"Grey, get down! Someone's going to see you." Nolee reached across to the passenger seat and pushed the little gargoyle's hooded head down. He sighed peevishly but obeyed, squirming fitfully. At this point she wouldn't have been surprised to hear a petulant "are we there yet?" out of him.

It had been two weeks since the visit to Ashton. Nolee had midterms she didn't dare skip out on, or else she would have planned for the trip sooner. Grey had been willing to wait for her break, but she supposed even his unchildlike patience had its limits. 'Antsy' was an inadequate term to describe Grey's behavior the past few nights.

They had tried to prepare for this odd vacation by researching, looking for any clue as to where to start looking for the New Yorker gargoyles. But it was a bit like researching UFOs: plenty of rumor, wild speculation, and very little concrete fact. Newspaper articles were the best sources, although that wasn't saying much; vague eyewitness reports and politicians being equally vague about what they intended to do about 'the gargoyle problem.'

The best lead yet was an event that had been reported in too many reputable news outfits to be a rumor. The clocktower above the 23rd police precinct had been bombed and there was hard photographic proof of the gargoyles involved. Involved how was a widely debated point, but they had definitely been there.

Grey had insisted on combing through the research with her, every bit good and bad. The pictures of the gargoyles at the bombing had been a bit on the brutal side, and Nolee wondered if he perhaps shouldn't have seen them. He'd been acting jumpy ever since.

There were only a few individuals Nolee could really make out in the photos she could find online. A large purple male featured prominently in most of the shots, and there was a smattering of someone red-haired, in pictures too dark or out-of-focus to make out much more. It was after seeing these that Grey became twitchy and brooding. Once, when helping him clean up his stone skin sheddings after awakening, she had put a hand on his shoulder and he'd nearly jumped clear out of his spots.

He has to be nervous about being with his own kind again, she mused, watching his tail flick madly back and forth as they waited in the congested rush-hour Manhattan traffic. Can't say I blame him, considering his only experience has been bullying and verbal abuse from just about everyone but Elder, Lady Blue. I just hope that was the exception, not the rule. I don't know what I'm going to do if these gargoyles are the same way... I can't play auntie to Grey forever, much as I care about him. I can't teach him about being a gargoyle.

She was also worried about the hate-group she'd read about, these Quarrymen. It was possible it was just one loon spewing vitriol of an especially crazy caliber on that website, but her gut was telling her the reality was likely worse. She'd have to keep an especially close eye on Grey... and an eye out for that hammer-Q symbol.

The light changed, and she took the next turn down the street to her hotel. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Grey get out one of his books and fitfully flip the pages. After a moment he shut the book and tossed it back to the floorboard under his dangling toes.

"How you holding up? Nervous?" She reached over and touched his shoulder.

"I should not be," he replied, as close to sullen as she'd ever heard from him.

"It's normal," she assured him soothingly. "Meeting your own kind, people you've never met... I'd be a little scared too."

He grunted, his expression hidden under the hood.

"But let's worry about that when we get there. We still have to find them."

--------

"Um, 'scuse me, officer?"

Morgan paused, halfway up the steps to the door of the 23rd. A young woman at the curb flashed an apologetic smile and took a step towards him.

"Can I help you, miss?"

"I don't mean to bother you, if you're in a hurry," she said, approaching a little more confidently as Morgan adopted his most relaxed-cop body language. She was a pretty girl, young enough to be his daughter, perhaps.

"I can spare a few," he told her. "Shift doesn't start for a little while. What's the problem?"

"Not a problem, I just want to ask..." She pointed up, up to the wreckage of what remained of the clocktower. "What happened up there?"

Morgan let out a dry half-chuckle. "Tourist, huh? Had a bombing awhile back. We're only just moving back in, top couple floors are still a mess. Nobody got hurt, though, thank God."

"Oh, that's good," the young woman said, sounding quite sincere. "Do you know who did it?"

"We're investigating."

"I heard a lot of stuff about gargoyles living around here," she said. "Do you think they did it?"

Morgan bit back a weary sigh. Not another gargoyle nut. No telling if she was a pro- or anti-. Neither brand had been in the policeman's favorites list recently. "Well, miss, like I said, we're investigating. Why the interest?"

