5In the Aftermath chapter1 Hope

by Hardwing

I write my next fic and see that it becomes too large, so I publish it now in three parts. The first part Hope show the hatching of the gargoyle my readers know as Lucifia.

3. Death

02.08.1672; 02:35; On an open place in the wood, far away from the town:

Demona stood aside her mate and looked at the deep forest before her. It was the time of ascending in their clan like Demona had made it with her own rookery.

In her new clan, ascending was much the same as it had been in her old clan, which surprised Demona since there were many differences between Scottish and Indian clans. There were tests to see the art of gliding when the youngsters had to glide a special route in time, the art of fighting where the youngsters had to fight against an elder in order to prove their fighting skills. Then there was the test of mind, where the skills of the youngsters' spirits were tested.

The special youngster, who they were waiting for, hadn't passed the first test so well like Demona had guessed she would and it had shown that she would never be the best or fastest glider in the clan. In the art of fighting though she had been the best and had even been able to defeat the elder she had to battle since he had underestimated the girl. The test of mind hadn't even been a problem for the Little Panther, as she had been experienced in that since she was an apprentice in shamanism and magic.

And the last one, as the ultimate test of all four, which was the test of the hunt. This one was the test that was most important in the tradition of the clan since hunting was seen as an holy act even though Demona knew that this was, unlike Shaman, not seen so hard by all members of the clan. Since the clan could not fully rely on the human's resources, this was even more important and a gargoyle had to supply themselves when they wanted to survive.

Since the whites had arrived and killed or expelled large parts of the game, this had become damned difficult and the game left in the woods had become cautious. But this was no real problem since Shaman guided the hunt.

He had explained to her that since, even in the old days, it took normally days when even the best hunters could not find any game in the woods, the clan did not want to let the youngster wander through the woods for nights. So it was common that the Shaman of the clan called the animals who were willing to give their life and who stood in this area so that the youngster could hunt them.

This didn't let the game become tamed or less willing to defend their life with everything they had and it still made the hunt a test for the younglings who wanted to ascend to full members of the clan.

Demona looked to her mate who had become older... now she could see it on the fact that his feathers had become mostly gray.

He was still fit and every time she saw him and looked into his eyes, she felt a crinkle on her skin by the love she felt for him. But she couldn't oversee the signs of time like the fact that he now glided slower than back then.

"My love?" Shaman asked her, noticing the absence expression on her face.

She looked on him with a nearly guilty expression.

"Sorry, I was distracted." Demona admitted.

Shaman shook his head and replied. "No reason to be sorry. She will be just out there for one hour. Our daughter will need some more time to track down her wild. So her elders can be still distracted."

Demona nodded with a smile. He often called the girl his daughter, like all children of the clan were, but when they were alone together it had another meaning.

"The years have passed," Shaman said "haven't they?"

Demona nodded. "Yes the younglings ascend," she admitted, "and they will surely be fine warriors. The eggs... "

"Yes, but that isn't what I meant," he interrupted her "and you know it my mate."

Demona swallowed while looking into his deep brown eyes that seemed to know her soul like nobody had before.

"The years haven't changed what I feel for you." She explained. "They have just increased my love."

Shaman smiled over his beak and embraced his mate softly, stroking her fiery red hair while she softly stroked the gray feathers around the back of his head.

"Listen my love, I know it is hard for you." Shaman said softly. "But you have to be realistic. I won't be clan leader forever."

"Nonsense," Demona explained, looking deep in his eyes. "You're still the best of all possible clan leaders, nobody doubts on this in the clan."

"My reflexes have become slow," Shaman replied, "and my senses aren't what they were once. You are younger, stronger... "

"Your age brings wisdom," Demona interrupted, "and the clan needs this wisdom."

A part of Demona winced by this, as these were nearly the same words with which Goliath had defended the white bearded leader in 984AD. She had now unconsciously used them to defend her mate... but they still weren't convincing for her, as much as she wished they were.

Shaman had hatched in the year 1558. That made him now 114 years old, which was 57 in Gargoyle age, as old as the Old Soldier had been.

"Then you have to lead the clan." Shaman said with a smile. "Since you are the oldest gargoyle I have ever met."

Demona plucked one of Shaman's feathers off from his head, on which he made a short grimace of acted pain and his mate saw the playful expression in his eyes. Yes his body was old, but his spirit was still as young as it had been when she had first met him and in his arms she felt young too despite the fact that she was over 600 years old and felt sometimes millenniums older.

"Are there any allusions?" She asked playfully, in a voice she would never allow herself in front of the clan.

Shaman smiled and stroked a curl of her hair, which seemed to burn in the silver light of the moon, out of her beautiful face where green eyes sparkled like stars... Oh how he loved her.

"No." He answered softly. "Every time I see you I can't imagine a gargoyle more beautiful than you... and even not a better successor."

Demona sighed. A part of her refused to speak about such, but she knew she had to, as it was her duty.

"I know you're worried about the humans." He said, as if he had read her thoughts and when his mate nodded he added. "As am I. Ever since that preacher arrived five years ago, I see more hostility in the eyes of the humans than before."

"I eavesdropped what he prayed in the church one night." Demona explained. "It is the same stuff I hear the humans murmuring when they think I can't hear them."

"Still the humans need us." Shaman said. "They nod when the preacher calls us demons, but afterwards they seek our help when they have problems. The humans here are more opportune with the choice of their help than their prayers like it."

"Yes there has been this incident last year," Shaman admitted and did not notice how his mate's face darkened. "but these were outsiders, people who have simply come here, heard from us and tried to kill us when we slept even when the humans in the town warned them."

"They say so." Demona said calmly, she did not want to show how much it had really hid her then. To wake up and see this dead and at the same time badly injured humans around her... it took her the illusion she had allowed herself to be completely save.

"The people in the town have learned to live with us and a few really tolerate us." Shaman said "You know whom I mean."

Demona nodded, there was this little, 12 year old boy she had saved 13 years ago, in a cold winter when a snow storm had broke loose and the humans in the town couldn't find him. Finally they had started the fire and asked the gargoyles for help.

It had been a really bad storm even for a gargoyle and Shaman had less hope to find the boy, but Demona searched the woods for hours with the help of her guardian spirit and finally discovered the boy in a cave, he had suffered at hypothermia but else he had been well.

Since this time the boy and his family had been more than grateful for Demona. The child, Michael, had called her even his guardian angel, something Demona had been able to talk it out of him, but since this time adored her, a fact which had not change when he had grown to a young man.

"And the ones who really hate us simply don't move here," Shaman continued "as this area has a bad fame by the humans in the whole region."

"Something I ever feared." Demona admitted.

"The Hunters?" Shaman asked.

Demona nodded, her face now troubled with worry and a slight anger.

He had heard enough from his mate about them to share her attitude against them, but not her fear.

"My love." He said softly, holding her claws. "You said yourself that they haven't bothered you for nearly a century now, so perhaps they have ended the hunt."

Demona smiled sarcastically and replied. "No. The hunt goes on from generation to generation. They will never stop it and we have peace just because they haven't discovered me here yet. When they do... "

"When they do we will face them." Shaman said and took her chin in his claw so that she looked directly into his eyes. "Together, as clan and as mates."

Demona smiled now.

"You're right. Who would dare to stand against us both." She asked him with full belief.

"Yes," he said softly, "but the clan has to be represented by someone more... impressive."

"You're impressive." Demona noted.

"Aye but you are fearsome." Shaman explained. "My love, you already make the ritual every time it is needed. The humans see this."

"You know there has to be other reasons." Demona replied. "I regain my life power endless unlike you or any other gargoyle."

Shaman nodded. "Yes this is a gift precious if used in the right way."

~But I would abandon it for just a night more with you~ Demona thought, knowing all too well that her *gift* was even so a curse.

"My love you...." But before she could say anymore, a rustle in the trees some meters away from them surprised Demona.

At once the mates laid their eyes on this place and they had problems to abandon the surprise of their faces when a gargoyle landed under the tree with a huge animal on her back.

It was Little Panther who now studied her teacher and her clan leader with an unreadable expression. She was beautiful in the light of the moon like her mother and like this, she had dressed herself for this special occasion after the merits of the clan. Feathers that were partly black like her own hair, partly brown and in different other colors were bound in her mane and around her arms. Her face like some other parts of her body had been painted in the colors of red, which stood for the blood, the life of both herself and the prey. White, standing for the world of limbo and brown standing for the earth and showed her even wilder than before.

"Leader! Teacher! I have finished my hunt." She explained with pride in her voice.

Shaman was the first who took the spirit to say something.

"Then show us your prey so that we may see if it is worthy as a gift for the clan." Shaman said and the young gargoyle nodded.

She dropped the dead animal from her shoulders and Demona saw that it was a boar, in whose sides had been punctured with two large holes that surely came from the bloody spear, which was the weapon used for the hunt and now lay in the younglings claw. At the same time Demona noticed that the throat of the boar had been opened, seemingly during the fight since the boar was a large one indeed, not just for a young gargoyle. It must have been damned hard for Little Panther. Demona saw that this hunt hadn't been that easy after all since on the left upper arm of the youngling, there was a large wound going up the whole length of the arm. It had apparently already been cleaned by the youngling already and some bruises showed themselves on the beautiful skin.

"What do you say second?" Shaman asked his mate. "Is this prey worthy?"

Demona nodded. "Indeed it is." She said. "It is more than double the flesh, which is required. Her wounds prove that she has fought hard to get it for the clan and so she proves to have the spirit of a warrior."

She stopped a second when she saw how the young wannabe warrior's breast rose in praise before adding. "But the dramatic scene you made here is less proof of your maturity than showing-off, which I expect from a hatchling and not by one of your generation. Especially not in the ascending to a full grown member of the clan." Demona saw with satisfaction how the youngling tried to hide a wince, not very successfully, by this. "This is nothing that will stop you from ascending, but something I don't want to see again from you. Clear?"

"Yes teacher." Little Panther who seemed to be a bit smaller at this moment said. "I promise I will better myself."

"I hope so." Demona explained. "For now, bring the boar to the plain and let an elder see to your wound after you send your next sibling to come here."

Little Panther wanted to say that she had already took care for this, but a look in the second's eyes showed her that this was definitely not a good idea. So she simply nodded to her and the leader and went off with the dead boar on her back and the spear in her hand.

When she was out of reach for her ears, Shaman started.

"My love was this necessary?" He asked with a slight frown.

"Oh yes." Demona retorted. "This girl has definitely gone too far. I mean who knows how long she lingered already in the tree?"

"Well that was nothing we should be ashamed of?" Shaman said.

"No," Demona explained eagerly, "but I don't want any of the clan eavesdropping and then her showing-off."

"Well the girl is trying to impress us." Shaman said. "Or should I better say you?"

Demona ignored this. "As teacher I have said more than often enough that they haven't to impress me, but to follow my orders." Demona explained. "She could have wounded herself through this!"

"Sure your worried about your child but..." Shaman started, but was interrupted by Demona.

"I am worried about all children of the clan." Demona said. "And I don't want that they bring themselves in danger without reason."

Shaman nodded. "I know and this makes you a good teacher, but I have faith in them." He replied and softly took her chin in his claw. "You have made good warriors out of all of them."

Demona smiled slightly by this praise. "I've… " She stopped short when memories of her own warrior training floated in her mind "learned by a good teacher... the best."

Both gargoyles looked in each other's eyes and then embraced each other.

09.08.98; 01:14; Castle Wyvern, Great Hall:

Unnoticed by the rest of the clan Deborah blinked in wonder. Had she truly heard this? Had Demona called her the best teacher?

~This can't be. ~ Deborah assured herself. ~She wouldn't say so, even back then and surely not after what had happened. ~

But then she saw on Demona's face and in her eyes that they were absence. Her conscience was 300 years in the past since she was bound by her own story. Even when she wouldn't give her a friendly word here, not that Deborah was interested in such, her old pupil was definitely too much sunk in her thoughts to lie and unconsciously, she may have had told the truth.

This shocked Deborah more than a bit... but then she thought of something other.

~What if she meant the Archmage? ~

This gave her a numb feeling in the stomach, but she was definitely not going to ask her... She didn't want it to seem as if she would care what Demona thought of her.

She didn't.

02.08.1672; 23:14; The plane of the clan:

The clan had gathered around the large fire made before the cave. All looked now on the seven younglings standing in front of the fire, on which opposite the leader and his second stood.

"Tonight the clan will welcome these younglings as warriors in its middle." Shaman intoned and looked around his clan. "We have seen these younglings work hard to prove their worthiness in our eyes and we've seen them grow for this year by year."

Shaman looked from one youngling to another. "And every one of you have made us proud in the past years like in the past nights." With this he threw some leaves in the fire on which the fire enlarged and took a blue color. "Now come and take your price."

With this the first youngling, Wolf, came to Shaman who had took the ceremonial dagger out of his belt.

"Swear you to protect the clan with your life?" He asked. "To protect the protectorate. To honor the ancestors and the merits of the clan?"

"I swear." Wolf said with pride.

"Then show your willingness through your sacrifice." Shaman demanded.

As the ritual demanded, Wolf gave his clan leader his right claw who held it in his own claw and Shaman slowly drove the blade of the dagger through the palm of the youngling's claw, which at once filled with blood.

Demona, knowing her duties as second, held an age old wooden bowl decorated with beautiful carved gargoyles under the claw of the youngling until it was full of blood.

"You gave your blood and the clan accepts it." Shaman said and nodded to his second who poured the blood into the fire.

On this a solemn of fire rose and a wolf, the guardian spirit of the youngling, came in a shell of sparkles out of the fire and stood beside him.

"With this your gift is accepted by the clan and by the spirits." Shaman declared. "You're now a full member of the clan."

With this, Wolf slammed his bleeding fist against his breast and bowed shortly before Shaman, before he went back to his siblings followed by his guardian spirit.

The next was Little Panther and so it went on until all younglings had become warriors and adults in the eyes of the clan with their guardian spirits at their side.

"Now a new generation of warriors stand amongst us." Shaman explained. "This is a moment of pride for the whole clan alike and… " With this, his beaked formed into a smile. "… A time of celebration so let us start to honor them!"

With this, some elders started to beat the drum to make music while one elder from the ones who had escaped from the German countries played a flute that she had taken with her. Through this were played old hymns from both the original part of the clan and even so by the newcomers who had since years been apart of it and had so practically created a new clan.

