DC:11Worries

by Hardwing

The clan is in worry when Hudson faces his operation meant to give him a new leg, but danger arises on many fronts.

I just want to thank the creators of DARK AGES for creating such a great background and Storyseeker for correcting my fics and helping me with great ideas and for the characters of his ficverse.

11.Worries

"…. I would suggest you speak with Xanatos." the mates heard Moore end the sentence.

"About what?" Goliath asked while stepping in…

Deborah and Hudson who sat on the bed, and Moore who stood in front of them, looked to the pair.

A moment later, Deborah and Hudson exchanged a look before the old gargoyle turned his look to his leader.

"We spoke about getting a mechanical leg, lad." Hudson explained, totally surprising the newly arrived couple.

9.Decisions to live, decisions to die(Part2)

"We are ready." he explained to everyone in the room, and returned to the PC, pushing a reluctant Moore from it. "In a week, you'll hear more."

Hudson gave him a surprised look.

"That fast?" the old warrior asked.

Leicester pressed a few keys, and then took a disk out of the PC.

"My team will need this time to design the replacement," he explained, as a matter of fact, while placing the disk in his breast pocket. "And we will have to see how much of your still existing leg we have to amputate."

8.Decisions to live, decisions to die(Part1)

31.09.98; 20:14; Somewhere in the streets of Bronx:

The woman looked shabby, her body and hair dirty, as her dark green eyes searched through the dark alley, full of doubts.

"You are sure?" she asked her companion.

The man, also wearing drags, gave her a smile, revealing his four last teeth in his dirty mouth.

"Sure, girl." he reassured her, rubbing the few brown hairs on his head. "You'll get here a warm bed and good meals, believe me."

The girl who was actually a woman nodded, rubbing her stomach.

"A meal sounds good," she said.

The man laughed and stopped, standing before a door full of graffiti. This wasn't unusual, if not for the placard, showing an angel with shining white hair, feathered wings and a white tunica, standing above a bowl filled with liquid.

"No worries," he explained by pushing the door open. "This organization is good in helping our kind."

He stood by the door, holding it open with a smile on his face, and the woman decided to follow his offer a second later.

She stepped into a very clean and bright floor, which was unusual for this area, especially if the doors were opened for her kind.

The homeless woman walked one step further, as she heard the door behind her being closed, turning around she discovered her comrade sealing the door with a heavy piece of wood.

Then the woman heard steps and discovered two other men, even so looking homeless, who were coming at her direction.

"Stop!" she shouted at them, noticing at how her comrade came closer from behind her. "Police officer, you..."

She didn't say anything further, since at that moment a hand grabbed her right arm, though which she had just about to take her gun out of the hidden place by her belt.

"No, detective." The man said, grinning at her through a mouth with much too less teeth, and eyes shining dark brown.

Just Outside:

"Come on! Come on!" Morgan shouted, running down the alley, his gun drawn, with his partner Rose on his back.

They reached the door, but as Morgan turned the knob, it was shut.

"Open up! Police!" he screamed to the men he knew were behind the doors.

One, two, three… Morgan counted, and cursed.

He gave one shot on the lock, destroying it and shook on the door again, but this proofed to be senseless since it was barred from inside.

"Give me space." Rose said.

Morgan jumped away just in time to see Rose run against the door with his shoulder, shaking it by this.

"Together." Morgan replied.

They took position and ran against the door, this making it break from its suspension.

"Maza!" Morgan shouted, as they threw the door away.

They jumped in, but found the floor empty except for a dirty blond wig and a crushed bug.

"Damn." Rose noticed, lowering his gun.

31.08.98; 20:56 Castle Wyvern:

Four hatchlings stood on a parapet of the leader's tower, and stared into the sleepless night of New York.

"Such an big place and all we can do is to get bored." Eve noticed. "I wished the elders would allow us to go out."

"They promised that we could do so, after the tests." Connor said, sitting right of his sister.

"Yeah, but only if it's secure." his sister replied, kneeling down on the perch and staring down in the courtyard, where parts of the clan spent their free time.

"I miss the playgrounds in Wyvern." Victoria said, sitting down on the perch left of Eve. "They let us play there, even when we couldn't glide."

"I miss them, too." her unnamed, pale brown-skinned rookery brother who was left from her, said and laid himself on the perch, staring up where the stars were supposed to be, his claws under his fair hair. "Xanatos's estate is nice, but once a week? Forget it!"

The other hatchlings agreed with him, and they fell silent for a while.

"Do you think the elder will survive the operation?" Connor asked finally.

Victoria looked on him, as if he had gone mad.

"Sure he will!" the pink skinned female hatchling insisted. "They said it wouldn't be dangerous."

"Do you think they would say it to us if it was?" Eve replied skeptically.

They fell silent again.

"I wish the clan would let us help them in the search for Lucifia." their unnamed brother explained. "We are supposed to help protect the clan, but how can we do it if we just sit here?"

Eve and Victoria nodded, while Connor looked out into the night.

"Or at least we could help our aunt to find a spell against her." he suggested, knowing what the chances were that the elders would let them go on patrol.

"You think magic can work against her?" Victoria asked.

"Maybe?" Connor noticed, remembering back to all he had learned about magic. "But I don't think the teacher would allow it."

"She doesn't have to know." Eve suggested; feeling electrified by the chance to finally be able to do something and to continue learning magic. "We could just ask Demona."

Connor bit his lip.

"You know we…." he began, but didn't say any further.

"There you are." a voice behind the hatchlings noticed.

By standing up and turning around they noticed their second in command, and other teacher, coming up the steps.

The hatchlings looked stunned for a moment, knowing that their words were not supposed to make the elders happy, but Brooklyn showed no sign of having listened.

"The training begins soon," he explained. "I want each of you to take a training sword and a mace, we train without shields tonight."

The hatchlings nodded and jumped from the perches, deciding it to be the fastest way down to glide.

Connor hesitated.

"Shouldn't we wait for Jarred?" he asked his second.

Brooklyn shook his head.

"No," he explained, "but you can take a mace and a sword for him, so that he doesn't have to take them when he comes."

Connor nodded, and jumped down the tower.

A second later, the second in command stepped to the battlements, and looked down to where the hatchlings landed, his eyes worried.

31.08.98; 21:14; Medical centre of Xanacorps:

"The tests were positive, you're well enough for the operation." Dr. Leicester said upon entering. "We can begin."

The five persons in the room, four of them gargoyles, and one human looked on the doctor who was wearing white medical clothing.

"Aye." Hudson finally answered, looking up from his mobile bed to his mate. "I'm ready."

Deborah looked down on her mate, whose chest was bared so that the electric instruments could detect the strong rhythm of his heart, and gave him a soft smile.

"Ye'll win this fight, too, my love." she assured him, pressing his claw. "As ye have the ones before."

Leicester gave a sign, and a person clothed in white medical clothing, inclusive mask, gloves and cap, barely being identified as a female of Asian descent through the visible brown eyes, entered. The woman pulled from behind her a gas cylinder, connected through tubes with an oxygen mask.

"It will make you sleep immediately." Leicester explained, as the woman stepped up to the bed. "In four or five hours, you will wake up again."

Hudson nodded, and allowed the female assistant to put the mask over his face, still holding his mate's claw.

"Don't worry, brother." Agamemnon said, stepping nearer from the back of the room to his brother. "We'll be here when you wake up."

"Aye." Agamemnon's mate assured him, stepping to her mate's side.

The claw holding Deborah's own grew weaker, and finally let loose, closing his eyes.

"I'll stay in the operation room and help the doctor if needed." Moore explained, rising from his chair, as Leicester's assistant pulled the bed and the monitors to the door. "If anything happens, I will inform you at once."

Deborah looked at how the bed with her mate was pulled out of the room, followed by the two doctors going into the operation room, and had to control herself not to go after him.

She even stared at the closed door for some seconds before she closed her eyes and breathed out, feeling a shudder running through her bones.

A warm claw lay on her shoulder.

"Come, we will wait together." her sister said when Deborah looked to her, pointing to the group of four chairs standing in one place of the room.

The clan's former second nodded, and went to the chairs.

31.08.98; 22:23; An Unknown Location:

Elisa slowly regained conscious when she felt something hitting her face. Due to the lack of pain, and that her head felt like it had been filled with cotton, the detective needed a second before realizing that she had been hit.

She opened her eyes, just to see into the face of a man in his thirties, with dirty black hair, gray eyes, and rags on him who looked at her with a dark smile.

"Woken up, detective?" the man asked sneering.

Elisa didn't respond, but guessed it was so. Slowly, she felt the feeling of her body return, as the chemical decomposed. The detective felt that her hands had been tied behind her back, and that she was sitting on a hard stool.

Further on, she noticed that she was in a room which, despite its bare walls and floor, reminded her of a church, mostly because of the dirty font in front of her, but also because of the lines of chairs she noticed out of the corner of her eyes beside and behind her.

Like a church, it was full of people, yet not the sort of people you often found in normal churches. Most of the twenty people were homeless, but Elisa could even see a female punk in the corner of her eyes, on which she couldn't fully rely on since they hadn't adapted to the darkness of this place where the only light was from a single naked bulb on the ceiling.

So far, not one of the other people of this place seemed to find it strange that they had a tied up woman in their midst.

"I'm detective Maza of the NYPD, you commit a crime by…" Elisa began, hoping to reach one of the people surrounding her.

She earned some laughter of the lines behind her.

"Your law has no power here," the man said.

