Author's Note: I know, I know, I said I was going to work on Renaissance before I continued this, but... my muse caught me going down a dark alley alone at night, and quite justifiably mugged me. Between bursting to write this particular chapter and some drama out in Real Life (that has no place here) I just had to write for the sheer therapeutic value of it.
At any rate, the only thing out of sequence would be the brief mention of my other two OCs, and it really doesn't impact the story so far, so I'm just plowing ahead and posting this chapter.
Fertilizer hits the ventilator, kiddies, and as I said before, if you leave a review, be kind and don't spoil. Thank you all for reading!
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Grey had told her that an adult gargoyle was a fearsome sight, and she now had no doubt.
He... was... huge.
It was the purple male from the photos-- which hardly did him justice. He landed with an uncanny grace at the entrance of the alley and folded his massive wings around broad shoulders. Nolee reflexively huddled protectively over Grey, staring, trying to make out this newcomer's features in the dim streetlight.
He looked over the four unconscious Quarrymen lying on the asphalt where they'd been flung, then glanced at Nolee, as if trying to figure out how a such a scene had come about (something she was trying to figure out herself, at that).
"Do not be afraid," he said, in a voice that was a low rumble. "I will not harm you. What happened here? What was that light?"
"I-- I don't know, he just--" Nolee sat up, revealing the too-still Grey in her lap. "Please, you have to help him. He just collapsed."
The winged giant hesitated a beat, obviously taken aback, then closed the distance between them in two long strides. He knelt, staring down at Grey. Up close he was no less fearsome, but his craggy features gave way to an expression of surprise.
"Who is he?" he asked softly, reaching out to gently touch Grey's face with a claw that was as long as Nolee's thumb. "Where did he come from?"
She shook her head, turning her attention back to the unconscious child in her arms. "It's-- it's a long story--"
The big gargoyle nodded with a grunt. "And you are both injured. Can you get up?"
Before she could answer, a car pulled up at the curb just outside the alley and stopped. The driver's door swung open. "Look out-- " Nolee started, but the gargoyle merely glanced over his shoulder.
"It is all right. She is a friend."
The driver, a woman, looked around at the fallen Quarrymen and let out a whistle. "Geez, four of them to go after one girl?" she mused aloud. "Talk about overkill..." Then she noticed Grey. "Whoa. Is that...?"
"Yes, he's a gargoyle, we came here to find you," Nolee blurted, her head and ankle throbbing in painful chorus. "I don't know what happened, there was this light and, and he fainted--"
"Take it easy, miss," the woman said, crouching beside her. "You're both safe now. But we need to move this party to someplace a little nicer before our friends wake up."
"Agreed," said the big gargoyle, and reached again for Grey. "Give him to me. Elisa will take you to a hospital."
"No, wait." Nolee held her charge close. "Listen, I-- I go with him."
The gargoyle blinked, and for a moment Nolee wondered if all she'd done was tick him off, but she plowed on. "I'm sure you're nice people and all, but he's been mistreated before... by his own kind. If he wakes up and I'm not there he'll be terrified."
Both the woman and the gargoyle regarded her for a few moments. "What do you think, Goliath?" the woman asked.
The gargoyle stood up, towering over them as he unfurled his wings. "She shielded the youngling with her own body," he said, with a smile down at Nolee. "I believe she can be trusted."
"I'll take you both, is that okay?" the woman asked. Nolee nodded, feeling exhausted with relief. A tiny voice of caution tried to warn her that this could be some trick, but it was drowned out by the fact that she'd been within a foot of a gargoyle that could have snapped her like a twig and he'd been nothing but gentle and considerate. And the casual sense of familiarity and trust between him and the woman couldn't be faked.
Nolee limped to her feet with Grey still in her arms, the woman steadying her, while the gargoyle climbed the hotel wall. The woman checked the four Quarrymen in a cursory fashion, pulling out some handcuffs from a jacket pocket and cuffing them to the lowered fire escape ladder.
"I'm guessing one of these fine upstanding gentlemen gave you that," the woman said, pointing to Nolee's face. She had no doubt she was sporting a nice bruise in addition to the scrape she'd gotten on the way down when the Quarryman had struck her.
"Told me it was a warning." Nolee didn't bother keeping the disgust out of her voice. "For defending him. How could I not defend him, he's just a child!"
