03:00

"Mouse 3. I have the cheese. Awaiting video confirmation"

"03. Go ahead."

"Bombs away."

Tara watched the monitor and saw no signs of falling debris. "03
reports that the way is now clear. Repeat. All clear at 03:00."

"00. We copy 03."

Brenda began cutting a chunk out of the wall with her wrist cannon.
Before she could complete it, Goliath ran out of patience and with a double-
fisted blow knocked the semi-circle of concrete into the room beyond.

02 stared at him wide-eyed. "Jeez boss!"

"00. 04, We're ready down here."

"04. On my way."

Demona had jostled the suit a couple of times with her foot, but
gotten no response. She doubted that Todd was playing dead, but it didn't
hurt to be careful. She might heal quickly, but that didn't mean that she
was immune to pain. Satisfied that the human wasn't going anywhere, she
grasped the suit by the shoulders and hauled it upright. She looked in the
darkened eye-slit but could make out nothing.

"A pity that you're going to miss all this, human, but I cannot
afford to wait for you to awaken. Your miserable excuse for a life ends here
and now. Hmmm...for all I know, you could be dead already. No matter. There
is dead, and then there is DEAD. Don't worry, though, I'll make sure that you
go out in a blaze of glory."

Demona laughed as she slapped a small disk on
the back of the suit. As the disk began to emit a high pitched whine, she
braced her legs and hurled the suit over her head as hard as she could.

The suit crashed into the intake for the central air system and
exploded, sending chunks of flaming shrapnel in all directions. Some of
the tar on the roof ignited briefly, making the impact area look like part
of hell itself.

Demona surveyed her handiwork with satisfaction and then turned
toward the entrance to her office.

She never saw the hand which emerged from the smoking hole in the
roof where the ventilation duct had been.

03:10

The vault was open. Todd had entered his security code into the
control panel. When the computer had asked for Destine's code, Todd scanned
the keyboard on infrared. Picking out the most used keys, he had punched them
into his suit's computer and linked it to the control panel via a data strip
hidden in the suit's finger. Using the most likely keys, the computer had
deciphered Destine's code in about eight minutes. The code was the word,
'revenge'.

Todd led the way inside the vault and pointed to the drawers on the
left hand side which contained the stolen software and other incriminating
documents. He then led the large gargoyle to a locked drawer in the back.

"Go on, open it."

With a tug, Goliath's massively dense muscles and sharp claws made
short work of the drawer, shattering the lock and easily pulling the entire
front off of it. Papers spilled out and fluttered to the floor around them.

"What are these?" he asked as he picked one up and examined it.

"They are your bonds and shares in this company," Daniel replied.
"Pack them up. With them in your hands, Destine cannot keep you from taking
over once she's arrested."

Goliath gaped at him for a moment before he realized that Todd was
leaving the vault.

"Where are you going?"

"You two pack up. Be quick about it. Something's not right upstairs.
I'm going to go check on Liz and Tara, then I'll be back."

"Let me know what you find as soon as possible," Lyath answered. He
would have liked to have switch chores with Todd, but the human had already
been moving through the hole in the ladies room wall as he spoke.

Brenda was rapidly collecting items from the drawers which Todd had
pointed out to them. Goliath got out a pack and began to move all of Thailog's
assets into it.


Elisa groaned, which started her coughing again. Every breath she
took made it feel like she was inhaling glass shards. Her shirt was melted
onto part of her left arm and she could tell that her back had been burnt as
well. Blood was trickling into her eyes, apparently from a gash somewhere in
her scalp.

She had managed to get the suit's back panel open manually and then
somehow wriggled her way out before Demona's arrival. Closing the panel, she
had sprinted across the roof to the metallic box which was the intake to the
ventilation system. She had shot the screws off one side of the grate and bent
it back enough to get inside.

"Ohhhh...," she groaned again. "Why did that witch have to toss the
suit in my direction?"

Thank goodness she had scooted down below the level of the roof
before Demona's throw. As it was, the explosion had come very close to
killing her. She felt fortunate that she still had all her body parts.