Elisa looked up on him, hearing how the people behind her returned to the normal talk…. mostly things about the weather, or the television, as far as Elisa could hear, nothing through which she could figure out what was going on here.

"Where am I?" she asked the man. "Who are you?"

"We are the forgotten, the homeless, the exiled," a female voice explained from behind the detective's back. "We are a family having found together through our believe."

Elisa recognized the voice coming nearer, as she recognized the heavy footsteps as not belonging to her species.

"Welcome to our home." Lucifia said, stepping in front of her.

Elisa needed a second to get over the shock, a second in which Lucifia knelt in front of her so that she could see into her totally black eyes, eyes that were even blacker than her hair or the leather she wore.

"What do you want from me?" she asked the thing, which was no more a gargoyle than she was, noticing that no other human found Lucifia's appearance strange.

Lucifia grinned on her, and rose.

"Brothers and sisters." she exclaimed, and as Elisa noticed, the other humans in the room listened to her in earnest awe. "This woman came to destroy us, to break us, and to take our strength."

With these words, the gargess went to the font and positioned herself before it, while the humans listened silently.

"She came to discover our secrets." Lucifia said. "Now she will become part of it."

With this, the being gave a nod to someone behind the last lines, and Elisa heard doors being opened.

The sound of heavy steps arose and Elisa could see a man, his hands tied behind his back and his mouth gagged, being dragged in and up to Lucifia by two strong men.

His eyes were full of fear, looking in panic from his swollen face.

"Like he did." the creature explained.

She grinned, as the man was dragged in front of her, right before the font, where Lucifia took over, grabbing the man's hair once the men was let loose, and pulled her struggling victim over the font.

"You're blood for us." She intoned.

A shiver ran over Elisa's back, as she heard the mass behind her repeating the words like a echo, the vocals being thrown back by the massive walls, letting the detective once again notice the similarity to a church.

The next thing happened so fast, yet Elisa was on her feet when Lucifia's dagger reached the man's throat. Yet her captors proofed to be even faster, and four strong hands dragged her back to her chair, and the dagger was allowed to do its work.

Fine prints of blood squirted over Elisa, and the people beside her, but the most ran in the font, filling its inner and partly covering its outside. She would never forget the look of sheer terror on the unknown man's face, as the blood ran through his mouth and the life slowly vanished from his eyes.

Seconds later, Lucifia threw the lifeless body on the wall, where it left a bloody spot and turned back to the audience.

"Bring her to me." she ordered, the bloody dagger still in her claw.

Elisa didn't try to fight, as the men led her to the font.

"You will pay for this," she swore. "The clan will stop you."

Lucifia didn't say anything, but grabbed the human's neck, holding her about the font so that Elisa could see its inner.

It was full of blood, more than one man alone could possibly have unwillingly donated. But somehow the blood seemed strange, besides that it was still liquid, it was very dark, even when not black…

"Now you will become one of us." Lucifia explained to her.

With these words, the gargoyle dunked Elisa's head down in the blood, ignoring her struggle with much more ease than two men could have done.

Darkness surrounded the detective, and embraced her.

31.08.98; 22:51; Castle Wyvern, Great Hall:

The clan had gathered for its meal, almost complete as the last ones came back from their patrols and duties.

Siblings talked amongst each other, the elders remained largely silent, the eggs were adored… and the hatchlings mostly ignored.

Jarred searched for a place on one of the tables, where mostly hatchlings sat, to place his large plate with much of potatoes, roast and sauce on, next to Eve's and Connor's side

"Why is it so silent?" he asked his comrades on the table, when he sat down.

"The elders fear for Hudson." Eve told him slightly depressed. "And the leader is worried cause his mate is on an undercover mission."

"An undercover mission?" Jarred asked excited. "Cool!"

Eve winced, carefully looking around, but luckily discovering no adult near.

"Officially, she's simply working overtime." she explained, sliding nearer to him and lowering her head to him while whispering. "But some of us heard how the leader talked to his brother, and said Elisa would investigate the disappearing of some homeless."

"Wow," Jarred whispered back, his meal instantly forgotten. "I wished I could do such things."

Eve shrugged her shoulders, sliding away from him.

"Guess we will be cops sooner than warriors." the pale green-skinned hatchling noticed depressed, and began poking at her meal on the plate in front of her.

By doing so, she looked to the leader's table, where there was Darlene with Gem at her side, and Demona was missing… once again.

Eve sighed, and returned her attention to her plate.

"Will you come later?" Mike asked the hatchlings on the table. "We have got the TV-room, so we can watch a movie."

"Which?" Jarred asked, swallowing a potato.

"We can choose between Terminator2, Last Action Hero, The…." The hatchling stopped when a scream interrupted him.

There was a moment of total silence, which spread in the room, then it seemed as though the whole clan jumped up at once, forming a circle around the place the screaming was coming from.

Eve was one of the first to jump up, yet she couldn't find a way through the bodies of the adult members, who unintentionally shielded the source of the scream from the hatchling's eyes.

Looking around, she saw that her siblings had the same problem.

"Hold her…" she heard a male shouting.

"Careful…" a female replied.

"We need something to stop the bleeding…" a third voice, Eve believed it to be the second, said.

Eve had finally had enough, and knocked against the back of the gargoyle standing in front of her.

The male, whom she recognized as one of the leader's rookery keepers, turned around and showed a scowl when he noticed who had diverted him.

Eve on the other claw didn't notice this, as she was busy staring through the hole the adult had made in the circle. She could see blood and one of the elders… a rookery mother laying on the floor, in the middle of it, the clan's healer over her and…

An extended wing stopped her from seeing more.

"There is nothing for you to see." the male said irritated. "You and your siblings will go to your room."

"But…" Eve began.

"Now!" the adult nearly snarled.

Eve shrieked back, at the same time hurt and angry.

How can they do this to us? She asked herself. We are clan. Whatever happens to one of us happens to all of us, too.

The hatchling was just about to say this aloud, when a clouded blue female with long blue hair and a single streak of white stretching through the middle, came to her, giving her rookery brother a disapproving look before she turned to Eve.

"The clan is taking care of this," the adult explained in the softest, sweetest voice. "I'll take you into your room."

With this, Aerie made a step forward, but Eve shook her head.

"Taking care of what?" she asked desperately. "What happened there?"

The grown-up seemed to think for a second, and then she shook her head.

"We will explain it to you later." Aerie responded. "Now help the clan by not standing in the way."

Eve felt like someone had punched her in the stomach, not just that the elder talked to her like to an egg, but she had even said that she would stand in the way. She felt tears of frustration dwelling up, but fought them down, noticing some more elders turning around to see what was going on there.

She knew making a scene would bring nothing, but confirm what the rest of the clan seemingly thought of her and her siblings, but before she could turn around and go, Aerie must have misinterpreted the look on the hatchling's face, and took her by the arm, dragging her out of the great hall, away from whatever had happened.

Eve felt as if she would sink through the floor by shame, a feeling of embarrassment, which wasn't eased when she saw her siblings being herded out of the room too, along with the eggs who were partly crying, as they were carried out of the room.

Even now, she could hear the voice of the leader.

"Call Moore, we need him," he said. "And hold her down, we…"

Then, she was too far down the corridor to hear anything.

31.08.98; 23:01; 23rd precinct, Chavez office:

"I said forget it." Chavez said, getting up from her chair.

Matt Bluestone stood before his boss' desk, leaned ahead and stared into his boss's eyes.

"It is nearly two hours since we lost contact." he insisted. "We need to inform the gargoyles."

"No, detective." Chavez replied, still coolly. "What we don't need, is a gargoyle clan out in the street diluting possible tracks and chasing away our informants."

"We have no tracks." Matt noticed. "No one saw her since her disappearance, and for all we know she might never show up again, like the homeless."

Chavez' face remained unmoved while she tried not to show how close Elisa's disappearance had got to her.

"We now know that the homeless she was last seen with, is in connection with the other missing." the leader of the 23rd precinct said, tensed. "Half the precinct is out on the streets now asking other homeless people, and shelters, for him. The clan can't do anything in this case."

"They are her clan." Matt tried, more urging. "For them, she is one of them, and Goliath…"

"I know of Elisa's relationship with the leader of the Manhattan clan." Chavez reminded him, her tone gaining a sharpness that Matt knew she reserved for officers who were close to step over the edge. "And we have never informed the partners of our officers of their inside missions, if it wasn't necessary, even when these partners can rip a car in two halves in the air."

Silence fell between them, as their eyes stayed on each other, and Matt felt something in him fall down, the first time he had learned of Elisa's abduction an hour ago.

A bit remorseful, he looked up and thought about excusing himself to his boss, but he saw in her eyes that this wasn't necessary, that she herself had gone through these sorts of problems time and time again.

"Goliath won't like this when he hears of it." Matt noticed, without any accusation in his voice.

Chavez nodded.

"Let him be my worry." she replied.

Silence once again rose, and Bluestone was already wanting to excuse himself, going back to the rest of the precinct and see if he could help, as the door behind him was slammed open.

"We got something!" a young female officer with black hair, fresh out of the academy, shouted.

31.08.98; 23:04; Medical Centre of Xanacorps:

Deborah grew more and more tensed. All her thoughts circled around her mate, and to what the doctor's were doing to him right now. Being stuck in the room where her only means of diverting herself, were either to stare at the wall, walk in circles, or stare at her mate's armor and sword lying in one corner, didn't help.

