00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

10.5: All Hands Effort

Elmer Dobbins was pretty good at scrounging, if he did say so himself. He was one of the best in the Labyrinth at finding soda cans and bottles that could be turned in for recycling money, and at finding stuff in other people's trash that was still perfectly useable by the Labyrinth's standards.

He'd been working for only a half-hour so far that morning, and had already found eight soda cans, a purse that only needed one seam stitched up again (and in Ms. Ruth's favorite shade of purple, too), and a Winnie-the-Pooh lunchbox that should be just fine for one of the kids to keep their treasures in, after the dents were smoothed out. And oooh, that shiny metal gleam at the bottom of the trash can needed further investigating…

But Elmer was good at using his ears as well as his eyes. Good hearing was a real survival trait on the street; you never knew what kind of person might be coming up from behind, whether a police officer fixing to arrest you for vagrancy or a gang member looking to rough you up just to prove his machismo to his buddies. So he paused in his reaching down to the bottom of the trash can when he overheard something coming out of a window above him:

"…gargoyles broke in, and attacked me and my girlfriend! I'm telling you, this is proof that they're a menace to the city and need to be destroyed! Like rabid dogs!"

Elmer glanced up, and decided the voice was coming out of that window two floors up that had been broken recently; the gaping hole had been taped over with a plastic garbage bag.

He faintly heard someone else talking; not as loud, not as excited. Something about 'sun,' maybe the New York Sun, since the next word he understood was 'investigating'. Then something about 'seventh person this happened to' and 'establish pattern'. And asking the first person to tell his story again.

"I was lying in bed, sound asleep, and two of those monsters just burst in through my window! I fought them as hard as I could, but they pinned me to the floor and then they ransacked my apartment! And look at these bruises on my chest! Those are from their talons; there's more on my back too! And they pinned down my girlfriend, too; they didn't care that she was sobbing with fear and begging them not to kill her! They're monsters!"

Another question from the other person, too faint for him to hear.

"Well, yeah, I… I finally managed to get free of their grip, and then I grabbed a baseball bat and scared them out of my home before they could really hurt her. But they left bruises on her, too, from where she was being held down!"

Then the other person said something like 'five of the six homes I've visited already', then something that Elmer couldn't quite make out, then a bit louder, 'gargoyles were definitely searching for something. Did you hear anything about what they were searching for?"

Now the first talker was starting to mumble his response. Elmer caught the words "Just some bullshit", and then something mumbled, then "Quarrymen kidnapping" and something that he was pretty sure was "woman and kid." Then the speaker grew louder, more forceful as he finished, "But the Quarrymen are here to protect the citizens of New York, not kidnap any of them! I'm telling you, it was just an excuse for them to invade people's homes and destroy property! Do you know how much it's going to cost me to fix that window?!"

But Elmer had heard enough. Grabbing the goods he'd already collected, he headed for the nearest entrance to the Labyrinth.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Derek Maza had never, ever been a morning person. Now that he was Talon the mutate, leader of a clan of gargoyle clones, he at least had a good excuse for staying up past three a.m. and sleeping in till nearly noon every day. He led the rest of the Labyrinth too, but most of the humans weren't morning people either, and the few early risers knew not to disturb him and Maggie unless it was a real emergency.

From the way somebody was pounding on his door, waking him up at—he peered at the bedside wind-up alarm clock; only nine in the morning!—it had better be an emergency of some sort! Growling, he tossed back the covers and crawled out of bed. Maggie stirred too, but he told her to stay in bed, he'd handle it.

He opened the door to find Dobbins on the other side, looking very worried. Which instantly worried him; Dobbins was one of his most reliable people, not apt to fly off the handle without a real good reason. He held up a finger to pause Dobbins in whatever he'd been about to say, shut the door behind himself and led Dobbins a short way down the corridor, out of Maggie's earshot, before saying, "What's wrong?"

"There was gargoyle activity in town last night," Dobbins said anxiously. "Real gargoyle activity, not faked stuff, from what I heard. They were breaking into people's homes, looking for some woman and her child that are important to the gargoyles; people that were kidnapped. And just now Ruth tried to call Anne's new phone number, and she's not answering…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Half an hour later, David Xanatos received an alert from Castle Security. "Sir, we have an inbound flyer; east-northeast. Parameters match the mutate Talon."

"Let him in," David said blearily while hunched over his coffee. If it was important enough for Talon to risk gliding around in broad daylight to come see him, then trying to keep the mutate out would only result in damage to the castle, and he just wasn't in the mood for that right now.

He drank more coffee, desperate for the caffeine; what few hours of sleep he'd had last night had been plagued by nightmares. He'd told Owen's secretary to screen all his calls, and his executives in the offices below that he wasn't to be disturbed for anything less than a 500-point drop in the stock market. He knew that he should get his mind back on business, but so far that day the calm and confidence he needed to project at all times, as the CEO of a multi-billion-dollar corporation, was eluding him. Alexander was missing! His son, a tiny fragile being who had become David's entire world the moment he'd been born, had been taken from him… and he still didn't know how or by who!

Ten minutes later Talon was striding into his office. The mutate's fur was standing on end from the static charge he'd generated, and his eyes were wild. "Xanatos, where are Anne and Bethany?! Is it true; have they been kidnapped?!"

"Where did you hear that?!" David asked sharply. His secretary had reported no less than six calls from news organizations already; people asking if the Xanatos family had any connection with the 'kidnapped women and children' that the gargoyles had told the Quarrymen they were looking for. But Xanatos hadn't taken any of those calls, and had told the secretary that his only reply for any reporter that day was 'no comment'. But if somebody had managed to connect the dots; if they'd made the news public already…

"One of my people overheard news about the gargoyles back in town, and breaking into people's homes to search for kidnap victims that were important to them. Anne's not answering her phone this morning, when she should be here getting everything ready for the present drop-off this afternoon! And I just checked the nursery and Anne's room on my way in here, and they're not there! I tried to call you but your goddamn secretary wouldn't let me through, so now I'm here asking you; what's happened to Anne and Bethany?!?" as his fur began to crackle and his fists to faintly glow.

"Pull in that charge before you fry all the electronics!" David said sharply. "Yes, they've been kidnapped, and so have Alexander and Fox!"

