VVVVV
Consequences Part Three: Cat and Cradle (2/3)
a Gargoyles story
by Merlin Missy
Copyright 1998, 2005
PG-13
VVVVV
Downtown traffic was horrendous. Her usual parking place was
taken, so she had to settle for a spot three blocks away. Swearing
slightly, she ran in as dignified a fashion as she could to the precinct
house. She dropped her jacket at her desk, and almost didn't notice the
roses.
She stopped. Yep, they were still there. She picked up the bouquet and
sniffed at them, then read the card: "For: Elisa Maza.
From: You Know Who."
The grin inside would not be contained, and blossomed on her
face. She couldn't recall the last time anyone had sent her
flowers.
"Ow!" Her hand went to her mouth. Had she caught it on a
thorn? No, the pin affixing the card was at a bad angle. She set
the bouquet down awkwardly, grimacing as she smeared blood on the
tissue paper. No time for romance, now.
She hurried to Captain Chavez's office, carefully opening the
door. Everyone else was already there, of course, and stared at
her as she entered. I'm not that late, she thought, and moved to
stand beside the seat Matt had grabbed.
"Nice of you to join us," said the Captain. "Now, as I was
saying ... "
The Captain had instituted biweekly meetings for all the
detectives on their shift, to compare cases and try to see if any
correlations existed that might have escaped cops working on
seemingly separate crimes. She and Matt had just wrapped up a
string of catburglaries, and hadn't started a new case yet. She
found her attention drifting back to the flowers on her desk and
the conversation with her mother. Both seemed out of place.
Several times during the hour, she noticed some of the others
giving her strange looks, then finding other things to watch. It
started to get annoying. She'd have to let Goliath know that,
although the thought was appreciated, work wasn't the best place
for sending presents. When the meeting ended, Morgan and Tan
corralled her, asking who'd sent the flowers. She dodged the
question, barely, and slipped out of Chavez's office before they
could try to pry anything further.
The flowers were no longer on her desk.
Matt sat at his own desk, innocent as a new babe. click
click click click "All right, Bluestone. Hand 'em over,"
she said in her best movie-cop voice.
"Hand what over? I thought you hid them." click click
click "Damn."
"I should have. Are you playing Minesweeper again?"
click "Um. Yeah." click click "Damn." He looked away
from the screen. "What? It clears my mind. You meditate, I save
the world from mines."
"Computer Zen," she teased as she checked her desk, inside and
out. No flowers. "That's weird. Well, now maybe everyone'll stop
staring."
"I doubt that," said her partner, a smirk on his face.
"What did you say?"
"Nothing. Nothing." His boyish face could no longer resist the smile.
"Um ... Partner?" He tapped just beside his own Adam's Apple.
"You've got ... um ... Just go look in the mirror, okay?"
Elisa clapped a hand over her neck, scowled at her partner, and headed
towards the women's locker room. She went to a mirror above one of
the sinks. As she moved her hand, she saw the large purplish bruise
and groaned. For the moment, she forgot about the flowers entirely.
VVVVV
Fox opened her eyes. The clock on her side of the bed read
4:15 in light green, unobtrusive numerals. Four minutes had passed
since the last time she'd checked. She rolled over. David was
half-sprawled beside her, mouth buried in his pillow. His long
hair, free from its customary elastic, lay askew around his head,
with one lock wrapped around his neck. He was quite soundly
asleep. Unable to do the same, she watched his eyes dart beneath
his lids, always moving, always seeking, even in his dreams.
Restlessness drove her from their bed. She grabbed her robe
and slipped noiselessly out of their room. The flagstones were
cold on her feet. She considered going back for her slippers, then
decided that David needed his sleep. She did, as well, but lately,
she'd been having trouble. It was the same problem she'd had
before Alex's birth, only this time she was not the pregnant one,
and there were no dreams of Katharine.
Hyena's C-section was scheduled for the first of February, over two
weeks away. The doctors could possibly have performed it earlier, but
since there was zero chance of the kid being breast-fed, the decision
had been to delay the birth as long as was feasible. So far, she hadn't
gone into labor naturally, a good thing all around.
