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Brood of a New Age

53.

"So ... a tortured Camorra prince," Demona murmured, stroking Dante's chest with her claws as she lay in his arms, as naked as he was. Dante's braid had come undone over the last two hours, and his and Demona's flowing hair turned part of the bed into a sea of damp red silk. Wet because after the second fuck on the bed, Dante had asked if he could take a shower and then Demona had joined him. They had probably smashed some tiles in the bathroom when he had taken her while standing up. Their fourth dance had been back in bed, where they now had to replace at least the mattress and all the bedding, so wildly they had romped. Damn, this woman totally lived up to her name.

He had often enjoyed the company of the women, which his father had sent him in the last ten years, even if they had been highly paid prostitutes. Nevertheless, especially during the first meetings with a new girl, it had always taken two or three songs and rather mendacious assurances of his general gentleness for him to get his money's worth. He had always treated them with respect and caution, because that's what you do with women, and he had usually been satisfied afterwards. And now he realized how much he had to hold back with them in order not to hurt them. With Demona he had been able to let loose for the first time. More than that- his legs felt like those of a newborn fawn, his back was scratched (what she had done with her hands between his wings was an absolute game changer!) and in general he felt like a wrung out towel.

It was a mental picture that made him laugh.

Demona lifted her head from his chest.

"What's so funny, young Dante?"

"Nothing, Signora Demona. I'm just ... satisfied in more ways than one for the first time in a long time."

She laughed as darkly and ominously erotic as he had before.

"Oh, I'm glad it was to your liking."

"Not to yours?" he asked cautiously, and Demona's smirk was very patronizing.

"You did very well. For a beginner. We'll improve on the next few times."

Dante expelled the air with a grin. Beginner! That hurt, despite the praise because he had thought he was a good lover after all. Or had his favorite whores in Italy always said that just out of fear? But the prospect that there would still be opportunities to " improve " was appealing after all - even if she had been rather rough and demanding. He felt that he had finally found his place - at least currently. Here with this dark cruel queen, he didn't have to pretend.

Except for his sister, he had told her pretty much everything he hadn't been able to tell Goliath's clan. Being honest felt so good. Was this his "inner peace" that Katana had told him about? For sure she wouldn't approve of him getting involved with an enemy of the clan, but just because he was fucking her and moving in at her place (which he was totally going to do!) didn't mean he was going to attack the clan that housed his sister and Luca tomorrow. As far as Dante knew, Demona was once again keeping her distance from the Manhattan clan after the events of the last month.

"Tell me about the Italian clan," he asked while caressing her curvy buttocks under the thin summer bedspread, which by now was more holes than fabric. She lowered her head back to his chest and began to play with a strand of his hair, lost in thought. Or was it one of her own? It was hard to tell.

"The Maltese clan. They didn't call themselves that. But I called them that in my mind later - centuries later."

"When did you meet them?"

"I think ... it was circa 1496. Or 97. I had ... business in Florence, almost got caught by one of those damn hunters, and I knew that foolish human would think I had fled north. So I traveled south. I stayed in Rome for a few months and just decided to roam around southern Italy. Immortality is cruel and very boring most of the time. Sometimes you just want to wander on paths that are still unknown to you. I had no idea that I would encounter a clan in the hinterland of Naples. Usually rumors reached my ears about inhuman creatures harassing peasant packs or about stolen crops or livestock. Supposed old wives' tales about beings that inhabit the night, which keeps children as well as most superstitious adults in their homes at night. But here I hadn't heard anything before."

"I wonder why."

"Because this clan-as I then learned-was able to avoid humans like no other. They didn't eat anything that humans would miss. They only petrified in places that humans had trouble reaching. They even stole human bones from cemeteries and scattered them widely around their sleeping places to support the legends of man-eating ghosts. But as it is with humans ... they cannot be kept at a distance forever if they reproduce like rats. And at some point ... even ghost stories become unbelievable. But in the fifteenth century, it still worked very well. I was with them for several years."

"What were they like?"

"They looked like you. They all had arrow-shaped tails and more massive brow horns than in other gargoyle clans - perhaps an Italian peculiarity. They were actually less diverse than I have seen in other clans over my thousand years. Still, they were one of the most special clans I have ever encountered."

"Why?"

"I think - what I found most intriguing was their group structure. Of course they were a clan. But they had established a definite matriarchy at the same time."

"So- did the women have the authority there?"