Every time she closed her eyes she saw images of him, images of earlier days back at Wyvern, when they had both been younger, when they had mated, when they had some rare hours alone for each other… or he being pulled away from her on this damned bed.

She opened her eyes and looked at her siblings, who held each other's claws, and looked worriedly on her, knowing they couldn't do anything but be there for their sister.

Even when Deborah couldn't say it, it helped, maybe more than words could ever express.

Suddenly the door opened, and one of Xanatos's guards stepped in, wearing the name shield with the name Desmond on his usual blue armor, a gun in his hand.

"We have a security problem on this section." he explained. "Stay here while I check it."

With this, he closed the door again, leaving the three gargoyles who, in expectation of a doctor, had rose from their chairs.

The three rookery siblings exchanged grim looks before going to the door, lead by Deborah. She hadn't been happy with Xanatos sending his merchants to guard this building, not because she didn't see the need of protecting them of possible enemies, but also because she couldn't forget that these men and women could raise their weapons against them, if given enough money.

Deborah had just reached the door, when she heard the sound of gunshots echoing through the floors. A second later, after she had jumped through the door, she saw the guard who had just informed them of intruders, flying backwards against the wall, out of the floor left ahead of her.

On the wall, he sacked down with smoking from his chest, without moving.

"Who is attacking us?" Agamemnon asked in general, as he stepped out of the room.

Deborah shook her head, and her sister rushed back into the room.

They could hear the laughter, like that of a hyena, echoing through the corridors, and steps coming nearer.

"Here." Deborah heard behind her back, and could see out of the corner of her eyes how her sister past her mate's sword to Agamemnon, who took it reluctantly.

Suddenly, a creature stepped out of the left corridor, someone who was once a brown-haired woman, and now who was a Cyborg whose mechanical parts were partly covered in blood.

Her eyes were still centered on the unconscious guard, while she thought how to finish him off. The eyes of the gargoyles shone bright, as their snarls quickly turned Hyena's attention to them.

"Whom do we have here?" she asked grinning. "The old gargoyles home makes an excursion."

The three rookery siblings snarled, yet they were too experienced in combat to let themselves be diverted by this, and so jumped in secure positions when the Cyborg began to fire.

Deborah landed in the room left from her, splintering the door in the process, while her siblings jumped back into the room where they had waited.

"Come out ducks, ducks, ducks…" Hyena teased them, firing laser beams close to the doors.

Deborah looked at her siblings on the other side of the floor, seeing the same grim look of determination in their eyes that were in hers.

The former second of the clan analyzed their situation, which was rather bad. They were three, and even if rusty, they were still enough to fight her down… The size of the floor made it impossible for more than two of them to attack at once, and even if two attacked they had no space to evade.

They were prey indeed, so while further laser shots tortured the wall behind her, the former second tried to remember everything she knew about this Cyborg… or Cyborgs, since Hyena always worked with her brother.

A shiver ran through Deborah's spine down to her tail, as she realized that Jackal could be anywhere in this building.

"Brother." she shouted in Gaelic over the floor to Agamemnon, covering in the same pose. "Give me cover, I have to see after my mate."

Her brother nodded, throwing her mate's sword to her.

"Ye need it more," he explained in Gaelic, as she caught it.

Agamemnon tensed his muscles, ready to jump to the floor in an effort to protect his sister, when his mate laid a claw on his shoulder, pointing to the wall right of them, divorcing this room from the next.

"Ye think ye can break through it?" she asked him.

Agamemnon gave her a grin and rose, walking to the wall and out of Deborah's sight.

One, she counted in her mind, holding her mate's sword tight. Two…

"Hey, have you…." Hyena shouted, but was interrupted by the sound of a wall being torn down.

In the same second, Deborah raced out of the room into the corridor; using all the speed her four claws could give her.

The Cyborg's surprise gave her a second before she felt the splintering of the floor near her tail, and one further second later, she heard the sound of a door being torn out of its hinges, and Hyena's angry screams as she was pressed against the wall.

But Deborah didn't look around to see how her siblings were fighting, but took the corner right and raced down the floor, leading to the room where her mate's operation was taking place.

Through the windows in the large double door, she could see Jackal raising his claw, with a wicked smile on his face.

In this moment, Deborah jumped through the double door, letting them crush on the wall in this process. She only needed the glimpse of a second to see that Jackal stood above her still unconscious mate, intending to cut out his eyes. A glimpse later, she was in the air beside him, having jumped over the operation table and slicing her mate's sword into Jackal's right shoulder.

"You will stay away from him!" Deborah snarled, pinning him on the wall.

Jackal responded by scratching his claws over her stomach, only to find it protected by a strong armor, and a second later Deborah grabbed his claw with her own, while still pressing the sword into his shoulder with the other.

"Nice." Jackal commented, pressing against her and proving at least being even to her with this.

From one moment to the next, he was able to bring his leg between them, throwing her against the bed that her mate still lied on, not throwing him down by pure luck.

Deborah was distracted for a moment by the feeling of her mate's body behind her. In this moment, Jackal pulled the sword out of his shoulder, opening his laser canon and aiming it on her.

"Let's see if your armor is laser proof?" he teased her.

Before Jackal could test it, a laser missed him shortly.

"Out here!" a voice ordered. Turning around, Deborah recognized Dr. Leicester, standing there with a large laser gun his arms.

Jackal stared at him, and Deborah could see pure blood lust in his eyes, but then his mind took over and he ran out of the entrance, left from where Deborah had entered the room, throwing away the sword in the process.

The former second of her clan rose, checking her sleeping mate and discovering on this way what had been done to his right leg. Some sort of metal, which seemed to have been melded with the flesh, had replaced a part of what had been left of it.

"We were ready." Leicester explained, kneeling over two persons in white lying in one corner of the room, interpreting her look. "We wanted to bring him back, when we were attacked."

Deborah looked on him, then on the humans lying by him. It was the female Asian who seemingly had assisted this operation, lying on one of he white clothed colleagues, both of them showing signs of waking up.

The four guards lying in the room didn't look so good, two of them seemed dead, the other were bleeding heavily.

"Where is Moore?" she asked.

"He was called to the Aerie Building shortly before the attack." Leicester explained, adding before she could ask. "I have no idea why?"

Deborah felt, as if she had been beaten.

Was there an attack on the clan? She asked herself. But who could do this?

An interesting question, yet she had no time for this at the moment.

"Protect them." Deborah ordered the doctor, and he nodded.

Giving her mate a last look, she turned around, following Jackal through the doors. This way, she passed another dead or unconscious guard. Coming closer to a place where she could hear the sound of a battle coming from, and noticing that she had run a full circle, nearing the place of the room they had waited in.

But all she could see was a broken glass front, and two Cyborgs using their jetpacks to flee as fast as possible. From her position, Deborah believed to see one of the Cyborgs carrying two large bags.

"Let them go." a voice said behind her.

Deborah turned around to see her sister and brother coming out of the room. She had had no intention to follow their attackers, since the protection of her mate now was her first priority… her only one.

Looking behind her she discovered that her sister's right arm had been dislocated, and a long bleeding wound draw from the shoulder to the claw, luckily not meeting an important vein.

Her brother looked unharmed, yet she saw blood over his clothes.

Deborah sighed.

just hatchlings can like such sort of stories she thought.

31.08.98; 23:21; Castle Wyvern, The Hatchling's Room:

The hatchlings had discussed what had happened immediately, after they had been herded into the room. It had lasted fifteen minutes, and brought no more result than that what they knew already about an elder that had been attacked, suffering from a wound in the breast and had bled heavily when they had left.

The discussion about who had caused this wound had led to the suggestion that it was one of the clan, which had made all of them silent. One suggested that they had been attacked by aliens, which had made some of them laugh, but in the end they agreed that it had been most likely Lucifia.

"And how could she have done this?" a male hatchling asked skeptically, leaning on one of the walls. "The elder sat in the middle of the clan."

"Magic." Eve replied, as matter of fact, standing leaned on the opposite wall.

"This isn't certain." Duncan replied in a cold tone, sitting on a chair near a small table and looked at her.

"So?" his sister asked teasingly. "What else is there?"

Duncan stood up, looking at his sister angrily since he knew that she held herself for someone better for being able to do magic.

"She might have shot from the distance, out of one of the windows," he explained. "Or she could have done something to the meal."

Many hatchlings became uneasy by the imagination of this, and some even held their stomachs.

"We don't know who it was, or how they did it?" the unnamed hatchling with the pale brown skin, and the two horns turning through his fair hair, said before Eve could make a response. "All we can do is wait until the elders tell us what happened."

This was directed to all of them, but Eve could see her brother asking through his eyes not to let this argument escalate.

She felt calmer, as she returned the look to her rookery brother.

"Anyone interested in playing Ludo?" Jarred asked beside her.

31.08.98; 23:33; Brooklyn, A dark alley:

Balnetti walked into the alley, trying to look as natural and harmless as he could, for walking about near midnight in this part of the town, wearing a long brown mantel and sloppy jeans.

By doing so, he scanned the abandoned, wrecked house to his left.

"Everything's like our informant's described it." he whispered. "I see the corpses of two dogs, one German Shepherd, and the other a Labrador half-breed. And there is this smell…"

"Go in further and report if you see something important." Bluestone said through the hidden microphone in Balnetti's ear, and thus could hear his aversion.

Balnetti ignored the urge to nod, and entered the degenerated front garden.

He understood Bluestone's problem. Knowing that his partner, even when it was his former partner, was in danger would have made him feel this way, too. But at least he could go on an undercover mission, since his face hadn't been on all big newspapers for weeks.