Fox wandered into Alexander's room. He lay on his back
asleep, the covers kicked off haphazardly. She pulled them up over
his legs. He breathed, but didn't stir.
He was such a pretty baby. His little red curls framed his wide face.
His lips made a slightly quivering pucker, as if he were eating in his
sleep. She wondered what his dreams were like. Were they of
multi-coloured toys? Days in the sunshine? Changing his shape?
Suckling from a giant breast? Whatever his dreams, there was an aura
around him of peacefulness. Was that part of his glamour, or was it just
because he was a baby?
"I love you, sweetie," she said. She reached in and brushed his temple
with her finger. He twitched.
Goliath had risked his life and that of the other gargoyles to let him stay
with his family. The same had to hold true for the unborn child for
whom she was taking responsibility. A child needed his family, no
matter who that family was. Wasn't that what Goliath had said to
Oberon? Wasn't that why she had her son here tonight? It had to be the
truth.
Then why, when she lay down to sleep each night, did she see a dark,
smoke-smelling apartment, and wonder if she was doing the right
thing?
VVVVV
Elisa took the elevator up from the Eyrie's private parking
lot, pacing in the car as she did. She was running later than
she'd anticipated; as she'd pulled into the lot, the cold sky had
already been laced with cotton candy clouds.
She passed by the living room, in case the guys were catching
the end of the So Late It's Early Show. The television was on, but
the gargoyles were nowhere to be seen. Instead, Fox lay curled on
her side on the couch, fast asleep. Elisa did not particularly
want to know why. The private lives of the Xanatos family, unless
they directly affected those of the clan, held little interest for
her. Typically.
Two nights before, she'd overheard Xanatos making baby-noises
at his son. More than once, when she had been over and Alex had
been with the clan, Fox had come into the room and picked him up,
and for a moment, just a moment, had let slip her careful veneer of
confidence and had become a real person. That seriously damaged
the comfortable mental image Elisa had formed of the two of them.
She found Goliath on the tower, as she'd suspected she might.
"Hey," she said to his back.
"Good morning," he replied. "How was work?"
"Quiet. I don't care what anyone else says, since you guys
came to town, the scum has been a lot less likely to surface."
"Tonight was also quiet for us. Perhaps the cold has sent the
criminals to bed early." He smiled as he turned. His sense of
humor, such as it was, improved little by little ever night.
"Have you been to the Labyrinth lately?" she asked out of the
blue.
"I have not. Broadway was there tonight, guarding Fang. He
returned only a few minutes ago. Why do you ask?"
"No reason. Oh, before I forget ... " She tugged at her shirt collar,
giving him a good view of her neck. "We humans bruise easily."
He flushed. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be." She took his hand into both of hers, rubbed it against her
cheek contentedly. "We just need to be a little more careful. Matt's
been razzing me all night about it. The flowers didn't help, either." She
smiled shyly. "But they were appreciated."
A perplexed look crossed his face, and stayed there as the sun rose a
second later. She pulled her hand from his stone grip, patted his arm,
and went down the stairs.
VVVVV
Elisa checked herself in the mirror one more time. The bruise
had lingered for several days, but it had finally faded from sight.
No more worrying about covering it with makeup or semi-convenient
turtlenecks. Matt had teased her about it nonstop for days. On
the flip side, she was certain everyone at the station thought he'd
been the one to give it to her, so it all worked out. Damned
embarrassing, though.
She patted her hair. She'd chosen to wear it up tonight, and
she couldn't get past the feeling that she looked more and more
like her mother when she did. Well, maybe not. Mom probably
wouldn't have opted for the deep rose of her dress, nor the
generous neckline. She also would probably have avoided the
spandex that clung to her legs suggestively and stopped well above
her knee. The earrings that brushed her shoulders had been bought
for this outfit. Her toes were cramping inside the heels she wore,
but she had to admit, back problems later or no, they completed her
ensemble perfectly.
She added a quick touch of little-used perfume to her wrists.