"Yes. Clan leaders were always female. There was no discussion at all about whether a male should lead the clan. Moreover- and I never found out if this was also a genetic trait of the Italian variation or happened by magic - the females were formidable in their strength and ferocity. If arrogant or unfamiliar humans dared to spend a night in their territory - even worse, if they defended themselves with weapons... these females had a belligerence like I had never experienced before. One command from their clan mistress and they were, what you would call today, on autopilot until the last enemy was dead. They shattered bones like twigs. Now you think all gargoyles can do that, but not like that. Not with that mechanical unquestioning violence. I loved watching that."

Dante took a deep breath and thought of Grace. How much it tormented her to have this dark side. Now he knew it was not of her own doing. It was her heritage, chiseled into her DNA. When he met her again in a few nights, he didn't know if that realization would comfort her, but at least it explained a lot. He reached to the side where his cigarettes and new Zippo lay on the nightstand and lit one. Demona said nothing about it.

"So you were weaker than them? " he asked, looking contemplatively out of the large bedroom window, behind which rain had been pelting down for several minutes now.

"Oh, yes, quite a bit. But what I lacked in strength I made up for in imaginative bloodthirstiness, in skill in battle. Besides, they appreciated my stories of faraway lands. Although I didn't tell them I was immortal. ... The males, on the other hand," Demona continued to murmur, her voice sounding hotter and very distant.

"They were, for the most part, absolutely charming. The males were also very good fighters. But ... they were more gentle. That's why your story about being trained as a killer surprised me a little, but above all it pleased me. The males of the clan at that time were pleasant contemporaries and always tried to be amiable companions to their mates and sisters, frugal in any demands, humble for their leadership. Does that sound familiar?"

"Frugal I never was," Dante grumbled, and Demona chortled with amusement.

"The males hunted for the clan where the females patrolled the territory. And they took care of the eggs and the brood."

"They were - nannies?"

Dante looked down at the blue female in his arms and she lifted her head and tugged at his goatee almost affectionately.

"Does this role reversal repulse you - Camorra prince?"

"No- but ... to see ME in this role I would find ridiculous."

"If you'd grown up with a clan - this clan ... you'd be watching over a pile of eggs right now and constantly have your ears to the shells while the previous brood tugs at your loincloth."

"Gesù, Maria e Giuseppe!"

"Hahahah - you'd love it. Like they all loved it. Even your rough character would get cracks. That's just how you Italians are," she made her statement, taking the rest of the cigarette from his beak and sucking the last of the smoke into her immortal lungs before stubbing out the butt on the already scratched ruined mattress, careful not to set off a fire.

Dante couldn't be sure if Demona was just talking about Italians and meant humans AND gargoyles or just this Italian variation. Maybe ... he was not so averse to the idea that his sister would lay an egg someday, if he could take care of it. Irritated, he shook his head. The idea was still too gruesome. He would have to get used to it first. And who would make his sister an egg, anyway? The web-wing was out of that game- Nashville would take another twenty years and he himself ... brrr too creepy, not thinking about it. Not yet.

However, one thing Demona had said stuck in his mind and as he continued to form the thought in his head, he groaned in fright. Demona felt his muscles tense.

"What's wrong?"

"You said you were with them for several years. For - for how long."

"Not long. Probably about thirty years. Why?"

"So you were there over a uhh breeding season."

"Over two in fact," admitted the female, who had almost the same color hair as he did.

Demona, a thousand years experience reading others, laughed out loud. Then she rose, crawled on top of him and sat wide-legged on his stomach. He felt her tail playfully brush over his (still) sleeping cock as she moved it from left to right, he felt her heat and moisture emitting vulva on his abs, and when she leaned over and rested her hands on his shoulders, her breasts were right in front of his beak.

"You're worried now you've done it to your own great-great-great grandmother, young Dante?" She was visibly amused but he couldn't answer, just looked at her in horror.

"You didn't think about it before that. Nor between the four times I allowed you to cum inside me. What if you have planted an egg inside me now? The way you were raised, you're not one who would be too fond of inbreeding. Hahaha, Oh Dante. Didn't the others tell you that I turn into a human every day? What seed would take root in me? Or will you be disappointed not to have an egg to coddle soon?"

"I-I know the breeding season isn't for another ten years," he said more hotly.

"Ohhh, so knowledgeable about our cycles already."

"Yes. But ... did it happen then? Did you lay an egg in the maltese clan? Or two?"

