Lex by the foot with his left hand, easily tossing the smaller Gargoyle back onto the roof where he again splattered forward.
"Lex, what – "
"I don't know! I can't keep my balance! It's almost like - - - - - "
He trailed off, gawking at Brooklyn with shock and horror.
Or rather, gawking at Brooklyn's hands.
"Lex? What? What's wrong?"
Confused, Brooklyn also turned his gaze to his hands, screamed like a girl, and fell over in a dead faint.
Broadway, meanwhile, was sitting on his rump in tears.
"My toes!! My toes are gone!! My poor to-o-o-o-oes!!!!"
Lexington tried to get up to see if Brooklyn was all right and again splattered on his face.
"Darn it – why can't I keep my balance?! My – my – "
He twisted and looked behind him.
" – my tail's gone!!!!"
Too astonished to either faint or burst into tears, he blinked and stared forward again, noting that there was a stone object inches from his face. Curious, he picked it up and looked at it.
" . . . oh." He glanced back at Brooklyn, still unconscious. "I think I just found his missing hand."
Hudson looked at them all blankly.
"What're ye on about, lads? I canna hear a thing you're sain'. Can ye speak up a bit?"
Broadway paused in his wailing lament to regard the elder Gargoyle with concern. He then burst back into tears.
"My toes – and Hudson's ears – gone, gone, goooooone!!!"
Hudson just blinked.
"I told ye to speak up, laddie!"
Broadway only wept louder.
Lexington was still staring blankly at Brooklyn's stone hand.
"Hm . . . someone must have attacked us in stone form . . . but for some reason decided not to destroy us completely . . . "
And abruptly, the enormity of the situation finally struck him through his addled brain.
"My tail's gone. My . . . my tail's gone. No. No! Not my tail?!?!"
He broke into hysteric yelling and rambling, having completely flipped his gourd.
Brooklyn moaned and sat up groggily, trying to remember what had happened.
" . . . ugh . . . what the . . . "
He again caught sight of his right hand, or rather, of the lack thereof, and again screamed like a girl. Then he noted Lex rambling maniacally, still holding the stone appendage, and snatched it deftly from his rookery sibling, insanely trying to reattach it to his arm.
"You stupid thing!! Get back on!!!!! You're my hand! I need my hand! You're a good hand!!! Get back on, you defective piece of crap!!!! ARGH!!!! WHY WON'T YOU GO BACK ON?!?!?!?! DON'T MAKE ME GET THE CATFOOD!! YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I GET THE CAT FOOD!!!!!"
Hudson blinked at the trio: Broadway bawling, Lexington raving, and Brooklyn looking plain silly. And something clicked.
"Brooklyn, laddie," he said in a gentle tone, "I dunno if ye noticed, but you're missin' your right hand."
Broadway bawled louder still, Lexington began to froth at the mouth, and Brooklyn began yelling the Meow Mix theme song, trying to threaten his stone hand into submission with some dark and brutal psychological warfare tactic that only he understood.
Goliath had been observing this scene silently, feeling a rage consume him. A horrible rage – an all consuming rage – slowly filling him to a point he'd never known before. Even worse than dying a helpless, defenseless death by an underhanded blow when sleeping was such a state as this: horribly defiled and left to live with the disgrace. And to do such to these four, the last remnants of his clan, his dearest friends, his only remaining family?
The rage filled him to the point at last where he could no longer contain it, and even as Lexington began to gnaw on his kneecaps in a rabid frenzy, his wings spread, his head fell back, and from the deepest recesses of his immense gullet rose a horrible roar – a terrible and awful challenge to all forces in the universe, a horrifying vow of vengeance upon whatever force had committed this horrible act.
Only as he roared, something felt decidedly wrong. Startled, he opened his eyes mid-roar and noted his clan gawking at him with blank horror, their own plights forgotten.
Disturbed, he stopped his roar and looked at them.
"What?" he finally said.
And clamped a hand over his mouth.
His teeth!!
His teeth were gone!!!! His deadly fangs, his pearly incisors, his fear-instilling molars – all gone!!
"Goliath," Hudson remarked, "ye've got no teeth."
Goliath was too embarrassed to open his mouth to reply.
Broadway resumed lamenting his lost toes.
Brooklyn had, meanwhile, grabbed a can of 9 Lives from a secret hiding place and was spreading it generously on both his stone hand and the remaining portion of his wrist.
"Stick, darn you!! Stick!!" he demanded, trying to stick the hand back on with the gooey Turkey In Gravy Meal.
Lexington took a deep breath, collecting his lost senses and rubbing his sore kneecaps.
"I . . . I think Brooklyn may actually be on to something," he said after a moment, pulling himself along the rooftop to where he saw his tail laying in a corner. "We . . . we have to put them back on!!"
"It'll never work!!" Broadway wailed, clutching his stone toes. "They're gone! Gone forever! Goooone!!"
Hudson yelped.
"Lads – I've got no ears!! Why didna someone tell me?!?!"
Brooklyn gave up and licked the cat food off his wrist and hand.
Goliath was sheepishly hiding behind a pigeon.
"No . . . no, really," Lexington insisted, a plan beginning to form. "If we wait until we're stone again, and someone reattaches the parts to us then, I think when we wake up tomorrow night, we should be back to normal."
"You really think that could work, Lex?" Brooklyn asked in a shaky voice, staring at his hand still in shock. "I mean . . . I thought when something happened to us when we were stone, it was irreversible."
"Well – usually if someone attacks us, they kill us outright. This has never happened. We have to try it! It might work!"
"Hey – I'm willing to try just about anything. Goliath, what do you think? Goliath? You're bigger than the pigeon. We all see you."
Goliath staunchly remained perfectly still, thinking this a clever ploy on Brooklyn's part to draw him out of his hiding place and into the open. Then, however, the pigeon flew away, leaving him fully exposed.
The immense Gargoyle whimpered and ran inside to hide behind the couch.
Brooklyn sighed.
"Right . . . Lex, I sure hope this works. But we can't do it ourselves. Obviously. We'll be stone. Is Elisa coming to visit tonight?"
"I'd think so. It's Saturday – she always comes up on Saturdays."
"All right. So we wait."