Precisely on time, she heard a tap at her balcony. She smiled
at her own reflection one more time, and thanked her guardian
spirits that it was a warm night. They were going to a concert in
the park tonight, close enough to hear, far enough not to be seen.
He was probably expecting a sweatshirt and jeans.
She walked out of the bathroom, shut off the light, checked to
make sure Cagney had food, grabbed her wrap and went to the sliding
window they used as a door.
Tonight, she decided. Tonight she was going to convince him
to stay until daybreak.
The expression on his face was exactly what she'd hoped it
would be.
VVVVV
'Lilah slipped outside. The moon was brighter now than it had
been her last time outside, bigger. Maggie had tried explaining
the idea of phases to her, with oranges, but she'd only gotten more
confused.
The night was a little warmer than she remembered, at least
she thought so. The snow was gone, leaving short brown stubs of
grass to prickle her tail behind her. The last time she'd been out
here, the night had been cloudy, and hid away any stars she might
have seen. Tonight it was clear, but she wasn't out to see stars.
It was easier to think outside, even though she wasn't
supposed to be here. Everyone stared at her in the Labyrinth
anymore, at least at her belly. The egg would be here soon, they
said. She didn't want a stupid egg. She wanted a baby like Maggie
was going to have. She tried to summon a picture in her head of a
baby gargoyle. It would look like her and Thailog, with their
blue-white hair, and it would be as dark as he was, but with her
eyes, And she would call it Grover.
The real gargoyles stared when they came to visit. They
hadn't come to visit in a long time. The only times were when
someone took a turn guarding Fang, and that wasn't often.
She found her destination: the swings. She had come here
twice since the kids had brought Brent outside to tease him. It
was a nice, quiet place in the night where she could be alone. She
climbed into a swing carefully, poking her tail out the back, and
pushed herself with her feet. From far away, she heard music, but
she ignored it. She didn't want to hear music tonight.
Elisa stared.
'Lilah didn't understand why Elisa stared. She'd thought Elisa was her
friend, but now her friend watched her with the same expression that
the real gargoyles did, and she didn't like it. The worst part of all was
...
Her lips trembled. She didn't want to think about this, but here it was.
She knew how she'd come to be. Thailog had programmed her
with the knowledge, and Maggie and Ruth had explained it in terms
she could almost understand. Part of Elisa and part of Demona had
become her, not exactly like but close to the way that a part of
Goliath and a part of Demona had become Angela. That made Elisa
and Demona her parents.
Demona had tried to kill her the last time she'd seen her, but
Elisa had always been nice. Maybe Demona didn't know that she was
her daughter like Angela was. Maybe if she told her, it would
change Demona's mind about killing her. Angela hadn't always liked
her, but she did now, or did before she went back to Avalon.
Elisa didn't like her anymore. She could tell by the way she stared, by
the way she stayed away. She could stand the real gargoyles staring,
and she'd gotten used to Malibu doing it now and then, 'cause Boo
wanted to be a real gargoyle. Elisa was something different.
Hot tears warmed her cheeks, but she did not brush them away.
VVVVV
Beth kept her mouth closed as she yawned, knowing it would
send her face through weird contortions. She normally didn't mind
night classes, but she'd discovered that Dr. Tremaine's unique
lecturing style left her sapped of energy before he'd reached the
end of his first sentence. Then again, said lecturing style meant
the end of the first sentence might be twenty minutes into the
three-hour class. She'd heard from survivors of his classes that
he only took a breath once an hour; his lung capacity made up for
the rest.
Blinking her eyes rapidly, she stared down at her notes,
forcing some sense into them. A few lines were legible, the rest
scrawled into oblivion, testament to previous times this evening
when her hold on reality had slipped. It wasn't that the class was
boring, either. In fact, the subject of this particular lecture
was very near and dear to her heart. Again, she forced herself
awake enough to listen.
