OK you though it was good before…it is about to get a whole lot better! Please continue to read and review, I thrive on the input! Thanks for reading

Darwin

Chapter Six: I Spy…

She came back about half an hour before sunset, and half an hour before the Gargoyle whelp was due to wake. She pulled up short, a bit unnerved by what her eyes encountered. She shaded her eyes in the late afternoon sun as she looked just under the rising eaves. She shook her head a moment thinking that she was not seeing clearly. The stone gargoyles that were always there to decorate the roof stood silent, but there was no longer an extra statue that had been between the statues on the left of the building.

In frustration the woman strode closer to the building, slowing again as she came to scattered flakes of stone near the base of the building, she looked straight up the face of the building thinking that perhaps she had been wrong. No she was not mistaken. He was gone. Her eyes turned back to the flakes at her feet.

Sighing she leaned down to investigate the evidence at her feet. Picking one up, she examined it carefully, noting that it was thin and crumbled easily under her fingers. "Shedding," she thought, "But how?"

The whelp had not been here before, this was the first night that he had been free of the confines of the castle. And yet, no Gargoyle could wake before sunset, it was a physiological impossibility! She threw down the flake of stone skin and dusted her hands as she rose on sinewy legs to her full height.

The urge in her to scream her frustration was overwhelming. She had lost her quarry, and now she was going to have to track his movements again, that could take days! Perhaps even some of her nights.

Tanner moved hurriedly toward the spot where he was supposed to meet Michelle, somehow sure that she was not going to be there. He had convinced himself that she had changed her mind or was just being polite last night, with no intention of keeping her promise.

"Cynical aren't you?" Tanner thought to himself as he turned the corner toward the statue where they had agreed to meet. His heart leapt as he got a good look of the young blond woman, standing there and looking nervous. She was not dressed in clothes nearly so fancy as the night before. She was wearing only a logo covered T-shirt and a pair of faded blue jeans with sandals on her feet. And yet she looked more beautiful to Tanner's eyes than he had ever thought possible.

Michelle smiled immediately upon seeing him approaching, "There you are!" She said in mock indignation as he stepped up beside her, "I thought you'd forgotten or been too tired or something."

"There is no way I would forget about this," Tanner said, slightly winded, "As far as sleep, I can always catch a nap later," He added remembering his cover story from the night before.

She nodded slowly, "Well you definitely have more stamina than I do. I mean look, I didn't even give you time to change!" She looked stricken.

"Oh, it's OK," Tanner said aloud, inwardly he grimaced remembering that humans prided themselves on owning many different outfits. He only owned this one trench coat.

Michelle moved her long blond hair out of her face again saying, "Now me, I just got out of bed an hour ago, and I am already wanting to crawl back in."

"Did you…did you want to do this another time? Later tonight maybe?" Tanner added feeling guilty that he had gotten her up so early when she was clearly tired.

"Oh, no," Michelle, "No, really I didn't mean to suggest that it was your fault."

"Oh," Tanner said.

She smiled warmly at him and all his fears that he had offended her somehow faded from his heart. She turned away, paused a moment to make sure he was coming and then moved off down the walkway. She led them to a small street side café, just at the edge of the park and sat down at one of the tables. Tanner followed suit, careful not to sit on his tail or wings, still hidden in his overcoat, and trying not to look awkward as he accomplished it.

Not that his extra effort availed him anything, as he looked back toward Michelle, she was leaned to one side and busily rummaging through her oversized purse for something, "Aha!" She cried triumphantly as she withdrew the object of her search. She held up a small electronic device, wagging it back and forth in front of him. It was her digital video recorder and she raised her eyebrows expectantly.

"You got it!" Tanner exclaimed, "Have I told you lately you're the best?"

She smiled demurely. Before either of them could say or do anything more the waiter came to their table to take an order. Michelle ordered a large cup of hot tea and a croissant, and Tanner ordered a mocha (a favorite drink introduced to him by Matt several years back) and a sandwich. When the waiter had taken their order back to the kitchen Michelle set to cueing the disk to the section they both wanted to view.

Tanner took the opportunity to scoot his chair closer to Michelle, so that they both could easily view the small screen that she had opened.

The waiter came back a few moments later with their drinks and food, which they only paid minor attention to.

When Michelle was happy with the adjustments she turned to Tanner, "Ready?" She asked and Tanner nodded eagerly.

They both sat watching with rapt attention as their favorite band performed, in miniature, before them. They were nodding, keeping beat with their feet and tapping in time with the music on the table top before them. After the half an hour worth of mini-concert both of them looked at each other beaming. Michelle, because she had made Tanner's day, and Tanner was just ecstatic to have seen his favorite band do a "Live" concert.

"Man, that was awesome!" Tanner said, then shook his head regretfully, "I so wish I could have been there."

"Yeah, me too," Michelle said nodding.

Tanner's head whipped to the side looking into her face. He was sure that the comment was not supposed to be out loud and he had not thought that he had heard right, "What?"

She smiled this time in embarrassment, shrugging she said, "I just wished you could have been there to share the live experience…with me."

"Really?"

"Really," She added. Then she crossed her hands on the tabletop, "I can't say that I have ever met anyone quite like you."