The undercover cop had reached the door, which hung off of its hinges. Shortly, Balnetti's eyes met the graffiti of an angel with shining white hair, feathered wings and a white tunica, standing above a bowl filled with liquid. He noticed that the graffiti didn't fit with the rather inartistic way of the rest of it reviling the house's façade, but chose to ignore it.

"I got in." he whispered, and did so.

The house's inner life held what its outside promised, by having the walls of its floor full of graffiti and the floor full of waste, to which the room to his left didn't make an exception.

He walked further in, careful not to make a noise, feeling the weight of his gun near his hip.

The smell coming from the basement reminded him all too well about decay, and he could only hope that the man, or the people, living here had taken out their frustration, desires or whatever, onto the animals outside, as the corpses outside the house indicated, and nothing or no one else.

Sure. Balnetti thought sarcastically. Like the first time you smelt this smell in this apartment, remember?

He remembered indeed, but suppressed the memories to concentrate back on the missing and possible hostage.

Balnetti didn't know Maza closer than by short meetings in the precinct, but he knew that her performances were one of the best in the precinct, maybe the very best. But this didn't matter, as she could have been a rookie fresh out of the academy, or the worst cop in history… Either way, she was a cop, and cops didn't like it when one of their own was kidnapped.

He looked down into the darkness of the basement, knowing that everybody could wait there on him, having an advantage through eyes which were adapted to the darkness, and that it could be an ambush. It would be better to call the seven cops who were near him, and who were more than ready to come to his help… But also knew that this possibly could give the people down there time to kill their hostage.

Balnetti walked down into the basement.

31.08.98; 23:38; Brooklyn, The Street Before the Alley:

Bluestone sat in the brown dodge and waited, listening to the silence coming out of his headset, as the seconds slowly passed by.

He wished he could be out there, yet he knew that he had no reason to complain since Chavez had allowed him to lead this mission.

Did he just hear something crunching? Everything in Bluestone yearned to ask Balnetti what was going on there, yet he was too much a cop, and even more still too much an FBI agent to follow this urge, knowing that his men would tell him what was going on, if possible.

"Who is there?" Balnetti's voice rang through the headset.

"Balnetti, what is going on?" Bluestone asked him through the headset.

"I'm a police officer," the man on the other end said, ignoring him as his voice gained panic. "Stop!"

There was a second silence.

BANG!

Bluestone cursed and jumped out of the car, crossing the street.

"Officer in danger, I repeat 'officer in danger.'" he screamed into the walky-talky that he held in his right hand. "We go in NOW."

"ROOOARSSSSSSHHH!" A mixture of snarls and roaring ran through the headset still on his head, and Bluestone shuddered.

BANG! BANG!

Bluestone threw the walky-talky away, as he entered the alley, to get his hand free for his gun, as he pulled it out of his holster. He noticed three figures following him in the alley, and another three figures nearing him from the other end of it.

BANG! BANG!

"Balnetti, tell me what is going on!" he screamed into his headset, yet still got no response.

In two seconds, he had reached the deceased front garden and ran through the entrance, noticing the soft sweet, rotten smell that he at once connected with deceasing.

Where is he? Bluestone asked himself desperately, as he looked around the dirty floor.

BANG!

This time, the sound didn't come from his headset alone, but seemed to vibrate from under Bluestone's feet.

Without wasting time, the detective ran to the door he guessed led to the basement, and jumped through it, hearing the sound of a rotten wooden staircase under him.

"Balnetti!" he screamed, going further before his eyes had completely adapted to the darkness ruling there, and such risking overseeing a stair and breaking his neck while falling down.

"I'm here." Bluestone could hear Balnetti's voice from deeper and followed it, now somewhat more carefully.

Behind him he heard the sound of steps, and looking up he discovered two officers of his team following them.

"The others, check the rest of the house." he ordered, and saw one of his officers nodding while he turned back to Balnetti.

The detective stood there with the smoking gun still in his hand, staring down on a human body.

"It attacked me at once." he stated, and Bluestone noticed that his face had turned white. "I had to shoot my whole magazine until it stopped."

It? Bluestone thought, and then turned his sights to the body.

It was a man, but that was all he could say about him, this and that he looked as if he had been dead for days already, his skin being a mixture of the various shades of gray.

But it wasn't just this, but also the ribs on the bare chest, on which Bluestone could see at least three hits that were larger, and the bullets seemed to be partly melted. His hand seemed to be claws at best, revealing bones at some part, which was the same as the feet that came through the remnants of his trousers.

Any identification, if there could be any identification, would become difficult since additionally there wasn't much left of his face. The last bullet had come from below, passing the malformed jaw that possessed teeth that were too large, too sharp, and had crushed the nose and making the forehead explode.

"By the devil." he could hear one of the officers coming to his aid, saying behind him.

Bluestone nodded, not being able to describe it better.

Suddenly, the head of the man moved, making Bluestone do a quick step back, while the other three officers in the room raised their weapons, aiming them on the corpse. The body's forehead seemed to explode once more, as something lengthy broke through the rest of the smashed brain.

It was a creature Bluestone couldn't have imagined in his nightmares, less than half a meter long, it seemed to be like a mixture of insect and reptile, using what seemed like hairs around its body to half wiggle on the floor, and up the wall in a tempo that the officer hadn't believed to be possible.

On the high of its head, it stopped and did something even more shocking, as it turned its upper body around, so that it could look on him. It stared on him with a single eye, which shone in red, yellow and blue, the colors whirling around in its inner.

Then it opened its mouth, an oval opening surrounded by circulating teeth, and showed its small but long yellow tongue, letting out a sound….

BANG!

The sound of the shot brought Bluestone out of the shock, even more as he saw how the upper body of the thing exploded, covering his face with splashes of blue blood, and parts of its flesh.

As he wiped the remnants off his face, he looked to the officer who had shot.

"It was going to attack you." the officer explained, looking shaken.

Bluestone nodded, not exactly sure of this, but smelt the blood of the creature on his face, which smelt strong like something he could best describe as cinnamon.

He took a last look on the creature, which had fallen down on the ground without moving, before he looked back to his officers.

"Look around, but be careful." Bluestone ordered, resisting the urge to search for a shower. "We can't be sure if there aren't anymore of them."

His officers nodded and spread, while Balnetti still stared at the thing.

"What was this?" he asked unbelieving. "Some sort of alien?"

Bluestone shook his head, and looked around, discovering the corpses of three humans lying around, with that of several animals near of them, corpses that he hadn't noticed before… Seemingly the being had been hungry, and this was just the first room.

"I don't know." he replied, staring at one of the corpses, seemingly a woman with long brown hair, and a hole in her head. "But we have to check this house for more of them."

Balnetti nodded and rose, while Bluestone shuddered.

Please, he begged to the lord he didn't believe in. don't let me find Elisa here.

31.08.98; 23:47; Castle Wyvern, The Hatchling's Room:

Jarred threw the dices, getting a seven, and moved one of his figures over the board.

Connor took up the dices and was going to do the same, seemingly captured by the game.

Eve watched how they, and two of her other siblings, continued the game on the floor of their room. She herself leaned on the wall, her wings caped around her, and her tail swinging around.

Connor threw a five…

Eve had had enough. She rose from the wall and walked right in the direction of the doors. Going to open it, she heard the voices of her siblings at her back who had discovered what she intended to do, and warned her of the punishment that would doubtless follow.

Will the elders punish me with kitchen duties for the rest of my life? Eve thought angrily, pulling the doors open. I will find out what is going on.

The opened door revealed to her a rather large, gray-brown skinned rookery father who had a striking resemblance to Connor, looking on his daughter, as surprised as she looked on him.

"Hello." the elder greeted his daughter. "Let's go inside. I have to tell you and your siblings something."

Still surprised, Eve let the elder pass, as he walked into the middle of the room.

"Listen, young ones." he began, dozens of eyes lasting on him. "We don't believe that anyone will attack right now, so you can leave this room."

The faces of most of the hatchlings cheered up.

"But you have to stay in the castle." the elder continued. "You will be allowed in the courtyard once the elders believe it is safe."

He earned a collective groan.

"What happened?" Eve asked the elder from behind. "Who attacked the elder?"

The elder was silent for a moment, and so were the hatchlings, his face showing signs of an inner fight to hold up control, as his eyes darkened.

"One of the eggs." he explained.

The brown-gray elder earned even more silence.

"The rookery mother wanted to nurse her, she changed and bit her in the breast." he revealed.

It was more than a bit. Eve thought, starring on her rookery father, remembering the blood. She must have lost parts of her breast.

The hatchling shuddered while one of her siblings rose to another question.

"She changed?" the white-blue male asked. "Like in The exorcist?"

The elder starred at him, surprised.

"It is a movie." Mike helped out. "A girl is overtaken by a dark spirit."

Rubbing his beak, the elder nodded.

"You could say so," he admitted. "We think it was caused by magic, and have called Demona to help us."

Eve knew she normally would have felt enthusiastic that her former teacher was arriving, yet her thoughts hung at the image of her rookery mother lying in her blood.

"The elder." she said, loud enough that the elder turned around. "Will she… I mean is she… "

His daughter didn't end the sentence, but the elder knew what she wanted to say.

"She will come through." he assured her, and the rest in the room. "The clan's healer could stop the bleeding, and we have called Moore. Her breast…" the elder stopped, realizing that he had talked too much. "We have to wait until tomorrow night for more."