Demona's smile adopted a different quality. She looked like the cat that ate the canary when she slid off it. She stood up, herself not one hundred percent steadfast however a sight for sore eyes in her visible post-coital wooziness. She sighed, stretched, and let the gray fellow hang in the proverbial air for a few more seconds before opening her mouth.

"The males of the Maltese clan were obliging lovers. Oh, and their custom of singing songs to the females they courted is only now coming back to me. Their voices were of a quality all their own - almost hypnotic. Also something I thought for a few years was the side effect of magic but I'm still not sure. I take it you are a good singer?"

"Some have already accused me of it," Dante returned in a voice raspy with nervousness. He knew what she was doing. She was making him squirm. She was toying with him. With each sentence, his tension grew, this mixture of curiosity and fear. Whereas he couldn't even tell if his fear was fueled by a potential yes or a potential no.

"I'd be lying if I said I didn't like one or two of them very much, and really I had a lot of fun with the males without mate even in the breeding years. Strict lady choice prevailed. The males asked for mating or permanent mate status and the females could refuse or agree. I never wanted a mate again after Goliath. But I was not and am not a nun as you may have noticed."

"So yes? You laid an egg there? Your blood flowed into that clan?" asked Dante with a grim face but full of uncertainty about his origins in his voice. But Demona wouldn't be Demona if she suddenly lost her vicious streak. Malicious, despite her teasing undertone as she walked into the bathroom. "Oh Dante. What does it matter?" she exclaimed. "I wasn't the only redhead in this clan at the time. And even if we are related through ten generations-you shouldn't get hung up on that."

Her soft cruel giggle died away as the shower was turned on so the millennial sorceress could cleanse herself of her activities once again. Dante sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed his hands over his temples to sort out his thoughts. She had not given him a clear answer. What should he think now, what should he believe now? And did he even want to know for sure? He couldn't tell if she had lied to him to tease him but would it do him any good to know an immortal human-hating sorceress as his great-great grandmother? Then he would never be able to sleep with her again. The mere fact that he had done it with her tonight (4 times!) would then haunt and disgust him forever. The thought was just too kinky. He was probably more Catholic than he had assumed.

But she was right. He couldn't get hung up on it. Not to think everything to pieces again. That would mess up this good thing for him.

"Do you actually eat living animals?" he asked to move on to another topic. Hardly better but better than inbreeding.

"Ewww," Demona exclaimed as the water splashed. "Since I became human, it repulses me, I'm afraid. I just find it disgusting now, probably because my stomach is human half the time. Another minus."

"But plus from my point of view," Dante muttered. "Gee, at least I'm glad I'm done with the rat-eaters."

"What did you say?" called Demona from the bathroom. The water was no longer running and she was probably drying herself off.

"I said I was glad to be out of the Clan Samaritans," he returned louder while bending down for his boxer shorts and putting them on.

"Tell me about it. They're such small-minded morons. No matter how many humans they save, it would take a miracle to change the general opinion of humans towards gargoyles. That's never going to happen."

"Exactly. They're hypocrites." He staggered over to a floor lamp over which his vest hung and pulled it on. "Goliath is a fool for letting you go, cara mia. Maza is not bad for a human but only a sad substitute. He should have just adapted to your pace. You won't have that problem with me."

"Glad to hear that."

"And that Brooklyn - he's creepy from tail to toe. Great timedancer - Captain Snake eye."

Demona laughed unseen by him. "Yeah, the first time I encountered him after his time travel, or rather saw him, my Glock almost fell out of my claws. What forty years will do to you. I've had a few experiences with him over time, but all in all - now with the distance of centuries and decades - he was just a useful tool that in the stream of time everything is flushed to where it needs to be."

Dante looked around the room, somewhat at a loss. Where were his pants?

"It's not my resort, Demona. Don't have to tell me about it."

"Wasn't going to. Space-time divergence is the resort of very few people."

At last he spied his jeans-on top of one of the ceiling fan's rotating blades.

"That's good. Really. A relief not to have to pretend to get along with Lexington or Broadway on patrols anymore. And don't even get me started about the tin cans." He jumped on the bed and reached for his pants. "And that Angela. Man, did she break out of a Disney princess movie? Nobody's that nice. She's hot. That, yes. But you can't get much less gargoyle than that. It's sad." Dante was about to mention how easily gargoyle bones broke too when the ceiling fan shattered under the blast of a laser shot and he fell off the bed along with fan fragments and his pants in his claws.