She hesitated a beat too long before answering, "I'm writing a paper."

Morgan knew a hastily-concocted excuse when he heard it. "On gargoyles? You'd have better luck with Martians."

"Don't I know it," she muttered. "Uh, do you... have you ever seen any? Around here?"

"Seen any what, chica?" A young man butted into the conversation, a cohort at each side. "Talking about el diablos?"

"Hey, Luis, don't you have a kid you have to pay support on?" Morgan interposed himself between the three men and the young woman. "And a job to do that with?"

"I take care of my girl myself now, Morgan," the slim Latino blustered, a cocky grin sliding up one side of his face. "Hey, chica, what you want to know about gargoyles? Gotta be careful, pretty lady like you, they might like what they see..."

"Or just eat you raw," one of his buddies chimed in, and the trio chorused with laughter.

"All right now, you boys move on," Morgan ordered, thrusting an arm out towards the street. "You all got better places to be."

"They aren't devils, you creep," the young woman cut in, surprisingly defensive for someone writing a paper.

"Oh, yeah?" Luis replied, walking backwards as he and his friends moved away, but she flipped them a disgusted wave and marched off in the opposite direction.

"Thanks anyway, officer," she called over her shoulder.

"Be careful, miss," he replied, then turned and spurred Luis and his buddies on down the road with a stern look.

--------

"...how much? Oh good grief." Nolee fished more bills out of her purse and handed them to the disinterested barista on the other side of the counter. She could have guessed she'd be paying through the nose for a simple cappuccino, here in the high-priced metropolis. She'd been spoiled on college-town prices.

She accepted the pricey beverage and took a seat near the window, sipping slowly, trying to think what her next move would be. Of course the cop wouldn't just spill details of a bombing investigation to any Jane Doe on the street, and 'writing a paper'? What a dumb thing to say. The officer looked as if he would have sooner believed she was Queen of Sheba. Clearly, this was going to take a little more finesse--

"Hola."

It was him. The loudmouth buttinsky who'd called Grey and his kind devils. Nolee's lips thinned.

"Luis, was it? Please scram. I'd like to enjoy the most expensive cheap coffee I've ever had in my life in peace."

"Luis Ramirez. Listen, I wanna apologize. Just getting a laugh out of my friends." Luis sat down across the little table, grinning self-depreciatively.

"Yes, where are Larry and Curly? Shouldn't you go make sure they're not playing in traffic or something?" Nolee thought she was probably being a little too rude, but he was becoming a pain.

"Oho." Luis laughingly mimed being stabbed in the chest. "Makes me Moe. I deserve that."

Nolee relented, slightly. "Apology accepted. Now what do you want?"

"Nothing. What're you defending those gargoyles for? People gonna think you like 'em."

"I just have a problem with people who throw around nasty names like el diablos when they don't know a damn thing," Nolee shot back, past caring about courtesy. "I've been called a nigger before. Do you like it when people call you a spic?"

He blinked, obviously taken aback by her frank use of the slurs. Nolee took advantage of it to make an appropriately indignant exit. "If you'll excuse me, Mr. Ramirez, I have better places to be."

--------

"Why did I think this was going to be easy?" Nolee asked the quiet hotel room. Just wander around and look for winged statues. Sure. As if such secretive creatures would make it so simple, especially in a crowded city that possibly harbored humans who wanted to kill them. Nolee was strictly a small-town girl at heart, and after nearly a day stumbling around this buzzing metropolis she was having serious doubts about how she was going to find the gargoyles.

And that obnoxious Ramirez guy. Diablo indeed!

She was tired and frustrated, and well on the way to cranky. Some sleep would make the coming night look a little clearer.

First, she checked on Grey. He was curled up in the bottom clothes drawer, hidden under a layer of Nolee's folded clothes for the week. He seemed undisturbed, and Nolee was satisfied that it had been a good place to hide a sleeping gargoyle. She was just glad he was so small; any bigger, and had housekeeping ignored the do-not-disturb sign on the door, they might have gotten a bit of a shock.

"We'll do this somehow, Grey," she told him, feeling a little better as she shut the drawer. She double-checked the chain on the door and sank into bed with a deep breath. As she shifted into a comfortable position, her hand touched something.