On this happy chatter started and the newly ascended warriors were surrounded and praised by the whole clan. Meanwhile the hatchlings of the last rookery, whose ascending to younglings was still years ahead, happily danced around the fire, more or less in the music's rhythm.

And the clan's second, at this moment, looked around it and smiled. It was a special moment when the young generation ascended to warriors, in each clan. She wished she would have seen the hatchlings... her hatchlings of her first and second clan ascend... if just to reach the adulthood before the warrior training and not just die as eggs or killed as hatchlings by the human's hand. When she had spoken to Shaman about this he had found this as a strange merit to let the hatchlings become adults 19 years after they had hatched and so were just 9 by human terms.

Demona meanwhile had found it strange for the first time that the hatchlings first became younglings before ascending to warriors and so full members of the clan. As younglings they had the right to take part in clan councils but weren't allowed to vote or to explain their thoughts. So they became simple witness of the clan affairs and learned on this way the attitude of adult clan members.

They even specialised themselves somewhat by hanging around with special elders who taught them their skills like making music with the flute, to hunt, to create tools or to learn the art of healing as far as it was possible without being a shaman. Basic skills in these arts were taught to everyone since they were crucial for their surviving, but in the years as younglings the most orientated special in some arts... like shamanism.

Demona saw this late ascending critically since she had good experiences with growing up fast through becoming an adult in those young years, but she understood why the clan's merit here were different from the ones back in Scotland. As isolated as they were in this country, for a long time they hadn't needed being warriors even when this part of living had always been part of them. Since the land wasn't rough, the game numerous and since they had peaceful and loyal human allies (even when Demona still couldn't believe that it gave such), they had never needed to become adults fast.

Whereas in Scotland the land was rough as it had to be considering the clans who lived there... had lived there. Then there were the constant attacks of muggers, the Vikings and later the English, there was no time for a long childhood since the clans needed everyone.

But in Japan there were... but this was again too far away, the present counted.

Demona looked how her daughter embraced Wolf, longer than it was usual between simple siblings and smiled

~Home. ~

09.08.98; 01:21; Castle Wyvern, Great Hall:

Demona sighed, shortly closing her eyes.

"Never since the fall of Moray had I been so happy." Demona admitted with closed eyes and was silent for some seconds, as if she tried to remember those nights.

Most members of the clan just looked on her and they realized deep down that 1000 years hadn't just been an amount of time, but a life.

The elders who had briefly lost the hatchlings that they were supposed to be watching and had noticed the absence of their children herded out the group of hatchlings, that had been secretly listening, to the rest of their siblings.

Finally, Asrial who had listened to the story of her sister with such great interest that she seemingly forgot to think about new inventions or articles in the *Science*, rose her voice.

"What happened then sister? Why was she named Lucifia and not known as Little Panther like she was back then?" Asrial asked, nearly shy. "And if your daughter was a normal gargoyle back then, what made her to the monster we have seen and fought?"

"The humans." Demona growled out with such hate and contempt that it made a part of Asrial and the other gargoyles shudder.

08.06.1675; 21:02; The cave of the shaman:

"Please bring me the tear of Naliko." Shaman said.

"Here." Demona answered and gave him the dried blossom.

Shaman nodded and put the blossom in the mortar, on which he pulverized it with a beautiful carved stone. Carefully, not spilling a gram of the precious powder, he put it into a little bag and tied it up tightly.

"This is it." Shaman pronounced. "Tonight we will mix the final components and make the ritual."

Demona nodded. She knew that from this night the ritual had to be made in three nights or they would have to do it again in the next year. If that happened then it would be much more difficult and dangerous to bind the spirit who guarded the plain anew than to simple anew its bound like she had seen it done by Shaman so many times before, besides they would be helpless by day like the other clans had been.

"My love." Shaman started while he put the bag on a shelf in the wand, a present from a thankful workman in the town. "I think you should perform the ritual this time."

Demona looked deep into her mate's eyes. Only the Shaman of the clan, the clan leader performed the ritual, and Demona knew what it meant when he asked her to do this.

She studied him more and saw the pleading look in his eyes that were surrounded by feathers now completely gray... nearly white.

She nodded and said, "I will. With you at my side."

They both knew that this meant more. It was a quiet agreement between the mates as well as the leader and his second. Soon this night, Shaman would declare Demona as the new leader of the clan and then she would perform the ritual to confirm this. Demona knew that her appointment wouldn't be doubted by any clan member since she was more than old enough and experienced in the art of shamanism to lead.

"Naturally you could choose one of the apprentices to be at your side." Shaman suggested.

Demona shook her head. She had just gotten used to the fact that she would be the new leader of the clan. Choosing a second in command would be too much.

"It is still too early." Demona explained. "They are both still too young."

"You told me once that your former love Goliath became second in command even in younger years." Shaman noticed.

Demona nodded. "Yes but those were under other circumstances." She explained. "It was definitely more dangerous and we were... more mature than our new warriors are today. Besides this, the leader was forced to choose a new second by the elders since it had been three years without one."

"This clan had to live even longer without a second." Shaman reminded her. "But it is not usual and since we have two promising choices then it would be strange if we were to take too long to choose one. Remember, the best way to mature is to have responsibility."

Demona nodded, as she had to agree with him on that.

"I will choose the second in the next months when the clan has gotten used to me as leader." Demona explained. "Even when I already know whom I choose."

Shaman looked at her surprised. "Whom?"

"The lad." Demona answered simply.

Shaman rose an eye-ridge, as he would have chosen the other.

"Why him and not Little Panther?" He asked.

"Little Panther is, in my eyes, too unsure." Demona explained. "She is back in her warrior lessons and the learning of magic and even her skills in the art of shamanism are a bit backward compared to her brother's. Often she is diverted during the training and she is much too less eager in this... she wouldn't make a good second."

There was a moment of silence in the cave as they listened to the sounds of the night outside the cave.

"Don't you think you are a bit too hard to her?" Shaman asked finally. "I mean, she has to learn three times as much as the others of her rookery are, even more than her favorite brother."

Demona sighed and finally nodded.

"Yes and I really see how hard she works." She admitted. "Sure it is hard for her! To stay eager by so much work, by learning so much and having at the same time less time for her siblings." She swallowed when memories from her training with the Archmage came back, how less time she had had with her sibling's back then... and her daughter had even less time. "But I have told her what such an education means and she was willing for both, so she can't complain now that she has too much work."

Demona sat down and leaned back. "I really see how much she tries to get ready with so much work and I am damned proud of her...." She swallowed. "Damned proud, but even when I see the enormous potential… I have to choose the one as second who has the best skills now and not in potential." She smiled shortly. "But I am sure that she will become the second when I lay down the post as leader some day, she has all necessary qualities and when she is ready with her warrior training she will even have enough time to become better in her other subjects.... She will."

Shaman looked on his mate and nodded.

"So be it." He agreed and added then with a smile. "But I think there is even another reason why she is a bit... distracted."

Demona nodded, "Yes I've seen it," she said, "they barely take their eyes of one another, but this is no reason to be distracted. As warriors, especially when they will be leader and second one day, they have to control themselves or they will make failures."

"It is the first love my mate." Shaman defended them. "They will surely have problems to control their... passions. Who hasn't?"

"I know I know," Demona replied. "But a bit of self control isn't demanding too much is it? Especially of a coming shaman!"

Shaman hesitated but finally nodded. "I think you are right my love... again."

Demona smiled on this and embraced him tightly. "Aren't I ever?"

"Well, I think for those you shall get something." He explained and embraced her with his still strong arms, softly stroking her hair when....

"Leader, Second..." A female voice came from the entrance of the cave.

"Seemingly we have to control our passions too." Shaman whispered in his love's ear.

"Yes?" He asked, directed to the entrance.

They both turned to the entrance where a young female with the features of a Leopard stood. She was of Little Panther and Wolf's generation and Demona remembered that she had given her the duty to watch over the valley tonight.

"The fire down in the town has been stroked." The young gargess explained.

Demona sighed. ~Seemingly these humans have problems again. ~

"We will come." Shaman explained to the girl who nodded and went out of the cave.

"I will gather the medicine and you will gather the apprentices," Shaman ordered. "They will be happy that they have time to practice their skills. We will met at the cliff to the town."

Demona nodded. "I will my leader." She explained with a smile, remembering that this might be the last time that she called her mate so and went off.

She searched first in the middle of the camp, but did not find them there and when she asked the other clan members they had even so no idea where both young warriors were.

Demona already thought to go to her mate without both and give them a scolding later when it hit her and she went to the more secluded place of the plain. There grew soft grass and the plain gave a good panorama over the sheer endless woods, just lightened at some places where the humans had cut down trees.

Together with the sight of the moons and the stars, which floated over everything. It was a lovely view. Such beauties that the pairs of the clan, mostly the young ones, had chosen it as the perfect place where not to be.... Disturbed.

And there she discovered them, both lying in the grass and softly embracing each other, seemingly unaware of the world around them.

~Great! ~ Demona thought angrily and with a jump she launched herself in front of the pair.

The second saw with satisfaction how both winced by being so rudely thrown out of their dream world and looked at her in total shock.

"Stand up." Demona ordered the pair and they were both damned eager to follow this order.

"Second we just...." Wolf started, but Demona raised a hand and showed him to be quiet.

"I'm aware what you both were doing." She explained and held her view on both younglings' faces who seemed to become deep red by this. "You're both old enough so it isn't my business or anybody else's in the clan. But you have responsibilities in it and so it is of great importance to let at least one of the others know where you go."

Her eyes stayed on both lovers and she remembered how she had first got into trouble when she was busy with her breastplate-wearing brother and they had forgotten their teaching lesson.

"The clan relies on you every night." Demona noted. "And this means you have to be ready every time! If you're not then you're worse than useless, especially in the position you seemingly wish to inhabit in the future."

By this Little Panther lowered her head a bit, but her teacher was too busy with instructing them to notice.

"We're sorry teacher." Wolf said. "We promise that it will never happen again."

Demona held her look on both younglings. Normally she wouldn't let them get away so easily, but they had no time.

"I hope so." She replied and noticed how the tension in the young warrior's bodies soaked.

"Come, we have to glide to the other end of the plain." Demona explained to them. "Our leader waits there because of you and if you don't want to let him wait longer then you'd better hurry."

"The humans need us?" Wolf asked his second, despite the great possibility to get scolded for this again.

Demona who had neared to border of the plain, nodded. She was going to leap from it since the fastest way would be gliding through the air.

"We think so." She replied. "We don't know anymore except that the fire in the town has been stroked on... One of your siblings who took her duties seriously informed us. All further we will acknowledge in the town."

Both young warriors nodded and followed their second up into the sky.

They glided fast, even when Demona believed to hear the pair whispering behind her tail, but she had no time to admonish them anew and in short time they were at the other border of the plain where Shaman waited on them.

Shaman did not wait for them to land but leaped himself from the plain and let the warm winds take him to his mate's side

Wordless they glided to the middle of the town where the fire had been set, seemingly by one child who sat there now seemingly waiting on them.

Demona's good eyes recognized him. He was one of Michael's children, his eight-year-old son. She could see from his red eyes that he had to have shed tears and his eyes now were in sheer panic.

"Why have you called us?" Shaman asked calmly in a reassuring voice that she knew of him when he once had calmed a little hatchling of a bad daydream. "And why not one of your parents?"

"My sister has got fever." The boy said in a timid voice. "Father and mother wanted me to stay by her, she..." the last words went off in large sobbing and Demona saw that he was near a breakdown.

Shaman nodded, trying not to further burden the boy. "Go ahead."

The child nodded unsure and went ahead in the direction of Michael's house.

Demona hid her feelings well since she didn't want to let her worry about Michael's daughter be known to the child or even her mate even when she thought that he knew it anyway. She couldn't believe it herself that she cared for the girl, but it hadn't feared Demona. Every time when she visited the town to take the corn or other goods the humans gave them, the girl like her brother was there and looked on her in wonder. In a way she hadn't believed it herself to be possible that she had become fond of Michael and his family, but she had.

Her respect for Michael grew even more when she heard from him that he did not go in the church any more since the preacher had come to the town. A fact, which had made him and his family unloved by the rest of the town so that Michael had finally decided to move more outward of the town and deep into the wood so as not to be the goal of the common disapproval anymore.

This had just enlarged the feeling of mistrust that the other humans had for him and his family. Michael had told her what he had eavesdropped from the people speaking behind his back about wild orgies he would celebrate with the gargoyles, especially with her. The thought of mating with a human was, for Demona, more than ridiculous but when she heard from Michael that the other children were avoiding his children, she had gotten angry.

~Why have the humans even to expel their own kind when they are friends...~ Demona shuddered by these words. Did she really consider Michael and his family as friends of the clan?

She remembered the captain of the guard, he was even isolated amongst the humans because he respected her and her kind...

But her thoughts were interrupted when the path in the wood became straight and she could see Michael's house barely fifty feet away. The boy started to run to the door and at once the door opened and Michael came out, taking the boy in his strong arms while the boy buried his face in his father's chest.

On this Demona stopped, sensing something strange there. Why did Michael come out now as if he had waited in the floor, shouldn't he be with his girl? And why didn't he greeted them, or asked them to hurry?

~Maybe we came too late. ~ Demona thought bitterly and a pain crossed her heart when she thought of the innocent girl, even though she would never admit it.

She looked at Michael's eyes. At first she saw the pain and believed she had really come too late, but then...

She saw more than pain. She saw fear, the same fear as in his son's eyes, fear and... regret.

Demona's eyes widened when she began to understand and adrenaline started to rush through her veins.

"My love!" She cried to Shaman and he turned surprised half around to her when something hit him in his chest and he stumbled backwards in his mate's arms.

She grabbed him around his chest, felt the warm liquid in her claws and smelled the taste of blood...

Full of rage at the one, who had dared to do this, she looked around and saw that at least 6-armed humans, all of them wearing black masks, surrounded them. But they didn't matter for her as much as the person in front of her, the leader of the group wearing a mask with three deep red scars on it and a smoking gun in his hand.

"Hunter..." Demona whispered, her mind nearly refusing to believe what was happening.

"Demon!" The Hunter replied, full with contempt. "You didn't really think that the hunt would have ended?"

