12.08.98; 05:21; Destine Mansion:
"I was up with Lana until now." Darlene told Chavez, ending her story.
"And I was up there, trying to get Gem to sleep." Thersities, who had joined the group during the half of the report, told them, sitting on a chair. "Something she definitely didn't want."
Chavez nodded, turning to Demona who leaned on the wall, Shade by her side.
"Where had you been before you showed up here?" she asked the immortal.
"That is none of your business." Demona snarled, leaving her position at the wall to stand threatening before the captain.
"We were together." Asrial stopped them, before Demona could say more. "She... showed me around."
Chavez nodded, never taking her eyes from Demona, who still eyed her threatening.
In this moment, Elisa came back from the floor.
"I made a call to the district attorney to see if there had been any kidnapped babies or such." she explained seriously. "There were none, but..."
Elisa looked straight into Chavez's eyes.
"They found a pregnant woman... a dead pregnant woman." Elisa told them. "She was in the last period of pregnancy and seemingly her child had been torn out of her stomach."
Darlene and Asrial gasped in union, while Chavez stayed calm and Thersities gulped.
"Where has the body been found, Detective?" Demona asked Elisa without really looking on her.
"In a church in the eastside." Elisa told her, looking to Demona who preferred to look in an imaginable place ahead of her.
"Naturally." she noticed on this, taking it up as if it was indeed the most natural thing in the world.
"What by the dragon is natural about this?!" Darlene asked her mother unbelieving.
"She is right." Elisa told her. "The patrol discovered the body on the altar."
"Lucifia tried to do the ritual again?" Asrial concluded.
Demona nodded.
In the following silence, Demona leaned back on the wall again.
"And had it succeeded?" Chavez asked her. "Is she immortal again?"
Demona shook her head, deciding not to remind this human that this would have meant much more than just immortality.
"She didn't look like it." she told them.
"She might have used an illusion spell." Elisa noticed.
"Possible, but I don't think so." Demona replied, staring on the wall in front of her. "If she would have succeeded in the ritual, then she would have shown it to us."
Elisa wanted to ask her how she could be so sure of this, but finally decided against it, realizing that Demona was indeed not sure of it.
"Are you ready now?" Demona demanded to know, her patience definitely coming close to an end by this evening.
"We are." Chavez replied, walking to the table to pick up the packet.
"And what will you tell your colleagues at the office?" Demona asked icily, following every one of Chavez's movements.
Chavez took the packet up, studied by everyone in the room, most intensively by this immortal gargess and one of her detectives.
"I will say that someone brought you this packet, Miss Destine." Chavez explained, turning around to look at Demona. "And that you have no idea who it was and why he or she would do this."
Demona nodded, seemingly satisfied by this statement, even when her eyes didn't change at all while Chavez passed her.
"And don't let my name pass to the press." the immortal told the captain when this had practically passed her. "I don't need any reporters here."
"And I don't need a mass-murderer explain to me my job." Chavez noted, turning around to look the immortal straight into her face while believing to still feel warmth emitting from the box.
Demona showed no reaction of turning back, but her eyes showed a glimmer of red in them.
The confrontation lasted a second, until Chavez ended it, turning around and looking to Elisa.
"We are finished here, detective." she told her, beginning to walk to the door.
Elisa nodded, starting to go, but then turning around to Asrial, remembering something.
"Can you please tell Goliath that I'll come later to him?" she asked her.
Asrial nodded, taking a short look to Chavez, surprised that her clan sister spoke so openly with her in ear reach.
"Thank you." Elisa replied with a weak smile, following Chavez outside.
Standing in front of the door again, Elisa wanted to close the door behind her, just to find the door practically slammed shut from inside.
"Mother!!!" she could hear Darlene's indignant voice deadened from inside, deciding to let it be by this and following Chavez to her car.
Elisa stepped in her car, putting her key in the ignition, but not turning it around. She looked to Chavez who sat beside her, the box on her lap.
"Thank you." she told her "In my name and that of the clan. Goliath will..."
"I haven't done it for Goliath, Maza." Chavez replied, looking on her officer. "Or for you... I did it because I don't want the city out of control again, with thousands of angry citizens hunting gargoyles and making it even more difficult for us to stop Lucifia. This and nothing more influenced my decision."
Elisa nodded, looking ahead through the window of her car and waited a second before she started the motor, steering the car back to the police station.