Grey's journal, left on the edge of the bed, open to the page he had been writing in, one line of his cramped, squirrelly script at the top.

Nolee didn't mean to pry. She wanted to respect his privacy, but she was reading it before she realized what she was reading.

'...is angry with me. I have done something that has enraged him.'

Nolee blinked and sat up, flipping back a page.

'In this dream I have seen him, a gargoyle of towering height. He takes the book from me... it is not he, but the man, who laughs as he burns pages. He delights in my protests. I could read the words at last!

It still was impossible to understand...

I cannot recall what happened next. The great gargoyle dies, or it is the man, or is it that I fall? The images all tumble together. The gargoyle is angry with me. I have done something that has enraged him.'

"Oh, Grey," Nolee murmured aloud. "He's still having those nightmares..." Pretty disturbing ones at that. The previous entry described the voice of a woman who pleaded with Grey to "do something!", but fear had paralyzed him in the dream.

Grey had added an odd habit to his journal-writing: little drawings and symbols crammed in margins and crowded among the entries. Here, what looked like an abstract bird. There, a batlike wing. And a row of tight, angular designs that had no meaning whatsoever to her, some of them scribbled over as if they were mistakes.

What was he trying to work out?

And what haunted his frightened sleeping mind?

--------

"Quarrymen up to something tonight. Might be bad. Carleton Inn."

Matt stared at the note for a few minutes. It had showed up on his desk with no signature and no explanation. The clerk at the front desk could only tell him that a bike messenger had dropped it off that afternoon. And since it mentioned Quarrymen and by association gargoyles, it fell to Matt Bluestone as head of the Gargoyles Taskforce.

He rolled the warning around in his head for a minute, trying to gauge its seriousness. He'd gotten more than his fair share of wild tips, and, considering the subjects involved, none of them were really discountable, no matter how crazy.

Finally he picked up the phone and dialed his partner. "Elisa? Yeah, sorry to bug you on your day off. Mind passing a message along to the guys?"

--------

Crashing waves. The scent of salt water and fear. The shrieking of owls. He had to protect... protect someone...

The man laughed. The book burned and was consumed. The great gargoyle loomed above, seized him, demanded of him... he was tied, bound, helpless... the book burned...

Grey shattered his sleep-shell and shook long after he was shed of the stone skin, while Nolee pulled the drawer clear. She could immediately tell something was wrong; he knew it by the look of concern on her face. Grey tried to calm himself, if only for her sake. What good would burdening her with his meaningless dreams do? She would only worry.

"Had another nightmare?" she asked.

Grey fumbled out of the drawer, using the delay to further calm his rattled nerves. "I'm fine."

"You're a lousy liar," she accused gently. "You don't have to act like such a grown-up all the time, you know. It's okay to be scared."

"I am," he admitted. "But they are only dreams."

"C'mon, let's go up on the roof for some air," she suggested. "You'll feel better. Maybe we'll even spot some new friends up in the sky."

Once up on the hotel roof, Grey was free to shed the oversized coat and take in the sight of the wide velvet expanse of the night sky. He did feel better-- better than he had in weeks, in fact. Open air and a good breeze, all a gargoyle needed. Grey stretched, spreading his wings and feeling the pleasant dull ache in those under-used muscles. He hadn't had the space or freedom to really spread out his wings, let alone take those first attempts at short glides that a young gargoyle of his age would do.

"Better?" Nolee smiled as he swept his wings back and forth a few times before folding them down his back.

"Much," he said, and it was true. He shrugged off his apprehension and looked up into the sky, still purpled in the west with the last of sunset light. It was a clear night, cloudless and moonless, stars brilliant. Peaceful, despite the constant symphony of cars and machines and voices of the city. "Dreams can't hurt me. I only wish I knew what they meant."

"They don't have to mean anything," Nolee said, leaning against the stairwell door. "I once had a dream that I was driving a car through a lake of cream cheese. If you can find some meaning in that, let me know."

Grey shook his head. "The gargoyle I see in my dreams... I wish I knew what he is so angry about. I feel it is something I have done."