The room grew silent once more, and the elder used this opportunity.

"We know it is hard for you to not be able to do more." he explained "But if you want to help your clan, then stay calm and obey the orders of your elders."

Some hatchlings murmured, some simply nodded, but Eve just watched her rookery father's back, feeling a bad feeling in her stomach growing.

31.08.98; 23:58; An Unknown Location:

Elisa woke up from a nightmare, which she believed had lasted for an eternity. In it, she had swam in an ocean of blood, black blood in which she drew again and again, always hearing Lucifia's voice to let it go.

Waking up wasn't much better as she realized that she was still alive, and turned around to vomit.

Having done so, she felt the dullness and knocking pain in her head slowly stopping, and was able to ignore the taste of blood in her mouth, which remained due to the lack of stamina from the long time without water.

How long was I unconscious? The detective asked herself. By the dragon what did Lucifia to me?

Since she could find no answer to these questions, Elisa tried to figure out where she was now.

For one thing, her hands were tied with a handcuff, and then she noticed that she was trapped in a cell. A wooden plank was behind her, iron rods in front of her, and her vomit under her, which consisted mostly of partly black blood and the smell…

Elisa raised her hands to rub her eyes, but as she did she noticed that her face was still covered with blood, as none of her captors had found it necessary to clean it up so that it, like parts of her hair, was pasted with dried blood.

Feeling a shiver of disgust, she tried to rub it up.

"They don't care much for cleanness down here," a voice noticed in a slight sarcastic tone. "And to my shame, this is the best I can say about this place."

Elisa looked around, seeing to the left of her, in a neighbor cell, a man hanging on chains on the wall.

His clothes were dirty and more than a bit worn of, the jeans being ripped open by the bloody knees, as was his blue shirt which was partly ripped open and bloody.

As he raised his head, Elisa could see the arrogant, nearly aristocratic features of his face drawing under the shadows of his dirty blond hair. Blue eyes starred on her with sarcasm…

It was indeed just the left eye, which studied her, as where the other should have been there was an empty void, filled dark by dried blood and fester.

The three claw-marks drawn on his left cheek were proof enough of who was to blame.

"Still yourself?" he asked, and when Elisa looked on him surprised, he grinned "Good to hear, so the gargoyle's little potion isn't so powerful yet."

The detective looked on him startled.

"I'm detective Elisa Maza of the NYPD," she explained. "Who are you?"

"Call me Edmund," the man said. "I and my… partner, were sent to investigate something strange in New York, and found this."

Elisa straightened, and absently pushed parts of the black blood out of her face.

"By which organization?" she asked surprised.

Edmund smiled sarcastically.

"Which organization, where do you come from, give me names…" he began. "I have heard these questions enough over the last days, so don't be angry when I don't respond."

His words seemed arrogant, yet in his remaining eye Elisa could see suspicion. Seemingly, the man feared her to be a spy.

Good thought. Elisa thought, having suspected the same from him.

"They sacrifice people here," she noticed. "Did they do this with your partner?"

Edmund nodded.

"Yes indeed, nice folk." he explained with a sarcastic grin, and as his cell mate believed to hear a slip of British accent. "Shortly before you arrived, the gargess came in and took him away, saying this would be his and my last change to tell her the truth."

Elisa remembered on the man who had been sacrificed before her eyes.

"He didn't." she concluded.

"He couldn't." Edmund replied, seemingly very amused. "The last treatment of our hostess harmed his neck so that he was unable to even whisper… "

Elisa starred on the man, realizing that he and his friend weren't the best friends.

"So, detective…" Edmund began. "Any plans to get out of here?"

"Do you?" Elisa countered, her feelings consoling her to distrust this man, and she always trusted those feelings.

"One or two." Edmund admitted. "But for this we first have to get out here."

Elisa nodded, knowing this was the primary goal.

"Where are we?" she asked. "I was unconscious when I was brought here."

"Under New York." Edmund said. "Deep in the tunnels."

Elisa leaned back, cursing silently.

The tunnels under New York were hundreds of miles long, very very deep, and even the government didn't have a complete map of all levels, if such was even possible. Few officers dared to enter the tunnels, which were partly inhabited by homeless, criminals, insane…

The officers who went regularly down here, to uphold at least the idea of order, reported that the surface of this system was large enough to let a fugitive hide forever, if he wished so, and they were all too right as Elisa knew that her brother and his clan in the labyrinth had never even seen a police officer near their place.

The perfect hiding, the perfect prison, Elisa though depressed. And I have to find a way out.

01.09.98; 00:01; Medical Centre of Xanacorps:

Leicester knocked on the door of his patient's room, feeling to have waited enough.

"Come in." a voice that he recognized as that of his patient's wife called, and the doctor opened the door.

Going in he passed the door's guard, two of Xanatos's mercenaries and a brown-skinned and haired gargoyle who was one of the group of seven gargoyles that had arrived to make sure that a further attack would bring nothing.

For now, his only use seemed to be to look on Dr. Leicester with the hint of anger like he would do anything for what had happened.

He entered the room with the Asiatic woman at his back who pulled a moveable table in with her, the artificial leg, and a specialized laptop with some medical and mechanical tools on it.

Hudson sat on the bed, his leg hanging over the edge. To Leicester's satisfaction, he seemed to have accepted that his right under leg now had nearly nothing organically left, but a small part of skin. Where it ended now was a metallic replacement, ending roughly by one third of the under leg with a smaller pipe running in the middle of it.

"How do you feel?" Leicester asked in a professional tone, remembering Hyena and Jackal.

Hudson first seemed to look angry on him, but then he closed his eyes and sighed.

"Well enough I guess." he said. "Aside from the fact that I and my clan were attacked while I slept."

"There was an attack on the Aerie tower?" Leicester heard himself asking, surprised.

Hudson was stunned for a moment, and then he shook his head.

"Nay," the old warrior explained. "It is a problem in the clan."

"Ah." Leicester noticed, realizing that the gargoyle wouldn't say him more.

He coughed.

"Well, Hudson, the operation was a success so far despite the interrupting." the doctor explained, crossing his arms. "Now we have to see how your system accepts the new leg."

Hudson nodded. Though he had preferred more time to get used to this, he knew that the doctors needed results now in case something had gone wrong… which he preferred even less.

Leicester turned around and looked to the Asian woman who had now pulled a mobile table to the middle of the room, on which Hudson believed to see the counterpart of his healthy left under leg besides something that resembled a small laptop.

"We can wait some minutes until we put it on, if you wish." the woman said in an English accent, with just a hint of this not being her birth language.

"Nay," Hudson replied. "Now is as good a time as any."

The woman nodded and took up the leg, going to the old warrior and kneeling in front of him.

"Please hold your leg still so that I can attach it," she bid him.

Hudson did so, and the woman carefully neared the leg, making the hole in its middle slip into the small part of metal extending from Hudson's right under leg, under the watchful eyes of both the gargoyles and Leicester.

It snapped, and suddenly Hudson felt an additional weight added to his leg's muscles like a block of metal.

"How does it feel?" Leicester asked, as the woman pressed the jutting out artificial skin on the gargoyles real one.

"Dumb and heavy." the old warrior replied, slightly disappointed, starring on the mechanical leg having become part of his body, only recognizable by others if they searched for the near invisible line, marking the transition of artificial and organically flesh.

"I assure you the leg has exactly the weight of its opponent." Leicester assured him. "Please try to move your toes."

They did, but even so he found it hard, like moving through thick syrup.

"It feels like pressing sand." Hudson commented.

Leicester nodded, and took the small laptop from the table where the artificial leg had stood on, and gave it to the woman still kneeling before Hudson.

"We have lowered the sensibility of the leg's system on fifteen percent, so that your nerves have time to adapt to it." Leicester explained, looking to him and his siblings at the same time. "Dr. Chang will now set the system back on one hundred percent, please tell us at once if you notice something uncomfortable."

"The leg remains modifiable," she explained, taking the laptop and using a cable to link it with the leg by an unseen opening in the middle of it. "If the movements feel strange during the first nights, don't be worried. A special program will adapt you to the movements during the time."

Hudson nodded, though being diverted, as he looked on his mate who looked the same way first on his leg and then on him, giving him a grim smile.

Suddenly he did feel something in his leg, a slight tickling that got stronger.

"It tickles." he told the two doctors.

Both nodded without looking up, starring at the monitor of the laptop.

"It will go away." Chang said, as he stared strained on the monitor. "We are at seventy five percent."

And it went away, as Hudson noticed at once, leaving a feeling of what the old soldier could just describe as life in this thing of plastic and steel. For one moment he believed to even feel the slight flushing of his blood in veins, which no longer existed.

"Ready." Leicester commented, looking up to his patient. "Try again to move it."

Hudson did so, and as he tried to move his leg, this time his toes as well as his whole foot followed his brain's orders at once.

The doctors once again starred on the monitor and nodded, seemingly satisfied while the old warrior wasn't, the feeling of the new leg still being strange.

"Do you feel this?" Chang asked, touching the leg.

Hudson did feel it, the touch on his skin, which wasn't his skin, the warmth of the woman's hand…

"How is this possible?" he asked amazed.

"The skin has sensors implanted, which transmit its impressions to the leg and from it to the brain." Leicester explained academically. "You can feel simple sensors like heat, cold, the feeling of a touch…"

"Pain?" Hudson interrupted him.

"Yes, if the skin or the leg itself is damaged, you will feel pain…" the doctor answered. "But much less than you would have with an organic one."