"Trickster, in this case Crow, although as you'll read this
week, those of you who do your assignment, many of the same
attributes will apply to Red Horn, who is also an incipient hero,
as well as Legba, the Dogon Trickster, and Anansi, Trickster of the
Hauka tribe, with some remnants in the Greek myths of Hermes, who
stole Zeus' sheep the day he was born, which brings us back to Crow
and his sexual appetites, which are both strange and insatiable, as
they are for all Tricksters; strange in that Crow, as you read this
past week, often switches gender and even sends his genitalia away
from his body in order to have sex with unsuspecting young maids,
demonstrating Trickster's role as a cultural pressure relief, here
a sexual taboo ... "
A few of her classmates giggled, and Beth herself felt a large
grin growing on her face. She doubted they were having the same
mental images she was, but none of them had met a Trickster-god in
the flesh.
As she had before, she wondered how much of the mythology had
grown from actual things Coyote and his cousins had done, and how
much of what they were had come from the myths already saturating
the cultures they adopted. Dr. Tremaine and her classmates
operated under the assumption that the religions they studied,
while held to by a vanishing minority, had no more basis in reality
than the Easter Bunny. They spoke of cultural and personal need,
for heroes, for Tricksters, for gods of all shapes and sizes, and
had reached a level of intellectualism where they believed in none,
or in a hero-cycle originating in the Middle East. Last week, the
first night of class, Dr. Tremaine had handed out a page of the
characteristics of a classic hero myth. According to him, the
higher a particular figure scored, the more likely it was the
individual had never really existed. Zeus scored a 19. Robin Hood
scored a 13. Christ scored 19, and when that was noted, two of the
class members walked out. Beth had ignored them and kept reading.
King Arthur scored 17. So did Cu Chulainn. She wondered how
many other people Dr. Tremaine was claiming had never been were
numbered among her sister's friends. The people had left the class
because of the implication that none of the heroes on the sheet had
ever existed. Beth faced a more frightening notion: the prospect
that they all did.
Dr. Tremaine finished his final sentence. The class awoke
like a slumbering giant (though she'd learned never to get him
started on giant myths) and ran for the door.
Outside, the night was clear and crisp. As she walked from
the lights of Mevis Hall in a loose knot of people, she could see
the stars growing brighter. Somewhere beneath those stars, the
fairies were dancing. Not here. She wasn't certain when Coyote
had left Arizona for Avalon, only knew that the Gathering had come
when Elisa had called the first time from her apartment to let her
know the long journey had ended.
Beth hadn't heard him howling across the desert before his departure,
nor had a weight lifted from the earth when his tread no longer touched
it. She knew he was gone now because the night was emptier, the stars
not as playful. Gods had walked this land, and if they had been but
Oberon's Children in masks, who was she to say they were more or less
real than a carpenter who would have been king?
So caught up was she in thoughts spiritual that she did not see the
black-clad figure until the voice spoke to her from what first appeared
to be utter darkness:
"Hi, Beth." She stopped, oblivious to the rest of the group,
who continued to walk back towards the safety of light and home.
Coyote, her mind provided, and she was in that instant a young
maid encountering a childish spirit who was also the oldest of gods.
Then her eyes focused.
"Sarah." The surprise mingled with disappointment before she
could stop it, and she read the instant pain on the face of someone
who'd once been her closest friend.
"Who were you expecting?" Not teasing, not playful, just inquisitive,
and incredibly sad.
"Coyote the Trickster," she replied. Sarah rolled her cinnamon eyes.
"What's up?"
"I wanted to see you."
"I thought you didn't want to see me ever again." It sounded
more accusational than she'd intended.
"I needed some time." She turned and began walking. After a
moment, Beth followed her. Their paces caught and matched as they
walked.
Beth said, "Sarah, listen. There are some things ... "
Sarah held up a hand. "Don't. You have secrets. I know
that. I'm sorry if I tried to get them out of you before you were
ready."
"I was ready, but they weren't mine to tell. They still
aren't."
"I can accept that."
She could accept ... Her arms trembled from the cold, from
the words. She kept her teeth from chattering as she asked, "What
do you mean?"
"I mean, I haven't been able to do anything for months but think of you.