Demona glared at him, her eyes blazing red and saw that on this some men stepped back... seemingly knowing who she was. She heard Little Panther and Wolf coming to her by stepping backwards and never leaving the humans, which surrounded them out of their views like their teacher had taught them.

"My love, can you run when I order to?" Demona asked her mate in the language of their clan. "Through the left part where the men have already stepped back. We will scare them with screams and try to overrun them. I will hold them back and you run as fast as you can."

"I'll try." Shaman said, again in their language, under pains while more and more of his blood spilled from his wound.

"On my sign." She said to the young warriors behind her.

"You think that these words in your unholy language can impress me?" The Hunter asked and took the sword from his belt "You...."

"NOW!!!"

At once the four gargoyles started a wild screaming, which shook the men in their bones and ran to the two men. Demona leaped on them with a battle cry, hitting one men with her tail on the face and letting him collapse while pinning the other on the ground and slashing his chest open, ignoring his screams of pain.

She felt how the other gargoyles rushed around her and hoped that the humans would be shocked enough to not follow them yet. To make sure that her point had been made, she spread her wings to their full seize to block the way for the humans.

Unfortunately the Hunter wasn't impressed and cut with his sword good two thirds of Demona's left wing of, which made her scream in pain and rage.

"You see men, the Demon is made out of unholy flesh and blood." The Hunter said proudly to his men. "So we can kill her."

Demona stood now in front of the Hunter and his men, trying to ignore the phantom pain of her wing and the view of the lost part on the ground, lying there like dead skin. She knew that it would grow again, but it hurt...

The men came slowly closer and Demona knew that she couldn't do anything against such superiority and so decided to turn around and followed the others on all fours, on which way she was faster than any human could be.

So fast she left that the humans behind were left running through the undergrowth and following the direction she supposed the others had taken. Far too soon for her taste, she discovered them in front of her running, but far too slow.

"What is it?" Demona asked angrily "We've got to hurry!"

She discovered the answer even before they could answer her. Shaman was seemingly at the end of his powers, his chest rising and sinking damned slowly and he could barely hold himself on his knees.

"My love." Demona said in shock. She had seen that his wound had been deep, but now she saw that it was more than that. It was deadly if not at once cured through a shaman.

But before she could grab the bag on her belt, her keen ears sensed the humans coming nearer fast.

~Damn. ~

"You have to leave me behind..." Shaman coughed. "I just hinder you..."

"Never!" Demona said angrily. "We...."

Then she heard a snarl, not unlike a gargoyle's snarl and looked ahead to see a big black cat standing on a fallen tree and mustering her with deep green eyes. A panther... her panther!

She looked down on her love.

"Can you run?" She asked worriedly and he shook his head.

On this she took him in her two powerful arms like she had done so many years before and followed the panther that had started to run away, with the gargoyles on its back.

The gargoyles, especially Demona with Shaman in her arms, had problems to follow the panther, but finally the panther leaped about a small overhang and then under it. Demona followed the panther and discovered a cave under the overhang, which was covered by roots.

"Quickly!" She ordered to the young warriors who instantly followed the panther in. Then Demona crawled in with her mate in her arms. She wasn't surprised that the cave had no other exit but the panther had vanished, as this was the nature of guardian spirits, they came to protect and vanished then...

And this time her ghost had indeed saved them.

Demona looked to his mate and knew that the ghost hadn't saved everyone.

"My love!" She whispered to Shaman who lay weak on the ground. "Hold on, I..."

"No, it's too late." Shaman coughed and as much as she prayed, she knew he was right. The shot must have not just hit a vein but a lung, too. Desperately she put her claws on his wound in order to stop it from bleeding, but she knew she couldn't help him anymore. All she had learned from him in the art of medicine and shamanism said this to her.

"My wonderful, wonderful mate..." Shaman said until his coughing again stopped it. He then said slowly. "You are so beautiful as when we first met..."

"I..." Demona said, tears running down her face. "I remember my love, I remember."

"I came in this cave and I saw you..." Shaman said, his voice becoming weaker and weaker. "Injured... dangerous... and so wild."

Shaman smiled despite his pains over his whole beak.

"I loved you from the first time..." He coughed again. "The first time I saw you... your eyes...."

He sunk back on the earth and closed his eyes for the last time.

Demona could just stare at her death mate, softly stroking his gray feathers. She heard sobbing from behind but chose to ignore it.

It was an irony par excellence that it ended here, in a cave such as the one where they had met first, as refuges of the humans who hunted her. Just this time he was wounded and she hadn't been able to help him.

Memories flooded her mind...

*"I'm a friend."*

*A mild summer night, she and Shaman were surrounded by the other clan members but they had just eyes for another. Shaman raised the ceremonial dagger and cut the palm of his claw, he then gave it to Demona and she cut the palm of her claw. Finally she gave the dagger to the eldest, an old male and grabbed Shaman's bloody claw with hers. "Like the blood, which you gave to show your loyalty to the clan," he intoned, "you gave your blood to show that you're one for another and in the eyes of the clan..." He took the dagger on his belt and laid a claw on each gargoyle's shoulder. "With this you're one." Demona looked in her mate's eyes and he in hers, it was as if she sunk in them. Then with unhidden passion and wildness, she embraced her new mate. *

*Still a bit confused, Demona came out of the tent in which she had made her first trip to the world of limbo. She looked around to the guardians on each side of the entrance who had raised their Angel swords, ready to kill her if her eyes had any different color or something of her behavior, which would be strange. But it wasn't and when Demona looked into her mate's face she saw a large smile. "Now you're a Shaman."*

*Demona lay her head on Shaman's hip, her face still full of sweat from the laying of her egg. It was ever a strenuous act for her like all other female gargoyles, not as long as the blasted humans who sometimes needed hours for their offspring to come... A fact, which made Demona grin every time she thought about it... But a gargoyles egg was much, much bigger than the head of a human baby to be born and as such harder to be pressed out. Her mate knew this and softly stroked her hair, purring and comforting her. *

All these memories circled in her mind like a storm and she was unable to stop it...

She wanted to scream in anger, to cry about her loss or simply to break down, but at the border of her mind she heard somebody other crying.

This brought her back to the present and she turned around from her dead mate and clan leader to the two young warriors who were supposed to learn something tonight... and perhaps they had.

She saw her daughter, crying on Wolf's chest and tears streaming out of Wolf's face. Demona couldn't blame them, Shaman had been the leader as long they lived, they looked... had looked up to him, perhaps seen him as a sort of father. But she couldn't take any consideration on this.

"Listen we..." She didn't come any further since her keen ears heard even through the earth how humans were coming nearer.

She held a talon in front of her lips, as a sign for both warriors to be quiet and her daughter was, despite the shock, quiet at once.

They listened to the sound of human boots coming nearer and finally stopping. The sounds stopped and Demona came to believe that they had discovered their hide away and the cave had become a trap for them, but then she heard the voices.

"We've lost their trail." One man said and his voice sounded vaguely familiar to Demona.

"You promised we would kill the Demon and the sorcerer at once." One timid and angry voice said. "Now they'll come back to hunt our families, we...."

"Shut up!" An angry voice which Demona recognized as the Hunter's. "I've hit the male demon directly in his chest, he is surely dead already."

"You can't know this." A third voice said. "We told you that the witchcraft of these beasts has healed even the strongest fevers in our town. Maybe he is healthy again and ready to attack us with the rest of his devil spawn."

Demona looked down on her mate... oh how she wished it!

"He isn't our main goal." The Hunter said calmly. "The She-Demon is! When we have her your main problem is solved."

"What about the gargoyles on the plain?" A fourth voice said. "They will take revenge."

"We will kill them after daybreak when they are stone." The Hunter ordered. "I don't think that whatever unholy sorcery protected them during the day is still there since their sorcerer is death."

"But the..." The first voice dared to ask.

"I have taken care of a clan of these beasts already back in New York." The Hunter interrupted him. "I know how to do it and hey do you know? When you shatter them in the right way a part of them becomes still flesh during the night and when it has still a mouth it screams!!!"

The men laughed and Demona clenched her fists under the earth, controlling herself not to storm upwards and attacking them.

"As you said." The third voice said. "But remember, we will pay first when you have killed all these beasts."

"I'd say you have already paid, as all I want is the head of the She-Demon." The Hunter said. "Now come! Let's hurry, I don't want them to escape."

There were the sounds of boots again and Demona knew that the humans went further away from them.

Her eyes were glaring red. She knew these voices! Two men she had such recognized as men out of the town and the others sounded even so familiar.... The humans had betrayed her anew!!! They had called the hunter to kill her and get rid of her clan.

In this moment, she didn't want anything else than going out there and tearing these humans to pieces, but a voice held her back.

"Second."

Demona looked around to Wolf who had called her.

"What shall we do now?" He asked, trying to control his voice.

Demona thought about it. She was leader now and that meant she had the responsibility of the clan, including the young warriors in front of her.

"I will go out and attack the humans to distract them. Then I will run away and let them follow me." She explained calmly and noticed that her daughter had stopped crying. "Five minutes after I am out of the cave you will return to the plain as fast as you can and report to the others what has happened. Tell them my orders is to do nothing but to wait on my return, we will decide later how we will react on this betrayal."

"But when you..." Wolf started but Demona interrupted him at once.

"No buts, you will do as I say." Demona said angrily and added a bit calmer. "Remember they can't harm me permanently. This…" She extended her crippled and still hurting wing, "will heal like the other injuries I had in my life."

~Even when it hurts like hell~ she added in thoughts.

"What about the leader?" Little Panther asked.

"Leave him here." Demona responded coldly.

"But..."

Demona snarled slightly. She was sick of the buts, why couldn't this youngling simply obey?

When she saw that on this, Little Panther had crawled back into Wolf's arms, she calmed down. There was no reason to let the anger that she felt for the human's come out on these younglings.

"I know you dislike this. I too." She started. "But to take his... his body to the plain would slow you down and this might be deadly. He is dead, so saving your life has priority before honoring the death." Demona was quiet for some moments while looking back on the body of her mate. "It would be his will...." Then she looked back to the young warriors. "I will take him when I come back and then we can give him the memorial ceremony he deserves. I swear."

Both young warriors nodded and Demona turned to the exit, but then she stopped.

Demona looked in both younglings eyes. "I know this is hard for you but believe me, I am proud of you and my mate would be too." She declared to them. "Follow my orders. I know you can handle it and don't fear, I'll be back to perform the ritual... the clan will be safe."

With this, Demona ran out of the cave to fight the fight she had hoped to leave behind.

09.08.98; 01:43; Castle Wyvern, Great Hall:

The present persons, humans and gargoyles alike, could grab the silence in the air when Demona made a break. The clan couldn't see grief in Demona's eyes, just pain... and hate.

Demona sighed and continued. "Two nights later, I came back."

"Two nights?" Angela asked surprised. "Mother what took you so long?"

Demona grinned evilly. "I had fought." She explained and on the still curious looks of her daughter and many other clan members she added. "You've fought the Hunters already and know how hard it is?"

Angela nodded. She knew there had to be more, but her mother didn't want to tell and Angela knew from the few sure things that she knew about her mother that she would definitely not speak when she not wanted to.

"Before I returned to the plain I fulfilled a promise I made." Demona continued.

10.06.1675; 21:02; Deep in the woods in front of a cave:

Demona landed in front of the cave, there she stood a while and looked ahead into the cave at the overhang that lay there like she remembered and she sensed no danger. Yet a part of her hesitated to move in, out of fear what she would see.

But there was no other way and she knew it. So she crawled in on all fours and at once saw the corpse of her dead mate lying in front of her. A part of her had hoped that the young warriors had disobeyed her order and had taken his corpse already to the plane so that she wouldn't have this sad duty, but this hope had perished.

But another part of her was happy that it was, so that she could say goodbye to him personally and not around her clan who doubtfully would ever express their sorrow with her. No predator had made a meal from his corpse and the cool temperature under the earth had slowed down the decay process so that he seemed still as when she had left.

There was still the possibility that she could visit his ghost in the world of limbo, three nights were a long time for such but Demona knew that he would wait there for her to say goodbye. But this would be it, never again would they glide out together, never again would they laugh together or see how their children will grow up, never....

Her claw trembled while she stroke softly his head...

"The humans will pay for this!" She swore and felt her anger become so large that she believed her heart would crack.

"THEY ALL WILL PAY FOR THIS!" She screamed out her anger and pain as her eyes glared red while tears were running down from them.

Demona wanted them all dead, not just the Hunters or all the humans in the town but all humans in the world. The hate, the pain that was rooted in the hate, which had been buried during her time with Shaman claimed her anew, more powerful and more demanding than ever before.

But then she looked on the closed eyes of her mate and remembered what he had said once about his first love, how she died through the human's hand and he had nearly destroyed the human's town.

Did she want to do so?

She thought about what she had heard of the men, that they had hired the Hunter, how they took part in the attack. She remembered that she had helped one of them to heal his leg or else it would have had to been amputated.

Yes, everything in her screamed to take revenge for him, to order her clan to wipe the damned town and all its residents from the face of earth. But something held her back when she looked back on her mate, another voice raised in her, his voice.

He had been so tortured by them, had lost someone he loved, but ultimately he had decided to try to coexist with them, for the best of his clan.

She thought about this. She could kill the humans in the town without much effort, as she knew that without the Hunter they were too afraid to attack them, but what then?

If it became known that the town had been destroyed by her and her kind then the other humans surely wouldn't ignore this. Maybe the humans in the other towns would fear the same fate and leave her and her kind alone, but maybe they might even so try to kill her and Demona doubted that they could defy a siege for long.

And what about the future? Even when they would be rid of the humans, the clan had become too large to survive without what the humans gave them from their supplies since they had decimated the game in the woods rapidly.

~And when the next generation will hatch in three years,~ Demona thought, ~we will have even larger problems.~

Demona groaned. She did not want to do it, to be dependent on the humans, but she saw now that she had no other choice. Even the thought to simply steal the food they needed like she had done with her second clan wasn't possible, as these weren't the old times any more and the humans knew where she and the others lived. Sooner or later they would take revenge perhaps even call the army and her clan had no other places to move to, no good hiding places... She had no choice.

Demona clenched her fists until they bled and looked to her mate.

"Seemingly you were right my love..." She said with love and sarcasm to her dead mate. "There is no other way."

Softly she took his body in her arms and moved out of the cave. She felt how cold his body was, so frightening cold and she remembered how she once had found in him this warmth, which had not just warmed her body but her heart. How she had laughed, how....