"Shit!" Dante shouted, and saw that the woman with whom he had just imagined a future (or at least a few good nights) was standing stark naked but with a gun in the doorway to the bathroom, looking at him with hatred.

"Demona! Tesoro mio?"

"Your tesoro mio can be written on your tombstone!" growled Demona, eyes glowing red and fangs bared. She lowered the gun until it was pointed at his head even from ten feet away.

"What are you doing?" he screeched, flinging one of the ripped pillows into Demona's face so hard it rained feathers and she lost sight of him as a target. By then he had grapped his Zippo, jumped out of the bedroom window and landed on the perfect nearly submerged lawn with shards of glass and broken wooden muntits and rails. Under thunder and lightning and without pants, he ran up to one of the nearest larger statues and took refuge behind it as this gargoyle also lost an arm- this time from the gun's invisible shot itself.

"What are you doing? I thought we understood each other!" he shouted over the pelting rain, hastily trying to pull his wet pants over his wet legs. After all, there was nothing worse than being shot with your pants down. And that was exactly what he had always found so funny when he had surprised his victims in such a situation.

"You thought wrong, little prince," he heard Demona bark and Dante dared to peek out from under the statue. Still naked as God (or the devil) created her, the blue gargoyle woman stood in her window, her red wild hair spiked with feathers like a fox that had broken into the goose house, showing a vicious snarl that must have been her smile next to her red glowing eyes . Before she shot big pieces out of the statue he was hiding behind and it rained debris on Dante. He ducked and screeched. "You're crazy!"

"And you fuck like a human!" she screamed.

"I'd rather fuck like a human than like a wild beast. No wonder Goliath didn't want you, you're pure boner poison!"

"Wimp!"

"Between fuck one and fuck four you weren't complaining!"

"It's called acting! All women can do it. Come out from behind the statue!" Again, a large piece was shot off above him.

"Certainly not - vai al diavolo!"

"Now your oaths of love won't help you," Demona purred in a frost-cold voice that was hard to understand because of the pouring rain. "Your brainless comments might have passed with the other hoodlums but here they cost you your head. Literally. All I have to do is pin you there and wait for you to petrify and then I'll make you pay."

"For what, damn it?!" he shouted, almost getting his beak shot off as he tried again to see and size up his opponent behind the massive stone.

How could his night have taken such a turn again? What had he done (or said) to deserve this? This Demona was twice as insane as he had ever suspected. How on earth did he get out of here? Without a weapon of his own? Without his knives?

Demona did not shoot, although she could have destroyed the statue completely. However, she waited - probably to torment him. Or because it was easier to get rid of gravel than of a body - who knew better than Dante how annoying it was to clean up after a corpse? It thundered. Rumbling like an animal before it leapt at you. And Dante didn't know why, but since he had nothing else to do except wait for the sunrise, after which he would be smashed to dust (in the best case), he counted the seconds until the flash. A flash of brilliant light after 5 seconds. The thunderstorm was almost directly above them. It was a crazy idea but the only one he had. He just had to distract her and make her a little more angry. But then, that was his second talent besides breaking things.

"Okay babe!" He shouted loudly. "You're nuts. I can live with that."

"You don't have to. I'll take the burden of life off your shoulders," she yelled back sinisterly. Dante rolled his eyes. And some thought HE was a drama queen. He moved behind the half-shot statue but only enough so she knew he was still in the "trap."

"We can work on that," he fluted, the lie in person. "You realize yourself that it's not healthy to lash out like that. And let's face it? What kind of psycho even hides a gun in her bathroom? What's wrong with you?"

"You're going to die," he heard her shout, probably intending it to be the last words he ever heard. He shuddered as the next great rumble of thunder vibrated in his stomach, heralding an equally powerful bolt of lightning. Now he had to move !

"Okay! I'll die, then. Now aim carefully- you'll hit me too!" No sooner was the last word out of his mouth than a massive flash of lightning lit up the sky.

Where he could close his eyes just in time, although he was already about to run, he heard Demona scream behind him. He ran in the fading flash, just barely opening his eyes before slamming into another statue, almost pirouetting past it, and heading for the saving wall. Silent he was not, despite his training, despite his practice. The waterlogged lawn made squelching noises and he felt the water behind him splash up additionally as a shot passed so close to him that he smelled his own burnt hair. Then as he climbed over the wall, just inches from his head some rock blasted off.