Instead of reining in his charge, Talon slammed his fists onto the mahogany desk, leaving plate-sized scorch marks on the polished wood. "GodDAMN you, Xanatos!! I knew I should never have let them set foot in this goddamn castle! Everyone who comes anywhere near you is… Wait. You said…" Talon's eyes went from slits of near-murderous rage to wide with sympathy and dismay. "Oh, man. Man, I'm sorry…"

Just then the phone on his desk rang. "Save it," David said sharply as he reached for the phone. The secretary had been told to let calls through only if the caller was not a reporter but specifically mentioned Alexander or Fox. This call might be the kidnapper calling back, with more instructions about the ransom!

But instead, the call was from Halcyon Renard. "I would have called Janine directly, but her cell phone is turned off," the old man told him sharply. "Just tell her that her helicopter is fixed and ready, and she can come over with Alexander to come pick it up at any time."

After a moment, David managed to say "I'll let Fox know that when I see her." And was about to hang up the phone, when Talon said sternly, "Don't hang up."

Startled, he looked up at the mutate as Talon continued, "That's Fox's father, isn't it? These ears you gave me are pretty sharp, and I heard him call her Janine; no one else calls her that."

"Xanatos, who's that on your end of the line?" they both heard Renard say faintly through the receiver.

"Back when I was on the force, my precinct had a couple kidnapping cases," Talon said, looking grim. "The kidnappers all said the same thing; don't tell anyone. But you don't keep family in the dark about something like this," as he shook his head.

The phone squawked, significantly louder, "Has Janine been kidnapped?! What about Alexander; is he all right?"

David sighed and brought the phone back up to his ear. "Sorry, Renard; yes, they've both been kidnapped. They left your place last night but never arrived here; the kidnapper called me at eight o'clock last night to tell me he wants a hundred million dollars and a gargoyle head. Owen Burnett, the nanny Anne Marsden and the nanny's little girl Bethany were kidnapped as well. So far, the FBI has no solid leads. I brought the gargoyles back up from New Orleans to help search for them, but so far they've had no luck either…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Down in the room the FBI had taken over, the two agents on the day shift who had been assigned to the castle, traded resigned glances as they listened in on the conversation, and heard Xanatos' guest say 'kidnapping'. "So much for keeping the case quiet," Agent Hayes told Agent Colvin with a roll of his eyes.

"Hell, it's only a few hours ahead of schedule," Colvin shrugged. It was a truism that the kidnap cases that weren't kept quiet clear to the point of rescue or ransom, were broken to the media within twenty-four hours of the kidnapping. While Xanatos was actually way behind the curve for letting other family members know what had happened, given his high-profile status, they'd probably have reporters from every newspaper and TV station in New York City on the doorstep in less than an hour.

Hayes agreed as he went back to carefully scanning the videos that other agents had been bringing in for the last few hours. Videos that were labeled with the names and street numbers of the dozens of buildings and stores they had been acquired from, all along the limousine's two most probable routes between the Cyberbiotics Building and the Aerie Building. They'd been lucky so far in that none of the store managers and landlords the field agents spoken to, had demanded a search warrant before turning over the security tapes for their exterior cameras; just showing their FBI badges, asking politely and saying the tapes were needed for a criminal investigation and would be returned soon, had been all that was needed. It was fortunate indeed they were so cooperative; getting search warrants signed by judges took time, sometimes days, and time was always crucial in kidnapping cases.

They'd acquired and were watching all the tapes because most exterior security cameras covered more than just the sidewalk in front of the building; they covered part of the street past the sidewalk as well. Each tape had been rewound to the time mark of 5:15 PM last night, and would be played in hopes of catching a glimpse of a black limousine of the make and model that Xanatos used for his personal fleet, with the license plate numbers that he had supplied the agents with. They had confirmed already that the kidnapping had not happened at FAO Schwarz; security cameras there confirmed that Fox and Alexander Xanatos hadn't set foot in that building last night, and Owen Burnett, Anne Marsden and the nanny's daughter had left the store at 4:50 PM. Therefore, the kidnapping had occurred in transit between the Cyberbiotics Building and the Aerie Building. If they could trace the limousine's path with the security cameras and find out exactly where and when the kidnapping had occurred, they might be able to find more leads to the case.

But as Hayes popped in another tape and started the VCR again, he reflected sourly that the case's now-inevitable publicity was guaranteed to result in dozens if not hundreds of false leads being phoned into the local police stations, who would then try to horn in on the FBI's jurisdiction because this was their city; all in all making their case even harder. And of course there would be even more interruptions from the other family members and from other high-profile members of the community, all urging them to find the kidnap victims—as if they weren't doing their best already!

Then the agents overheard something that made them exchange incredulous glances. "…What was that about having gargoyles brought up from New Orleans? Did Xanatos actually import more of those monsters?" Hayes said incredulously.

"Great. Press, local cops, and now gargoyles to deal with," Colvin shook his head. "Well, at least we can shoot the last bunch if they get in our way too much."

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

One hour later, Talon was facing a crowd of assembled and anxious Labyrinth citizens. He took a deep breath, thinking to himself that if he was still on the force, and Captain Chavez knew what he was about to do, she'd bust his ass clear to Jersey. But even before he'd returned from the castle, word had already spread through the Labyrinth about the gargoyles' activity last night and about Anne and Bethany being missing; nothing flew faster than rumor.

"All right, everyone. I'm about to tell you something that must NOT be repeated anywhere else; nowhere outside the Labyrinth. Understand?" After everyone nodded, he told them about Anne, Bethany and the others being kidnapped. "The kidnapper said 'no police'. And when they say 'no police', they also mean 'no press'. This can't go to the newspapers, understand?"

"Why not?" Tyrone asked. "If they put it in the newspapers, then the whole city will be looking for them! And they'll be found that much sooner, right?"

"In theory, yeah, but it usually doesn't work out that way. What usually happens is you get dozens of false leads, usually from people who are honestly mistaken but sometimes from people who will say anything to get attention. Those false leads can keep the police too busy to fully investigate the real leads that come in. And worse, sometimes the kidnappers panic at all the publicity and decide to just cut and run… and the 'cut' part of that is cutting the kidnap victims' throats. Kidnapping is a felony on a level with murder, so they figure they're not much worse off if they're caught, but if they kill their hostages and run before the police close in, then they might never be identified."

"But what can we do?" Elmer demanded. "You're not telling us to just sit down here on our thumbs, are you?!"

Talon shook his head. "Not by a long shot. What I want you people to do is go up top, look and listen. Go up dressed for scrounging, and be sure to collect any soda cans and bottles you find; that'll be your cover for your real task, that of collecting information. Up top, you're the invisibles; the people that nearly everyone else would like to pretend don't exist. They usually try hard to ignore you… and that means that as long as you don't get too close, into what they think of as their territory or personal space, you can see and overhear a lot."

