.
Brood of a New Age
39.
Karl Wood believed in karma. That's why he knew, for years now, that he must have really screwed up in a previous life. Because he always got the short end of the stick in this life. So - what you can't change, embrace. That's why he had decided early on to continue exactly as he had probably left off in another era, in another life.
The lock on the car finally gave out after his friendly poking with the lock picks, and to Karl's relief, no alarm went off. These arrogant juppies afforded such expensive cars and then thought they were safe in their better neighborhoods. But even if the streets were a bit cleaner here and the police patrolled more often - it was still only a stone's throw from the bigwigs' dream world to the harsh reality of Manhattan. He even thought that somehow he was doing a favor to every snob whose car he broke into, whose stereo he stole or whose fancy hubcaps he appropriated. A lesson not to have so much brainless trust in God. Not so much ignorant arrogance.
Karl got behind the wheel and within thirty seconds had the fancy car radio in his possession. The bag with the previous two beside him he was sure tonight was one of his better nights. Until he flinched because someone slapped the roof of the car body roughly with the flat of his hand.
"License and registration, buddy," he heard a harsh voice and knew his karma was about to strike again. But he could still try to wriggle out of it. Even some cops were remarkably gullible.
"Ah officer," he purred, putting on his dumbest nice-boy face as he turned his head.
But he immediately lost that when he saw the gray scarred gargoyle leaning in the open door, arms propped on the bodywork. The monster with the beak, the red hair and the x-shaped scar above one eye glared at him with a cold stare.
"Holy Fucking Shit!" screeched Karl and tried to crawl over the gearshift to the passenger seat. But he was grabbed by the waistband of his pants by a rough hand and yanked out of the car.
"Leave me alone! You fucking freak!"
He kicked at the monster and it grabbed his leg- twisting it in a quick jerk. The pain that raced down his leg, flooding his body and brain was indescribable. The crack of the broken bone was something he would never forget. He had believed that Gargoyles made an effort not to hurt criminals unnecessarily. He had believed that even if he encountered one, he would get away with a few bruises or a concussion like many others whose stories he had heard over the years when his "colleagues" had talked about Gargoyle encounters. But there it was again - bad karma. There was nothing more to say. He opened his mouth to scream, but then he saw the gray gargoyle raise his fist and slam it down on him, and his world went black.
"DANTE!" yelled a guttural voice that Dante had heard nagging him constantly all evening.
"Boah ey, what now?," he groaned in annoyance as he turned to Lexington who came skidding across the asphalt on all fours, standing up only directly in front of him and insolently poking him in the chest.
"What about "Don't hurt people unnecessarily", don't you get?"
"The son of a bitch kicked me!"
"So what? As if that seriously hurt you."
"Just the nerve of trying to do that-!"
"They're humans! They kick. They're punching. They stab. They'll try anything to get out of a confrontation with us."
Dante squeezed the now again twitching human into the little gargoyle's arms and backed away, his hand over his nose."It's okay just ... don't pester me like that. You'll bring tears to my eyes."
"Whose fault was it with the dumpster!" voiced Lex as he passed the carjacker to Katana, who had also moved out of the alley where they had landed.
"I didn't push you in."
"If you hadn't hit that last guy way too hard earlier, and if he hadn't fallen against me, I wouldn't have crashed into the dumpster."
"Maybe that was karma," Karl groaned, his face contorted in pain and half-conscious in Katana's grip, and both brawlers snarled at him, their eyes lighting up. His heart stopped for a moment, then he passed out again.
"Stop that now," Katana said a bit wearily, and pushed her way between the two younger conspecifics with the human punching bag. The older gargoyle woman put the collapsed human behind the wheel of the car he had just broken into, tying his hands to the steering wheel with wire so the police would find him there after an anonymous tip.
"A punch delivered in anger is never a good punch. All the more important -," she then said, addressing Dante in a calm mediating voice, "- is to stop them not only quickly but also with little violence. Because they can't think when they're in panic mode."
"So I should also reward them when they attack me?"
"It is dishonorable to stop weaker opponents with rougher means than absolutely necessary. Especially when you're not really in danger."
"I'm more the stick guy. Not the carrot type, Signora Katana."
"But... do you understand our point? Can you try to hold back in the future? Try... to maybe curb your strength to twenty percent of what you would normally use."
The gray scarred gargoyle looked at the sovereign gargoyle woman. Her expression was mild where Lexington's was massively pissed. Her look alone prevented him from giving another flippant reply.
"Yeah - I'll try."
"Good."
