12.08.98; 02:47; Destine Mansion:
Thersities wanted to say something, but no letter escaped his mouth, since in this moment a shrill cry filled the house, which made the gargoyle spun around in shock.
"What…?" Thersities began.
"Lana!" Darlene shrieked, already going down on her fours and running to the stairs.
When she reached the stairs, Darlene discovered her daughter lying at the end of the stairs on the floor, crouched to a ball with Shade by her, trying without success to comfort her. While racing down, Darlene noticed that Lana was alive, but trembling all over her whole body as if she had fever... obviously in shock.
"Lana?" Darlene said to her eldest daughter while kneeling down beside her. "What is it?"
When Lana heard the warm sound of her mother's voice, she looked up, staring at her in a scared, hounded way that it made Darlene's soul shudder, but before she could say anything, Lana embraced her so hard that she pressed the air out of her lungs.
Not being able to do much else, Darlene embraced her daughter in return, stroking her hair to calm her down, as she would have done with Gem while staring at the end of the stairs where she had discovered the closed box.
Thersities meanwhile went down beside the sitting gargesses, and the gargbeast, to look at the box, which was closed.
"What's in it?" Darlene asked him, still holding her daughter.
Thersities shuddered, as he definitely didn't want to learn what could upset Lana so, yet he knelt down, laying a claw on the box and...
"What happened here?" a loud, worried, and at the same time commanding voice asked and made Thersities shriek up.
Turning around, he discovered his sisters walking down the stairs, Demona kneeling down by her daughter and granddaughter while Asrial walked over to him and the box.
"Something in the box terrified her." Darlene explained to her mother.
Demona turned her view to the box and Thersities standing before it.
"What is in it?" she asked her brother.
"I had no time to..." Thersities began, but didn't end it since Demona had already walked up to him, kneeling down by the box.
From her position by the stairs, Darlene saw Asrial and Thersities surrounding her mother, staring captured, as their sister opened the box.
The reaction was imminent. Asrial turned in shock, while Thersities's face became white, beginning by the beak and he seemed unable to turn his face away.
Darlene's mother meanwhile looked in the box even so, but seemingly not shocked or just surprised, only interested.
"What is it?" Darlene asked, even when a part of her didn't want to know.
"The head of a human baby." Demona noticed in the same tone, as if she would say the weather was good while she closed the box.
At her chest, Darlene felt her daughter sob up, wetting her clothes with her tears while Darlene felt tears threatening to spill from her eyes even so, but she fought them, swearing to be strong, at least for Lana.
Suddenly, Darlene heard tiny claw steps from above and looking up she discovered Gem standing on all her fours, at the top of the stairs, looking down on her family.
"No..." Darlene whispered, totally stressed. She had already asked herself why Jarred hadn't come, with the loud music coming from his room being the answer, but Gem had now somehow managed to escape her crib... again.
Gem slowly sensed that something wasn't right and began to whimper. Before this whimper could rise to a wail and Darlene had to decide how to calm both her daughter's down, Thersities raced up, taking up the hatchling.
Gem resisted at first, squirming in the gargoyle's arms, but when Thersities moved closer to Darlene, letting the hatchling see her mother who stroked her blond hair with one claw, she calmed down.
Having done so, Darlene turned her attention to her other daughter, who seemed to have calmed down even so.
"Lana?" she said to her oldest daughter.
Slowly, Lana took her head from her mother's breast, staring on the box with the terrible content.
"Who gave this to you?" Demona asked her granddaughter in a calm but demanding voice.
Lana stayed silent, still looking through her reddened eyes on the box and Darlene feared that her daughter might be in shock.
"Lana!" Demona told her again.
"Mother, she..." is in shock Darlene wanted to tell her mother angrily, but was stopped in the middle of it.
"There was a knock on the door, so I looked on the monitor, but saw nothing out there except the box." Lana explained in a monotone voice. "I thought it was a present from some of the guys of the clan, but it wasn't, it was..."
Her voice trembled until it finally broke up, leaving her breathing heavily. Darlene touched Lana's shoulder, trying to pull her close to her again, but Lana resisted, leaning with her back on the wall instead and staring in the air. Shade whined on this, laying her scarred head in Lana's lap, not that she noticed it.