Hudson nodded, thankful even for this feeling that would be brought back to him, though repelled by Leicester's hint that this artificial leg could be superior to his old one.

"The skin is easily replaceable, you could even scratch it off." Chang continued her colleague's comments while removing the cable of the hidden connection. "If you press these two buttons for five seconds, you can even remove the whole leg if you wish, by turning it to the left."

She demonstrated by laying two of her fingers on two places of the upper parts of the leg, and pressing them with some effort.

"If you press them and pull the leg down or right, it remains where it is." Chang explained. "This stops it from being loosened too easily."

Hudson nodded, though feeling bored by the doctor's explanations.

"Can I stand up?" he asked.

"I would prefer it if you would wait until tomorrow before you start to walk again." Leicester said. "But you might try to stand now."

Hudson exchanged a short look with his mate, and then he let himself slip from the bed by landing on his left feet claw, holding his artificial one still about the floor. Then, slowly, he sunk it, placing the feet claw on the ground, feeling the coldness of it, though not placing his full weight on the new limb at once, but a part of him feared that it would simply break up like a knot.

Finally he stood again on both feet claws, though he still held himself on the bed with one claw, and set much more weight on his left one. Then Hudson looked to Deborah, his mate looking at the same time surprised, and with love on him, which Hudson replied with a slight smile.

He tried to set his normal weight on the artificial leg, and let loose of the bed at the same time, but somehow his body betrayed him and the old warrior felt himself tip over. Quickly, he held the bed again, sitting himself back on it after a moment of taking breath.

"Are ye alright, brother?" Agamemnon asked, looking on his brother somewhat worried.

Hudson nodded, feeling his heart beating in his chest like mad.

"I feel washed out by the operation," he explained.

"Well," Leicester interrupted. "While you take a few breath, let me tell you some more features of your new leg."

The old warrior nodded tiredly, feeling more like a sleep than hearing the doctor's comments, but then he looked at his mate's lovely face, and his attention returned.

01.09.98; 00:11; Castle Wyvern:

Eve and Connor looked around, standing on the highest tower, searching the night, both on different sides.

The two elders who were assigned to guard this place had allowed the two hatchlings to help them, after a lot of arguing, which showed that the clan seemingly didn't believe in an attack anymore, even when they had had to promise that they would go back in the castle by the slightest hint of problems.

"There!" Connor called excited, making Diomedes and Fuchsia, as well as Eve, who jumped over the parapet, rushing to him.

They could see a figure, a single gargoyle gliding fast to the castle, seconds later they noticed her red hair and blue skin.

"She is here!" Eve noticed excitedly.

Connor nodded, and realized that their rookery mother would land on the courtyard below.

"Come!" he said, pushing himself from the parapet, and spreading his wings in the fall to dive down like a falcon, his sister on his tail.

"HEY…" Diomedes objected from behind, but remained unheard, as the hatchlings already had glided two thirds of the way.

They landed in time with Demona, who carried a large and heavy bag on her back.

"Any news?" the immortal asked, not wasting time with greetings.

Both shook their heads.

"We heard they would sedate her." Eve explained.

Demona's grim face became even darker, and she hurried to the entrance.

"What will you try?" Eve asked, as she and Connor struggled to stay at her rookery mother's side while they passed some worried clan members eying the immortal with a mix of mistrust and anger. "An exorcism?"

Demona gave her daughter a short look, and then she shook her head, never stopping to walk.

"Too violent, it could hurt or even kill her." she explained, hard and simple. "I think we have to…"

The immortal stopped, the speed becoming slower.

"Where is Jarred?" she asked.

Eve and Connor exchanged surprised looks.

"He should be at the medical station." Eve answered.

"Yes, he waits for Darlene." her brother added. "Why?"

"Because I might need you three." Demona explained, as a matter of fact, and went further down the floors they had reached.

Connor and Eve exchanged looks, both unbelieving and exited, before they started to reach their rookery mother, but as they did, they had already reached the entrance of the medical station, where groups of clan members of all ages waited.

"Gran!" Jarred exclaimed, having spotted her and ran to her, embracing the immortal.

Demona shortly stroked her grandson's brown hair, yet spoke not a word to ease his fears, but looked around so that she could see the three hatchlings together, herself being watched by Lana who had waited with Jarred and several other clan members who welcomed the immortal with less happy looks.

"I want you to stay here," she told Connor, Jarred and Eve. "I might need you."

The three hatchlings were speechless for a moment, yet the older clan members weren't.

"For what, Demona?" an elder, with dark blue skin and white hair, asked distrustful.

"We will see." the immortal replied, turning her attention to him. "Can I go in?"

The elder hesitated a moment, but finally nodded, moving and opening the door leading into the medical station.

Demona gave a last look to Jarred, Eve and Connor before she turned around and went through the door, leaving the three surprised hatchlings alone.

01.09.98; 00:16; An Unknown Location:

The door to the cell-room opened, and two men stepped in. They were slightly bettered clothed than the usual members of this community.

The man leading the group was the smallest of them, wearing a black cloth hat on his head, his green eyes looking around the room, as if he was waiting for a ninja to jump out and pull his heart out of his chest.

That was when he noticed the prisoners.

"She's asleep," he told the man behind.

Not that the man had needed it, as he was at least one head larger than his colleague, his long brown hair falling partly over his dark blue eyes.

Right now, those eyes wandered over the room, slower than that of his partner, but more trained. They went over the dirty ground and corners, partly filled with waste, then over the man who hung on the wall of one cell, one eye missing, the other looking at them, filled with anger.

"Coming to see if I've given up?" he said. "Tell your lizard she'll have to try better."

The man ignored him and looked to the other prisoner, the female cop lying on the floor of her cell in a pool of her own vomit, her arms under her.

"Go and check her," he told his partner. "And be careful."

As the smaller one nodded, the large man took a gun out of the back of his jeans and checked the ammo, letting the smaller man open the door to the cell in front of them, with the key he had taken from his belt.

"Stand up, bitch." he said, but Elisa didn't move.

"Nice language." Edmund said from his cell.

"Shut up!" the smaller man screamed on him, spitting a bit by this, and returned his attention to Elisa, tipping her with his shoe.

"She's unconscious," he noticed. "Lets take her up and…"

It happened fast enough to give her an A by any teacher in the police academy. Elisa was up on her feet in the half of a second; hitting the man in the face with the handcuffs she had escaped from, through a set of very flexible hands.

He stumbled, and before he could defend himself, Elisa pressed him out of the cell in the direction of the man with the gun, having him between her and the weapon.

The smaller man hit his partner, and thus uncaringly grabbed him and threw him at the rod, which he hit with the face, sinking on the ground unconscious and bleeding heavily.

Elisa used this time to ram the right hand of the large man, which he had used to hold his gun with her handcuffs, making him loose his gun, but loosing the handcuff as well.

This man didn't stumble, but instead he grabbed Elisa's neck with his left hand. Yet he proved to be too weak to withstand from the slight shock, as Elisa beat the hand away.

As the cop continued to set after him, by kicking him in the stomach, he showed an unusual quickness and caught her foot in the air, throwing her on the ground. But Elisa wasn't stunned, and instead kicked his leg, making the man also fall on the ground.

Ignoring the pain in her hip, Elisa stood up and took the handcuffs she found luckily lying before her, and rushed to the man behind her who was still kneeling on the ground seemingly paralyzed by the pain of possibly broken shins.

The detective knew she couldn't waste time, and she didn't, and laid the chains of her handcuffs around the man's neck, strangling him. The man regained his former strength, trying to pull at the chains, yet Elisa proofed too strong and two minutes later he lay still at her feet, but still breathing.

"Make fast." Edmund urged her "They may come any second."

Elisa looked around for a second, and then she had a plan.

Quickly, she took the unconscious and bleeding smaller man into her former cell, closing it behind her. Then she took up the key ring and opened the handcuffs, which she took up with the next movement.

Elisa saw no chances to pull the larger man into one of the other cells, so she just pulled him around and tied his arms with the handcuffs on the rod.

"Clever." Edmund said with respect in his voice.

Elisa didn't say anything, but went into his cell, using one of the keys to open the man's chains. Then she helped him to stand up, even when he had said before that he could walk without help.

A quick look assured Elisa of the man's word, as he walked more and more securely along her, leaving his cell despite the time of torture. After learning that the men were still unconscious, the detective took up the gun, checking its ammunition, and stood by the door leading to a floor.

Elisa gave her former cellmate a look, and the man nodded.

Carefully she opened the door, the gun in her hand, as she stepped out to check the floor, which had the same appearance and lighting as the cells and the church, but showed no signs of someone else being there.

Edmund waved his hands first left and then ahead, and Elisa nodded on, as they slowly walked in that direction, listening to the noises in the darkness. They could hear the sound of voices coming from two large doors to their left and did their best to make no noise, as they past it.

More and more, the whole setting reminded Elisa on the Labyrinth that her brother and his clan called home, and she asked herself how far away they were from it, and if Lucifia's followers had already infiltrated it, ready to strike on her command.

Right of the doors with the sounds of people, Elisa saw a heavier door, and on Edmund's nod slowly pushed it open, finding the relative freedom of underground tunnels behind them.

The tunnels seemed to reveal the true nature of darkness, and while her eyes adapted to it, Elisa asked herself how many homeless lived down there, celebrating their mass… Though not religious, a part in her shivered by the sacrilege of relating anything what happened down here, in a church.

