.

Souls of the Night

109.

"Don't they say; A knight on the rim is dim? Why did you pull yours there?"

"To make you think about it, Xanatos."

He laughed at her saying that and at how she showed one of her rare smiles. Almost all Gargoyles called him, at least when he didn't hear it, Xanatos and not David but only with Goliath and Tachi did it sound fully accurate when they addressed him face to face like that. He felt like that was his stage name then and it was charming in a cool way.

Where Nashville appealed to his sense of rebellion, Tachi did so in a very similar way in terms of intelligence and quick wit - the latter though less often because she was quieter.

Neither Tachi nor Nashville were nearly like his Alexander, but Tachi was about Alexander's age, and even if she seemed only half his age, physically delicate and childlike, moreover a gargoyle and beaked - David Xanatos considered her his equal in a very strange, never-spoken-of way. Equal in spirit, in thought. Everyone in the clan, even the human familiars had grown close over the years, were like branches of the same tree, one big happy family and blahblahblah. But Tachi was special to David Xanatos. Because she was somehow ... challenging. Not just entertaining like the others - but more. Beneath the cursing, beneath the usual taciturnity. Her cool manner under which so much emotion seethed, her seemingly awkward social demeanor that yet only showed the impatience to adapt her own frantic musings to the sluggish, torpid thoughts of most others. Someone to think about, a riddle you couldn't figure out, no matter how long and from which side you looked at it. There was as much going on in her head as there was in his, and should this child decide at some point to use her clever mind for something other than her artistic hobby or for plans that either helped her family out of trouble or got individual members into that very trouble, Xanatos would be on hand. For now, he was content to keep this strange uncle-niece relationship going and keep other eyes and ears on the clan's activities - a man had to have a hobby.

Not that Tachi didn't know that. She was usually aware of everything, just as he was aware of most things. She had turned down several invitations from him before, perhaps because she was bored with chess by now and had trouble parting with her sewing machine. But tonight she had asked him to play some matches. And Xanatos suspected - just as he suspected that Tachi knew HE suspected - Tachi wanted something from him. The children always come only when they want something, he thought amusedly in the spiritual o-ton of his own father - God rest his soul (or whoever) .

But as it was among equals, Tachi knew what the currency was here.

Xanatos motioned one of his white pawns forward (Tachi always took black - pupertary tendency or peek into her innermost self?) and began to broach the subject of what they were both sitting here for.

"Pretty depressed mood here at night."

"Mhmm," Tachi made approvingly, slightly changing her position on the armchair in whose seat she had positioned herself but squatted in it with her clawed feet on the cushion. Those who housed gargoyles were like cat owners in many ways. Cats as well as gargoyles could be trusting, but basically they didn't need you. If you betrayed their trust, they could shit in your boots forever. The members of both species could spend days, weeks and months without even glancing at the humans, not because of bad intentions but because the humans were not important for their own lives if they didn't become intrusive. Fortunately, gargoyles did not share the peculiarity of many cats to steal into one's memory exactly when the human wanted to do something important - Xanatos thought of the countless videos on the Internet in which cats stoically besieged computer keyboards or threw themselves at someone's face without warning when you couldn't need it at all. Although there were exceptions. He expected Heather to do anything. But above all, one thing was true for cat owners and gargoyle hosts - they were not allowed to hang on their households, their thousand year old walls and battlements and especially not on their upholstery. Xanatos didn't and so he didn't pay any attention to the sounds of Tachi's claws on the leather. But the fact alone that she drew her claws over it - probably without realizing it - told him a lot. A nervous gesture - to a single question from him.

"That bad, huh," he muttered, watching her pull her other jumper forward to probably start an Alekhine defense. She was off her game, too. Very worrisome.

"No success with Alex, then. He hasn't responded to our messages, too."

"Oberon probably crashed his fucking cell phone after Alex called Lex. I'm very sure there will be no more contact until it's time for him to be sent back."

"London?"

"Nothing."

"China?"

Tachi kicked Xanato's pawn off the field in response. A few wordless moves under the heavy blanket of failed rescue attempts for the newest Gargoyle.

"Illuminati." The word floated in the air like the red balloon in Stephen King's "It."

"What I was able to discover, I was able to find out. Which was nothing. A dead end."

Tachi's eyes lifted from the board for the first time. That look could be frightening. Not because there was anger in it. But because David Xanatos felt like every fiber of his brain was being scanned. He was just being probed for lies, and he let it happen. Then he continued, just as loudly as the subject allowed.

"Even the Illuminati don't know about everything. And there's only so much an Illuminatus regens can learn without the higher ranks becoming aware of my inquiries. And I'm not eager to explain to them the origins of the Gargoyle Nathaniel. They are hungry enough for my boy as it is. And if they see the Blue One as a danger that needs to be elliminated..."