Dante, frustrated but ready to draw a line here, kicked the car door shut, which resulted in a shrill scraping sound. And immediately after, the car alarm went off. All the gargoyles flinched as the alarm siren went off and the headlights flashed rhythmically. They all saw the dent with the three claw marks in the paint.
Lexington threw his hands in the air that his flying skins tightened.
"Great. Way to go! Mister Stick."
"You wish," growled Dante.
"Brendaaaan," screeched a voice from a window in the building above them that had no significance at all to Dante but made the non-existent hairs on the back of Lexington's neck stand up.
"Oh, how perfect," the little web-wing screeched. "You stamped your footprint in Margot Yale's car! Well done."
"Who's that supposed to be?"
"Brendan! Is that our car's alarm?" the woman's voice nagged, and a man answered sleepily and almost whiningly. "What Margot!? I don't buy a new car by the sound of the alarm. Just call the police!"
"The Assistant District Attorney-" Lexington hissed as he and Katana retreated into the shadows. "-Who hates us because we keep damaging her or her husband's car. The one who almost let Goliath rot behind bars."
"Who in this town doesn't actually hate you?! What did the human say? Karma is a bitch, isn't it?"
He ducked his head under Katana's dead pan look.
"If she sees THAT, she'll add another notch to her hatchet against us." Lex scowled at the footprint in the vehicle's body.
"Well, if that's all it is."
Dante grabbed the car door-and yanked it off with a shrill noise. Katana and Lexington looked at him in horror as he proudly stomped away with his trophy under his arm.
"Are we going on or what?"
.
.
At about three in the morning, all the patrol teams arrived at the castle almost simultaneously. Katana's team had been the first and Dante and Lex were both sitting sulking at opposite perches of the second tower level when the Katana's mate landed with his team, in which Grace had been. Following Elisa's assessment had been good. She had called the castle shortly after sunset to feed them some info from her conversation with Luca De Santis including who to throw in with whom on the missions. He had intended to put Dante together with Katana anyway because the gray miscreant responded best and most obediently to her. But he would have sent Coldfire with them and then had discarded that decision. He knew that his partner, if she wanted and needed to, was defensible and resolute enough to put the Italian gargoyle in his place and would have sent his mechanical "aunt" along only as a back up. But both Grace and Dante did not react well to the "artificial" creatures. He didn't want to trigger especially Dante by sending him out on the streets with Coldstone or Coldfire. And after Grace had shown this ... worrisome potential of strength, blind obedience and literal instinct-driven callousness towards a gargoyle, he couldn't put her with Angela and even less with Broadway to avoid any other confrontations. So there was not much choice left at all. But his team had done a good job and he was curious how Katana's team had fared - even if the distance Dante had from Lexington and even Katana gave him a dim idea. Unlike her brother, Grace was in good spirits. It had paid off that Luca and Goliath had persuaded her to leave the chapel.
"Thank you, Hudson. And Brooklyn. That was a wonderful patrol. I learned so much."
"Ai, glad you enjoyed it," Hudson said, stroking her brow bridge very briefly with his knuckles. Which, first of all, was really rare for the grumpy gargoyle elder from another millennium, where hatchlings hadn't yet been showered with expressions of affection, and that showed in a nonverbal way that the old man was issuing an unequivocally positive prognosis for the red sister to be accepted into the clan. The side effect was that Grace smiled blissfully, her muscle tone, still tense from the flight, melted away and if someone had put their ear to her chest they would have been able to hear her heart jump at the touch and then the beating rate slow down as the deep sensation of happiness and safety washed over her. The usual effect of this primal expression of fondness and affirmation among gargoyles. "You've shown good team spirit," the elder praised more obviously perhaps because he suspected that Grace, having grown up as a human, couldn't classify the effect of the physical contact.
"And control. That does give hope," Brooklyn said even though his remark caused Grace to knead her hands guiltily again.
Katana gave her an encouraging nod and where Grace went to her brother, Katana and Lex came to Brooklyn just as Broadway landed with Bronx and Coldfire and Coldsteel with Angela and Goliath.
"Well, how did it go?" the turquoise gargoyle asked his rookery brother, and if Lexington had had hair he would have blown a thick curl out of his forehead in frustration.
"Do you want a number between one and ten with ten representing a perfect smooth patrol night? The first mission was a four and it got worse from there with a Margot Yale cherry on top."
Hudson sniffed the air and then leaned toward Lexington with his arms crossed. "What's tis - have you been playing in a dung heap again, Laddie? I thought you were over that since 975."
"Don't rub it in my face, too, Hudson!" bickered Lexington.
"And why-"Angela began, holding her hand in front of her nose. Bronx sniffed at one of his favorite gargoyles and then turned growling away from Lexington, who looked after the trotting beast with droopy ears before turning to Angela.