After the explosion, she had quickly scrambled out of the duct,
which was as hot as an oven. Contact with the metal had cost her some skin
and breathing the superheated air when the fireball of the explosion had
engulfed her, had singed her airway. Breathing was torture, and so, she had
collapsed for a while, trying to get up the energy to move.

Finally, thoughts of Goliath and the danger he was in, roused her
from her stupor. Thank goodness she still had her gun and her Police com.

"Liz to Conners. Do you copy?" Please, please work, she thought to
herself.

"Liz! What in the hell is going on up there? The security alarm went
off when there was an explosion on the roof!"

"That explosion was me. Destine is here and she's out for blood."

"Destine? How'd she get in? We haven't seen her."

"Did you see a female gargoyle hit my suit?"

"Uhh...yeah, I saw something hit you, but it came in too fast to see
much more than the wings. When it entered the building, we got a good look at
it, though."

"That gargoyle is Dominique Destine. Her real name is Demona and she
is a Gargoyle at night and a human by day. I know it's all a lot to take in,
but trust me on this. Once you've arrested her you and the world will see the
truth of it. I'm outta time. I gotta go - Stoneman's in danger. Try to keep
the cops out of the building for now."

03:15

Elisa ignored her com and carefully slid down the side of the
building. Using the claw marks which Goliath had left in the wall on their
previous visit as hand-holds, she managed to land on the narrow ledge below.
The entrance into Demona's secret room had automatically closed behind her,
forcing Elisa to search for the opening lever - something which left a human
like herself in danger of falling off the ledge. Finally she had it and a
quick tug started the ledge beneath her sinking toward the eighth floor.

The secret room was dark. The only light spilled through the
opening to the office up above. She could just make out the form of bio-suit
03 in the corner. The suit was in one piece and at first she couldn't figure
out how Demona had disabled it.

Suddenly her hand encountered a small metallic disk on the suit's
chestplate. She tugged it loose and looked at it in the light from the
stairway. It was exactly the same as the electrical disk Thailog had used to
disrupt Xanatos' bio-suit on the oil rig a while back. It could come in handy,
after all, Todd and Brenda still had their suits.

Elisa drew her gun again and started up the stairs.

Demona's office seemed empty at first, but Elisa heard somebody
whisper behind the large desk and quickly moved around it. She brought her
gun around and yelled "Freeze!"

Two heads popped up and stared at her - the mice, Helen and Miriam.

"Liz!" they said in unison.

"Boy are we glad to see you!" Helen continued.

"Looks like you already met Demona," Miriam commented as she stared,
aghast at Liz's appearance.

"No shit, Sherlock. Which way did she go?" Elisa lowered her gun.

"She went out the door to the left, right toward the others," Helen
said.

"You two go help Tara out of her suit. I don't think that she's dead,
just unconscious. Bring her back up here and all three of you stay behind
that desk. It's probably the safest place to be right now." Elisa moved to
the doorway and when she saw that the coast was clear, she slipped out of the
office.

03:20

Demona was growing frustrated. She had checked every office in this
hallway and still found no trace of the interlopers. They had to have gotten
down to the eighth floor somehow without using the stairs or elevators. She
stood at the end of the hallway for a moment, the end of her tail twitching
in frustration.

"The utility rooms! Of course!" she exclaimed as she started back up
the hallway.

Elisa peeked around the corner of the intersection just as Demona
stuck her head in a custodial closet. She immediately ducked back around the
corner. It appeared that Demona was heading back up the hall in her
direction.

She heard another door open and looked around the corner again.
Demona was searching the electrical room. She's only looking in the utility
rooms, she thought to herself, which means that the next room she'll check
will be the men's room.

As soon as Demona entered the men's bathroom, Elisa made to run
down to the office adjacent to The ladies' room, when she saw Todd in his
bio-suit 04 scuttle out of a storage room on the opposite side of the hall
and enter the same office she had chosen. She had managed to stay concealed
as he dashed across the hall. What was he doing up here? He had made it
clear that he intended to work for Thailog, so chances were good that he
was going to slip into the ladies' room behind Demona and take her out.