"Didn't you say Leader used to blow a gasket every time you breathed funny? Maybe that's him."

Though it disturbed him, Grey called up the mental image of the gargoyle from his dreams. "No. He is taller. Purple, with great wings, and so much bigger than Leader. When he looks at me, I... he is always angry, but, I think sad, too."

"Sounds kind of like one of the gargoyles in the photos." Nolee nodded. "Maybe those pictures were a little too graphic..."

Grey wanted to tell her that his gnawing unease had nothing to do with the violence in the photographs, and that the great gargoyle in his dreams was not merely fleshed out from his imagination. There was something vaguely real about his nightmares. But he had no idea how to put that into words; it danced at the edge of comprehension as it was.

Again he shrugged it off. Only dreams.

Giving in to an urge that had seized him the moment he had emerged under the open sky, he climbed the stairwell block, leaving a trail of claw-holes in the cinderblock, much to Nolee's amazement.

"And I thank you for never doing anything like that in the house," she told him with a laugh.

"Nowhere to climb to," he replied matter-of-factly. "I cannot glide very far anyway." He perched at the edge, over the door, wings unfurled. He mentally aimed for a discolored spot on the rooftop several wingspans away, but doubted he'd get that far. Landing on his feet and not his face would be an admirable goal at this point.

Grey had just worked up the nerve to leap when a figure came up the fire escape ladder and onto the roof from the side of the hotel building. Nolee bit off a word under her breath and grabbed for the coat that was the little gargoyle's 'disguise'. "Grey, get down here, now!" she hissed at him, reaching up towards him.

The stairwell door opened, knocking Nolee backwards onto her tailbone. Another figure stood in the doorway, just like the first: dressed entirely in black, hooded, and bearing an ominous metal hammer.

"So," said the first Quarryman, "Not only are you a gargoyle sympathizer... you're raising one of the monsters."

"What?" Nolee got to her feet, her eyes wide with fear. "You-- you're the-- No! Get away! He's just a child!"

"All the more reason to get rid of it now," said the one in the doorway, stepping out onto the roof and turning his faceless hood towards where Grey perched, rigid with fear. Two more Quarrymen crested the edge of the roof on either side of the building.

"Just get out of the way now and we'll let you go," said the first to Nolee, as the second operated some mechanism on his hammer, sliding the handle up and down with a metallic clacking. The head of the tool hummed and sparked with energy.

Grey was transfixed, claws digging deep into the cinderblock, while his horrified mind screamed at him to move. Instead he watched helplessly as the Quarryman raised the crackling hammer above his head.

Nolee darted up seemingly out of nowhere behind the Quarryman, reached up and grabbed the hammer's shaft. She wrenched violently downward. The Quarryman was caught off-balance and flailed a bit before tumbling backwards. Nolee tried to twist out of the way, but the charged hammer caught her shoulder on the way down and she let out a cry of pain as she too fell.

That jolted Grey out of his fear. He leapt, his wings carrying him just far enough to land right beside Nolee, between her and the fallen Quarryman.

"Nolee!" He reached for her shoulder in concern. Her jacket was scorched.

A now-familiar hum caused them both to look up. The first Quarryman was standing over them, hammer aglow and upraised. Nolee wasted no time in grabbing Grey about the waist and scrambling up to run towards one of the fire escapes, only to be stopped short by one of the other Quarrymen.

"Please," she begged, wrapping her arms protectively around Grey, "He's just a child. He'd never hurt anybody. I'm just trying to get him where he belongs!"

"Where he belongs is in my driveway as gravel," the third Quarryman replied, laughing nastily. Meanwhile Quarryman One was helping Quarryman Two back to his feet, and though Grey couldn't see their faces, he could imagine they weren't as amused.

"Hand the freak over," said Three, and reached out a gloved hand. Grey bared his fangs, growling, as Nolee backed up.

"This is your last chance," said One, he and Two coming up behind them as number Four flanked from the side. "Surrender the gargoyle and you can go free. If you continue to protect it we will consider you an enemy as well."

"You people are insane," Nolee shot back, holding Grey tighter.