"Could I learn more if I accepted their offer? Could I get into their archives?"

"To become the first female gargoyle in the club? You would undoubtedly rise to illuminatus minor in no time. But-"

"- once in - never out. Society above all else. What a shit-show."

"Not exactly compatible with the Gargoyles' self-image." During the next few moves, both were silent again, but not because they were focused on the game.

"You'd have to give up more secrets than you'd get from them in return, Tachi," Xanatos warned, and his counterpart nodded wordlessly.

"There is more to Nathaniel's condition than humans could know about or offer solutions to, you know that, Tachi. Fey magic is in a league of its own otherwise the club wouldn't be so fond of everything that has to do with it. And Puck can't be asked for help without Alexander."

"If Lex ever gets up the nerve to lift his damn head and realizes that Puck knows, he'll kill Burnett."

"As infatuated as Lex is with Nathaniel, he really can't think straight when it comes to the crunch. Although I'm not sure Owen can be killed. Owen is a human. But Puck will just make a new Owen and a day later he will be back in my office with an ice king face. His agreement with me stands until my natural death."

"For their mates, gargoyles would murder a thousand times over. Won't be a good time for Burnett."

Xanatos smirked. He didn't have to ask if that was a threat. He could save himself those games with Tachi, and that was so refreshing. She was simply making a prophecy. Neither of them had been particularly on their game but after a few minutes it came down to a drawn.

With a soundless snort, Tachi pulled her claws out of the chair, sat cross-legged in it, and leaned back.

"I want the steel clan robots," she said, as if the draw alone earned her a prize or like a dauthter which was asking her Dad for the Car to drive to a party. Wait. Had she intentionally made it a draw? Because it was worse to let him win on purpose than lose?

"You don't need the robots. I can just set you up on a blind date. What do you have in mind? Human or gargoyle? Girl or boy?" joked Xanatos, receiving the best and most generous thing to be expected from someone like Tachi. A tired patient smirk. As if he were the child.

"We need avatars," she said, without elaborating on the matter, knowing that Xanatos, for his part, suspected what for. Nevertheless, he wanted more explanations, if only to make the matter more tangible for him and perhaps to offer further help. What a philanthropist he had become over the years. Just as her silence often got him talking, his silence had the same effect on the child.

"Lexington is not going to leave here. Not if he can't take Nate with him and with the time period diminishing. I'm not even sure if he can accept that option for help in his current state and run a damn robot himself. It ... is not yet so far to call him unstable - but it is moving in that direction. We need robots decoupled from the main system and secure transport routes for this pieces of shit across the globe."

"Decoupled? That I and no one else can get the whereabouts of unknown clans, witch or mage associations? After all these years, so little trust in me?

This time, Tachi gave him a broader smile as she interlaced her fingers and looked at him with a look she had learned from HIM. Little thief he thought with completely misplaced fatherly pride.

"I have no interest in seeing my chief technology officer and partner in one of my best companies crumble any further - figuratively speaking. Aside from the fact that Nathaniel himself is an interesting character with perhaps great potential. Take what you see fit, reprogram what you want. I assume you're capable of it."

His eyes met hers and both smiled inscrutably, yet knowing exactly what Tachi was capable of. That the red one could part with her sewing machine for this for hours, perhaps days, was a testament to all the affection she could muster for another living being. Xanatos doubted that Mister Sharif knew how much he was already part of the Manhattan Clan. There was no real official introduction for that, no test to pass (which Nathaniel would have undoubtedly failed). Gargoyles went by their hearts, by their instincts. They were rarely wrong.

"Take all models," Xanatos recommended generously, waving them off. "They'll just gather up dust in the storeroom anyway, and I hate to waste resources."

"At least that's one of the less dangerous options we have left," Tachi admitted, leaning forward to place the figures back on their squares. Now she already seemed more relaxed.

"Less dangerous options. Was I once young enough to prefer those to safer options?" mused Xanatos, gazing contemplatively at the tiny silver pipes at the top of the ceiling. He might be getting old - but the danger that was currently in the air here was thrill enough.

"Life and chess require three things," Tachi pontificated, again blind and deaf to social banter. She raised one clawed finger while her other hand aligned the figures in almost manic acurate manner. "Knowledge of possibilities," second finger: "Intuition of probabilities," third finger: "Resignation to certainties - and we're only at number two."

"Schleich? Really, Tachi?" said Xanatos with feigned disappointment, and the Red pushed the board toward him as if she were throwing a dog a bone.

"I'll grant you one more game. Then I have to go and save Clan."

Do I have to say again that Tachi is one of my favorite children?

Thanks for reading, Q.T.