A single tear rolled town her cheek.

~No~ she admonished herself. ~Later, now you've responsibilities.~

She thought about the future, what she would tell the clan. How to go on.

She wouldn't destroy the town, but she sure wouldn't do as if nothing had happened. It would kill her if she did, she knew this, like it had killed her all those years ago in Wyvern when the humans treated her and her clan so ungratefully and she had no way to defend herself, even her clan wouldn't understand this.

She would go to the humans and demand that they delivered the men who had attacked her together with the Hunter and Demona knew she wouldn't have such mercy as Shaman had had. If they wouldn't do so at once then she would refuse to help them further like Shaman had done. The clan had enough supplies as reserve that they could survive on for some months and additionally they could go hunt, which wouldn't be much but enough to come through.

Demona smiled evilly.

~Perhaps I will even so bring the preacher to pray something true,~ she thought. ~When they still refuse after a month I might show them without their knowledge that shamans aren't just able to cure diseases.~

Michael came to her mind... she would see after this traitor! He had trapped them by saying that his daughter had fever? Demona would take care that he buried her soon.

Sunk in her own thoughts she leaped into the clear air of the cloudless sky and glided, her dead mate in her arms, back to the plain and her clan... back home.

10.06.1675; 21:51; In the air before the plain:

Demona, her dead mate in her arms, slowly landed on the plain, she had sensed that something was wrong already in the air. Her keen ears hadn't heard any sound from the plain and she hadn't even seen one of the others patrolling at the border of the plain.

~You didn't expect merry chatter?~ Demona calmed herself. ~And why patrol the plain? We never did it before and the guardian spirit....~

Her thoughts were interrupted when she saw a sight that she had hoped to never see again. Full of shock she nearly dropped the cold body in her arms and unable to summon the strength to hold him further she laid him on the ground.

Crumbled stone lay in front of her and Demona knew all too well what this meant. From the mass of the stone she figured it had to be one of the youngest generation and from the fact that she recognised a beak, it had to be Little Racoon who was one of the cleverest of his generation and a possible candidate for her magical training.

She even so saw the instrument of this destruction, a hammer, not a morning star like she had nearly expected, a simple hammer had ended this hatchlings life, a life which had barely just started.

These thoughts crossed her mind without really bringing emotions, the shock was too large. She moved forward to the centre of the plain, the centre of the clan's life and while she did so, she saw more piles of crumbled stone, registering them with a part of her mind.

Finally she reached the centre of the plain. The fire in the middle wasn't on like nearly every other night when the elders gathered there in order to warm their old bones and telling the young ones the history of the clan. Instead, only ash was in the stone circle and the dead fireplace was surrounded by dozens of piles of crumbled stone of every different structure and size. She could see one claw stretching out of one bunch, the half of one face....

It was too much for Demona, she sunk on her knees with tears floating down her cheeks. Then she threw her head backwards and screamed a scream full of grief, pain and hate echoing over the plain and deep in the valley, not that she bothered.

Again, like in Wyvern and Moray the humans had taken all she had had, her clan, her mate, her....

Demona held in, a thought came in her mind and she forced herself upon her feet. As fast as she could, Demona raced to the rookery hoping to find at least some sign of hope amongst all this death.

What she saw let all her hopes perish. The massive rookery door, which was mostly like the doors back in Wyvern, made to protect the eggs which were normally safe there even without the door. But now she saw something on the door, which froze her blood. A cross, painted on the door.... made of blood!

Under it a writing in Roman letters:

"In Nomine Patre."

Suddenly she discovered an axe lying beside the door, an axe with the symbol of Michael's family like he had shown her once.

She didn't want to go in, she knew what the humans had done with the eggs of other clans, but she knew that it was her duty to look after them. Praying that the humans had at least spared them, seeing it senseless to destroy them and so the clan had at least a future.

When she opened the heavy door the first thing she registered was the smell, a smell she couldn't identify at once. Part of it was blood, the other part...

Then she looked in and wished she hadn't, the smell came from the innards of the eggs, which was mixed with blood, the blood of the dead foetuses being torn much, much too early out of their eggs to survive.

Gargoyle eggs weren't stone by day like the elders, so the one who had done this mustn't have had much work. They had an hard shell and nor rats nor foxes, not even wolves were able to crack the shell, but against a human weapon they were fragile... so damned fragile.

She saw the mixture of eggshells and little bodies and knew the one of her and her mate was amongst them. Even the little bodies had been destroyed, the limbs of their unready bodies had been partly torn off and some of them had broken heads.

Demona heard the flies summing through the air, having sensed the death in the cave and now hungry to get fed by this death. All this was far more than Demona could bear, in total horror she closed the door as fast as she could, knowing that she would never be able to open it again.

She slowly sunk to her knees and leaned on the door of the rookery, unable to breathe or even to cry since her pain was far above this. All her life had been crumbled to dust by the humans again and she knew she had been naive and foolish to think that it could be otherwise.

Her heart, her whole body felt cold and in the afterwards she couldn't say how long she knelt there just looking ahead like dead.

But finally she heard something, which she hadn't expected, the painful scream of another gargoyle... a female as far as Demona could say.

In Demona's heart raised something like hope, of a kind she had just sworn to never allow herself again, while she raced like mad to the centre of the plain.

~By the dragon, ~ she prayed. ~By the Great Spirit let it be true. ~

And when she came to the centre of the plain, to the death fire amongst which laid the remains of the greatest parts of her clan, she saw something which made her stop at once.

Amongst all this dead she saw her daughter, living, but seemingly in shock of all this death.

"DAUGHTER!" Demona screamed in total surprise and happiness.

The so-called Little Panther looked up in surprise at her leader, seemingly as surprised as Demona to see living amongst all this death.

Their eyes met and as fast as they could they moved to each other and embraced as hard as they could.

"Mother..." Lucifia whispered unbelievably.

Demona stroke Little Panther's hair while she buried her face in her leader's shoulder. She felt the hot tears of her daughter on her shoulder while she made reassuring sounds since she didn't know what else to do.

Others, human especially, would have said that all would be all right again and that life would go on and the pain would end. But Demona knew better, she knew that it would never again become completely well again and that a part of her heart would forever feel the pain deep inside like she had and ever would with her two former clans.

After a few minutes, which seemed like hours, Demona released her daughter from her embrace and looked at her. Little Panther's green eyes were red and puffy, they showed so much pain that it tortured Demona's heart.

"Second," Little Panther finally said. "I..." She swallowed, "what has happened?"

Demona looked on her. "The humans have done this." ~Always the humans. ~

"But..." The young warrior said, seemingly having problems to hold her voice and finally it sounded like an accusation. "But the guardian spirit should have protected us!"

Sadly Demona shook her head.

"He would have but...." Demona stopped a second. "But I think he was too weak to do it. The death of the gargoyle that had bound him here and the fact that we have already reached the third night.... It was too much."

~Like I have feared.~ She added in thoughts. ~Like I have feared.~

"I searched for leaves in the woods..." Little Panther explained. "We needed them for tonight... the elders had decided that my brother should try the ascent to a full shaman tonight and then try to bind the guardian spirit..." Her eyes grew big.

"My brother!" She said. "He might... I mean he can't...."

Her mind seemed to stop her from completely understanding... but when her elder shook her head slightly, she sobbed all the more even when she was able to hold her strength.

"They are all dead..." Little Panther noted. "What... what shall we do now?"

Demona looked into her daughter's eyes.

"We will take revenge for the death of our clan." She said with red glowing eyes. "We will make them pay... them all!"

Little Panther nodded, even when she seemed not so full of rage like Demona, then she looked around.

"It has ended?" She asked, "I mean all I knew, all I had, I..." she looked deep in Demona's eyes with eyes, which were so much. "I feel like a part of me has died."

Demona knew what she meant. She had felt the same when she was there 600 years ago, amongst the shattered remains of her clan, with her first love being trapped in stone, unable to reach Katharine for stealing the eggs. A part of her had died there and as much as Shaman had been able to heal some wounds she would never be the same gargoyle again she had been before this... this part of her was gone.

And the same she saw now in her daughter's eyes, the same pain, the same loss of soul, the same change.

"Yes it'll never be the same." Demona said. "Like you… Lucifia."

The newly named Lucifia looked up to Demona.

"Lucifia." She repeated as if she tasted the name on her tongue "I like this name... Definitely more than Little Panther... mother."

The last words came out of her mouth nearly shy since she was unsure if her *mother* would accept this, but her fears proofed ungrounded since she nodded with a warm smile.

"Yes daughter." She answered.

Mother and daughter looked at each other, they both remembered the first time it became clear for Little Panth... Lucifia that there was more between them than the simple bound between clan members.

23.09.1667; 21:02; Outside the church during the evening mass:

Unnoticed by the humans inside, a gargoyle teenage girl with black hair had approached the church window and eavesdropped with her keen gargoyle ears. She knew she shouldn't, she knew if her elders, especially her second would find out this, she would have the greatest of problems.

But even though she would be sent to the rookery, her curiosity was greater than her fear, she simply wanted to hear what these humans said about her kind. He had arrived two months ago and the humans had built him a building, a church they called it.

The second had come three nights before back from the town with such anger in her eyes that she and her siblings had went out of her way at once since they knew her in this mood and didn't want to get in the line of fire. From the curses they had heard from the cave of the leader and the whispers she and her siblings had heard from the elders, they knew that a new man had arrived in the town and was going to spread lies about them to the other humans.

When she had asked an elder what a preacher was, she had told her that it was a shaman for the humans, the whites especially. That it would be the connection to their god, but he would not have the powers like the clan's leader, he couldn't call the spirit or heal injuries but simply lead through his words and this book, the bible.

This had made her even more curious. How could he claim to be chosen by his god when he had no power or even was able to be of any use for his clan? And why did they listen to him?

Full of questions she had decided to investigate it by herself. She had asked her closest brother, the wolf featured one, to come with her but he had refused, but he had promised to cover her for the elders.

She had to admit that this was a bit scary. Yes she had already visited the town to investigate it, even when her clan didn't allow that, but these were trips together with her siblings, games to see who would be the first to get scared and return to the secure plain. And like back then, the main goal was not to be seen by the humans of the town.

So she had good luck now because the gathered congregation listened and stared at the preacher and what he said let Little Panther finally understand why her second had been so upset after she had heard him.

"God created the world and Adam as the ruler over this world and like it is written here he saw that it was good, it was holy. But already with Adam's first wife, Lilith, the evil came in the shape of a woman in the paradise since she was rebellious and disobedient to her man and ruler. So he rejected her like it was good since all women who don't obey their man and ruler are evil and just evil can come from them."

Little Panther couldn't see him but of the speech he hold she imagined an enormous human with a severely dark face.

"But not enough after this she committed a rather larger sacrilege by becoming a demon's wife, married by Lucifer the fallen angel himself and the children of this unholy connection, the children of sin are now in our middle."

Little Panther had no doubt whom he meant, but the thought seemed funny to her. Being the children of demons, bad spirits and a human woman like the preacher claimed would be humiliating... being related to humans! They were weak, had no respect for nature or even for one another and even when they built some fascinating things, there was no reason to make this relationship closer. The second had warned her and her siblings to do so and now she proofed right.

"The children of these evil ones call themselves Gargoyles, but they are nothing but demons. They claim the right to share the world, our world with us but they have no right to this. God himself allowed them just to become flesh by night to show that they are creatures of darkness and worthy of his grace, not worthy of his love."

Little Panther grinned, she had no intention to share her time with the humans like neither the preacher claimed nor she wanted the grace or love of the human god.

"But to claim the gift of their own god sent to you by his almighty grace, your crop reaped by your hand, they temp you to an unholy bargain to feed their unholy spawn. If god would truly allow them to live in his chosen country he would take care that they find enough to feed them by themselves. Instead they take it from your family by curing the diseases of your family with the help of their magic, their dark arts given them by the lords of hell."

He stopped for a while and Little Panther could see it before her eyes how he stood there, looking angrily at the humans of the town.

"I say to you that they use these powers even to make you sick and because you search their help you not just loose your harvest, but your soul! Yes your soul, because all who help these demons commit an act of sin against god, an act...."

Little Panther didn't really listen anymore since she had checked what he said, gargoyles were evil, and gargoyles were demons, don't talk with them....

~Can he just lie or make fun?~ Little Panther asked herself. She had no idea why the human spread such lies about her and her clan even when her second told her that humans lied nearly every time.

"Now let us celebrate the new bound!" The preacher intoned.

"In the night he had been betrayed Jesus our lord, gods son, took the goblet, handed it to his disciples and said:

This is my blood I gave for you.

Take it and drink of it as the sign of the new bound.

Then he took the bread, divided it, gave it to his disciples and spoke:

This is my flesh I gave for you.

Take it and eat of it as sign of the new bound.

"Now let us celebrate this by eating this gifts of our lord."

This shocked Little Panther.

~They are eating the flesh and drinking the blood of their god?~ She asked herself, ~what are these barbarians?~

Pictures came to her mind, of all these humans eating flesh of one of their own kind and drinking his blood.

So deep was she in her thoughts that she failed to noticed that the preacher had finally become quiet. She quickly looked up to the moon and noticed from its stand that she had already been here longer than she had wanted. More importantly she had broken her promise to her brother to be back after the evening mess.

She was going to turn her back on the church, when she noticed something. The lights in the church had been turned off, which meant that the humans had gone. Humans disliked the night since their senses were weak and unable to come along with the darkness. This was one of the few things she knew about them, which meant the humans had probably left the building.

Little Panther was curious, as she had never been in a human building before and the building in which they honoured their god was even more attempting. She knew she shouldn't do this, she knew she would probably got into greater problems than she had ever been before, but her still nearly childish curiosity fed by mainly living on a boring plain was more powerful.

Slowly and noiseless, like she had learned from her teacher and by many games with her siblings, she crept around the back part of the building up to the front side with the large door, just like the door of the rookery.

The door wasn't shut so the young gargoyle slowly crept in. What she saw made her wonder. It was unlike she had expected it to be. The first thing she noticed was the cross hanging from the ceiling. An instrument of death as far as she knew and Little Panther wondered what it could stand for.

~Maybe they punish the ones who offend against their rules by crucifying?~ She asked herself, this sounded first abstruse, ~but when they even eat flesh and blood of their god?~

But when she saw the goblet and dish standing on the altar, she wondered. If they truly had eaten flesh and drunken blood then there had to be signs of it?

