4.3: Meet 'Bobbyhorse'

Finally, finally the truck reached the clan's safe house. As soon as the truck pulled into the garage and the garage door closed, Brooklyn bounded out, desperate to get away from the stifling atmosphere that had accumulated during the long drive in. And in so doing, he nearly ran right over the gargoyle who had been waiting in the shadows for them.

"Whoa!" Brooklyn and the other gargoyle said in unison, as they barely avoided a collision with each other. As he backed off, Brooklyn saw before him a royal-blue equine gargoyle, with black feathered wings and a long black mane that spilled in front of his eyes. Brooklyn apologized, "Sorry about that…"

"What's the rush?" the blue male asked, before looking over Brooklyn's shoulder. Then his eyes narrowed, and he gave a positively equine snort. Brooklyn turned around to see Marie stepping out of the truck, as the blue male muttered, "Never mind; question answered."

But right after Marie got out, Rebecca and Lexington got out together, and Rebecca bounded over with a joyous shout of "Robert!" After giving the blue male one of those rib-crushing hugs that she was rapidly becoming infamous for, she introduced them all. "Robert, this is Lexington, and you already met Brooklyn; guys, this is Robert, my rookery brother, best buddy and closest friend in the world until you came into town."

Robert assumed an injured look and staggered back with his hand over his heart. "I'm not your closest friend anymore! Oh, the agony of rejection!" Then he straightened up and grinned. "So, this is 'Braveheart', hm? That has to be the biggest coincidence of the decade, meeting each other online without knowing it."

"Sure is; now we're wondering if there are any other gargoyles out there online," Lexington said with a grin.

"There was one for a short while; I'm assuming 'Becca told you about my trying the chat rooms for a while under the nickname of 'Bobbyhorse'…?"

"Yeah, she told me that last night," Lex replied. "So why did you stop?"

Robert shrugged. "Just not to my liking; if I'm going to talk to somebody, I'd rather be in the same room with them, or at least talking over a phone."

"Same here," Brooklyn threw into the conversation, from while glancing back at Marie. Sure enough, she was giving Robert a look of cool disdain, as if Robert wasn't good enough for her somehow. Why, Brooklyn couldn't figure; his quick first impression of Robert was of a decent enough gargoyle, both in physique and in attitude. But he reminded himself that Marie was status-hungry, and if Robert had no aspirations of being the clan's leader or second in command, or even head rookery keeper, then the blue male probably wouldn't serve Marie's purposes.

"Where are the others? Did they leave on patrol already?" Rebecca asked.

"Yes, they're gone, but no, not on patrol yet.. We've got a stakeout tonight; Keith called and said the NOPD had a tip about a crack house operating out of a house on Decatur. All four of them are over there right now, keeping aerial surveillance until the police crack the place open. I stayed here to greet y'all, but later on I'll be going over to relieve Martin and Cecilia so they can patrol."

"But you've been patrolling without a partner for the last three nights, haven't you?" Rebecca said with a troubled look. "That still isn't right…"

"Hey, Adam had a good reason to call Isabel back to the estate early; so all the ladies could meet you new guys together," as Robert glanced at Lex and Brook. "And I've been careful, calling for backup when I think I might need it and checking in twice as often as usual. I've been very careful, unlike a certain somebody who went out gliding in New York, as gold as a harvest moon… Oh yes, we heard about that!" he said as Rebecca blushed bright copper.

While the gargoyles had been talking, Marcel LeBeau, who had driven them in, had been talking with his cousins who owned the house, Willie and Ruby LeBeau. But now they came over, and invited the gargoyles to come into the house for some good hot gumbo; there was plenty left over from the patrollers' first meal of the night, and they thought the courting couples would want something to eat before heading out on the town.

The gumbo was delicious, but as soon as Marie was finished she got up and began tugging on Brooklyn's arm, saying it was past time they got officially started on their date.

Robert had already eaten and Rebecca had scarfed her food down quickly, so they were up from the table already, and applying a special type of spray-on black body paint to most of Rebecca's body. Robert looked up from where he was spraying on the back of Rebecca's wings, and commented, "Give me ten seconds more, and I'll be done here and help you with your wings."

"Oh, I'm not wearing any feather-paint this evening," Marie said airily. "After all, I'm not patrolling tonight; we're here to have fun!"

"To have fun, and be spotted by the first tourist that looks up!" Robert shook his head. "If you end up on the front page of the Times-Picayune, I'm telling Adam it was all your idea."

Brooklyn thought Robert had a good point; Marie's light pink skin and white wings would make her stand out in the night sky at least as much as Rebecca's golden form. Anyone who happened to look up while she was gliding overhead couldn't fail to notice her.