I went home over the holiday, and spent every damn minute thinking of
things I should have said to you, seeing things I wanted to show you."
She stopped, and Beth saw the rarest tears running down her face. "I
miss you. You're my best friend, and ... " Her shoulders shook.
Beth set her satchel on the ground, and wrapped her arms around
Sarah's neck. "I've missed you, too," she said, not yet crying, knowing
the tears would come soon enough.
"I'm not asking for things to go back to the way they were. I just want
to spend time with you again."
"I'd like that."
Sarah smiled through the tears on her cheeks. Beth's heart warmed, and
her thoughts turned far away from gods.
"I was afraid," Sarah said. "I was afraid you'd hate me until May, and
then graduate, and then leave, and I'd never see you again."
"No such luck. I'm applying for grad school here. I'll be here for a
good long time."
As she said it, she knew she meant it. Mom would have to deal
with her youngest chick being away for a longer time, maybe for
good. She was where she belonged, with people she liked, and the
woman she loved. Manhattan was a distant crystal dream, with no
more solidity for her than Avalon. This was what was real, had
been real forever.
As they walked back towards her home, slower this time, Beth
swore she could hear a howl from far away, and although she knew in
her soul it was not Coyote, she smiled anyway.
VVVVV
Demona unwrapped the parchment with a gentleness that would
have surprised an outsider, or even an old friend. The vellum on
which it had been written had been taken from a sheep who'd grazed
in the verdant pastures outside a small village named Lud, which in
time had become a somewhat larger village called London. Needless
to say, it was before her time by a good thousand years and she had
spent the fifty-four years since its acquisition being careful not
to damage it.
She had no idea what the original words written on the paper
had been. The traces she could see below the Latin were faint and
bore little resemblance to any alphabet she knew. Someone, most
likely a sorcerer in desperate need of writing paper, or a practitioner of
the Old Religion caught in a strange new age of monotheism and
persecution of the supernaturally gifted, had half- eradicated the old
words and scribbled a brief Latin spell atop them. When she'd first
found the paper, amid the ruins of a museum after a bombing, she'd had
a split second of vision: a human male, not old but ancient in the way
only the loss of friends and family could bring age, hurriedly setting to
paper spells that would otherwise have been lost with his impending
death.
No matter what the first spell had been; the second, more
readable one held the magic she required for this evening's working
beneath the full January moon. She scanned the words, then set the
paper where she could easily access it when the time came.
She required no talismans tonight, but the herbs she needed
had raised the eyebrows of more than one gardener in her employ.
She'd hired gardeners, architects, built an elaborate greenhouse,
and given the strictest of instructions for the care and feeding of
the precious flora she planted there. Many a gibbous moon had seen
her on her knees, running her fingers through rich black dirt,
coaxing seed pods open with her talons, making sacrifices of
songbirds as both offering and the richest of fertilizer. All her
work, and the sweat of her human drones, weeding and pollinating
and asking no questions, had created for her a garden whose fruits
were by turns succulent, magical, intoxicating and/or illegal in
the state of New York.
She took a handful of dried leaves, whose close cousins had
once been used by native tribes on the Great Plains to instill
prophecies. The fire sparkled as she threw the leaves into it,
being careful not to breathe the smoke. That was for later.
The second ingredient was bark from a flowering shrub, one
thought by most horticulturalists to have been extinct for the past
ninety years. Demona was not a horticulturalist, but had been
aware of the encroachment of the rapine humans into the sacred
places where it had once grown wild, had saved a few specimens of
this particular bush. The blossoms, while having no particular
magical value of their own, resembled lilacs, but with an
enchanting scent that made ordinary flowers smell like toxic waste
in comparison. She peeled bits of the bark, placed them into a
silver bowl of water, while breathing hotly on the surface. She
stirred the water with her finger in three sharp swirls, then
sprinkled salt over it.
She held the bowl above her head, and chanted the first half
of the spell: "Iae Jesu Domine!"
She poured the bowl's contents onto the fire. Angry at the
sudden cold wetness, the fire sputtered its protest and died in a
cloud of aromatic steam. She breathed deeply. Nauseated, she
placed a hand to her forehead, steadying and centering herself.