Slowly she neared the altar and was already just some metres away so that she could study it more exactly when...

"GO AWAY DARK SPIRIT IN THE NAME OF THE LORD OUR GOD!!!"

Shocked, Little Panther made a jump to the side, too shocked to do anything else. Then she saw the man who was obviously the preacher holding a cross and a book, the bible as far as Little Panther had heard, in his hands. He was nothing like she had imagined him, she had thought he would be large and impressive like her leader, but indeed he was small, just as large as she herself was and she wasn't large compared to her elders. His red head was decorated by a small hair garland around his else hairless head and he wore a black robe which let him seem, despite his small seize, threatening.

"I..." Tried the shocked Little Panther, who had never before spoken with a human, to say in his language which she knew of thanks to her second "I meant no harm."

"You tried to steal the holy corpse of our lord to desecrate it and use it for the unholy mess of your demon kind!" The preacher said "I saw it."

"NO!" Little Panther tried desperately to explain "I just wanted..."

But the preacher interrupted her at once.

"I don't believe your lies demon!" The preacher said angrily "I'll..."

But he was interrupted himself by the sounds of the church door being torn open and both looked in shock to the open door. In the light of the moon stood an impressive female gargoyle with eyes burning red like hell, combined so fitting with her hair as red as human blood.

She terrified both the gargoyle teen and the human preacher deeply for different reasons. The human preacher because he knew that she was the mate and second in command of the demons, even so a dark sorceress which bewitched the men of his parish.

The young gargoyle on the contrary had a deeper and more likely reason to fear, since she knew that she was in greatest trouble now.

But the angry demon did not eye her first but the preacher.

"What happened here?" She asked angrily while coming nearer.

The preacher stepped back in shock and held the cross and the bible even stronger.

"GO BACK INTO HELL DAUGHTER OF LILITH HERSELF!!!!" He intoned.

Demona studied him with red glaring eyes and for a moment Little Panther thought that her second would tear him to pieces straight before her eyes, but she controlled herself and turned her eyes instead to Little Panther.

"Why is he so upset?" Demona asked icily. "I mean despite the fact that you entered this building, not to speak of this town."

Little Panther winced as she knew this tone, it was when the second was hard before exploding, but before she could say anything the preacher took the word.

"Stealing our holy relics," the preacher said. "Our host to celebrate your unholy rituals, to desecrate the gifts of our god."

Demona looked on the man with symbolic pity.

"Hardly human," she said coolly. "Our rituals are truly holy since we really have contact with these powers who created this world and our *relics* have true power, so we have no need for this."

To Little Panther's surprise the preacher was able to become even redder in his face. He was going to say something when Demona snarled angrily on which he held the bible once again upwards.

"We will go now." She said even so to the preacher and to her rookery daughter. "And don't worry human, no one of us, this one especially," with this Demona gave the youngster a hard look, which made her look to the ground, "will ever enter your church again."

With this she laid firmly her claw on the young female's shoulder and began to lead her out.

"Yes go and never come again or the wrath of my god will hit you..." He looked to Demona who had stopped, "and your daughter."

On this Demona's claw tightened a bit around Little Panther's shoulder. Little Panther on the other hand was shocked...

"Daughter?" She asked surprised. "No we..."

"Don't lie to me child of Lucifer," the preacher said, now standing with his back to the altar as if he wanted to protect it from them. "I can see the resemblance, you have the same poison-green eyes full of wickedness and evil and I will wipe you...."

Demona turned around to the preacher and snarled louder and more threatening than ever before on him, which made him step back until his back touched the altar, being in the focus of her deep red eyes.

"Listen you puny human, you will never threaten any of my clan's children again!" She commanded in a tone, which allowed no refuse. "If you do I swear I'll send you to your god faster than you can pray for forgiving for the sin, which is your existence."

Which this she turned around and practically pulled Little Panther out off the church. Outside she tried to calm her second.

"Second I...." Little Panther started, but she wasn't interested and raised a claw to make her quite.

"Follow me," she said icily and Little Panther nodded desperately.

Wordlessly they climbed upon the roof of the church, ignoring the humans of the town coming to see what had happened and glided back to the plain.

This was the longest flight in Little Panther's young life, but it seemed not long enough for her since she knew what would wait for her back on the plain.

Both gargoyles landed on the border of the plain even when Little Panther was not half so artistic like her second, she had other problems at the moment than her skill to land.

Her second seemingly didn't see this so.

"You have to learn landing better," she said without turning around. "Your skill hasn't improved since a year."

Little Panther swallowed.

"I try my best second."

Demona finally turned around and looked into the youngster's eyes, which were so much like her own and Little Panther saw the answer even when her second didn't speak it out.

~Not good enough, far not good enough.~

"Why did you go down there?" Demona asked icily. "You know that I and the leader, like every other elder has forbidden it for you and your siblings often enough!" When Little Panther nodded she added, "then why?"

Little Panther swallowed, this was even harder than when the second was mad on her. The ice in her voice seemed to directly hit her heart.

"I... I just was curious." Little Panther started "I mean all these human rituals, the church, god..." She desperately searched to find a spark of understanding in her second's eyes, but they stood cold. "It is just so exciting."

"It is not exciting it is dangerous!" Demona yelled angrily on her, which made Little Panther flinch. "A fact I have told you again and again."

"But you and the leader go there even so!" Little Panther protested.

"We visit the humans because we have to for the sake of our clan." Demona explained. "Not for fun!"

"But..." Little Panther started, not willing to give up so easily. "As a warrior I have to know the world around me, not just the plain and the woods. You told us that you've often visited cities of the humans in the Old World."

Little Panther's eyes glittered by this when she remembered the unbelievable stories of her second. Of stone buildings and castles so large that they were able to inhabit a gargoyle clan and many humans, the seemingly endless ocean, dark and full of mysteries, cities with thousands over thousands of humans.

This all she and her siblings just knew from the stories of the elders who had been expelled from their original protectorates in Germany and naturally from her second, who seemed to have had a life full of wonders.

Demona's view on the youngster stayed hard. "Yes and I told you and your brothers and sisters that I didn't do this because I wanted to, but because I had been forced to this since the humans hunted me." She explained. "And as a warrior it is even so necessary to know your borders and to follow the order of the leader. The human town is definitely outside this border and I thought you would have understood that."

Demona held her view and so showed her disappointment in this youngling.

"You can't trust the humans." Demona added. "They are neither our friends nor our allies, no human is or can ever be, believe me I know. We tolerate them because they give us food since they have expelled the most game out off the woods and we give them medicine in exchange, nothing more. If they could they would gladly kill us all and I must say that it is the same on my side."

Little Panther looked shocked at her second, it had ever been clear that she mistrusted the humans, everybody in the clan did, but so clear she had never said it and a part in Little Panther knew that she wouldn't repeat this in front of the clan.

Demona sighed. She knew she had said too much especially in front of a youngster, but it simply burned in her heart like a hot flame and the preacher had fed this flame even more.

"I know that your mind is hungry after other things than this area," she explained "and I think that my stories might have contributed to this. But remember the place where we live is the most secure place I've ever seen for our kind and this means something. You and your siblings are lucky to have such a home with the clan and don't need to live under the fear not to wake up one evening like all the other clans do."

"And as I have said, in three years I will lead you and your siblings around until to the coast." Demona saw the glittering in the youngster's eyes and added. "When I think that you're mature enough, something I don't see yet."

Little Panther nodded desperately, as she really didn't want to miss this event when they would finally see more of the world. The second had promised to lead them one month away from the rest of the clan, wandering until the coast, which would be their first and perhaps even their last great trip.

Little Panther and her siblings were already excited to do so and perhaps going through the greatest adventure of their lives. Needless to say that this was a damned good reason to behave.

~What if I miss the trip because of this...~ Little Panther didn't even wanted to think about this.

Little Panther looked deep into her second's eyes, as she knew that she would get perhaps in greater troubles, but...

"Second, the human called me your daughter." Little Panther said.

"I know." Demona simply responded. "And?"

Little Panther hesitated, did she go too far? But she knew she couldn't go back now.

"Is it true?" She finally asked. "Are you my mother?"

The second did not answer at once, indeed she was silent for many a long seconds, which seemed for Little Panther like hours and studied her eyes with her owns.

"I'm rookery mother for all clan members hatched or grown up since I arrived here." Demona said calmly. "As to you. If you ask me if you are my flesh and blood, then the answer is yes you are."

She saw how Little Panther's eyes grew big and added.

"But this means nothing." Demona explained. "We don't follow the human tradition, but our children are children of the whole clan how you know and such are you. That I've laid your egg means nothing."

"I... I understand." Little Panther answered while she tried to come along with this.

~What did I think else?~ Little Panther asked herself.

She felt a bit guilty of being such a egoistic that a part of her heart wanted to claim the second as her own, wanted to earn her feelings more than her siblings, but she felt so. Even so she couldn't speak with her siblings, even not her closest wolf-featured brother or even the elders about that. Once she and her siblings had asked one elder about the human rookeries and were totally surprised when they heard that the humans had no rookeries, yes even don't lay eggs but their children were *born* and just cared for by two humans, their *parents.*

In the end she and her siblings had made jokes about the human children, how they called their hatchlings, who needed a mother to care for them. Now she looked on her second and knew that she would never look on her in the same way again like she had the years before.

"Good." Demona said and so interrupted her daughter's thoughts. "To make clear that you really understand our ways you've now the opportunity to get closer with your younger brothers and sister by spending the rest of the night in the rookery."

Little Panther swallowed. The hatchlings were now nearly 10 years old, also 5 in human age, sure they would soon leave the rookery, but they were still little hatchlings and to spend the rest of the night with a vivid bunch of little imps. She groaned, but tried her best not to show it to her second since she knew that this would bring her even greater trouble.

"For the rest of the week you will even so help your clan mothers to guard them and as addition you will help to cook the meals... Clear?" Demona finally added.

Little Panther nodded, even when she felt even worse than before. Herding the hatchlings! It was easier to herd a bunch of fleas or trying to hunt game blindfold, but she knew that she definitely did not have a choice.

"Well then," the second noted. "You know where the rookery lies so go to it, I will come later this night to see you."

At once Little Panther turned around to follow the order.

~She is my mother...~ She thought while doing so.

She knew the second had been right, seeing her so was not the gargoyle way and by the look she had given her Little Panther knew that the second didn't want it so, but why did she have to think on it still?

Because she adored the second, the stories of her adventures, her bravery and wilfulness, alike with the fact that she was the greatest warrior Little Panther and some of her siblings thought had ever lived. But there was more, the nights when she had come to them in the rookery when they were still much younger and sung them rookery songs of her old clan in Scotland. When she had done so, she ever had this slightly sad and painful look in her eyes, not as much that it was obvious, but as much that Little Panther had noticed it.

One night she had asked her why she was so sad when she sung to her this song of Scotland. Even when she had tried to hide it, Little Panther had seen that it surprised her very much. Finally the second had knelt down in front of her and told her that there had been other rookeries in Scotland, which were gone now and that this made her still sad sometimes.

On this Little Panther had promised the second that she would never go. The Second had just smiled and stroked the little hatchlings hair. Then she said that she knew this and was very thankful for this and that she should go back to her siblings.

Now, deep in thoughts, silently she promised the second another thing. She would make her proud, she would prove her worthiness in the second's eyes and show that she was really worthy to be her flesh and blood.

So in thoughts she went slowly into the rookery.

09.08.98; 02:11; Castle Wyvern, Great Hall:

Angela, who had held her mother's claw while these had told of how she discovered this massacre, looked a bit shocked at her mother.

"She asked you if she was your daughter and you said this?" Angela asked her unbelieving. "How could you?"

Demona sighed.

"Well what else should I have said?" Demona asked calmly.

"That you love her," Angela started. "That you were proud of her, that you would be there for her... That you wanted to be her mother, anything of this."

Demona shook her head.

"I was her rookery mother." She noted.

"This isn't the same." Angela said angrily.

"No," Demona agreed, "but it was all I could give her." When she saw that Angela still wasn't convinced she added.

"As second I couldn't favour one hatchling over another by claiming it as my own." Demona explained, knowing the fact that Goliath had done so very well and knowing even so that he had problems with this now. "Even if I wanted to."

Angela looked to her mother, as these were nearly the same words her father had used. Suddenly Angela realised something that she hadn't thought during the whole time she knew her mother. Deep in her heart she had always wished that the massacre wouldn't had happened and that she would have been with her parents as a family. But now she saw that if it hadn't have happened, then her father and mother would have never claimed her as their own. Worse, she herself would have probably never had wanted to, but had seen herself as a child of the clan and the leader and second just as some elders amongst many.

"The lass is right." Hudson's rookery brother who had named himself Agamemnon said. "She couldn't act any other way."

There were agreeing murmurs amongst the clan, even the largest part of Broadway's rookery seemingly agreed on this. Angela looked straight into Broadway's eyes, he had kept a neutral face during the debate and now avoided his love's eyes.

~You wouldn't,~ Angela asked silently. ~Would you?~

Angela looked again to her mother, she knew that further discussions wouldn't lead to anything, especially with a clan who agreed with her mother, but she swore to herself that she would speak with her about this later.

"Why this name?" Fuchsia who sat beside her mate asked and after a look from her sister, she added. "I mean Lucifer... Lucifia this really sounds after darkness," ~like your name~ "why did you choose it?"

Demona smiled viciously, a smile Deborah would gladly wipe from her former pupils face... preferable with a morning star, which would solve even some more problems.

But before Demona could start Goliath interrupted her.

"It was a fake..." He explained with a hard look to his ex-mate. "Lucifer isn't the name for the devil."

Angela looked surprised to her father while Demona just studied him calmly.

"But it is." Angela protested.

Goliath shook his head. "No, you relay on the bible that refers him as god's first angel before his downfall." He studied his former second and mate for a splint of a second. "But indeed Lucifer means *Daystar* or *Son of the dawn, Son of light.,* or in old Babylon, as a name for the Venus. The Jews took this over as a name for the devil during their captivity through Babylon and the Christians took it over from them."

"Well who says that all the time you spend in the library to study the human books was for nothing." Demona noticed sarcastically. "But there is another relation. The roman god Lucifer was the bringer of light, the ghost of the air and the symbol of enlightenment."