Edmund meanwhile stood in the dirt, which formed the ground, having his remaining eye closed and seemingly either trying to catch breath, or to think about what to do next.

Elisa tried to close the door, but as she did so, she could hear the sound of footsteps on the other side and stopped out of fear to make a sound.

Is Lucifia still here? The detective asked herself.

"Do you remember a way out?" she whispered to Edmund.

He took a deep breath before opening his remaining eye, and looked on Elisa with hardness showing in the darkness of his face.

"Yes," he explained politely. "Though I fear our partnership ends here."

Having lowered her gun, Elisa raised it instantly, aiming it on her former cellmate.

"No tricks," she ordered him, as silent and as threatening as she could.

Edmund smiled, as if Elisa had made a great joke, and raised his hands, slowly beginning to turn them while whispering something in Latin.

"Listen, you won't…" Elisa began, but the middle of her sentence; Edmund became suddenly transparent, vanishing completely after a second.

A sorcerer, Elisa thought unbelieving, still holding her gun to where Edmund had stood. Jalapeno.

"They are out here!" Edmund's voice suddenly shouted of the nowhere.

Elisa cursed inwardly, realizing that the man was betraying her to cover his own escape. Taming her heart, she tried to find his footprints in the dirt on the floor, but it was too dark to even see her own feet, and as she listened to hear his breathing, all she could hear was the sound of footsteps coming nearer from the door.

Weighing her chances of finding an invisible man in the absolute darkness of the tunnels, or facing attackers of unknown numbers, along with one gargoyle, alone in the dark with only one gun, Elisa wasted no time.

Following the crumbling wall right to her, she turned around and ran in one direction of the tunnel, barely able to see her hand before her eyes, hoping to find a way up. Deep, deep under New York, angry voices sounded behind her.

01.09.98; 00:21; Castle Wyvern, Floor Before The Medical Station:

It seemed like an eternity for the three hatchlings until the door to the medical station opened again.

"Go in," the elder who had accompanied Demona in said, in a reluctant tone, before he passed them to talk to the other elders standing around.

The hatchlings looked at each other and went inside, passing some surprised looking elders and some other hatchlings who had arrived after the word had spread that some of their siblings would be entrusted with a special mission… amongst them Duncan who glared at Eve.

Silently they went in, passing medical devices and finally seeing the elders ahead of them. In the middle stood Goliath, looking hard first on the hatchlings, which made them feel uneasy, then on Darlene who stood at his side, looking on Jarred with a strange look on her face.

On the right side of the room was a bed, surrounded by a white curtain, but the hatchlings could hear the sound of muffled groaning coming from there. A look on the other's faces and the hatchlings knew they all thought the same, that the wounded rookery mother lying there.

On the ground knelt Demona who was concentrating on drawing, with a black piece of coal, a square in the ground, surrounding a circle. The three sorcerer apprentices recognized it as one of the banning circles that they had been taught in one of their first lessons.

"You need us?" Connor asked the leader over the distance of the drawings, knowing better than to disturb his rookery mother now.

Goliath nodded, looking at his rookery children with serious eyes.

"You know what happened to your sister," he explained. "Your… aunt thinks we can help her. Yes, for this we need you."

"We will go in her mind. I, Goliath and two of our siblings, and we will try to fight against the spirit that possesses her." Demona said, done with her task, and rising carefully so as not to destroy the forms on the ground. "You three and Darlene will each stand on one corner and form a net, so that if whatever is in her is stopped from going into someone else."

"Since I will speak the spell to catch it, the greatest work in this will last on me," Darlene continued, looking on her son before turning her eyes to the others. "The spell should work perfectly, but there remains a risk… for everyone of us."

Eve already wanted to say yes, wanted to tell them that she was ready to take this risk for one of the clan, but something in the eyes of the elders made her stop. Before any of the hatchlings could formulate an answer, they heard a scream like of an elder, but deeper than that of anyone she had heard before, coming from the other side of the drawing, hidden by the curtain around the rookery mother's bed.

"Can we see her?" Eve asked, with a hint of fear in her voice.

Goliath gave her first a hard look, but then he thought about it and looked at Demona who returned the look for a second, before nodding.

"Come." the leader said looking to the hatchlings, and stepped back.

The hatchlings did as they were told, walking over the drawings to their elders who had stepped back, now standing before the bed, left of which had been hidden in a curtain.

As they did the hatchlings slowly got in sight of the bed, where two rookery mothers held guard. They were surprised that their little sister had been tied on the bed, despite being so tiny, but then they noticed the changes.

The hatchling seemed larger, and it's skin tone seemed to have changed from azure blue to red, even her talons seemed to have become sharper, and the mattress of the bed had been partly slit open by them.

Yet the most shocking part was the hatchling's face, her red hair turning white and the skin around her little horns becoming blacker than the night. Suddenly Jaheira opened her eyes, revealing them to have become yellow mixed with red around the pupils, seemingly eyeing the hatchlings.

Jarred took a step backward, finding the strong claw of his mother on his shoulder, reaffirming him that she was there, while Connor and Eve moved a step closer to each other, holding the others claw.

Jaheira opened her mouth, with many very large teeth, to give out a weak but terrifying roar, and as she did, the curtain right of the bed opened as the clan's healer stepped out, having checked the wounded rookery mother.

"Is this really necessary?" she asked, looking first on the hatchlings and then on her leader.

They just gave her a nod.

"What will happen if we can't remove it from her?" Eve asked, having let loose Connor, and looking on Demona.

"The demon might settle in her." her rookery mother replied serious, giving the hatchling on the ground a look. "Or it might kill her."

Eve swallowed, looking to Jarred and Connor, seeing the same look in their faces as in hers.

"We will do everything to help her," she said.

Goliath looked at the three hatchlings seriously, and then he nodded. The leader wanted to say more, but in this moment, the door to the medical station opened again and Desdemona and Othello walked in.

"Why did you call us?" Othello asked, his eyes lasting on his leader, yet it was his rouge sister who answered.

"We need you for a spell." Demona answered, looking on her siblings. "A spell, which might free our daughter from the being in her."

"A spell?" Othello asked, more than a bit skeptical.

"Yes," his sister replied coldly. "A spell, which brings us into her mind."

01.10.98; 00:43; Medical Centre of Xanacorps:

Hudson looked at the wheelchair and sighed, before he let himself slip from his bed, landing on his left leg, which he turned around and then held up his right leg, to let himself fall in the wheelchair.

This comes too easy, Hudson thought bitterly.

"I still think this is a bad idea," Leicester told them.

"Having him here during the day, now that it is known we are here, isn't a good one either." Brooklyn replied, watching how Deborah went to her mate's side. "See, doc. In the castle, Xanatos' security can defend us much better during the day, and you promised you could do everything that is necessary in the castle's medical station, too."

Leicester nodded reluctantly.

"Are you ready?" Deborah asked her mate, seeing the aversion in Hudson's face.

The old warrior noticed the worry in Deborah's face, and nodded.

"Ay," he replied lighter. "As long as someone as beautiful as you are there to push me."

Deborah gave her mate a slight smile.

"Nay," she replied teasingly. "You have rested enough tonight. Time to use your arms."

Hudson laughed, using his strong arms to turn the wheelchair around.

01.09.98; 01:34; The Labyrinth Kitchen:

Maggie looked through the magazine and took another swallow of tea. The lack of sleep, which had been a side effect of their mutation, was something that was sometimes as hard to live with as the external changes.

The former actress didn't know if Sevarius had planned it or not, but in any case the fact that they needed less sleep gave them much more needless time, since the labyrinth was usually quiet in the middle of the night, especially after the clones were gone…

Maggie sighed and took another swallow of tea, deciding to join Derek in their bed, hoping to find sleep together. In this moment she heard heavy footsteps coming nearer, marking Claw's comeback of his nightly tours that he went on, usually for hours.

Maybe we can talk a bit before bed? she thought.

Despite him being unable to speak since his mutation, Claw was a great interlocutor, at least when he had enough chalk for his slate.

"Already back?" Maggie asked while turning to the door. "Do you want a…"

The mutant stopped when she noticed the woman at Claw's side who seemed to lean heavily on him. The woman was new, yet judging from her clothes she had to have lived for some time on the streets above them.

The blood all around her face, and the slight blue of her cheeks, showed that she had been beaten, maybe by her boyfriend, or possibly someone else, on any case Maggie felt a bit shocked by all the blood despite everything she had already seen since her first time on the streets.

"Where did you…" Maggie began, but stopped.

The blood did not just cover parts of the woman's face and clothes, it seemed to spread over her hair and was much more than the woman could have bled, according to the lack of visible wounds. But there was more, the woman seemed familiar…

"Elisa?" the mutant asked unbelieving.

The detective nodded, and Maggie noticed for the first time how out of breath she seemed.

"Come sit down before you collapse!" she said to Elisa, rising from her chair.

Elisa took the offer gracefully, and allowed herself to fall into the offered chair.

"Derek…" she managed to say after a few seconds "I must speak to Derek."

Maggie looked to Claw, but the silent mutant was already on his way to their sleeping quarters.

"Do you want some tea?" she asked Elisa.

On her nod, Maggie took a cup from out of the cupboard and put it on the table, pouring her some warm tea from the pot on the stove. While Elisa took the cup, Maggie could see her hand trembling slightly, maybe from the state of exhaustion she was in.

"Elisa!" Derek's voice filled the room. "What happened to you?"

Having taken a swallow of tea, Elisa looked on her brother who stared on her, deeply shocked by her appearance and maybe not yet having realized that it was blood, which was glued on his sister, but he could smell the rubbish through his sensitive nostrils.