"Why I stink like a garbage bag? That's for Katana to answer. I need to shower now and get on the computer."
He raised an admonishing index finger and gave Brooklyn a challenging defiant look. "Next patrol, someone else will take him. That by and by, the whole clan will experience the same pleasure I did."
Lexington stomped past the two Italians, who were obviously also talking about Dante's "successes."
" Sorry," Grace called after him, and Lex waved off before disappearing into the doorway.
"So good, huh?" muttered Brooklyn, giving his partner an I-told-you-so look which she countered with a don't-doubt-me-in-public-if-you-love-your-perch-next-to-me look.
"It really wasn't THAT bad," Katana tried to placate but didn't sound particularly happy herself.
"How many people are dead?" asked Coldstone (not QUITE as sad as a gargoyle should sound at this).
"Nobody. Just ... a few, are more hurt than they should have. But I really see a will to reform in Dante. "
"Fantastic," Broadway growled.
Everyone looked to the two Italians, who whispered to each other while Dante lit his next butt.
"Who's taking our problem kid tomorrow?" asked Broadway, and Brooklyn gave him a brotherly pat on the shoulder before heading into the castle.
"Always the one to ask, bro. Always the one to ask."
Broadway made a face at the comment but Angela smiled which made her mate smile too. Not because of the prospect of having to babysit Dante but because Brooklyn's tone, gestures and charming boyish beaky smile had just been one hundred percent THEIR Brooklyn. Sometimes people forgot that the now aged red gargoyle was still their Brooklyn. In these moments, however, it was so obvious that all insecurities and the feeling of foreignness around the Second in Command fizzled out.
.
.
After dinner, which Luca and Nashville had also joined, Grace found the door to the library open. Angela was sitting cross-legged in an armchair with her back to her, completely absorbed in a thick book.
Grace stood indecisively in the doorway for several, what felt like very long minutes, weighing the pros and cons, and kneading her rosary, which she always carried with her. Then she kissed the cross and had gathered enough courage. She overcame the distance between her and her kind and, because Angela had not noticed her even when she was standing only a meter away, then cleared her throat. Angela flinched, looked up at her with wide eyes, and Grace noticed her muscles tense in alarm. She was familiar with that. Sometimes- on Dante's more playful nights- her brother had taken satisfaction from these bodily reactions just before he'd eliminated someone. The dilated pupils, the suddenly tense muscles, the faster beating heart. All in all, the awareness, or at least the dark foreboding, of horror creeping around you and not knowing exactly when or IF it would even strike. This terror of uncertainty seemed worse than the almost mercifully quick death blow. For the second time, she smelled fear in another gargoyle. The similarity to human fear was striking and as much as it pained Grace to see Angela like this and know that she was triggering these reactions, there was this primal instinct within her that said an opponent so paralyzed with fear was easy prey. Grace clutched the rosary hidden in her palm tighter and the Trinity gave her strength.
"Angela? I wanted to apologize. For - for yesterday."
Only ostensibly did her counterpart relax. Her smile was so lovely - and so fake.
"You already did, Grace."
"No, I meant personally to you. I don't want you to feel uncomfortable around me."
Angela flipped her book shut with a sort of truncating sound and managed to stand up. She had her arms around the book, perhaps unconsciously hugging it protectively to her chest, and someone with lesser perceptive skills might have thought she was backing away because she was anxious to return the book to its place on one of the hundreds of shelves. But Grace chalked it up to an attempt at unsuspicious retreat. Or rather escape.
Her lies weren't even remotely good:
"I'm not uncomfortable. It's all good. They were clean fractures and I'm not hurting anymore."
"That's good. But I know it's going to take you and me a while to patch up what I messed up yesterday-" She reached out to the purple female.
At that moment, a massive turquoise figure came from above and landed between Angela and Grace with a loud whump. The unemployed assassin did what had been drilled into her since childhood, moved into an alert stance and reached to her hip to draw her weapon. Which was not there. Broadway straightened up with two books under his arm and his smile was as false as Angela's though with a cold quality in it.
"Grace. Hi. Would you like to join our reading lesson?" he asked in a deceptively friendly manner. His mate stayed behind his back, grateful for his impressive stature of fat AND muscle. And though she tried not to let on and smiled, Grace saw that the smile was pleading. And that Angela wanted to get out of this situation.
Grace took a deep breath and her own smile on her cheeks hurt. So did the tears that burned in her eyes.
"No, thank you very much, Broadway. Have a good morning, still."
"Good morning to you, too." the male American gargoyle called after her.
Thanks for reading, Q.T.