The woman held up a hand. "You're preaching to the choir, but at least this means I can have these wastes of skin arrested for assault. C'mon, let's get going."
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As Goliath neared the castle, he was unsurprised to see Rissa and Angela gliding homeward as well. With Lexington's communicators in service, news traveled with a speed that bordered on absurd. It reminded Goliath of Elisa's observations of human adolescents who apparently went about with cell phones implanted directly into their ears. The clan's communicators seemed little different.
"The night is not half over, Angela," he said with mock sternness as the two young females joined him in the courtyard. "Your patrol cannot be finished already."
"Oh, Father," Angela replied, half-laughing. "You can't expect us to just go on about our business with news like that."
"Are they here yet?" Rissa put in, looking mildly chagrined. "Maybe we just get a quick peek and go back out..."
Goliath relented with a flick of a claw and a smile as he caped his wings. "This is a special situation. We may become a clan of ten tonight."
Ten. It was a number that seemed both pitiful and proud at the same time... how long ago had it been, that they had numbered a mere six, with no expectation for the future but extinction? And then Angela, and the discovery of the other clans, the elation of no longer being the last... Rissa and Tanner, rough though their path had been. It gave him hope anew with the appearance of the youngling and his guardian; there were still gargoyles out there yet to be discovered. Ten, of course, was nothing like what the clan had been a thousand years ago. But it was definitely more heartening than a dead-end six.
"I take it the others are on their way as well?"
Angela nodded, she and Rissa following Goliath into the castle. "If not already here. Do you think he is from one of the clans we met?"
"I can't be sure yet." They came into the large common room that the clan had more or less taken over as a general living area. As Angela had said, news of the newcomer had made the rounds and the whole clan was there.
"They just got here," said Broadway, hovering at the entrance to the hallway that led deeper into the castle. "Elisa says they're hurt-- what happened?"
"Guess Bluestone's tipster wasn't yanking his chain," Brooklyn put in.
"Where is this newcomer from?" Hudson asked. Goliath held up a hand to stave off the oncoming torrent of curiosity.
"The gargoyle is a very young one," he started. "His guardian is a young human woman, but beyond that, we will have to wait for their story until they have recovered from the attack. When he awakens, we will introduce ourselves, but slowly. The young woman warned me that the youngling had been mistreated and may be frightened of us."
"Mistreated?" Hudson sat up in his battered armchair. "Not by other gargoyles!"
"I'm afraid so, if the girl's telling the truth." Goliath moved across the room. "If the Quarrymen are on the prowl tonight, perhaps it's best if we stayed close to the castle for now." After losing such seemingly helpless prey, no doubt they would be in a foul mood. "I am going to see to our guests now; I'll let you know when they are ready to meet everyone."
"Lex can go first," Brooklyn said cheerily. "He's the least threatening of us all."
Lexington, perched on the headrest of Hudson's chair with his back to Brooklyn, merely flipped his tail in what was quite likely a rude gesture.
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His smile was cruel as the page burned.
She struggled valiantly, radiant and fierce in her defiance.
Regret. Pain. Loneliness. Walking on soil that pulsed with a power all its own.
Three women--
"...and there he was, hiding behind the couch. I had to bribe him with food to get him to come out."
Her voice cut through the darkness. It was a voice the small grey creature knew, and he clung to it, clawing back to consciousness through what felt like a terrible weight.
"Grey!" He felt warmth, hands closing around his. "Can you hear me?"
Though he felt he'd have an easier time overturning a mountain, he forced his eyes to open.
"Oh, thank God." Nolee smiled down at him, smoothing back his hair. "You gave me a good scare."
He frowned, blinking. For a moment, he almost expected to see... someone else. He looked around, not really seeing. He heard Nolee asking if he was all right and had no idea how to answer her.
"Where-- where are we?" he finally managed to ask, clumsily clambering into a sitting position beside Nolee on a couch that bore telltale signs of claw-marks.
"You are in Castle Wyvern," said a deep voice nearby. "Welcome, Grey."
Grey whirled to see who had spoken-- and froze.
"What sorcery is this!"
"Do not be afraid," the great gargoyle told him. "You are safe here."
Grey twitched, realized he was trembling, and fought to compose himself, to little avail. Nolee nudged him. "Say hello, Grey."
"Sorcery indeed. And now you shall join them!"