The sickness passed.
Now for the final part. She took the vial, the few drops of
rich red liquid within rolling back and forth as she twirled the
container. Here was the time of truth. If it was Elisa's, the
woman would come to her, unable to resist the call of her own
blood. It was possible that her brother, even her parents would
come as well. Demona had her particle beam weapon ready in case of
unwanted company. There could be no mistakes made after this
point.
Demona opened the vial and dripped the precious drops over the
smouldering pile. "Doniae ys requiem!"
The ashes glowed with a blue-green tint, pulsating sickly like
gangrene. She dared not breathe the smoke now, lest it consume
her.
Blood called to blood. She heard the siren call from the
ashes, demanding their lady's return to them, sending out their
scent through the Park, above the trees and the skyscrapers,
calling Elisa to her.
"Blood return to blood!" she hissed.
Yes, she would come, and when she touched the ash, Demona
would steal her wretched face and form. It would last only the
night, long enough to steal into the castle, find Goliath and
Angela, strike down the one in front of the other. The fool would
probably not even raise a talon in protest.
She heard a sound in the bushes, the sound of gargoyle feet
making their way nearer. Yes! Summoned by the spell, that
detestable human was coming to her, and much sooner than she had
anticipated. She placed a victorious smile on her face as she
turned to the darkness and whispered, "Come to me."
"Yes, Mother," said Elisa Maza's voice.
VVVVV
As ears went, Elisa's were rather tasty.
They had returned to her apartment after the concert, which
was fine by Goliath. He hadn't heard a note of music the entire
night. He'd been hyper-aware of Elisa's appearance, of her scent,
of her voice and of her. Every touch against him had sent shudders
down his spine to the tip of his tail. When she'd casually
suggested they go back to her place, he'd been unable to deny her
any request.
Using only the tips of his teeth, Goliath bit down on the outer curl of
her right ear and felt a responding quiver from Elisa. Feeling bolder, he
slid his tongue out from between his lips and traced the edges, down to
the tender lobe, which he kissed.
The phone rang. "Damn!" she swore, and dashed up to answer it.
"No, I hadn't checked my messages yet. I just got back. At a concert.
Guess. Yes." She looked back. "Beth says hello."
"Hello, Beth."
"He says hi. Really? That's great!" Her voice was warm. "I'm glad to
hear that. Did you tell her? When you do, let me know. I'll tell
Brooklyn. Yeah, I think he knows. Look, I really can't talk right now.
Stop it. Yeah, yeah, tomorrow. Bye, sis."
She placed herself beside him on the couch. "Now, where were
we?"
He could not stop a smile. She was pressed up against him,
eyes bright and eager, and she looked like a hatchling getting
ready to play. And perhaps she was.
"Here." He placed his lips at her ear again. She made a
happy noise in her throat. Boldly, he moved his head down to her
neck and kissed her there, breathing in the aroma of her.
Elisa jerked harder this time, and pulled away from him,
sitting forward on the couch. He drew back quickly. Too much, too
fast, he cursed himself. She was so fragile, this one; he could
damage her with the intensity of his heart, never mind the rest of
him.
"Elisa, I'm sorry."
She looked at him blankly and stood up. He got to his feet,
a violet blush burning his cheeks. "I'll go," he said quietly.
"Go?" Again, the blank look, and she was more distant than
he'd ever seen her. "Yes, go." It took him several seconds for
the realization to hit that she wasn't talking to him.
That came when she started putting on her jacket, ignoring him
completely.
"Elisa?" What was going on? Did she want him to leave? He
grasped her hands. "Please. Tell me what's wrong." She pulled a
pair of slippers from beneath the couch and placed them on her feet.
"Wrong. Nothing." She pulled away from him again and
zippered her jacket. Tried to zipper her jacket. The teeth didn't
catch, and she gave up, going to the door with it left open. She
flicked off the light, shut the door behind him, left him alone in
darkness and confusion.
VVVVV