For a moment it was silent in the room. Finally Angela started to speak.

"And what did you mean when you gave her this name?" Angela asked, sensing the tension between her mother and her father.

"All of this." Demona responded. "It should bring fear into the hearts of the humans. And soon I proved right with my choice when we attacked the humans to take revenge."

10.06.1675; 23:07; The town:

Unearthly cries broke through the silence of the night. It seemed as if they echoed through the complete valley and overlapped themselves. The humans in the town shuddered by these cries since they knew who announced themselves with this.

The men had assembled in the middle of the town near the fireplace they had used the last time to call the gargoyles. They stood with their swords, pitchforks and one man even had a gun ready in his hand. It was a tensed situation since the assumed attack didn't start at once and not in the form they supposed it to be. Instead of being filled with flying demons, the sky which had been clear before started to become full of dark thunderclouds.

But these thunderclouds were nothing like the humans in the town had seen before. They didn't come from any direction, but appeared suddenly over them and enlarged rapidly. Instead of giving rain for the land, the clouds just started to bear lightening and thunder in such a number that it sounded like drums booming in the tact of war.

Timidly, the men crowded together and their horror enlarged when a lightening bolt struck down directly aside them, others met the houses and set them aflame. Some made a cross while others murmured prayers to the almighty god, but their god seemed to have taken a vacation since at this moment the earth started to shake.

Some of the men lost the ground under their feet and fell down while others watched in horror how their houses, with their helpless families in it, began to shake and some on the border began to collapse. Just before they thought Armageddon had started, the earthquake stopped as did the lightening. The infernal noises stopped as fast as they had begun just to be replaced by something worse, the absolute silence.

Breathlessly the men listened to the night and looked to the sky, which was still full of clouds and waited on what would happen next. Suddenly the cries, which had started this inferno, began anew, but this time nearer.... much nearer.

Suddenly it broke through the clouds above their heads, a creature they all knew as the sorceress of the demons with hair like fire and now the eyes in the same way. She fell down on them like a stone and landed on one man in the middle, breaking his spine by this.

Demona looked like a wild animal while she snarled and looked to the humans who encircled her in fear. She quickly drew her sword from the sleeve on her back and attacked. The person who she attacked first had a broken nose and Demona had a damned good idea where he had it from since she recognized him with his voice as one of the men who had helped hire the hunter.

He tried to block her with his own sword, but Demona was faster and with one blow she cut off his right hand with which he had held his sword. The human hadn't even have time to scream in shock and pain or to see his wound since Demona gave him a kick in the stomach, which flew him some meters backward while she blocked another attack of one man with a pitchfork.

Yet despite her total superiority above every one of these humans, measured by her strength, anger and experience in fighting, there was less hope that she would have success at killing them all. They simply pressed on her by their mass of fifteen humans against one gargoyle and the fact that their fear wasn't as large as to let them run away.

"I thought she was dead," one man said to another.

"She must have survived the fall." The other man answered

But just when the men thought they would have success without a much higher number of death, they heard another cry in the night that was frightening similar to the one of the demon in front of them, but somehow smaller.

In shock, some men looked around, which led to one man getting hit by an arrow, directly into his heart. The last thing he saw was a demon with hair darker than the night and eyes red like hell, kneeling on a roof with a bow in her claw and taking another arrow from the quiver on her back with a skilful movement.

At the same time Demona took advantage of the men's surprise and stabbed one man's stomach with her sword.

"Flee, we can't win." One man screamed, dropped his pitchfork and ran away.

This caused the others to give up even so and they turned their back to Demona to run back to their families. On this Demona threw her sword at one fleeing man's back of whom she knew had taken part in the Hunter's hunt. Another was hit by an arrow directly in-between his eyes and instantly fell dead to the ground.

Demona went to the dead man with the sword in his back and pulled it out, ignoring the fleeing humans. She looked around and noticed that her daughter had landed beside her.

"This was easy." Lucifia noticed and Demona sensed the regret in her voice, the unsatisfied bloodlust.

Demona nodded. "We will go into the houses and kill the men one by one in front of their families." She explained.

"What about the rest of the humans?" Lucifia asked while she fixed the bow on her back again and drew her sword from her side.

"We will let them live." Demona said with an evil grin.

"But our revenge...." Lucifia started with surprise in her green eyes.

"This is our revenge." When Demona still saw the surprise in her daughter's eyes, she smiled with love in her eyes. ~She still has a lot to learn. ~ "Dead people don't suffer, but when we kill the men in front of their families like they killed our whole clan..."

Lucifia understood and smiled evilly. "Yes, this is fitting..." She replied. "They will feel the same pain like we do."

Demona nodded. "We will...." She couldn't finish this sentence since she was interrupted by a loud voice.

"IN THE NAME OF OUR HOLY GOD, GO BACK TO HELL FILTHY DEMONS!!!"

Demona looked to the church. The preacher stood in front of it with the bible in his hand that he had seemingly read. Lucifia was going to take the bow from her back when Demona stopped her.

"No," she explained. "He's mine."

Lucifia nodded.

"I will see to the other humans." Lucifia said. "Nobody will be able to flee."

Demona looked at her for one moment, as she didn't want to let her go into any of the houses alone, but most of the humans had already run away so they wouldn't be hard enemies... and she wouldn't need much time with the preacher.

"Agreed, I will join you in a little while," Demona answered. "Be careful, I don't want to loose you too daughter."

"I will." Lucifia promised with a smile. "I will never go!" Then she went off to the nearest house.

Demona looked at her daughter's back for some seconds and then she centered her eyes on the preacher who still stood in front of his church and tried exorcism against her and her daughter.

With the sword in her hand, she went up to him.

"How dare you attack us demon!" The preacher accused her.

"In Nomine Patre," Demona responded while grinning evilly. "Such you reason it ever or?"

"Your curses have no power over me," the preacher replied. "In the name of my god..."

He never ended his sentence since Demona drove her sword through the stomach of the man. Then she slowly turned the sword around and allowed the preacher to scream in pain.

"Oh, does it seem as if your god has left you?" Demona asked softly, seeing the pain, despair... and the fear in his eyes.

Demona saw how his eyes became dumber, how the life flood out of him and was just going to give him an extra portion of pain on his trip to his creator when...

"DEMONA!"

The so addressed turned around and pulled the sword out of the preacher so that he collapsed. She knew this voice! The voice was owned by a special human, the only human in the town she had believed to be able to trust... the human who had led her into the Hunter's trap.

"Michael." Demona snarled. Her eyes, which were glaring like fire, focused on the man.

There he stood, on the path which led to the woods, looking at her with an unreadable expression. He must have heard the screams out of the town and come to see what had happened.

Like a flash she rushed to him, her sword flashing in the moon's light, her red hair flaming around her fire like head.

"RHOOOOAAR!" Demona screamed furiously and hit him with her fist directly in his face, which made him fly some meters backward and land on his back in the moist earth of the path.

Michael had neither the time to register that his nose was broken and bleeding down his face nor the time to stand up again, since at this moment Demona threw her shadow over him by enfolding her wings and coming nearer.

"Traitor!" She snarled on him and he saw in her eyes his death.

"Demona please, I had no choice..." He began timidly. He had never feared her before, but now when those bloody eyes sparkled down on him he did, more than anything before in his life. "They would have killed my daughter if I wouldn't have done like they ordered."

"And so you killed my whole clan instead!!!" Demona accused him.

"Your clan is dead?" Michael started his eyes large of surprise and fear. "Demona I..."

He didn't say any further, as the demon grabbed his shoulder with one claw, held him up until his feet didn't touch the earth anymore and pinned him on the wall of the nearest house. Then she drew her sword and stabbed it through his left shoulder, fixing him on the wall. Michael clenched his teeth trying not to scream in pain and did not look on the sword. Instead he just looked into Demona's eyes.

"Please listen," Michael pleaded. "I haven't killed your clan and nobody of the town has gone up there since they fear the spirit that protects your plain, I...."

With all her power and as fast as Michael was able to see, Demona rammed an axe she had worn directly to the right of Michael's face in the wall.

"AND WHAT IS THAT?!" She asked him and asked herself why she was doing this, why did she speak with him when she could kill him so easily and painfully at once.

Michael looked in shook on the axe with the banner of his family and saw that it was full of blood and something he couldn't identify, which of course was from the eggs from the rookery.

"Where..." Michael started in shock. "Where did you get this?"

"It lay before the rookery," Demona said with her face dangerously close to his. "The rookery with the eggs you had destroyed." She looked him deep in the eyes uncaring that tears were floating down her cheeks, this human wouldn't live long enough to report to the others of this. "You killed them all."

"Someone stole the axe yesterday." Michael replied. "I..."

"LIAR!!!" Demona screamed at him and then started to dig her claws deep into his shirt and slowly lead them above his stomach while the shirt became red by blood.

"I shouldn't have been surprised." Demona explained calmly to him. "Never trust a human." She laughed bitterly never taking her eyes from Michael's face, which had become a mask of pain. In the background she heard more human screams of pain, grief and horror and knew that her daughter was showing her anger even so.

"I really thought that I had learned my lesson once and for all," she continued. "But you showed me that I hadn't... Thank you!"

With this, she dug her claws even deeper into Michael's soft flesh until his voice stopped her again.

"My axe, "he started and stopped since the pains lowered his ability to speak. "When I should have done this, why should I have left my axe there where you would find it?"

"You thought I was dead..." Demona explained angrily, "you all thought so."

She dug deeper into Michael's stomach, soon she would be at his intestines and then...

"BUT I NEED MY AXE!!!" Michael screamed out loud, laying all his pain in this.

"What?" Demona asked, surprised that this human did not beg for mercy like the ones before had senselessly done.

"I need my axe," he replied, trying to control his pain. "I can't go into town to buy one since the people here avoid me... So why should I have left it there? If I thought you were dead then there was no reason to hurry." He asked her desperately. "So why should I have left it there? Believe me; the one who stole it must have placed it there to make you believe that I was it."

Demona looked deep into Michael's eyes searching for signs of betrayal, but she didn't find any. This didn't mean anything as when Macbeth had denied his betrayal back in Scotland he had even so sounded convincing.... nearly.

"And you think this makes it better?" Demona asked him angrily. "First through you the Hunter killed my mate, then your people kill my clan and you really think I would spare you?"

Michael swallowed and felt the taste of blood in his mouth.

"They weren't it..." He started and when he heard the snarl out of Demona's throat he continued. "Believe me, I was here the last two days and tried to convince the men who I knew took part in the Hunter's scheme, the one I knew you would kill... tried to convince them to go away for the sake of the town... Believe me, nobody was there who'd dare attack your clan... they feared the spirit."

Demona looked on him snarling, well knowing that he lied as all humans lied! But a soft and constant voice, a voice she knew as such of her mate, asked her one question she didn't want to hear.

~ What if he speaks the truth? ~

~ He lies ~ she responded in her mind ~who else if not these humans could....~

"No..." Demona sighed. This couldn't be, as just the thought about this showed how weak she was, hearing on this human... a human who had her betrayed once already.

~ What if he is right? ~ The voice asked once again.

*"In Nomine Patre."..... "Your curses have no power over me..."*

Demona looked in shock through the window in the wall, which she registered just now. There was her daughter attacking the man of the house who tried desperately to defend himself with a sword. Demona noticed that he had no chance and that Lucifia did well. At any time she would have noticed her daughter's progress with approval, but now she could just see it with fear.

~ She has a reason to fight better ~ Demona calmed herself ~ this is no training and she knows it~

Suddenly Demona saw how a boy, perhaps 10 years old and surely the attacked farmer's son, came from behind Lucifia's back and tried to attack her with a little dagger. Demona's first instinct was to warn her daughter, but then she saw how Lucifia slapped the dagger out of the boy's hand with a hit of her tail while killing the father with a fast stab through his eye directly into his brain.

Then Lucifia turned around to the boy who was totally shocked by the death of his father and full of fear of the creature he saw now standing before him. Lucifia neared the shivering boy with her sword, which was covered in blood, in her right claw and Demona saw in her eyes what she intended to do.

~ She has a right to do this! ~ Demona justified this. ~They had even no mercy with our hatchlings, why should we have mercy with their spawn? ~

Suddenly a woman, seemingly the mother, placed herself in front of Lucifia.

"Please have mercy, he is just a child." The woman pleaded and in this moment Demona couldn't help but feel respect for this woman who tried to protect her child with her life.

But Lucifia didn't care, as she grabbed the woman with one claw on her breast and threw her against the wall so hard that Demona heard the woman's spine breaking.

Such power, even Demona wasn't so strong and Lucifia was still not grown up.

~ It can't be ~ Demona repeated, but the doubt was set and her mind was working.

Demona looked again into Michael's eyes, unsure how much he had just noticed of the drama in the house. She had no reason to trust him and so much to trust her daughter.

"If you have lied..." Demona whispered to him and her voice sounded like the hissing of a snake. "I will make you plead for your death for days."

Then she pulled the sword out of his shoulder on which he collapsed, his back still leaning on the wall and went away without turning around again.

Lucifia neared the boy, the only survivor of his family who tried desperately to flee from her, crawling backwards. But Lucifia was unbelievably fast and grabbed him with one claw at his breast holding him up in the air while she used the other claw to show him her sword, which was red from the blood of the boy's father with triples of white, where parts of the brain still hung on it.

"Do you see it?" Lucifia asked softly, nearly affectionately and when the boy didn't answer she drew the sword over his face studying his expression fascinated. Then she noticed the growing spot of liquid on his trousers between the legs.

"Ohhh, haven't your parents taught you at least this in their short existence?" She asked him admonishingly. "Do you know the punishment for this?"

With this, she slowly led her sword deeper until it met the spot and...

"Lucifia."

The so called turned around and looked on her mother who stood at the door, her own sword drawn and bloody, she had an unreadable expression on her face.

"Come, we go." Demona ordered.

"But..." Lucifia started. "I'm not ready to go yet."

Demona looked on the boy who was totally motionless from the shock. "You are," she noted. "Come, we will glide back to the plain."

Reluctantly, Lucifia placed the boy back on the earth.

"I will come back to take you," she whispered to him in his ears and left the crying boy alone with his dead parents.

Lucifia caught up to her mother who had already started to go to the church. They were both aware that they were watched through the windows of the houses, but this bothered neither mother nor daughter, just as it didn't bother them when they passed the body of the dead preacher lying in front of his church.