Talon continued, "At sunset, Claw and I are going to join the gargoyles in the castle on their search for the women and children. But in the meantime, it's up to you. Remember people, you are to look and listen only; don't do anything to risk yourselves! Kidnappers are also killers! If you see or hear anything about our missing people, do NOT try to rescue them yourselves; instead, you'll immediately return to the Labyrinth and pass on what you've heard. Is that clear?"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

At the same time, elsewhere in the city, the Cyberbiotics building was in a mild uproar. Rumor had it that Halcyon Renard--a man who allowed only minimal Christmas decorations to be put up for the sake of company morale, and was well known for his scorn of the crass commercialism that invaded every aspect of the season—had thrown a thousand dollars in petty cash at one of his assistants, and told him to come back ASAP with a truckload of tinsel garlands and other Christmas decorations.

Then other orders had gone out… All four of the building's color printers were currently spitting out sheets of cardstock with "Merry Christmas!" and other colorful holiday slogans on them. Two office aides stood by each printer, grabbing the cards as fast as they came off the printer and slapping them between adhesive laminating sheets. Office Services and supply cabinets on every floor had been ransacked for every last box of laminating sheets and every roll of clear packing tape, and another employee had been sent out to buy more.

And in the cybot programming division, every phone had been put on "Do Not Disturb", but rumor had it that every last programmer had been pulled off whatever project they'd been on, to work on a new division project. Halcyon Renard himself had come down from the office to supervise the project, to make sure it went perfectly.

In response to the flurry of orders given out, no less than four different department managers called or went to visit Preston Vogel, Renard's personal aide who had remained behind in the executive office to handle routine business while Renard locked himself in with the programmers. They all had just one question: what was going on?

Preston Vogel had never been known to smile, so the grim expression on his face didn't particularly alarm anyone. But when he informed them that Mr. Renard's current project was time-sensitive, that the Cyberbiotic CEO was currently not accepting questions or feedback from employees on the project, and that further questions might result in the forfeiture of their Christmas bonuses… The managers decided they should just go back to their departments.

One hour later, all the ladies and gentlemen of the company's Party & Decorating Committee stepped back from their work in satisfaction. They still weren't entirely sure why they'd been ordered to do it, but they'd done it fast and done it well.

Halcyon Renard hit the switch, and with a resonating, throbbing hum of turbines powering up, four hundred of the company's hovering cybots slowly rose off the floor. They were draped all over with colorful tinsel garlands and placards that had been taped in place, wishing everyone a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays. Renard hit another switch on his chair, and the giant skylights on the tenth floor opened outwards; the cybots rose in unison until they were clear of the building, then scattered to the four winds.

The cybots were ostensibly on a mission to spread Christmas cheer to every corner of Manhattan, by gliding over the crowds and past buildings with their signs and decorations. But down at the cybot control terminals, forty people were grimly settling in for a long stay, with pots of coffee and cases of Jolt cola.

They were the programmers and cybot operators that Halcyon Renard had selected as trustworthy enough to be told the real mission: to search every building in Manhattan and look in every window, using the cybots' scanners and infrared sensors, and to find five missing people who had been kidnapped the night before. Each cybot had been programmed to scan for the facial features of Owen Burnett, Janine Renard Xanatos or little Alexander Xanatos; computerized profiles had been made from images caught on the building's security tapes when they had visited in times past. No profiles could be made of Anne Marsden or her daughter Bethany, since they had never set foot inside the building to be caught on film. But the cybots were also programmed to scan for any human wearing a blindfold or hood over his/her head.

Swanson, the head of the team, had sworn to Renard that every terminal would be manned at all times. And any alert from a cybot that someone had been spotted who fit the search parameters, would be given a closer inspection and evaluation by a human operator. Swanson was a father himself, and he meant every word when he promised Renard, "If they can be seen through a window anywhere in Manhattan, we'll find them, sir."

"Good. Have no worries about lawsuits for invasion of privacy; that's what the company has lawyers for. We'll pay any fine the court orders, so long as my daughter and grandson are found!"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Colvin and Hayes looked up from the map they were hunched over, when Mr. Xanatos walked into the room. "Mr. Xanatos, good timing. We were just about to call you."

"You have a lead?" Xanatos asked sharply.

"We have information that could develop into a lead, yes," Colvin said, beckoning the billionaire over to the map and the pins they'd drawn in it. "We retraced the limousine's path between the Cyberbiotics building and here, using glimpses of it passing just within range of storefront security cameras. We have confirmed sightings of the limousine up until 5:43 PM, when it passed in front of Franklin's Sporting Goods, right here," as he pointed to a gold-tipped pin set in the map about ten blocks away from the Aerie Building. "After that, it disappeared. We've checked tapes from all the working security cameras for two blocks surrounding that location, and there's no sign of it after that. However, the block straight ahead in the direction the limo was traveling had no operating security cameras trained on the street that night. One store's camera was just a dummy, but two more had cameras that had stopped working in the last 24 hours and hadn't been fixed yet."

"No video coverage of an entire block; what a convenient coincidence;" Xanatos said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

"Coincidences do happen sometimes, sir… but yes, we've made inquiries into why those two cameras weren't working," Hayes said. "One of them stopped working at 5:05 AM yesterday; last image recorded is of a nearly empty street, no one within fifteen feet of it. We have someone examining that setup now to determine why it stopped working. But with the other camera, we know exactly why it stopped recording images at 1:35 AM. Here are the last few images it took," Hayes said as he walked over to the VCR, rewound the tape in it for a few seconds and hit Play.

The TV monitor came to life, showing a black-and-white scene; a panoramic view of about twenty feet of sidewalk and the street running parallel to it. A tall man dressed in dark winter clothing with a ski mask over his face came slowly into view; the man's hands were at the bottom of the mask, as though he'd just pulled it down over his face. The masked man walked slowly up the sidewalk, nervously looking all around, until he stopped directly under the camera. The last few images the camera recorded were of the man pulling out a small spray can, and aiming it directly at the lens… then the screen went black.

"This camera is part of the security setup for Kleinman's Jewelers," Colvin told Xanatos. "And no, it hasn't been robbed in the last 24 hours. It's possible that it was about to be robbed, but the burglar lost his nerve or was otherwise kept from stealing anything there, by circumstances we're not aware of yet. But it's also possible that whoever spray-painted the lens black had no intention of robbing the jewelers; that it was part of the setup for kidnapping your wife and son. That's the theory we're working with now, and why we're looking to find this man and bring him in for questioning."