This gave Darlene time to take a look to Gem in Thersities's arms. Even though far from sleepy, the hatchling had calmed down, looking interested on her mother.
Meanwhile, Demona had walked to the monitor near the door, punching some buttons and seemingly rewinding it. Asrial stared on her and despite the events of this evening, she got curious. Since she couldn't see the monitor from her position, she went beside her sister, the trouble with her just shortly before forgotten for the moment.
It needed some seconds before the video was rewound, until Demona pressed play. There it was... a gargess with dark hair placing a box in front of the door before knocking on it.
The gargess looked up and grinned, looking straight into the camera, waving a talon as if to greet whoever could see her, then she knocked again, before rushing outside the view of the camera.
Shuddering, Asrial looked into her sister's face, but it was an icy mask, not even giving a hint of her true feelings.
"Mother, who was it?" Darlene asked her mother, concerned by the look in her mother's eyes.
"Your sister." Demona replied, looking up from the monitor to her daughter.
"Lucifia..." Darlene whispered, when a feeling like ice crept up her tail and spine.
Her mother didn't respond, but turned around, walking to the box.
"Ähh, sister, what are you doing?" Thersities asked, who now rocked Gem in his arms, who couldn't see very much anymore.
"Disposing this." Demona explained coldly.
"MOTHER!!!" Darlene shouted on her in shock and anger, not caring that Lana shuddered by this and Gem began to cry instantly while her guests just stared on the immortal.
"You won't throw it away like garbage." Darlene stated angrily, while rising from the stairs and slowly walking to her mother. "Can't you imagine the pain, the parents of this child will feel if a part of its body is never discovered?"
She paused a second, looking into her mother's cold green eyes.
"Have you forgotten how you felt when Lucifia kidnapped Jaheira?" Darlene wanted to know in a more soft voice.
This showed not much reaction by Demona, whose eyes stayed as cold as her face.
"And have you forgotten what the humans did just a week ago?" the immortal asked with controlled anger. "Do you want to bring this to the press, maybe together with the tape and a notice: 'Sorry for this"?
Darlene bit her lip, as she remembered the mob of angry citizens defying the Eyrie building and even storming the castle, all too well and definitely didn't want to see this again.
"Then let the police handle it, Elisa may..." Asrial began, only to be stopped by her sister's snarl, as she reacted rather allergic ally to this name.
"I will not take a risk by informing the humans." Demona told her, looking on Asrial with partly red eyes.
For a moment, both eyes met and Asrial was tempted to look away until a part of her remembered about her former talk this evening.
"Fine," Asrial replied irritated, "but I will inform Goliath and since Chavez is an ally to us, he surely will wish to inform her and Elisa."
Demona stared at her sister, her eyes still partly covered in a red glimmer, but Asrial didn't flinch.
"I'm surrounded by fools." the demon snarled and turned around, walking angrily to the phone.
"Thank you." Darlene whispered to Asrial when her mother was somewhat out of ear reach.
Asrial nodded in return.
Darlene turned to Thersities, who still held a now very vivid Gem in his arms.
"Please bring her up." she asked him. "I'll come then."
Thersities nodded, slowly walking upstairs while he talked to Gem to calm her down.
Darlene meanwhile looked back to her other daughter, who still stared at the packet.
"Lana." she began. "Lana, let's go up... can you stand?"
Lana looked away from the box, up to her mother, slowly nodding and tried to stand up, propping on the wall by her back.
Darlene tried to help her by grabbing one arm, but Lana refused, taking away the arm and rising with one last effort.
Now standing, even when leaned against the wall, Lana looked again to the box, feeling sick, wishing the knowledge of its content to be deleted from her brain.
Darlene looked on her daughter in worry, noticing how the color of her face became slightly green. But before she could say one word, Lana swallowed hard, holding her stomach and running up the stairs in the direction of the W.C.
Darlene followed.
Asrial looked after the two gargesses until they vanished from her sight, finally looking down to Shade who remained at the beginning of the stairs, whining and laying down, watching her in return.
Asrial turned around, looking to the box.