"Mother, why do we go?" Lucifia asked Demona when they had reached the church. "All was going well."

Demona flinched by these words, remembering the scene in the house. She didn't want to turn around since she knew that she couldn't hide her feelings now.

"Now the humans are in total shock." Demona explained without turning around. "Killing them wouldn't increase the horror they feel. But when we return later, when they have calmed down a bit and after they have seen what we have done." She turned around to her daughter, looking deep in the eyes, which were so much like her own. "Vengeance is something that has to be served cold to taste totally good."

Lucifia respected her mothers view, it seemed as if she was searching herself and finally nodded.

"It seems as if I have a lot still to learn." She noticed.

Demona nodded and discovered the power to smile slightly. "Yes, but I'm here to teach it to you," she explained and laid a claw on her daughter's shoulder.

"But what if they try to escape?" Lucifia asked cautiously.

"Through the dark woods," Demona asked. "You forget that the humans fear the darkness and when they do... then it will be much easier to track them down there than here in the town. Now let us go back to the plain."

Lucifia nodded and followed her mother climbing the church and gliding back to the plain.

11.06.1675; 01:12; The Plain:

Both warriors landed at the centre of the plain, near the place where Shaman's body lay. Looking around on the place they had once called home, Demona did so because she didn't want to turn around to her daughter.

"What now?" Lucifia asked behind her mother's back.

Demona turned around to her daughter and looked into her eyes.

"I will search in the cave for leaves we could use." She lied. "Then..." she swallowed. "Can you make a log and take your father's body on it? It is hard I know, but I don't want him to decay more, it is time that he gets his memorial ceremony... with the rest of the clan."

Lucifia nodded. "It is an honor for me to do so." She explained with a slight smile. "I never really saw him as a father while he lived, but now... I will."

Demona hesitated some seconds, avoiding her daughter's eyes. "Back in the town, when you attacked this family," she asked calmly. "Would you have killed that child?"

For one moment Lucifia just looked deep into her mother's eyes and then she firmly shook her head. "No, I just wanted to frighten him. Why?" She asked with an uncertainty in her voice that Demona knew all too well "Should I have done this?"

Demona shook her head, a part of her felt ashamed for the mistrust she felt for her daughter while she had trusted that human once again, but since she was here now there was no return.

"No, you've done right." She explained. "I would have done even so..." Demona looked around seeing the crumbled bodies of her former clan... her third who had died in such a way.

~ She has a right to be angry ~ she reminded herself, ~ by the dragon she has. ~

"I'll back soon." Demona said to her daughter and turned around to go to the cave, but ever feeling her daughter's eyes in her back.

Finally, after a mere few minutes which seemed endless to her, Demona reached the entrance of the cave where she and her mate had spent so many wonderful hours. But this wasn't the time for reminiscing and she didn't want to swell in the memory of happiness, which she knew could never return. She studied the different vessels, bowls and jars to see if she discovered something to proof her mistrust wrong.

She didn't see anything suspicious even when she noticed that some leaves were missing, even when she could swear that they had still been there when she had checked it the last time.

But Lucifia had said she had been out to collect new leaves so this had been clear from the beginning, or? Perhaps one of them had spilled the leaves, which was no wonder by all that had happened. Still the voices of doubt inside her mind didn't become silent so she went through the cave as fast as she could.

Finally she was there, in a room guarded by four ever watchful statues, guarding the stone table or better yet the two swords on it. Yes they were there, lying untouched, un-needed on the table as weapons against a menace Demona feared was there.

The Angel-swords still lay there like the first time she had seen them, seemingly untouched, unmoved since the night Shaman had allowed her to feel it... or was there? Beside one of the swords, the dust there seemed a bit uneven? Demona saw it, but she didn't know if she had whirled it with the draught she had caused when she entered or not.

It was only allowed to remove the swords from the cave when a new shaman ascended. Demona had feared that they weren't there and condensed the horrible suspicion even more that Lucifia had tried to ascend and something had gone terrible wrong.

But she hadn't, as this proofed it. Besides, the guards would have killed her if the darkness had claimed her.

Demona sighed.

~ You're becoming paranoid ~ she admonished herself while she turned around and started to leave the cave.

Sure the preacher hadn't understand that what she had spoken in Latin where his own words, but maybe he had never heard Latin spoken, or somebody else had made the letters on the doors to the rookery... sure there was no reason to not believe what was so obviously.

The fact that she had mistrusted her own daughter made her feel more and more miserable, there had been no reason for such? Everything that Lucifia had said was logical, all she had done understandable and her eyes were so green like her own, so why did Demona still feel such mistrust, why had the last look her daughter had given her made her shudder?

~ Nothing ~ she calmed herself ~ it was the humans, always the humans ~

Suddenly a snarl pulled Demona out of her thoughts and she saw her panther standing in front of the entrance, the green eyes glittering and the black coat reflecting the moonlight. Demona had never felt any telepathic contact with her guardian spirit before, but now she felt the nearly aching urge coming from the spirit.

~ Follow me ~

Demona nodded and rushed on all fours after the spirit, by this she noticed in wonder that they came near to the border of the plain. But the panther didn't stop at the border, but simply ran over it on the air, straight to another rocky plain not far away in the woods, which was not as large or as high as the one where her clan had lived, but seemed still impressive.

Demona didn't rely on the chance that the air would carry her even so and spread her wings to let the wind carry her after the spirit.

The panther landed on a rock and Demona landed beside it still unsure as to why she had to come here. Then she noticed it, some stones lying around there in an unnatural way. Demona knelt down and studied it, taking one stone piece in her claw and studying it more exactly. She dropped it in shock when she realized that it was part of a snout.

A gargoyle had been smashed here! Even when Demona couldn't say who it was, she knew that the last parts of it remains had been removed.

~ But where to and why? ~ Demona asked herself ~ and what did he want here? ~

She looked around noticing in the back of her mind that the panther had vanished again until she discovered something strange. There was a rock, formed nearly like an altar... and dried blood was pasted on it, floating from the top to the ground.

As fast as she could, Demona ran to the altar investigating it even more.

~ By the dragon let me be wrong ~ she prayed desperately.

Her darkest fears became true since she noticed the even so dried yellow sparkles and the little egg-shell-pieces on the stone.

"No..." She whispered, too shocked to feel even pain or sadness.

There was a voice in her mind, a voice she didn't want to hear since she knew exactly what it meant

09.02.1623

"What ritual?" Demona asked in wonder. Which ritual could give a gargoyle such power?

"To obtain the power of the darkness," Shaman explained. "The person who is controlled by this has to sacrifice an egg... A gargoyle not yet hatched to make the path ready for this power. Has he done so neither magic nor weapons nor even the sun can stop him."

11.06.1675

~ Perhaps she wasn't it ~ she tried to convince herself ~ perhaps... ~

"Hello mother." A sweet voice said.

Demona looked up, seeing her daughter leaning on a tree and studying her with a vicious smile.

"So you've finally discovered the truth have you?" Lucifia asked, still grinning when her mother didn't find the power to reply. "Oh I really thought I could trick you longer, at least until we had killed some more humans... As you said, I have still so much to learn!"

"How could you?" Demona asked her voice as weak as she felt.

"Oh I think I have to thank you for this," Lucifia responded. "The illusion spells you taught me have served me very well. But now I have no more need for it." She made a strange gesture and suddenly her body seemed to change. Demona observed as her horns, which had formally been so delicate grew to the height of a ram-horn. Her shoulder-spikes grew from each shoulder along with two extra spikes. Then four spikes grew out of her tail and she seemed to grow.

But the most evident change for Demona were her daughter's eyes, they turned from green to black... total black.

"Yes, this is better." Lucifia who had now nothing more in common with Little Panther, noted with a grin. "What do you think of my new appearance?"

Demona dug her claws deep into the rock, crumbling it, ignoring the pain of her claws since the pain in her heart was more powerful.

"Oh don't look so." Lucifia said. "I know now you think you have lost everything, but you are wrong!"

With this, a body emerged out of the shadows of some trees moving slowly and clumsy, but with a certain goal.

Demona stared in horror on the creature coming to the moonlight... It was her mate. In the first second she believed that Lucifia had somehow resuscitated him, but then she looked into his eyes, eyes where dampness showed already the continued process of decaying and she realized that it wasn't him.

The eyes, which had once shown so much love and warmth, were now icy and full of malice, perfidy and evilness. In one horrifying moment, Demona realized what her daughter had done. She had called a dark spirit to take over the dead body of her mate, a spirit just hungry after death and pain and the warmth of living flesh since its own didn't live.

~ It isn't my mate ~ Demona tried to clam herself, but as much as she said this to herself she saw the body coming nearer and registered every detail on him which she had loved.

And in his arms he held...

Demona believed her heart would stop beating, unable to bear the pain.

In his arms he held a hatchling and Demona knew it was their hatchling. It was too small to survive in the world outside its egg yet it had been pulled out so brutally.

"You have to know I used his egg to gain my powers." Lucifia explained in a conversational tone. "I thought it was fitting to let it in the family like the humans say. And aren't we a nice one?"

Demona registered her daughter's voice just in the background, as all her mind was focused on the hatchling... No! Rather the dead fetus in her mate's corpse's arms. He had her Scottish features even though his skin seemed to be a shade darker than Lucifia's. His hair, which was made out of just a few streaks on the otherwise bald skull, was brown and he seemed lean around his face.

Demona looked at her dead son and despite all this, a part of her was irrationally happy that he wasn't mutilated like his rookery siblings, he was...

Suddenly the fetus's eyes opened and he looked directly into hers.

Demona wanted to scream, but all she could do was look on her son who slowly moved in his father's arms. He looked up at her and out of his mouth came a sound produced by unready vocal cords, it was a whining and with it he stretched his tiny arms out after his mother.

A part of her wanted to take the creature, which she knew wasn't her son and embrace him, giving him warmth and comfort. Another part of her wanted to just turn around and flee out of this nightmare as far away as she could, but all she could was stood there and stare on the creature, which had been destined to become her son and had been killed by his sister even before he had hatched.

"Oh isn't this sweet?" Lucifia asked sweetly. "He wants his mother! Unfortunately I had to smash his older brother, else this family would be complete" This question was aimed on Demona, but she just stared on her son in shock.

"Well father," Lucifia said to the Shaman-creature. "I think you should embrace your mate. Wouldn't this be fine?"

On this, the creature started to go slowly but determinedly to his mate, its eyes never left hers.

"Order him to stop." Demona pleaded. "If there is anything..."

"Oh mother!" Lucifia responded laughing, seeing how Shaman came nearer and nearer to his mate. "You wanted to do this, to embrace your beloved one last time and say to him all the things you hadn't a chance to... Come, there has to be something."

Demona ignored her daughter and just looked on the creature, which came nearer and nearer... Nothing could describe the pain she felt by this while she slowly, unconsciously moved her claw to her sword.

He... it was now just two meters away from her and came nearer. Demona could hear it breathing like an animal and studying her with dark lust, then it opened its beak and Demona could smell the scent of decay coming out of it.

She had to control herself not to puke, but then this... this thing said something, which crumbled her soul.

"My love," it was his words spoken out of his beak with a voice Demona recognized as his, but they made her shudder in the depths of her soul.

She looked in his eyes and then in the ones of her son whose unready eyes were so much like his father's and who still stretched his tiny arms after her. She made her decision.

"I'll always love you." Demona said and raised her sword.

With the loudest and most tortured scream of her life, she sunk her sword into her mate again and again and again...

She didn't stop until the creature fell down, she didn't even stop when both creatures stopped breathing. She only stopped when her arm-muscles had no power to raise the sword anymore and when the creatures to her feet had changed into a bloody pulp.

Demona lead her trembling hand to her face to wipe the sweat from it, but when she saw her hand after this she noticed that it was not sweat... It was blood, the blood of her mate and her son.

Demona looked down on herself and noticed that she was totally covered with blood.

One moment she thought she would become crazy.

She looked again on her daughter, tears streaming down her face, realizing once again that she had lost everything, this time through the hand of her own daughter.

"Tisk tisk tisk," Lucifia said, seemingly a bit disappointed. "I had believed you to be of more self control. How the mighty have fallen."

"What do you want?" Demona asked without interest, hate or hope, simply because she didn't know what else to ask.

"Death, destruction and pain," Lucifia replied honestly. "And in the end I want a new order of eternal darkness out of the ashes of this world with me ruling over it."

Lucifia laughed. "But for now, simple satisfaction," she explained and took two swords from her back.

Demona had no problems to see what her daughter held in her claws, the Angel-swords glowed in a bright blue light.

"In all the nights when you trained us I thought I would never be able to fulfill your expectations..." Lucifia admitted and threw one sword to her mother. "But now you will see that my skills have improved much from before."

Demona looked down on the sword at her feet. Her tears had stopped, even so the pain in her heart, as she just felt empty and dead with just the dialogue with her daughter kept her going.

"Why?" She asked her daughter. "Why don't you end it here and now? Why do you risk the chance that I might defeat you?"

"Where would the fun be in this?" Lucifia asked. "Besides, I thought you would like it so. You have fought your whole life, why don't you want to end it now?"

She came closer. "You know," Lucifia explained with the Angel-Sword in her claw. "I, like all my rookery siblings, perhaps the whole clan thought you were the greatest warrior of our kind. It's time to see if this is true, isn't it?"

"I will not fight you daughter." Demona said and looked deep into her daughter's black eyes, as black as her soul was now.

"Pity," Lucifia said with a slight sadness in her voice. "Send greetings to father from me."

With this, Lucifia rammed her sword at her mother with all her power and quickness and it seemed as if Demona had just accepted her death. But then, practically at the last second, she took a step to the left, which let the sword cut just the air and then she gave her daughter a kick to her face, which made her stumble backwards.

Slowly, Demona took the sword in her claw while never taking her eyes off of her daughter who slowly touched her nose and laughed when she saw that it bled... dark blood, which was as dark as her eyes.

"Ahhh, so there is still a fighter in you!" Lucifia noticed smiling, a smile which made Demona sick. "Then let's start."

With this, she attacked her mother once again and this time she blocked the attacks without hesitation just to make a counterattack, which Lucifia blocked at once.