"Given he was wearing a ski mask, there's not a lot to go on," Hayes added. "But we have his height, his general weight, and the little skin that's showing though the mask says he's Caucasian. A Caucasian with almost no chin; see how the ski mask slopes down from his mouth? Five feet eight inches, weight approximately one hundred sixty pounds, and nearly chinless…" Hayes looked at Xanatos, not really hoping but asking anyway, "Does that ring any bells for you?"

Xanatos slowly shook his head. "Doesn't resemble any acquaintance that I'm aware of."

Hayes shrugged. "It was a long shot. Anyway, judging by the nervous behavior he exhibited on tape, this man probably isn't the brains of the operation, whether an aborted jewel heist or the kidnapping. But if we can find him, we'll find out who he's working for."

"So you know when, roughly where, and you have a possible lead on who," Xanatos said. "What about how? Armored limousines don't just vanish into thin air."

"That part, we haven't determined yet," Hayes admitted. "But the most likely explanation is that the limousine was driven up inside a larger vehicle, like a moving van, and taken away by the kidnappers. We'll be going back over the tapes to determine if any such vehicles drove through that suspect block at the right time. We've determined that no moving vans were following the limo, but one could have driven onto the suspect block from this intersection," as he tapped a spot on the map. "Also, we need to wait for a judge to sign a search warrant for one holdout. There's one store on this block, this side of the street, that hasn't turned its security tapes over to us yet…"

Xanatos pulled out his cell phone. "They will. What's the name of the store?"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

At one o'clock in the afternoon, Matt Bluestone was usually sound asleep in his apartment. Today, however, he was walking through the doors of the 23rd Precinct and trudging for his desk. "Can't sleep; might as well work," was all he said tersely to whomever asked him what he was doing there at that hour. Which wasn't quite true; Matt had gotten a few hours of sleep. But not a restful sleep, and after waking up from the second nightmare, he'd opted to just get out of bed instead of taking a sleeping aid.

After dropping his coat off at his desk, he made a beeline for the coffeepot. The precinct's coffee was notoriously low-grade, but at least it had plenty of caffeine. Schofield in Vice and Feldman in Homicide were at the coffeepot too, gossiping while adding enough sugar to their coffee to make it semi-tolerable.

"Hey, what's that I overheard about more bodies being found in the river?" Schofield asked Feldman as he dumped in a packet of creamer.

Feldman grimaced, probably as much due to the coffee he'd just sipped as to Schofield's question. "Yeah. Right after bringing up the seventh John Doe from last week's anonymous tip, one of the divers went back down and came up with another corpse. Said he'd spotted it about ten feet away from where the last corpse had come to rest, after drifting downriver a ways. I swear, the city needs to fork over enough dough to line all the docks with security cameras, and hire someone to monitor them all night. Seems like about half the killers in New York use the river for disposal."

Almost despite himself, Matt took an interest in the conversation. He knew about the anonymous tip Feldman referred to, because he knew who had phoned it in; Xanatos, at Anne's request. She hadn't wanted the families of the Quarrymen who'd murdered Brentwood, and who had been killed in retaliation by Delilah, to go on forever wondering whether their men were dead or alive.

In the phone tip, 'Anonymous' had said he'd witnessed seven bodies being thrown into the river but had thought there might actually have been eight, as he'd "heard a double splash once." None of the gargoyles or their allies knew exactly what had happened to the eighth Quarryman, the one who had fled the scene of the massacre. But since he'd never reported back to Castaway or the media with the truth of what had happened that night, there was a slim chance that he had also been killed somehow, and dumped in the river by somebody else. Matt said to Feldman, "So there were actually eight bodies dumped instead of seven, like the tipster thought?"

"Nope; this last one's a different case. The seven John Does from the tip were all stripped naked, and they were all shot to death, except for the next-to-last one; that one looked like a grenade had gone off in his hands. This one was wrapped in plastic trash bags, and still wearing clothes under that. And instead of being shot to death, his throat was crushed—and I mean crushed, like an empty beer can. And in the water a lot longer, too; it'll be up to Forensics to determine how long, but the diver's report estimated at least a couple months."

"Throat crushed like a beer can?" Matt asked sharply.

"Yep; got the preliminary photos on my desk. Nobody can do that kind of damage with his bare hands, I'll tell you that. Nobody human, anyway… soon as Forensics gives their report, I'll be turning a copy over to you."

Matt nodded in acknowledgment and got his coffee, sighing inwardly as he returned to his desk. It wouldn't surprise him at all to find out Demona had dumped a body or two into the East River. But at least she wasn't in town to kill any more New Yorkers; it might be callous of him, but as far as he was concerned, Japan could keep that immortal psychopath.

But now that the Quarryman who'd been killed by an exploding Quarryhammer had been found, Matt could do something about helping to identify the bodies. He made a trip down to the medical examiner's office, ostensibly to make better copies of the photos from a file on one of the Quarrymen who'd been killed in that rooftop battle with Demona and the out-of-towner gargoyles last November. And while he was down there, he told one of the medical examiners, "Hey, if you get any bodies in here that look like a grenade went off on them, ask for background checks to determine if they're Quarrymen, okay? And send me an email if they are. The DA is gathering evidence to prove to the ATF that those Quarryhammers are deadly weapons that they ought to require special licenses to carry. There's been speculation that they can explode like grenades if they're mishandled."

Actually, Matt had no idea whether the DA was putting together any such case for the ATF (the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives—ye author), whose many duties included the federal regulation of firearms and explosives. But he figured that if they weren't, then they really should be, before some kid died from a lethal shock after playing with his daddy's Quarryhammer.

The medical examiner looked at him oddly. "Quarryhammers exploding, eh? It just so happens we got a body in here yesterday that shows evidence of an explosion at close quarters."

"Yeah? We got a name for the victim?" Matt asked innocently.

"Not yet. But wasn't there a group of Quarrymen that went missing just after Thanksgiving, that haven't been found yet?"

The medical examiner returned to his work and Matt returned to the precinct, satisfied that he'd nudged the case in the right direction. That little nudge was all he dared give, but once they'd identified one of the men as a Quarrymen, they'd probably be able to match corpses with names for the rest.