Tanner wanted to say, "That's for sure," but he caught it and said instead, "Thank you."

That beautiful smile graced her face again and a tingling started down in Tanner's toes and ran up his body causing him to shiver.

They sat and talked for hours at the café, as Michelle told him of her life. She had grown up in California, daughter to a dual military family. Both of them had taken turns going away on detachment or deployment until she was eight, and she was sure that she had spent at least four years out of those eight without one or the other of her parents around. In that environment she had learned early on how to be independent and take care of herself. Her dad retired around that time and was able to get a job as a financial specialist helping military families' plan for the future. It was closer to home and a heck of a lot more money to be made.

Her mom had stayed in another seven years, finally retiring herself. That is when they all moved up to Washington State and lived on a piece of property her father had bought after several successful years at his new job. She lived in the Oak Harbor area in Northern Washington up until about six months ago when she had come to join her cousin here in New York. Tyler had moved here five years prior from a small town in Iowa with the intent of starting a band and making it big. She had moved in with him long enough to get herself established as a dancer in one of the premier studios in New York.

"You're a dancer?" Tanner asked in awe.

"Yeah…" She said, "I trained to be a ballet dancer and I added jazz…one of the extra's that mom and dad insisted I do."

"That is cool!" Tanner added.

"So what about you?" Michelle asked him when she had finished reviewing her life.

"Um," Tanner thought quickly on how to rune the truth without giving away who or what he was, "I've lived here my entire life," He started, "I grew up in a pretty strict extended family. Mom and dad aren't together anymore; Due to circumstance neither of them could control, but they still love each other. That has to sound weird."

"Divorce is weird," Michelle said jumping to a conclusion that allowed Tanner drop the subject.

"Yeah," Tanner said softly, "I wish they were still together, I wish it were possible."

Michelle nodded seeming to understand, "I guess I was lucky," She said, "My Mom and Dad are still married, in fact, they are going to celebrate their twentieth anniversary this coming March. They had their problems, sure, argued like cats and dogs sometimes but they always seemed to bring it back together again."

"Wow, that must be great."

She looked down at the two, hiding in the heavy shadows cast over the building's balcony across the street from where the two sat, "I guess the apple does not fall far from the tree," she sneered quietly, "Just like his father…too much love for the humans."

It had not been nearly has hard as she had thought to track the adolescent down. It was a gift of hers after all, tracking targets and pulling them down. He had not strayed far from where he had slept last night after all and it was only a matter of following the several flakes of stone skin that always seemed to cling after awakening. He was not hard to pick out of a crowd, she could spot a gargoyle a mile off even in such clever disguises as this whelps was. Then she had chosen a perch and sat down to watch.

"Look at him," she growled to no one, "Fawning over that thin frail wisp of a human."

She shook out her red hair reflexively, watching the sun as it steadily ran for the cover of the horizon. She waited her nerves tingling in anticipation of the pain. "Why did Puck have to make transformation painful?" She thought angrily and not for the first time. The other advantages to living a dual life had made themselves abundantly clear to her, as was proved by her now vast wealth, but the drawbacks…they were something she would gladly give away, just to be spared the pain.

The sun flared once before snuffing out on the earth. She felt the pulling sensation start in her shoulder blades and pressure increasing at the small of her back. Her feet began to tingle, then burn, and then ache. She was glad that she had taken the precaution of changing out of her human attire and into something more suitable.

It was all Demona could do not to cry out into the coming darkness, wailing to release the pain she suffered through every night as her body returned to Gargoyle normal. But after so long she had learned to control her reactions to that pain. It just would not do for her to give away the surprise in store for Goliath's precious son.

There was something that had always nagged at her regarding this Gargoyle child, ever since she had discovered his presence in Goliath's ever expanding clan. Who was his mother?

Demona had never seen another Gargress in his clan much less mated to her former betrothed. She had yet to see him fill that void. Demona scoffed, all because of his love for that human, Maza…suddenly he was too good for a gargoyle mate. Yet he had a son, a fine healthy young gargoyle to carry on the traditions. The boy was fifteen years old himself and falling stupidly for a human's wiles. Goliath must be so proud. She had yet to determine whom this mystery mate was, and had been further frustrated by the inability to get near the castle. Xanatos had come up with a security system she had yet to find a chink in.

Demona was barren, and had been for over a thousand years. There was of course Angela, but due to current circumstances her daughter was well beyond her ability to reach. Even her courtship to Thailog had failed to provide with progeny. Demona had no children, and whether that was a stipulation of her immortality or a side effect of her double life she was still not certain. Either way, Goliath's overwhelming success and her polar lack there of made her bitter. The feeling settled like an iceberg into her gut.

Rage and jealousy welled up within her as she watched the human and the gargoyle below her. She watched seething as the two stood and began to walk off back toward the park. Why should Goliath be blessed with so much happiness? Her eyes glowed as the spiteful streak in her flared wickedly. Hurting the boy would certainly hurt Goliath…the thought made her smile. She was always up to finding a way to hurt Goliath

Her emotions overflowed and with a feral growl she launched herself into the night sky, intent on visiting the young Gargoyle with pain.