This was repeated many times and was mainly a sizing of the opponent since Lucifia had never fought with her mother seriously and Demona had to see that Lucifia's skills had indeed improved very much together with her quickness and strength.

Finally, Demona jumped on the altar and attacked her daughter from above, which she blocked easily and lead a counterattack.

"Finally, some fun!" Lucifia exclaimed happily and forced her mother back with another attack causing her to jump from the altar again. "I mean shattering my clan during the day and slaughtering some helpless human is nice, but nothing about the thrill of a fight."

"Sure." Demona replied and moved slightly backward while her daughter came nearer again.

Lucifia attacked again, but this time her mother took the initiative. She rammed her foot into Lucifia's stomach and knocked the sword out of her daughter's claw with her own sword.

"It ends." Demona explained and was going to kill her daughter when she suddenly used her tail in a quick movement and knocked the sword out of her mother's hand.

"Not yet…" Lucifia noted and hit her mother in the face, which made her fly three meters backward. "…But soon."

Demona looked snarling on her daughter and then she looked around to find one of the Angel-swords, but they were out of her reach.

"Oh we don't need the Angel-swords any more," Lucifia said. "They are nice toys, but a bit too dangerous don't you think so? At least they are able to kill you and I and I think it shouldn't be such between mother and daughter."

Demona looked on her daughter with blood-red eyes, it seemed as if once again the years had claimed their tribute since her face seemed now centuries old, old by death and pain... so much pain.

"Let us try it again!" Lucifia explained and raised her claw. "Fulmeos venite!"

The flash of lightening, coming out of Lucifia's claw hit Demona in the stomach and struck her to the ground, her whole body shaking uncontrollably through the pain. On one night she had felt the same pain when her old teacher the Archmage had tortured her on the night of Malcolm's wedding. Back then, the old leader had saved her from her foe, but now she had to deal with this alone.

Still trembling, she brought herself to her feet and looked angrily on her daughter.

"Now you see I've not just improved my fighting skills." Lucifia explained with a smile. "You really have no idea what magical power I can handle now and all because you taught me the basic skills!"

"I am still the greatest mage here!" Demona snarled and spoke her own spell. "Fulmeos magnos venite!"

This spell she cast was from a mistake she had made long ago and was proof of just how dangerous magic could be in untrained claws. When she had still been the apprentice of the Archmage, she had tried to copy the spell he had used to summon large lightening out of his hands, which could bring down every opponent.

*Fulmeos maximus venite.* had been the spell, unfortunately her thoughts had been clouded by her green skinned rookery brother and their relationship, which had become more and more stressed since she had to spent nearly all her free time to help the Archmage.

Such thoughts had diverted Demona and she had said *Fulmeos magnos venite* instead and created a new spell. Instead of creating lightening, she had created a ball of fire and in her surprise she had thrown it away too late.

The explosion was damned hard and left some bruises and scratches on her skin, something she had explained to her rookery brother that she had fallen during some training in the rocks. This was a lie that he hadn't believed even though he hadn't said so, and which had enlarged the drift between them even more. Demona's bad conscience had just been tendered by the fact that she had not even told the Archmage about her discovery since she didn't want to let him know that she had trained secretly without his permission.

The fireball she threw on her daughter was deadly no doubt, but even though it killed a part of her she knew there was no choice, if she didn't stop her then she would easily kill the whole world... all gargoyle clans left included.

The fireball hit Lucifia in the stomach and exploded with a large shockwave, which made Demona's hair fly backwards and didn't allow her to see anything. When the dust had settled, Demona saw in shock how Lucifia stood up and looked down on herself. There was a wound in her stomach, not as large as Demona had thought and even more shocking was that the wound closed right before her eyes... Lucifia's healing abilities were stronger than her own.

"Oh mother!" Lucifia said smiling while her wound closed. "Your magic can't stop me. You can't stop me..."

Demona looked angrily on her daughter trying to ban the despair out of her eyes, she knew she couldn't win as her energy was low already and she had no help... she was alone.

*My love*

Demona hesitated. ~ That voice ~

Suddenly, she knew what she had to do. Slowly, she grabbed the bag at her belt, which still had some dried leaves and emptied them on to the earth, kneeling before them.

"Burn!" She commanded together with a movement of her claw and the leaves started burning to secrete a strange, but at the same time a good smelling scent, helping her to let her open a gate to the world of limbo.

"Who do you want to call?" Lucifia asked smiling on her mother's attempt. "I've defeated the guardian spirit, the perhaps greatest ever called spirit, so why do you think you alone could do anything?"

Demona looked up to her daughter. "I alone can't defeat you." She admitted.

Suddenly her eyes changed, they became totally white and Lucifia believed that she was studied not by one, but many out of them.

"But WE will." Demona explained, her voice a combination out of dozens, from the voices of elders to the ones of hatchlings and even of babies.

Lucifia realized what her mother had done. "Ah so you've called the ghosts of our old clan..." She said with a laugh. "Always good for a surprise mother, this is the reason why I let you live. But don't think this gives you a chance, as I am still the most powerful being on the planet. You can't win."

"WE will." The creature who was not, or not just, Demona anymore replied.

With these words, something touched Lucifia's feet and when she looked down she noticed with surprise that climbers were growing unnaturally fast around her feet.

"Is this all you can do?" Lucifia asked contemptuous while the climbers grew around her arms. With a battle cry and seemingly not much effort, she freed herself of them and tore them to little pieces. "Well if you want to do it on this level."

With this, Lucifia held up her arms and at once a storm started like the area hadn't seen before. Trees broke like matches while the lightening set parts of the wood in flame and the wind made it hard for the clan not to hold herself on her feet. Suddenly, a flying branch hit her in the stomach and made her fly from the plain into the sky where she fought with the winds for control of her flight, which was a hard thing to do even with all the experiences of the clan together.

Lucifia laughed madly. "A bit windy isn't it?"

Demona and all the gone clan with her looked angrily on the creature they had once called daughter and sister and what was now nothing more than a creature of darkness. Alone with the power of their melted minds they guided a part of the force Lucifia had summoned to a new goal...

The lightening hit Lucifia totally off guard. She screamed in pain and lost control over the storm, on which it stopped and the clan was able to land again.

Lucifia looked to her mother in total fury, a part of her hair was burning and her skin steamed.

"You will suffer for this!" She promised breathing heavily. "You all will regret that you didn't stay in the realm of death!"

With this, Lucifia cut the palm of her claw and allowed her black blood to spill on the earth. She then spoke some unholy words and the earth started to shake while the blood seeped in. Then she ran to a fire stroked by the lightening and let a part of her blood fall in too, on which the fire seemed to enlarge. At last she dropped the blood into the bloody pulp, which had once been her father and her little brother, on which it suddenly shook and started to put itself together.

Finally, beside Lucifia were three creatures to serve their master in her fight. A creature made of rock, barely of humanoid shape and next to it a creature made of flames even so vaguely humanoid and the last one a creature made of flesh, barely similar to a gargoyle and made of two corpses.

"What do you have against my companions here?" Lucifia asked her former clan, in the form of her mother. "They are nice aren't th...."

Suddenly, something collided with her and threw her back against the altar her head smashing onto it, which crumbled on this. When she stood up she registered a form over her and other forms attacking her summoned creatures...

They were the Angel-statues of the cave, seemingly more than simple statues now, and the one before her drew its sword.

"Oh how clever, bringing ghosts to this shell." Lucifia said laughing while getting out of the swords way. "But they are still just statues of the original, not even a shadow of their power." With this, she kicked the statue's leg and crumbled it before she leaped on the falling statue and crumbled the rest of it with hard blows.

The other three Angel-statues who had defeated their opponents with ease now attacked Lucifia, but there was no doubt that would win and after just three minutes, just Lucifia and a mass of rubble were on the plain.

"This was easy, but..." She stopped when she registered that her feet were sinking and when she looked down she realized that the attack of the Angel-statues had been a distraction, to prevent her from realizing what her former clan was really doing and now it was too late.

Slowly, Lucifia sunk down into the stone which had become liquid and looked angrily on the clan in the shell of her mother.

"What are you doing?" She demanded, her legs sinking deeper in the rock, even when she knew the answer. It was just the typical question asked in such situations.

"WE imprison you for your crimes." The clan answered through Demona's mouth. "You who once were OUR sister and daughter will no longer be allowed to bring pain to the world and infect it with your evil; the earth itself will take care of this. This is the end of your evilness."

"No it is not and you know it... mother!" Lucifia said while her arms started to sink into the rock already, but her eyes locked onto her mother's. Even when now dozens of gargoyle-souls were in this, she knew that she saw the one of her mother. "It hasn't ended, do you hear me mother?" She asked while she sunk until her breast into the rock "It hasn't ended yet, I will..." She sunk until her head sank into the rock and the clan couldn't hear the last words... It didn't matter.

The room shook and glowed some moments in unearthly blue light, as a sign that holy energy floated through it and made it into a real prison for the creature it held. Then it stopped and silence lay on the world, as if it would be unsure if it had truly ended. Finally the clan landed and looked around with white eyes and realized that the evil had been stopped for now.

Slowly the white in Demona's eyes faded and left her eyes normal again, as a sign that just a lonely, tortured soul inhabited this body now. Tears were streaming down her face, but her eyes didn't look in this world, but saw the world of limbo.

There were all gathered, the whole clan who had been slaughtered by her daughter, her mate standing in front of them. He held their son, the fetus who hadn't hatched and had been used by his sister so cruelly, but this time it was different. The hatchling seemed vital, the eyes glittering lovingly and intelligently, not so dark and evil like his dark twin in the world of living.

When she looked around she saw his unhatched siblings in the arms of the clan elders and the hatchlings of the generation above them. They all seemed happy and looked on Demona with love of a sort, which warmed her heart.

Then, one by one, they turned around and seemingly went away from the world of twilight to the realm of death. Finally, just Shaman with his son in his arms stayed by her.

He came closer to his kneeling mate and softly stroked her red hair. Then he embraced her softly still with their son in his arm and looked deep into her emerald-green eyes.

"Remember that I'll always love you." He said and then went out of his mate's embrace and started to go, vanishing into the fog.

"Don't leave me." Demona pleaded, her voice as weak and as powerless as she felt. She wanted to go after him and hold him forever in her arms, but she hadn't the power to do this.

"Never my love," his voice answered through the fog. "I'll be always in you heart... we all will."

With this, he was gone and slowly the world of limbo vanished to be replaced by the world of living. Yes, she was back in the world of living again, but it was the world of death for her now. Her whole clan gone, her daughter...

She shuddered and it seemed to her as if she could hear her daughter through all this rock, but she was sure it was just the wind and the sound of burning wood. A time, she didn't know how long she had simply knelt there, staring ahead without really seeing anything than the emptiness in her heart.

This loneliness was more painful than Demona had felt ever before. In the moments before, it had been the contrary, as she had been many, united with her clan like she had never known before by being connected with their souls, but now she was just alone.

Then she saw something glittering on the earth, just in the reach of her arms. It were the Angel-swords, lying through fate or pure change directly before her and an idea came into her mind. She took one sword in her claw and laid the tip of the blade on the point of her breast where she felt her heart beating.

It was so easy she knew. One fast push and it would end and she would be reunited with all her clans who had been killed before, with all them she loved. Demona thought of Macbeth, he would surely like it and perhaps he would die himself, perhaps the spell would end and he would age again, at last it would end.

One push… Oh how she wanted it, to end the pain in her heart. But she couldn't, her claws were shaken by the tension she felt and she couldn't, she couldn't end her life like this, as it was against all she had learned from her teacher, all she was.

She wouldn't let Lucifia win.... She wouldn't let the humans win.

The humans had killed Shaman and so forced Lucifia to become what she had become, the humans had betrayed her, always the humans.

11.06.1675; 03:07; The town:

Michael stood there, at the stone where the people of the town had always called the gargoyles to come help them and would do so never again. He himself would need help now. A woman who was thankful for him that he had *expelled* the demons, had taken care of his wound at his shoulder where Demona had stabbed the sword through and at the stomach where her claws had left some deep scratches. But it wasn't half of the art of medicine that Demona and Shaman had used, not even a quarter. Suddenly he heard the flush of wings above him and he looked up to see Demona landing in front of him.

The sight of his old friend allowed him to smile, despite all what had happened in this night and what she had done to him. He had heard the unearthly sounds from the woods and feared that she might have been hurt, but obviously it wasn't so.

Then he looked into her face and knew that he was wrong. She was hurt, but deeper than any blade could cut. Michael alike with the most of the town's people had ever wondered why she didn't age like her mate and some whispered 'dark magic', but now she had aged. Her face seemed old, haggard and her eyes were icy, steeled of the pain she had to endure. A part in Michael wanted to hold his old friend, to comfort her and to ease her pain, but the sparkle in her eyes made clear that she wouldn't allow that.

"You were right. It wasn't the humans from the town." Demona said coldly. "My daughter has killed our clan."

Michael's eyes grew big. "Why?"

"She was... is infected by the evil." Demona explained. "She tried a ritual to make her into a full Shaman and failed with this result." Now she looked directly into his eyes and her own burned like hellfire. "She did so because the Hunter and the men of this town killed my mate and prevented me from reaching the plain in time!!!"

This was the time when Michael noticed the two odd looking swords at Demona's belt and when he asked himself if he had really a good reason to be happy that she was back.

"Demona listen..." Michael pleaded just to be stopped by her.

"NO, YOU WILL LISTEN!" She snarled angrily and knew that the other humans in the town, in their houses which gave them a feeling of false security, were listening, too.

"I have imprisoned her." She explained. "In the rock in the wood north of what was my clan's home and you human, you all who caused this will guard her from now on and so will your children and your children's children until the end of time." This was no asking, this was an order. "If the rock is broken, if she is freed then nothing will be safe anymore, neither my kind nor your puny race, do you understand?"

Michael nodded. "I swear I will. And I will convince the others to do so too. She will never flee."

Demona looked on him with contempt and he knew that she didn't believe him... wouldn't do so ever again. Finally she turned around and started to climb up a house.

"Where will you go now?" He asked her as sympathetic as he could.

Demona didn't even turn around when she answered.

"Away from here of course, what else can I do?" She answered not hiding her bitterness and full of hatred she answered. "You humans have taken from me everything I ever had that was happiness in my life. I'll never forgive you and I'll never give you another chance to do so."

With this, she leapt into the night and Michael followed with his eyes until she vanished.