Two hours later, Matt looked up from his work to see Feldman approaching his desk with a file folder, looking grim. "Here's the first one, from that case I talked to you about earlier. There'll be more coming in a little while."

Matt looked askance at Feldman. "More coming?"

"Yep. Divers went back down and found three more bodies wrapped in plastic, all dumped in the same area. Dumped at different times, too, judging by how much debris had drifted over some of them. And the first one pulled up has been ID'd already; Joseph Elkhorn, reported missing in September. Looks like they found the disposal site for a super-strong serial killer…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

The afternoon newspapers all had news of the Quarrymen's base of operations being destroyed. The New York Sun's headline read "Quarrymen Receive Shattering Blow".

There were also articles about the previous night's other gargoyle activities, with headlines reading "Home Invasions By Gargoyles", "Gargoyles Rampaging Inside Homes" and similar themes. Castaway gripped his copy of the New York Times till his knuckles were white. "Those monsters broke into our men's homes! They threatened their families; their children!"

"Broke in, terrorized… but according to these accounts, they didn't kill anyone," Oliver Grimm said as he perused his own paper. "Not yet, anyway…" He tossed his paper back onto the coffee table in disgust as he glared at Castaway. "Why didn't you keep a backup of your Quarrymen roster?!"

"I did keep a backup!" Castaway was nearly purple with frustrated rage. "Every file on the computer was backed up on disks and locked up with a printed copy in the hidden safe in the office! But I wasn't expecting the beasts to blow up our entire base of operations!"

By the time Castaway had reached the warehouse—or what remained of it, the fire trucks had already arrived and started working on containing the fire before it spread. The captured Quarrymen had just been found in the building across the street, by police who had accompanied the fire crews; Castaway arrived there just as Lieutenant Martinez had been cut free of his bonds… in time to hear the lieutenant and four of his men resign from the Quarrymen on the spot.

Castaway had waited numbly in an office that had been commandeered by the police for conducting an on-the-spot investigation; sat there and listened as his supposedly brave and loyal Quarrymen turned into gibbering wrecks as they described their collective ordeal. Listened, and in his turn answered what questions he dared answer, as the police and the NYFD arson investigator grilled him about just what had been in the Quarrymen's warehouse to cause such a massive explosion, and why the gargoyles had attacked in force that night.

He'd been as cooperative with the authorities as he could without compromising crucial secrets, knowing that if the police had decided he was holding back information, and took him to a precinct for further questioning—if someone recognized him from police sketches made of the Hunters, or if he was fingerprinted and those prints compared to others on record—his Jon Castaway identity would be torn to shreds, and Jon Canmore would likely spend a very long time in a jail cell.

Eventually Castaway had finally managed to convince the police and the arson investigator that the Quarrymen had absolutely nothing to do with any supposed kidnapping—really, were they going to take a gargoyle's ranting as evidence that any sort of crime had taken place? He'd also managed to convince them that the gargoyles must have brought high-yield explosives with them, and that the only accelerant in the building had been the fuel for the helicopter that they had all the appropriate licenses for. And after the fire had been put out, he'd been allowed to accompany the fire chief on a cautious inspection of the gutted warehouse, to see if anything could be salvage. But nothing was salvageable, not even the contents of the hidden safe.

The gargoyles hadn't discovered the safe's hiding place under the floorboards of the office, which was right over the room used for communications with Quarrymen in the field. But even fireproof safes have their limits. When the explosion had ripped through the walls, the wooden supports had burned through in the fire, and the entire office structure had fallen twelve feet down to the concrete floor below… the safe's metal covering and fireproof ceramic lining had cracked while the fire was still raging, and the contents of the safe had been turned to heaps of melted plastic and paper ashes.

Castaway explained about the safe to Grimm, but Grimm only replied in a voice dripping with scorn, "I meant off-site backups; kept well away from the main operations, in case of disasters like this! Didn't your family's long history of hunting gargoyles teach you the importance of not keeping all your eggs in one basket?"

Castaway fumed in silence, because Grimm was right; over the centuries, his family had learned well the importance of 'offsite backups'. Canmore children were raised by their mothers, while their fathers--or aunts, when a Canmore generation spawned no men who were capable of being Hunters--were off hunting gargoyles in other countries. Jon had seen his father less than a dozen times in his childhood, before their mother had died suddenly from a stroke and Charles Canmore had to return from the Hunt long enough to find them another caretaker.

Jason, Robyn and Jon had been en route with their father, traveling from Scotland to the home of a second cousin in Switzerland when, after not being seen for nearly sixty years, Charles had received a reliable report that the Demon had been spotted in Paris. The opportunity to rid the world of the Demon once and for all had been too much to pass up; Charles had taken his children with him to Notre Dame, telling them he would fulfill his family's destiny… but instead, he'd only filled a coffin.

"All right then, no backup of a full Quarrymen roster," Grimm said with an irritated wave of his hand. "What about your own memory?"

Castaway stared at Grimm. "Before last night, the Quarrymen numbered nearly a thousand strong, with at least two dozen people signed up at just the last meeting! Could you seriously expect anyone to remember that many names?!" He shook his head as he continued, "We'll have to put an ad in the papers to gather everyone together, after we rent a meeting hall…"

"Don't be stupid," Grimm said harshly. "I don't expect you to remember everyone, but I do expect you to remember the names of your lieutenants and squad leaders! People you hand-picked for those positions!" He rummaged in his nearby desk for a pad of paper and pen, and tossed them at Castaway as he ordered, "Start making a list of every name you can recall. Once we have a list of names, we'll work on finding addresses and phone numbers…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Mitchell Starsky had a fairly memorable name, thanks to an old 70's TV show. He'd grown up with other kids calling him "Starsky the Mitch," and congratulating themselves on being such clever punks. Thanks to his parents' poor choices in naming him, he'd decided at an early age that he would never, ever be a policeman (or date a girl with the last name of Hutchinson.) Instead, he'd joined the Army, where he'd risen to the rank of Sergeant while taking college courses that the Army had paid for. And after he'd finished his second hitch and gotten out to become an architect, the Quarrymen had found his military skills useful and paid him well as a Squad Leader.

As Mitchell read the stories of what had happened in the evening papers, he recognized some of the names mentioned in the gargoyle home invasions as fellow Quarrymen. Harrison Worley was a lieutenant… there were a helluva lot of Joneses in New York, probably more than a dozen men named Ted Jones, but the Ted Jones he knew was a fellow squad leader. Damn, this was bad…

He tossed his paper aside, as his wife came out of the bedroom asking him to help zip up her dress. "Change of plans, honey," he said tersely.

