By the end of the evening, there were reports from two previously unknown clans. The Irish Clan in Ardmore and the Australian Clan reportedly near Ayers Rock.
"Two new clans," Elisa breathed out into the early morning air. The sun would rise in a few minutes, but for now, it was just her and Goliath on top of his tower. "How do you think they knew about all of this tonight? To come forward tonight?"
"I do not know," Goliath said thoughtfully. "I will ask them, should we be able to talk."
"You will," Elisa said with a smile. "Knowing Xanatos, he has probably already sent planes to the locations to pass along more satellite phones."
Goliath nodded, tucking her under one arm and giving her shoulders a squeeze. "For so long, I thought we were the last."
"I know," Elisa said softly, leaning in to his side. "And now there are clans all over the world and connecting with one another."
He looked down and smiled. "It is a wonder," he said softly.
Reluctantly removing his arm from her shoulders, he took his position to greet the day.
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When Elisa returned to the Great Hall, she found her children sitting at one end, a laptop between them and their heads pressed together.
"What are you two up to?" Elisa called out, hand on her hips.
"Hey mom," they said together, not looking up from the screen.
"Seriously, guys," Elisa said, walking up to the pair. "You scare me sometimes when you do that."
"What?" Liam looked up, his eyes clearing to focus on the here and now.
"Sorry, Mom," Nayeli said sheepishly.
"What are you two doing?" Elisa asked again, this time taking a seat beside Liam and looking at the screen.
"We were looking at the places that the new clans live," Nayeli said with a smile.
"Here," Liam said, turning the laptop a bit so that Elisa had a clearer view. He tapped a few keys, and up popped a series of aerial shots of a small village. "This is Ardmore, in County Waterford, Ireland. It's a fishing village, with both a beach and cliffs. There are also a couple of stone ruins there, good sized ones, that a clan of gargoyles could live and hide in."
Elisa blinked at her son in surprise.
"There's some information on local legends, as well," Nayeli pointed out, reaching over her brother to scroll down on the screen.
Elisa frowned at the text, then looked at her children. "A lighthouse?"
"Not the lighthouse," Nayeli said excitedly, pointing to a few lines at the bottom. "You know the legends about the Sirens?"
"They would sing and lure the sailors onto the rocks," Elisa said slowly.
Nayeli nodded. "That's it. Well, here it says that though there were many reports of siren song here over the centuries, even after a lighthouse had been added, there were never any shipwrecks on this section of rock."
"We think," Liam added, "That it was gargoyles, and they were keeping the sailors and fishermen safe."
Elisa looked at her kids in awe. "You two are amazing, you know that? What may have taken us a few days to figure out, you did in a few hours."
"That's nothin'," Nayeli said with a grin. "Wait until you see what we found about Australia."
Liam tapped a few keys, and suddenly the screen was filled with pictures of large red rock formations and ancient cave paintings.
"This is Uluru or, as it's better known to us here, Ayers Rock," Liam began. "It's a sacred place, with a lot of history and mythology attached to it, and some of it may be gargoyle related. It's hard to tell, because the stories have been passed down and translated a few different ways."
"But there are a few that we think it might be," Nayeli broke in. "One is of the Bunyip. It's a creature that, according to this website, the Europeans adopted as well. It is reported to have been seen a lot, but the descriptions are different every time."
"Which could mean that they aren't seeing the same gargoyle," Liam pointed out.
"Alright," Elisa said, nodding thoughtfully. "And the other?"
"It's the legend of the Nargun," Nayeli said. "It's a fierce creature that is half man and half stone. The third one is of the Tjimnimin," Nayeli stuttered over that one a few times before shrugging. "He's an ancestor who was combined with a bat, so he probably has wings."
"There is the last one," Liam admitted, "but it's not as likely, because it's from a different area of Australia, but still a possibility," Liam said.
"There's not a lot of information about it, but it's called The Namarrkon," Nayeli read aloud.
"We made a note of it specifically because it doesn't have a lot of information on it," Liam shrugged.
Elisa sat back in her chair, thoroughly impressed.
"You have been busy," Elisa said, then caught the slightly guilty looks that they sent each other. "Uh, oh," she said with a sigh. "What plan are you two hatching?"
"Well," Liam said slowly, "We were kind of wondering if the clan would be going to these places to kind of," he shrugged, "meet them, I guess."
"Maybe," Elisa said slowly. "It's all still kind of new, so we haven't had a chance to talk about it. Why?"
"We were wondering if we could come with you," Nayeli said, hesitantly.
"Like a family vacation," Liam said, getting into it.
"Correct me if I'm wrong," Elisa said slowly, drawing each syllable out, "but wasn't it you who just came back from a kind of vacation last night?"
"Yeah," Liam replied with an unrepentant grin, "but that was just me. I have grown up on stories of you, Dad, Angela and Bronx cruising around the world. As you said, until I went to camp, neither of us," Liam waved a hand between his sister and himself, "had even been outside of New York."
Elisa sighed, looking into the pleading eyes of her children. "Alright, guy and gal. Let's table this until tonight, and we can see how the clan plans to handle this. Then we'll talk again. For now," Elisa stood, and put one hand on each of the children's shoulders and squeezed, "you have done some awesome work, but it's bedtime. We are all taking the day off from classes and resting up. I have a feeling we're going to have some busy nights ahead."
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The next night, as soon as the sun dipped below the horizon, things did get hectic for a bit.
When all was said and done, only two of the council members opted to stay behind, and Elisa had been correct.
Garia and Bolin had opted to remain in Manhattan with the clan there, but the others would be returning to their homelands and the clans that waited there.
"I shall miss you, little one," Lei-Ji said, embracing a teary eyed Nayeli.
"I'll miss you too," Nayeli sniffed.
Elisa watched quietly as her daughter said goodbye to gargoyles that she'd known, literally, her whole life and felt her heart break a little. Oh, it wasn't forever, they all knew that, and the council would be back together in two months for the first of their scheduled bi-annual meetings, but it didn't make it any easier.
One by one, the council members who would be returning home were loaded into one of the large helicopters for the ride to the private airstrip just outside of New York City where a small fleet of planes would be waiting to carry them home.
As the last of the helicopters rose and moved swiftly out of sight, the residents of Castle Wyvern Castle, high atop of the Aerie Building, were down to the Manhattan Clan and two council members.
As those remaining gargoyles turned to return to the castle, Elisa called out to her husband.
"Goliath," she called out. "Do you have a minute?"
"For you, always," Goliath turned and gave her a small smile. "What do you need?"
Elisa moved to his side. "I have a question that our two mini sleuths have brought up."
He gave her a puzzled look.
"Nayeli and Liam have been doing some research," she began, and quickly ran through all that they had discovered.
Goliath made a noise, a deep-in-the-chest rumble that said that he was thinking.
"I asked them to talk to you about their findings, so they'll go through it all with you in detail, but they brought up a question, and I didn't want to answer them without talking to you first."
Goliath turned to her and waited patiently.
"If you decide to go meet with these clans in person," she said, "the kids would like to go. See some of the world outside of Manhattan. And, yes," Elisa said before he could say anything, "I did remind Liam that he just came back from camp."
