.
Brood of a New Age
59.
"Yes, sis. Everything is fine... Jeez, stop worrying, everything's fine with me. ... I'm petrifying in a safe place. ...Yes. ... Sure I do - definitely no rats! Sorry. Let's not talk about that. ... How about you? ... Yes? Good. ... Say hello to Mr. Clean. Yes, scusi ... say hello to Luca. You can give him a kiss from me, hahaha." Dante hung up, pocketed the phone and took another drag on his cigarette before flicking it away. Then he jumped from the industrial chimney on which he had been able to overlook the block.
Dante had tremendous fun.
He felt a bit like he had felt in Italy. When the world had not been beautiful but at least normal and he had moved within a framework dictated to him by his father. Now he didn't have a framework - but not having to play the protector, to approach things in a way that was familiar to him, that felt good. What difference did it make, anyway, if people were screaming their lungs out and crying for their mommy and their God because they were saved by him or because he was threatening and hurting them? Either way, they were scared to death or at least distraught. Not that the gray gargoyle enjoyed it per se when others shit themselves in front of him. If he was completely honest (which he rarely was with himself and even more rarely with others), he would much rather see different looks in people's eyes when they caught sight of him. Less fear and more ... he didn't even know what looks to put on them because he had rarely seen anything but fearful or hateful looks. He landed on a streetlight that swayed under his weight and leaned forward to read the street name. Correct block, correct street. His next stop would be a motorcycle repair shop. His first stops had been to equip himself for his well-being and courtship. That the target of his desire thus became aware of his existence at the same time was a desired side effect. His subsequent stops had been very close to the field of activity he had known from Naples and it distressed his mobster heart how easily he had approached the higher-ups of the syndicates. Not these Yingpei, Slaughter and Volkov himself. He had to be able to improve himself later, should that be necessary. But the messages had certainly arrived.
So far everything was going excellently, his new suits were stowed at Millers. He had weapons and butts again, and rumors were already making the rounds among the city's mobsters. Not that the media or newspapers were picking it up because everyone was either too afraid of gargoyles, Quarrymen or Dracon's revenge. After all, that was probably the number one rule among all crime (clans) and syndicates: Snitches got stitches.
Phase two was soon complete. However, he would still send one more message. Volkov's people, Yungpei's people and Slaughter's people he had certainly already made it clear. He already had a souvenir from all of them including Sanchez`s higher ranking goons but Sanchez`s second-in-command had been blindsided at his home and Dante had not had a chance to bust up one of his stores. This one - while not big or important according to Miller would be a good sign though. Dante liked to be flexible in this regard and he hadn't torn up a garage yet.
He glided silently through the street, just outside the radius of the streetlights, and landed on a ledge in front of a long row of old iron mullioned windows that presumably flooded the workshop with light during the day. Now there was still artificial light burning and again Dante was surprised at how many people were working even after nightfall in the summer. He really knew it differently from Naples. But this was New York - the city that never sleeps. Maybe that rubbed off on most of the upstanding and unrighteous residents. He exploratively let his gaze wander over the interior. If this guy had employees, they probably weren't there. But something was stirring in front of one of the machines.
A man in his fifties was kneeling in front of a Harley with a chubby maybe eight- or nine-year-old boy.
Low muttering could be heard from the man and Dante paused a little longer on the window ledge to listen. What kind of language was that? It sounded like a mixture of English and ... something the sand bugs spoke. Arabic or something along those lines. It wasn't so much the mishmash of languages the man spoke as how softly and deliberately he spoke that irritated Dante. It was as if he was reading to the boy from a precious book, rather than poring over a smelly, dirty machine in a workshop full of equipment that otherwise made a deafening racket. He spoke as if they were the only people in the world and the downed half-dismantled Harley a disemboweled animal from whose blood and bones they read the future. Why Dante of all people came up with this comparison was beyond him. It was also irrelevant. Unimportant for his mission. Miller had said the guy was one of the smallest fish paying protection money for Sanchez. How Miller knew that didn't matter. Where he got all his info didn't matter. As long as it all added up. Which it had done so far.
It wasn't quite cool for Dante to bust up a store and throw a guy around who had his kid with him. He had never done anything to kids back in Italy. On the contrary. There had even been two or three occasions over the years when he had been extraordinarily kind to these half-baked humans. It was not their fault that their parents were his victims - whether directly or indirectly. Until they became adults and potential targets themselves, he would always go easy on them - perhaps that really was an Italian trait as Demona had said. Dante looked again at the door next to the large closed roll-up door as well as the one leading to the back rooms (an office or materials storage) so he knew how to approach the owner without letting him get away. No human would be faster than him but having to chase one of them alone would be annoying to Dante, so he wanted to avoid that and corner the guy right away.