"What? …Mitchell, you are not backing out of this dinner party!" Natalie scolded him. "I know what you think of Jerry and Christine, and I frankly agree with you about Christine, but Christmas is a time for setting aside our differences, for at least a few hours! Besides, the sitter will be here in just a few minutes, and I already called for the taxi!"

Mitchell nodded in acknowledgment as he headed for the desk drawer where he kept an emergency stash of cash, and peeled off a twenty. "And when the sitter shows up, we'll give her this and thank her for her time. But right now I need you to pack overnight bags for the kids…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Maggie gave her husband a fierce hug. "You be careful, okay?"

"We will, honey," Derek said as he hugged her back, but with a hug more careful than fierce; taking her growing belly into consideration.

Still clinging to him, Maggie sighed. "I'd still rather you waited to leave until after sunset. We were lucky that no one saw you out gliding this morning; going out in broad daylight twice in one day…"

"The broad daylight is currently a solid gray overcast," Derek pointed out. "Not much a view, so most people aren't going to be looking out their windows. And if we're going to be a part of the search, we need to be there when the gargoyles wake up. Those guys aren't going to hang around the castle shooting the breeze and waiting for the FBI to turn up something; not when their people are missing."

Maggie agreed that wasn't likely for gargoyles, and Derek continued, "You've got the castle's phone number; call with any information our folks find out on the streets. Xanatos said one of the new gargoyles, Martha, stays behind to relay information to gargoyles in the field. And remember, when 'the kids' wake up and ask what's going on, tell them they need to stay down here and help protect you and Junior, here," as he gently caressed her belly and their growing child within, "from being kidnapped too! They'll need a job to do, to keep them inside." And after one last hug and kiss, he turned and beckoned to Claw, who'd been hugging and signing a conversation with his wife Dana. Claw nodded, and the two mutates left for the surface together.

Talon and Claw got airborne as soon as they were able, and glided to the castle on a roundabout, cautious course, staying low over rooftops and avoiding open spaces; even with the gray overcast sky, it was best to avoid areas where they were more apt to be seen. On their way to the castle they passed a bizarre sight; a flying golden robot that was draped with silver and green tinsel garlands and sporting a sign that read "Happy Holidays!" The robot was currently hovering outside an apartment building, slowly descending as it passed by the windows. They could hear a child's high-pitched voice calling excitedly from inside one of the apartments: "Mommy, look! It's a Christmas Transformer!"

"One of Cyberbiotics' cybots, probably," Talon said in response to Claw's questioning look. "On a search pattern; it's probably equipped with visual and infrared scanners. I was there when Xanatos told their CEO about the kidnapping; stands to reason he'd be using his resources to look for them too."

Why? Claw signed to him, then gave a start as he apparently remembered some details from the mutates' stay at the Aerie Building, before they found out that Xanatos had not actually been appalled at their mutation by Sevarius; that he'd been the one to order it done! Claw signed to him, Fox daughter?

"That's right. Which makes Alexander his grandson. And there ain't a grandpa alive who'll just sit back and do nothing when he knows his grandkid's in trouble…"

They arrived at the castle with a few minutes to spare before sunset. Xanatos came out onto the castle battlements just as they arrived and told them, "Thanks for coming. Even if you're doing this just for Anne and Bethany, I still appreciate it."

Claw shook his head and vigorously signed a response to Xanatos, and Talon interpreted for him, "We're not just here for Anne and Bethany. Kidnapping is wrong no matter who the criminals take! Even if we still don't quite trust you, we'll do everything we can to help you get your son and your wife back too. Which reminds me, there's someone else out looking for them…"

Talon told Xanatos about the cybot they'd seen on their way to the castle, as they made their way inside to the great hall. There they met Elisa and Matt Bluestone, who were looking as grim as they felt.

"Glad you're helping out, Derek," Elisa said as she gave her brother a hug. "How's Maggie?"

"She's fine, but staying behind for obvious reasons. So all the new folks here are from New Orleans, right?" he asked as he looked over her shoulder at the small assembly of gargoyle statues in the middle of the great hall.

Elisa said they were and began to name them for him, but sunset came and the gargoyles awoke with roars and stone shells bursting apart before she had gotten to more than three of them. Once they'd awoken, Brooklyn and a New Orleans gargoyle named Adam took over the introductions.

After introductions were over, Talon said to Brooklyn, "With Goliath gone, you're in charge of the clan again, right? So what's the game plan for tonight? Xanatos gave me the broad strokes earlier, but he didn't have all the details. And when do we start?"

"We don't start for another hour yet," Brooklyn replied while pulling off the bandages that had been on his right arm, to reveal unmarred brick-red skin underneath. "And I'd planned on four teams of searchers, but with you and Claw coming too, we can make that five teams. Come look at this map of the city we drew up last night," as he gestured towards a table at one side of the hall.

Talon blinked in surprise. "Waiting an hour? I told Maggie you'd be going off to search again as soon as you shook the gravel off."

"And believe me, we want to!" Brooklyn retorted. "But we need to wait until full dark, and until most of the rush hour traffic has cleared off the streets. We're hitting each place hard and fast, but Dracon's men are apt to hit back just as hard, and we need to keep down the number of innocent bystanders who're apt to get in harm's way."

Talon joined Brooklyn, Adam, Elisa, Matt and Xanatos at the table where a giant map of Manhattan was laid out, but before Brooklyn had pointed out more than two of their targets, the phone nearby rang. Talon hurriedly explained to Brooklyn and Xanatos about the Labyrinth people out on the streets, gathering information, and his heart sped up at the thought of one of them having overheard some vital clue to the victims' whereabouts already.

But when Xanatos answered the phone, after listening for a few seconds, he handed the phone over to Talon with a twisted smile. "Maggie says no clues yet, but she needs to talk to you..."

His ears laid back in embarrassment, Talon took the phone. "What is it, Maggie?"

"I'm glad you haven't left the castle yet, because you've got three more searchers coming out to help," Maggie said in a rueful tone. "Malibu, Burbank and Hollywood are on their way now."

"What? Oh, great… Didn't you tell them I wanted them to protect you and the baby from being kidnapped too?"

"I did! I even told them that since the kidnappers were taking mothers and children, even Delilah and the egg inside her could be a target in need of protecting! But Malibu went charging off into the northern tunnels… and he came back with a shotgun and a box of shells! Derek, where did he get a shotgun?!"