He squirmed, now past fear and well into anger. "Leave her alone! If you touch her I'll--"

Nolee bolted before he could finish what would have been a laughable threat. She dashed past Four, who made a grab at them but fell short. She made it to the fire escape and dropped Grey onto the landing. "Down!" she hissed. "Hurry!"

It was a bit like falling out of a tree, scrambling down the rattling metal staircase. His claws kept getting snagged in the latticework and more than once he hurtled tail-over-wing down a flight. Nolee was close behind, calling encouragement when he took a tumble. Within moments the fire escape shook with the footfalls of the four Quarrymen.

Grey reached the bottom of the stairs and hoisted himself up onto the railing. It was still a good ways to the ground, and floating straight down was something he could certainly handle, but...

"Go!" Nolee urged, joining him breathlessly at the bottom. Their pursuers were rapidly approaching.

"What about you?" he asked, indicating the drop.

"Now!" she replied, giving him a shove. He teetered and fell, his wings snapping open by reflex, and gently he coasted to the asphalt below.

Nolee tugged at the ladder that clung to the side of the fire escape. The apparatus creaked in protest but refused to budge. Grey flitted worriedly on the ground, watching the Quarrymen come within two flights... one... Nolee gave up on the ladder and lowered herself through the opening, dangling for a moment before dropping to the ground.

She crumpled as she hit feet first, letting out a cry of pain. Grey darted to her side.

"Nolee! Are you--"

"Just twisted my ankle." She got unsteadily to her feet, wincing as she stood. "C'mon. I want you to climb up that building there and run for it," she told him, pointing to the building adjacent to the hotel.

Grey shook his head furiously. "He said you were an enemy too, now. I will not leave you!"

"Bad time to be stubborn, Grey! Go!"

The fire escape ladder slid down with a dusting of rust. Nolee hobbled away, favoring her right foot, Grey clinging protectively to her coat-tails. They hadn't made it a wingspan away before the Quarrymen had surrounded them again, cornering them against the wall in the narrow alley.

"You had your chance," one of them said, "but since it is just a juvenile, I suppose I can see how some maternal instinct might kick in. You get off with a warning."

And he backhanded her across the face.

Grey screeched as she fell, fangs bared and eyes alight. All coherent thought fled his mind and he snarled and flashed his claws. The Quarrymen laughed.

...laughed, enjoying his misery as the page burned...

Grey flared his wings, trying to shield Nolee as they cocked their hammers one by one.

...to kill her...

Nolee whimpered, her face scraped and bleeding slightly where she had hit the pavement. The first Quarryman pulled his hammer back, preparing to swing.

Something within the little grey gargoyle stirred.

He reached.

Grasped.

Thrust.

--------

For a few eternal moments, Nolee was certain she was still dizzy from the slap.

Grey stood over her, a nimbus of white light gathering around him like a cloud. He let out a high-pitched yowl, an unimpressive noise on its own, but the glow intensified and the Quarrymen hesitated.

The light burst, erupting in a wave that lifted all four men off their feet and tossed them backwards like ragdolls. Three hit the hotel wall with audible thuds, the fourth bowling a perfect strike through a bank of trash cans.

Nolee blinked afterimage spots away, having only felt a mild vibration in the air from behind Grey. She stared, reaching out to him, hardly believing what she had just seen. Grey stood for a moment, his back still to her, then let out a small sigh and collapsed bonelessly to the ground.

"Grey!" Nolee grabbed him and gently turned him over. His eyes were shut. His coloring had turned ashen, his spots faded, and his cheeks were cold when she touched them. He breathed, but slowly. Nolee cradled him in her arms, giving him a careful shake, but got no response. "Grey… Oh, Little One, please, wake up!"

A shadow swept over them, momentarily blocking the streetlight that streamed into the alley. Nolee reflexively held Grey close, her head snapping up, fully expecting to see one of the Quarrymen looming over her.

But the giant shape descending on wide wings bore no hammer.

Author's note: Whew.

Two things before you throttle me: One, I've got to finish the other Gargoyles fic "Renaissance Gargoyle" I have before I proceed any further or there will be timeline problems and the universe may or may not implode.

And two: Whether you think it's brilliant or I'm full of crap, if you've figured out what's going on-- if you leave a review, PLEASE do not spoil the surprise.

Thanks for reading!