Demona emerged from the men's room and headed for the room Todd had
just vacated. Once she had poked her head in and seen that it was empty, she
headed for the ladies' room.

"Filthy pigs!" Elisa heard her exclaim as she opened the door and
no doubt, saw the hole in the floor. The door began to close behind her and
Elisa immediately moved next to the office door which Todd was hiding behind.

The door to the ladies' room closed with an audible thunk. Todd
opened his door but before he could do anything, Elisa slapped the disk onto
his chest.

Electricity arched over the bio-suit as Todd let out a pained shriek.
He collapsed in the doorway, unconscious.

Elisa moved to the ladies' room door and peeked in.

No sign of Demona.

She entered the room.

03:30

Brenda, Goliath and Mouse 3 had just finished packing up the last of
their things when a laser shot scorched the wall behind them.

Brenda was standing between Goliath and the source of the shot, so
he was unable to see who it was who was attacking them. Without thinking, he
shoved the unprotected human behind him and rose to his feet just as the next
bolt hit Brenda in the forearm. Her wrist laser blew up. She let out a scream
and fell, senseless, to the floor.

He could now see who his attacker was. Goliath's heart felt as
though a cold hand were squeezing it. He was overwhelmed with fear, not for
himself, but for Elisa.

Demona was staring at him in wide-eyed shock. "YOU!" she yelled.
"What on earth are you doing here and where is that human slut of yours?"

"I'm right here, Demona!" Elisa's voice came from behind her.

Goliath was shocked by Elisa's appearance. Her braid was singed,
her clothing torn. Beneath the tears, he could see bloody scrapes and burns.
Half of her face was smeared with blood. The rest was covered with black
soot. She looked like a minion of hell.

Demona twisted her body, trying to bring the rifle to bear on the
figure behind her in the ladies' room, when Elisa fired knocking the rifle
from her grasp. The shot had actually grazed her thumb before striking the
barrel.

Goliath was on her in a second, but Demona was as quick as ever. She
managed to throw him and instantly she was out the door and into the adjacent
office.

Elisa brought her gun to bear on Mouse 3. "Go on, Goliath. Stop her!
I'll mop up back here."

Goliath entered the office just in time to see Demona enter the
hallway. He began to close the distance between them as she plowed through
the door to the office across the hall. From there, she made a beeline for
the windows and took a running leap through them, sending glass spraying
everywhere. Goliath knocked some wicked looking shards out of the frame
before diving out after her.


"Conners, this is Elisa. Come in."

"I read you, Elisa."

"The big guy and Stoneman have gone after Demona. Everyone else is
ready to be picked up. There are three up in Destine's office, two here with
me outside the vault and Todd is unconscious up on the ninth floor next to
the ladies' room. The getaway vehicle is a Cheetos truck..."

She was interrupted by Conners. "We already have them. They pulled
up closer to the building after the other gargoyle tried to fry you and we
nabbed them. We have officers on their way up to your location now. One of
em reports seeing two winged figures heading east. Can you contact Stoneman?"

"Hold on a moment," she said as she snatched the headset off of
Lorrey's head. She turned off the police com and spoke into the other mike.
"Stoneman, this is Elisa. Can you read me?"

"Yes, Elisa, I am here."

"What's your status?"

"The big guy and I are following Demona. She's tried to lose me a
few times, but we're on her like glue."

"I bet she thinks that all she has to do is keep you busy until dawn."

Goliath laughed, sounding eerily like Thailog. "Won't she be in for
a surprise?"

"OK, Big Guy...Stoneman, call if you need backup or a ride. we're
mopping up back here."

"Are you all right, Elisa?" Goliath couldn't keep the worry out of
his voice.

"I'll live, but I gotta tell you, I would welcome a painkiller right
around now. Be careful, I'll see you later." She got back on the link with
Conners. "Did you copy that?"

"We got it. I'm on my way up."