"Damifino, honey; did you take it away from him?!"

"He gave it to Delilah before I could grab it, and then Delilah checked it and loaded it--and she did it so fast, like a seasoned professional; I keep forgetting what Thailog trained them to do before he died…" Maggie sighed heavily. "And now she's standing guard outside our rooms, ready to blow holes in any stranger that comes down here, and the boys are on their way to the castle."

And after Talon had ruefully relayed all that to Brooklyn, the gargoyle half-smiled and said, "Yep, they're gargoyles all right. Should've figured they'd come out to help; even if they don't live in the Labyrinth anymore, Anne and Bethany are clan to them."

"But they're just kids inside!"

"Kids inside adult bodies," Brooklyn reminded him. "Who know the basics of fighting, thanks to Thailog, and they sure know how to follow orders. With them along, we could make even more effective teams. Before, I'd figured that you and Claw would have to stay together so you could interpret for him if need be, because none of us know sign language yet. But Hudson said once that the clones were learning to sign a lot faster than they were learning to read; are they fluent in sign language now?"

"Reasonably fluent," Talon admitted. "They actually picked it up faster than most adults do."

"Good. So we can put you and Claw on separate teams, so long as the other team has a clone on it; that'll be two teams with electrical powers that could come in handy." After mulling it over for a moment, Brooklyn announced, "With them along, we can make six teams of three each, with one team having four. Six teams to hit our targets, search for our missing people and, if they're not there, get out before the gangs can recover. And taking one gang member on the way out of each place, to interrogate for information about the kidnapping."

"Interrogate how, exactly?" Talon asked.

"First, we just growl at them and say we're hungry, but we won't eat their faces off if they tell us about the kidnapping. You just would not believe how many of the Quarrymen we fought last night thought we were going to kill and eat them! It's sick, I know, but tonight I say we make their fear work for us." Brooklyn continued, "And if they're long-time Dracon gang members who've already figured out that we don't eat people, then we play 'catch' with them for a little while. Isabel came up with the idea last night; we take them up high and drop them a ways, then whoever catches them at the bottom takes them up again for more, until the criminals are sick as dogs and begging us to stop. Then we tell them we don't stop until they tell us everything they know about the kidnapping."

Talon's felinoid mouth twisted wryly. "Yep, that'll make most people spill their guts. Just about literally."

Brooklyn gave a grim smile in return. "And if they tell us something useful, we call in the other teams to investigate the new lead. If not, we move on to the next known gang hangout. We're going to coordinate our raids to happen simultaneously whenever possible; the idea that we're organized and therefore intelligent seems to scare people even more. I'm figuring roughly an hour per raid; five minutes to rip through each place, half an hour to interrogate afterwards, then twenty to twenty-five minutes to glide to the next hangout and get in place for the next raid. If the questioning takes longer that anticipated for the first round, then we'll increase it to an hour and a half per raid."

"And how many Dracon gang hangouts and hidey-holes have you identified?" Talon asked.

"Twenty-seven," Elisa answered for Brooklyn. "I brought them every address I could pull up, from the files of not just the 23rd Precinct, but every precinct in Manhattan."

Brooklyn nodded. "With six teams instead of four, we can cover a lot more ground. But it's still going to be a long night…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

10.5.1: They Also Serve

While the humans and the other gargoyles discussed their battle plans, Martha quietly slipped out of the great hall, after giving Broadway an affectionate rubbing of knuckles on his brow ridges and scalp. "I'll be in the security room," Martha told her mate.

Her mate… even after being mated for five nights now, Martha could still hardly believe it. She'd been so sure that beautiful, graceful Angela had a firm grip on Broadway's heart, until that kiss in the middle of her kitchen…

In the middle of the kitchen for the New Orleans Clan, that is. She still had a hard time believing that, too; that she was a member of a new clan, now. A new clan, in a new protectorate; one that she'd only seen on TV or read about in books.

Ever since she'd realized that she would be leaving her nice comfortable home behind, to go live in a faraway castle that was essentially in the middle of a battlefield, Martha had been outwardly smiling but inwardly running in circles and screaming in panic. And in truth, she'd been very relieved when Broadway had decided that it would be better all around if he stayed in New Orleans for a few more months instead of going back to Manhattan with his rookery brothers. She sort-of suspected that Broadway had sensed her quiet freakout, and had made his decision partly to make things easier for her, but had been too embarrassed to actually ask him about it.

But then, not even a full night and day after Broadway had told Goliath and Adam about their staying in New Orleans, they'd learned about the kidnapping. And as soon as Brooklyn had told everyone, Martha had taken one look at Broadway's face and known that he was going back to New York ASAP, even if he had to glide all the way there under his own power, lame wing and all. Children of his clan were in danger; of course he was going back!

And Martha had vowed in that instant that she'd be going with him. They were mates now, for better or for worse; in sickness and in health, et cetera et cetera, until death parted them. It was time for her to be brave and put on a cheerfully determined front, even if what she'd really wanted to do at that moment was take Broadway and hide with him in the kitchen larder until the whole thing was over.

So she'd left everything--her entire life up to that moment--behind in New Orleans as she boarded first the truck, then the plane to New York. And Broadway… once they'd arrived, Broadway became… more alert, vibrant, more alive than he'd been in New Orleans. It was as if Manhattan wasn't just his home, but his purpose in life. Up until they'd arrived at the castle, part of Martha had secretly entertained the hope that after the kidnapping crisis was over, Broadway would turn around and go back to New Orleans with her. But after seeing the change in him, she knew he'd never go back to New Orleans to live… and so, neither would she.

And that meant that this castle, with its bizarre combination of medieval furnishings and high-tech equipment, was her home now. Her home for the rest of her life, so she'd better get used to it. At least the kitchen was equipped with modern appliances instead of medieval ones, even if the pantries and larder weren't organized to her liking. She wondered whether Broadway or a human cook had organized the kitchen, and if they'd be amenable to her making suggestions on rearranging things for more efficiency.

The security room was, to her way of thinking, an example of how too much money can warp a human's brain into paranoid delusions. Imagine creating a room for spying on people in your own home! That just screamed a complete lack of trust in anybody, possibly even David Xanatos' own family. But she had to admit that the spying capability was coming in handy right now… and it would be even more useful if the FBI people that she was monitoring came up with a solid lead the gargoyles could follow, instead of just eliminating potential suspects.