But once more, he held his tongue. After all, he and his clan hadn't made any particular effort not to be noticed by people, for their entire first year after awakening in the modern world. It wasn't until after Elisa had flat-out begged them to keep a lower profile, after hearing about how Tony Dracon was offering bounties for anyone who brought him solid proof of the existence of those creatures called gargoyles—solid proof, as in a gargoyle's head—that they had begun making serious efforts to stay in the shadows as much as possible, and vanish immediately after foiling crimes.

Besides, even during that first year when they'd been seen by a fair number of people, nobody had taken the eyewitness accounts seriously. Elisa said they'd been thought of as "urban legends", like alligators in the sewers. Anyone who saw Marie gliding overhead, unless they whipped out a camera quick and got a very clear picture of her, would probably be laughed off as well. Particularly since her white feathered wings were very unlike the leathery wings of the Manhattan Clan, the only gargoyles that had made themselves publicly known. Reports of "bird-women" or "angels" down in New Orleans would probably be relegated to the tabloids too.

Brooklyn shrugged, and let Marie lead him out into the night. He'd been hearing so much lately about all the attractions this town had to offer, surely at least a few of them would be worth seeing even in less-than-ideal company…

Rebecca couldn't help breathing a sigh of relief once Marie was gone. And after Robert had handed her back the spray can, she closed her eyes and held her breath, gave herself a shot of spray in the face, then opened her eyes and looked at Lexington. "How do I look?"

"Much darker," Lex assured her. There are still some glimmers of gold showing through here and there, but I don't think any human would see you in the dark without night-vision goggles. So, where are we going first?"

"Most tourists to New Orleans start with Vieux Carré—you've probably heard of it as the French Quarter," Robert said helpfully. "But if I know Marie, she's probably taking Brooklyn there right now, to check out all of Bourbon Street and spend some time listening in on the players at Pat O'Brien's piano bar. So if you'd rather that your paths didn't cross again tonight…"

"Yes, we'd rather," Lex said emphatically, even before Rebecca could say so.

"Thought so. Anyway, I'd suggest starting your tour elsewhere. We've got the Garden District, the Cities of the Dead—that's the cemeteries; the oldest ones are pretty famous, and we patrol two of them regularly for muggers. But that's 'shop talk', sorry. Anyway, there are any number of places to go that Marie's not likely to take Brooklyn to, at least not at first."

"The Aquarium of the Americas!" Rebecca said as she snapped her talons. "Marie would never go there; to her, it's all just a bunch of fish. But it's really a must-see attraction! They've got this walkway that runs right through a model Caribbean reef, with fish of every color of the rainbow swimming all around you, even right over your head! Eels and sea turtles and sharks and, well, at least one of every kind of sea creature to be found swimming in or around North, South or Central America!"

"Sounds cool," Lex said with a grin (and Rebecca's heart gave another little jump for joy. Even offline, he liked what she liked!) "Like being able to walk around underwater without drowning! We have an aquarium up in New York, too, but we never found a good way to sneak inside without being noticed."

"It helps if you have someone in the clan who used to work there," Rebecca confided with a grin. "Ben LeBeau works as a building contractor, and he fixed one of the top floor windows back in 1990, before the place even opened to the public, so we can sneak inside whenever we want." She turned to Robert and said apologetically, "Sorry to go without you, but…"

Robert just gave a grin and a wave of his hand. "I can always go some other time; right now, duty calls, and the others are probably wondering what's taking me so long."

But Rebecca still felt a bit bad; she knew that Robert, an artist in oils and clay sculpture, loved to go to the aquarium and find inspiration for his paintings in the brightly-colored fish and their environment. And Robert really was her closest rookery brother; she wanted him and Lex to get to know and like each other.

She said as much, and Robert responded with, "Well, I was thinking about just staying in New Orleans anyway after my patrol rotation ends. You and Lex go out and enjoy your courting tonight and tomorrow, and then if you'd still welcome a third wing while you show Lex the city, I can join you for the next few nights."

Rebecca thought it was a great idea, but Lex looked somewhat hesitant. Robert noticed the look and said with a smile and a wink, "Oh, don't worry; I'm not going to play chaperone! Or act like a human brother and threaten to beat you to a pulp if you don't treat her right. If you want to sneak off for a while, I'll just turn a blind eye… even if you come back later with your loincloth on backwards. And I could even point out to you a few items they sell in the French Market; items that I can tell you from personal experience are effective gargoyle aphrodisiacs…"

"Rob!" Rebecca wailed in embarrassment, but Robert only gave her an unrepentant grin.

To be continued…