"You fucking asshole," screeched the enraged immortal. Demona, a naked, raging goddess of vengeance, however, eyes squinted half-blind because of the lightning that had blinded her, unable to aim and hit accurately. He jumped over the wall under her inhuman snarls that threatened to freeze even his blood, ran across the deserted street into a dark courtyard driveway across the street. Where he almost collapsed, but supported himself with one hand on the facade and looked back to the area, which he had just been able to leave unharmed - miracle after miracle. He was too far away anyway and the rain spread a wet, tightly woven curtain between them. Too thick for her to even see him with the spots in front of her eyes. And too uncomfortable for anyone to even chase him in this weather - for whatever reason.

"Damn, why are hot chicks always so fucking deranged?" he growled breathlessly, leaning against the wall, resting his head on the back of his neck and allowing himself to recover from the fright and betrayal. Whole torrents of water poured loudly from the open gates of heaven above him, and the warm water drenched him so much that he didn't even know exactly where he began and his surroundings ended. Actually a nice thought - to be able to merge with this world and his surroundings. Then he would no longer be a foreign body. All he wanted was a place where he could feel at home. More precisely, not a place, but people who gave him the feeling to be okay as he was. For whom he didn't have to compulsively turn around a hundred and eighty degrees. Although he had never liked the priest, for the first time Don Armano's words came back to his mind: Home is not a place. It is people. And Dante, for the second time tonight, felt infinitely alone and abandoned. He felt lost. Because there were simply no such persons who accepted him. He had liked Katana. Hudson, too. And even that gremlin Lexington at the latest since he had braided his nifty braid in a display of his sissy superpowers. Now his hair was just a red wet crow's nest. But he couldn't change the way they wanted him to. The way his sister wanted him to.

He remembered that he had cried a lot as a hatchling. Always alone and for himself so that his sister would not get worried, his father would not be disappointed and Giuliano would not be spurred on to do worse to him. He had probably already used up a large part of his lifelong tear contingent as a child (no, as a hatchling) and therefore hardly ever cried anymore. The last time was a few years ago when he had heard a wonderful band at a concert in Naples - high up in the truss from which the stage equipment was lowered and the lighting was housed, unnoticed by anyone and therefore free. And when, because of Giuliano's lies, he had believed Eva (Grace) was dead. And even now it was one of those rare moments when he felt like crying. But his tears were - because he allowed them so rarely - too precious to waste them now for this situation. His tears were for deepest happiness and deepest sorrow. Other situations he would only make bigger than they were with tears. He would not give this power to the feelings that threatened to suffocate him. Not tonight. He swallowed, bowed his head as his sister probably did in her prayers, and said his own prayer consisting of only three, repetitive words.

"Moonlight and flowers," Dante whispered. "Moonlight and flowers, moonlight and flowers..." He repeated the mantra until the words lost their meaning and the letters flowed into each other, taking his anger and sorrow with them. Then he had collected his thoughts enough, took a deep breath and dared to look back one last time. She had not followed him. The window he had destroyed was only a gaping but quickly repairable sharp-edged wound in the darkly lying mansion.

She really was insane, and it was probably a good thing he hadn't made her his boss and his partner. She had actually done him a favor in showing her true self so quickly even if he'd almost gotten his balls shot off in the process. And she had told him many interesting things that he had to think about. But more than these truths, a half-sentence she had spat out now came back to his mind.

What had Demona said? In her unfounded anger? Something about other hoodlums.

"Other ... mhmmm." Dante - having just narrowly escaped death, wet and once again homeless and short of allies - stole a smile onto his face. Suddenly the thunder was not an ominous omen or an annoying side effect of the storm. It was the drumbeat that paid respects to the new plan that had just unfolded in Dante's mind. He found the strength to climb up the building and gave a cheeky air kiss to the gloomy house of the immortal sorceress and bestial lover.

"Ciao, Bella Pazza."


And that was Dante's run-in (in more ways than one) with Demona! Ohhh, I could have made a dream team out of those two. Murderous, ruthless, unbridled in terms of sex and bloodshed. Dante a wonderful helper for the destruction of humanity with the right degree of manipulation by Demona. If only this fool could have kept his beak shut.

And why didn't he see here the family resemblance between Demona and Angela? Of course nobody told him that Angela is Demona's daughter - you don't peddle a murderer - and after the events of the last months nobody wants to mention her in such close connection with the clan.

I always enjoy writing but these last two chapters (and the upcoming one) especially.

Thanks for reading, Q.T.