And, being a writer, she was taking mental notes of everything she saw and heard the FBI agents do, from the law enforcement jargon they used when talking amongst themselves to the controls on their equipment. Martha had no intention of moving her 'Gumshoe Gumbo' characters Herbert and Irmina from New Orleans to New York, but perhaps in her next novel they might get entangled with the Louisiana offices of the FBI…

Still thinking about Herbert and Irmina, Martha reached the security room… and paused when she saw someone was in there already. A tall man with rugged features and a trace of silver in his crew-cut brown hair, who stood up when he saw her. But his expression was more curious than alarmed, so after that moment's hesitation she walked on in with a careful smile (keeping her fangs covered) and introduced herself. "I'm Martha. What's your name, if I may ask?"

"Jonathan Jameson. But you can call me 'JJ', if you prefer; my friends call me that," as the man held his hand out with a smile.

Martha shook his hand gladly, as her smile became genuine. "JJ, then. And I certainly hope we become friends. I'm assuming you work here?"

"Yes, ma'am; I'm part of the day shift security for the castle, and this is my post. I'm due to clock off in a few minutes… and I'm assuming you're about to clock on?" as he looked at her shrewdly.

"Er... yes, after a fashion. Are you aware of what happened here yesterday?" she asked.

"More or less, yes. No one saw fit to brief me, but when there's no sign of Mr. Xanatos' wife, son or personal aide anywhere in the castle, or any sign of the nanny and her daughter, and FBI agents have been going in and out of the castle all day… not to mention finding over a dozen gargoyles in the great hall, and over half of them strangers, when I did the routine camera check this morning… It wasn't hard to figure out that they've been kidnapped," JJ said, his face grim.

"Yes. Their kidnapper asked for a hundred million dollars, and a…" Martha hesitated again.

"And a gargoyle's head on a silver platter?" JJ asked. But it wasn't really a question, and his hand flicked a switch to bring a monitor to life, showing the castle battlements… and the stone head that resembled Hudson in plain view.

"Yes," Martha admitted. "That one's a fake, but we're hoping it will fool the kidnapper into thinking Mr. Xanatos is complying with his demands, while we keep searching for his victims."

"And by that 'we', you're referring to your fellow gargoyles, not the FBI. And Brooklyn or your clan leader assigned you to keep an eye on the FBI, didn't he?"

Martha was startled. "H-how did you… Oh. You watched the security tapes from last night, didn't you?"

JJ nodded. "After noticing a few little things. Such as the notepad you used for taking notes on the FBI's activities last night. Your pages of notes were removed, but did anyone ever show you the trick of rubbing a pencil tip over impressions to make the previous page's writing readable?"

Martha chuckled. "I've actually used that trick a time or two, in the stories I write. It's not that we think the FBI aren't to be trusted; it's just that as legal authorities, they have to get search warrants and find probable cause and such… and that may all be necessary for getting convictions in court, but we only care about getting the people back alive."

"So you're listening in and waiting for them to find a solid lead, that you gargoyles can act on before they can," JJ said with a nod. "Good. So you'll be wanting these," as he handed over a notepad. The same notepad she'd been using the night before, but when she'd left the security room to go help Broadway fix a meal for everyone, she'd taken the pages covered with writing with her. The pad now had several more pages covered in writing; writing almost like a logbook, with the time of day recorded next to each entry.

"You… took notes on them for us during the day?" Martha asked as she read the pages. She'd been thinking she would have to spend a lot of time rewinding the tapes and writing down what she saw and heard, in between stretches of writing down what the agents were doing in real-time. JJ had saved her hours of work!

"Yep. Gave me something to do, besides worry," JJ said with a shrug, acting like it was nothing. But it was much more than nothing, and Martha was indeed grateful and told him so. But JJ again shrugged, deflecting the compliments, while digging into a drawer and pulling out a headset. "Here, you might find this useful. Plug this receiver into here, flip this switch there, and you'll hear everything in the FBI room on the headset. And the headset has a fifty-foot range, even through walls; with this on, you can roam the castle without missing anything. The headset batteries are fully charged, and it'll last about eight hours between charges."

"Thank you again, JJ; this is really helpful!" Martha said earnestly.

JJ shook his head. "Just doing what I can, Martha." He looked over and nodded towards a chair by the wall. "The nanny, Anne Marsden, comes down here and sits in that chair sometimes, keeping company with me while the kids are napping. And when she was doing holiday baking, she brought me plates of cookies and such. For the last baking, just yesterday morning, she let her daughter carry the tray in while she carried the hot cocoa. Bethany was so careful, you'd have thought it was the crown jewels she was carrying, and we had cookies and cocoa while Bethany told me all about Santa Claus…" And JJ choked to a stop, rubbing at his eyes.

Martha laid her taloned hand gently on his arm. "We'll find them, JJ. I swear, one way or another, we'll find them and get them back…"

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

All the other gargoyles in the castle were out on the battlements when the three cloned gargoyles arrived. Brooklyn greeted them formally. "Clear skies to you tonight, Malibu, Burbank and Hollywood. Have you come to join in the search for the kidnap victims?"

"Yes, and you can't make us go back down!" Malibu said, glaring at both Brooklyn and Talon. "Delilah guards Maggie, keeps her and the babies in their tummies safe. But Anne and Bethany are important! They, they're…"

"They're clan," Brooklyn filled in for him. "And you'd fight to the death for them; believe me, I understand. They're clan for us, too… and so is everyone else who was kidnapped. We can search the city more effectively if we work together; that's why Talon and Claw are here. And working together in this operation means accepting one gargoyle as leader, and following his orders. As the second-in-command of the Manhattan Clan, I lead the clan in Goliath's absence." Brooklyn finished with a formal, "So I ask you three: will you accept me as leader tonight?"

After exchanging quick glances between themselves, all three nodded their heads as Burbank said, "Tonight, you are leader."

Brooklyn nodded his acceptance, then quickly introduced them to the New Orleans gargoyles and vice versa. Once everyone had been introduced, Brooklyn said, "We'll be breaking up into three-person and four-person teams for tonight's operation. Burbank, you'll go with Claw, Martin and Cecelia; in addition to fighting, you'll act as Claw's interpreter if he has something to say. Hollywood, you'll come with me and Isabel. Malibu, you're with Broadway and Etienne. Talon will be with Lucretia and Cassius. Adam will lead Lucy and Erasmus. And Lexington, Rebecca and Robert will make the final team. Team leaders, check your maps and your equipment one more time; we head out in five!"

To be continued in: Shakedown