"H-he-hello..." he stammered distractedly; he felt very strange.
"I am called Goliath," the great gargoyle said, coming closer.
Goliath lunged, seizing him--Grey flinched violently, shutting his eyes tightly and turning away. Goliath hadn't come at him with eyes ablaze, hadn't roared in anger-- indeed, he simply paused, perplexed, as perplexed as Grey himself was.
The little gargoyle felt Nolee's arm around him. "It's okay, he's not going to hurt you."
"Your guardian is right, little one." Goliath's voice was level, reassuring. "You are among friends."
Guardian.
A boy. A man in armor.
Grey shook his head. Out-of-place images from his dreams seemed to overlap what his waking eyes saw. Faces he knew but had never seen danced just out of view. Nolee looked on him with concern, and the sight of her face, the scrape cleaned up but still quite raw, seemed to shunt the visions aside.
"You're hurt," he said, and frowned. "That man struck you because of me."
Another person stepped up beside Goliath, a human woman with long black hair. "This wasn't your fault, Grey. And they got as good as they gave, apparently."
"Indeed," Goliath continued. "How did you overcome the Quarrymen? All I could see was a great flash of light."
Nolee shook her head. "This sounds crazy, but I think Grey did that."
"I--" Grey twitched again, trying to recall that moment. Light, yes, and something beneath it, like a building storm. "What did-- what did I do?"
"It was like you said, a big light," Nolee said to Goliath. "Like this wave, coming from him. Knocked them back like they were nothing. And that's when he passed out."
"What have you done?"Grey shuddered. "I-- I did not mean to... but how did I do this?"
Goliath stood back and gave him a long, speculative look. "I suspect you may have a talent for magic."
Magic.
The book.
Words. Power.
Grey wrapped his wings around himself, as if they could shield him from the alien sensations that prowled about his mind.
"Magic?" Nolee repeated. "You can't be serious."
"I know, it sounds absurd," the other woman replied with a half-laugh. "But it's true. I've seen some unbelievable things since I met Goliath. In fact it was magic that kind of brought the gargoyles here."
Grey sat up. "How?"
"It was... a very long time ago," Goliath told him, a shadow falling across the great gargoyle's face.
"Could I but wield a sword--""My clan was cursed to sleep," Goliath was saying, "for a thousand years--"
"The gargoyles… You're a dead man, Hakon."
"--until the spell was broken when the castle rose above the clouds. Were it not for--"
"Reverse the spell! BRING THEM BACK!""… what've ye done?"
"Princess…"
"Dormiatis dum castellum super nubes ascendat!"
The dam of memories burst.
He Awoke.
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Grey suddenly went so noticeably tense that Goliath stopped mid-sentence. Nolee, her arm still around him, could feel he'd stopped trembling, but was now staring wide-eyed at the blank air before him.
"Grey?" she prompted. What on earth could be the matter with him now? This didn't seem to have any bearing on the trauma of being bullied and neglected by his former clan. When at last he spoke, it was in a breathless whisper.
"What... happened?"
Nolee leaned a little closer. "You kind of spaced out for a minute." She looked up at Det. Maza. "This isn't normal for him. Maybe he got a concussion?"
"How did this happen?" Grey asked, seeming not to have heard her at all. He looked down at his hands, then up at the older gargoyle. "Goliath... Goliath, forgive me."
"Forgive you?" Goliath, horned brows drawn together in confusion, knelt, and still had to look down at Grey. "You have not wronged me."
The little gargoyle shook his head furiously. "But I did! Oh, how can this be?" He stood up on the couch next to Nolee, wrapping his wings around himself.
"Grey, what are you talking about?" She remembered that look, though she hadn't seen it on him in some time; the look of someone who expected retribution to rain down on him, of a frightened child bracing for a blow. But at the same time...
...those deep grey eyes looked deeper than any child's.
"I was mad with grief," Grey went on, growing more agitated. "I never imagined the castle would ever rise above the clouds. What I did was as good as murder!"
If it was possible, Goliath looked as spooked as Nolee felt.
"I believed the princess dead by Hakon's hand-- and, fool that I was, took my anger out on you! I don't know how I came to be as I am--" Grey unfurled his wings (nearly slapping Nolee in the face with one) and thumped his palm on his chest. "--but I am he who cursed you!"
Dead silence.
Goliath finally spoke.
"Magus?"