"You remember the missing homeless we talked about?" she asked seriously. "I was working undercover to try and find them, and ended up discovering Lucifia… She and some homeless people are living together in the underground, miles away from here. They sacrifice humans and… You are in danger, Derek, you all here are."

Elisa stopped, her voice seemingly striking, but Derek remained silent too. He first looked on Maggie, then on Claw, and then back on his sister.

"Tell me everything," he asked her, looking on her with his yellow cat eyes.

Elisa sighed, taking another swallow of tea.

"We got reports about missing homeless people about four days ago I convinced Chavez to let me go undercover…" she began.

01.09.98; 01:41; Castle Wyvern, The Medical Station:

Jarred felt more and more uneasy after standing for such a long time on one spot, and holding the garnet with both claws, wanting more than anything else to sit down. Yet he knew this would destroy the magical barrier that he and the others held, so he kept it up.

Mom's holding out, Jarred thought, throwing a short look to his mother. So I can, too.

On the corner left of him stood Eve, always watching Demona who along with the leader, Desdemona and her mate, knelt in the quadrangle, in the circle that contained Jaheira.

All had an absent look on their faces, and Eve knew that they literally weren't there, but their spirits were in the hatchling's mind. As her rookery mother had explained, she had chosen the other participants since they already had experience in these sorts of voyages, and she was the only other trained magician besides Darlene.

On the fourth corner stood Connor, who scratched his back with his tail. Besides the growing protests of his body, he felt uneasy from the looks that the elders in the room, Owen in the shadows, and doctor Moore were giving him.

What helped him was the warmth of the garnet in his claws, pulsing slightly from the magical energy as did that of the other apprentices of magic, while Darlene held a hollow, transparent ball, made of a sort of glass, or something else.

Suddenly it happened without warning, Jaheira's body seemed to rear and she emitted an angry snarl. Half a second later, the hatchling began to change, as her skin tone changed back to normal along with her size, but as she did, something emerged from her, like a cloud of red and yellow.

It emerged fast, and a second later the cloud was in the air above the hatchling and the four still unconscious adults. Wasting no time it fled straight to Connor who, despite his surprise, held his position since he knew that anything else would break the magic barrier.

He could hear some elders behind him gasp when the cloud hit a white barrier in front of him, which showed only when the cloud hit it. Seemingly realizing what was going on, the cloud emitted a roar and now tried to pass through the seemingly empty air between Eve and Connor, having the same effect, though it didn't stop the cloud from doing it again.

It stopped only when Darlene began her spell, holding the ball up with her right claw while using her left one to make figures in the air, reciting Latin words. The effects were visible, at first they were small, and then larger parts of the cloud were drawn into the ball on which the cloud began to shine, painting the room in red and yellow, while beginning another roar.

The roar became more quiet and stopped, as the cloud was completely trapped inside the ball, making it shine.

"I got it." Darlene explained, sweating heavily.

The hatchlings looked similarly exhausted. Eve and Jarred were sitting down, trying to take a breath, while Connor did the same, propping on his knees.

On the ground, the kneeling adults began to move, Desdemona holding her head, while the others tried to resettle in the reality of this world.

The screams of a hatchling proved that someone else had so, too.

Demona was the first to answer her daughter's cry, grabbing the little hatchling and holding her close to her breast. At the same time, the bystanders moved closer, some of them looking after Jarred, Connor and Eve, but the two rookery mothers only looked after Jaheira.

The little hatchling looked normal again, but squirmed a bit in the immortal's arms. She was exhausted and unknowing of what had happened to her, but the constant soft voice of her mother calmed her down a bit.

"Let me take her." Moore told them. "I have to check to see if she is uninjured."

Demona's eyes showed that she had indeed no intention to do so, but before she could say something, Aerie interrupted her.

"I will take her," she said. "And the doctor can check her on the bed."

The immortal seemed reluctant for one moment, but then she handed Jaheira over to her sister, much to the hatchling's dislike.

Eve watched all this with fascination and satisfaction, looking over to the two other hatchlings.

"You have fought well." Goliath praised his children, and Darlene.

"Yes," Desdemona added, trying to rise with the help of her mate who seemed similar shaky. "You were very brave."

Demona, having taken a breath, nodded on her children and gave them one of her rare smiles.

The hatchlings glowed by pride over the praise of their elders, but Jarred's pride was stopped when he saw his mother still holding the ball.

"What are you doing with that, mom?" Jarred asked, looking fascinated on the red and yellow shining ball.

Darlene seemed to ask herself this, when Owen stepped forth.

"If I might suggest that you give it to me?" the fey in disguise asked. "The castle's safe should be a good place for it."

Darlene looked to her mother, who seemed to be unhappy with this, but didn't protest and over handed it to the loyal servant.

"Your boss had better keep it save, Fey." Demona nearly snarled on him, as he turned to move.

"Certainly." Owen replied, leaving the station.

Eve, Connor and Jarred looked on the immortal, wondering why she seemed to dislike him so much? But before they could ask her such, the elders began to rise and they followed.

While Demona walked to the bed where Dr. Moore was assessing Jaheira, Goliath gave order to one elder to inform the clan about the successful rescue of their child, and Darlene gave her son a hug, stroking his hair and saying once again that he had done very well.

Eve saw this and felt a bit of jealously by this special praise, though they had been praised all together, and Jarred seemingly found this sort of attention embarrassing. Giving Connor a look, they both walked to the bed where Jaheira was lying on, circled by nearly every adult in the room, who were effectively holding the hatchlings back, but with a small gap.

Frustrated, Eve looked to Darlene whose face was unseen by the others, and had darkened while looking on her mother talking with Moore, looking concerned, and almost sad. This changed when she noticed Eve looking at her, and Darlene gave the hatchling a slight smile, laying a claw on her shoulder and showing her to the hatchling lying on the bed.

Meanwhile, Connor and Jarred noticed to their surprise that the elders gave them space when they went close to the bed, allowing the hatchlings to see their little sister that they had helped to save.

"And for such a diagnosis, Xanatos is ready to pay you, human?" Demona asked Moore sarcastically, standing on one side of the bed.

"I just said that she is seemingly well so far." Moore noticed from the other side, not letting himself get provoked by the immortal. "For more, I need blood tests."

Suddenly the hatchling began to cry, making everyone at the sides of the bed look on her.

"She is hungry." Aerie noticed, automatically opening her top. "I can see this without a test."

Then the rookery mother stopped in the middle of the removal of her clothing, remembering the other rookery mother who laid some rooms away, guarded by one of her rookery sisters, and what had happened to her right breast.

A look around proofed to her that the others thought so as well.

Finally, Demona grumbled and undid her top before taking Jaheira up to her breast.

"It is okay," she whispered to her daughter, stroking her hair while she sucked on her mother's right breast, seemingly calm and hungry.

For the hatchlings, this was a rather nice moment of peace.

01.09.98; 07:41; Castle Wyvern; Parapets:

Deborah and Hudson sat on the parapets at the front wall of the castle, and looked into the night sky, waiting for the morning, the wheelchair standing near them. They spoke for a long time before the sun caught them, turning them to stone while holding the other's claw.

In the shadows of the new day, Owen emerged from one of the doors into the castle and watched the two, noticing that Hudson's mechanical leg hadn't turned to stone, letting it seem as one part of the right leg had remained flesh.

A gargoyle's possession turns to stone with him when he sees it as his own, the loyal servant thought. This might become a problem.

01.09.98; 08:23; the floor before Elisa's apartment:

"You really don't have to do this," Elisa said frustrated to the man in front of her, going up the steps.

"It is Chavez's order." Matt replied, similarly walking the steps. "I don't want you to be killed by someone waiting in your apartment, or I'll have to report it to her… not to mention Goliath."

Elisa sighed, being too tired to argue with her former partner, having done so with Goliath already.

"Okay, but do it fast," the detective said. "I need to take a bath before sleeping until midnight."

Standing at the door of Elisa's apartment, Matt looked surprised on her, who was back in her normal clothes now.

"You took a thirty minute shower back at the precinct." Matt noticed. "We checked the time."

Elisa gave him a slight smile, knowing that the precinct would hold on her the little shower rally forever, as the fact that she had done it even before going to Chavez.

"You don't know what I stepped in when I stumbled through the darkness down there," she told him as he searched for the key to her apartment in his pocket. "I don't know it, but believe me the blood was the best part of it."

"I believe you, especially since our colleagues were eager to describe your smell in all details," Matt told her with a smile while opening the door to her apartment. "And believe me, I'll make sure that our search party doesn't come too close to the labyrinth."

Elisa nodded, seeing how Matt entered her home and following him slowly. She had felt too tired to even stand, so Chavez had sent her home, ensuring her that she'd inform her of any news, still she couldn't help but think on her brother and….

"Elisa…" Matt threw her out of her thoughts, his hard voice being like a bucket of cold water.

Elisa looked up, noticing that Matt had drawn his weapon and was staring on the wall besides the large window, following his look she discovered… the gray coat of a cat, still partly bloody nailed on the wall.

"NO!" Elisa screamed.

Hastily she looked around, hoping to find Cagney somewhere near, alive and well, but what she found was the bloody, skinless corpse of what had once been her cat lying on her table.

Elisa bent over, feeling like she'd been hit in the stomach, as her eyes filled with tears, and only on the edge did she notice Matt, holding her trembling body and trying to comfort her.

To Be Continued…