Then he was ready, jumping from the window ledge, sailing up through an air current in a wide arc around the store before turning back again. He folded in his wings, gained speed, and crashed hell for leather through the window like a cannonball. He could have slammed his claws into the opposite wall, crawling toward them with war roar and hisses of fury to really terrorize them, as one of the less humanized gargoyles probably would have done out of instinct and habit. But furthermore he preferred not to leave any hell-spawn typical traces. He liked it when the outsiders (good and bad) were kept in suspense and wondering. Besides, Dante's goal was not to cause problems for the Manhattan clan that housed his sister and his detective. At least not in such a direct way. So he landed on the floor of the workshop with bent iron muntins and a lot of glass, raised his wings and shooed the startled people into a corner. There the boy clung trembling to his father where the older dust coon only looked at him with wide but somehow defiant eyes.
Dante folded his wings back into a cape, took a deep breath, and put on his most indifferent mobster face.
"Have you heard from me yet, human?" he asked, ignoring the sting it gave him to see the kid looking up at him too fearfully. And those eyes. Strangely grayish blue. Like they were looking into him.
"I've heard the rumors," the brown-skinned older man said in much better English than Dante was able to speak. The guy had normal brown eyes. Where he had one arm around the boy, he wiped his other hand on his overalls. As if the poultry shears would care if they had to slide through oil before cutting meat and bone. But that was the next thing that irritated Dante. The guy wasn't as scared as he should have been even though Dante already had a reputation.
"Uncle Murshid?" the boy squeaked questioningly, looking up at the adult (not his father), distraught. Hoping that as an all-knowing and powerful adult, he would remove the monster. Dante smirked at that.
"Send the child out," he ordered, extraordinarily kindly by his own standards, as he thought.
"He stays here," the guy said with an unyielding stare, putting a hand on the little fatso's shoulder.
The Camorra prince narrowed his eyes threateningly and felt them begin to glow.
"I don't want the kid to see me biting a piece out of you. So send him out. I also promise I'll probably let you live," Dante added with a smile that was as joyful as it was mischievous. But the man only puffed serenely.
"He's staying with me. I'm his protector. And gargoyles don't eat humans," he said as if that were a commonly known fact or as if he maintained personal contact with gargoyles. Dante didn't like that he felt like an idiot with this insolent guy.
"Fine!" he hissed, stomping toward the two humans.
Suddenly a violent gust of wind along with a ratchet wrench hit him in the head, making him yelp. Then several pliers of various sizes whirled in from another direction, and because his own damned wings were stealing his vision from the wind (WHERE did that come from!) as they slapped him in the face, he could do nothing to fend off or avoid the projectiles. He roared inhumanly as one of the pliers bored into his thigh. Next, an adjustable spanner the size of a forearm hit him in the back. He caught the large wrench that came next with one hand and hurled it in the direction it came from. Where it got stuck in a plastic canister of oil, causing the greasy contents to spill gurgling onto the floor. He should have hit! He should have hit one of his attackers! But there was no one standing there. There was just a heavy-duty shelf full of tools and canisters for whatever. Dante whirled around.
"Where are they?" he yelled at the two humans, meaning their defenders, whom he couldn't see but who HAD to be there because someone had thrown those things at him.
"Go," the older dust coon said seriously. "Go before you really get hurt."
"YOU threaten ME?" bellowed Dante, jerking the wrench out of his thigh, now completely gripped by his anger. This was out of character for him. But this whole situation was out of character. It was ... frightening and uncontrollable because he didn't even begin to understand what was going on. He grabbed the gutted motorcycle off the ground, hoisted it over his head and was about to throw it towards the two people, but then the boy, with eyes so wide and scared it almost looked like he was driving on autopilot, raised an arm and pointed at him. And the machine burst into flames. The gas tank (fortunately only a third full) exploded and had Dante not already been about to throw the vehicle, the blast could have seriously injured him. So he screamed more in horror than because he had burned part of his face and palms and fell to the ground by the shock wave where the older brown-skinned man grabbed the child and took cover from the burning projectile.
When the old man already pulled one of the numerous fire extinguishers distributed in the store so that the fire did not spread to the rest of his workshop, Dante already crawled out of the window. He looked back, wary of invisible enemies or explosives that might be thrown at him. But he saw no one except the elderly fig-eater who was putting out the skeleton of the Harley and the child who was staring at him with his eerie eyes. Despite his burns, a shiver crawled up his spine and he took off to get away from this little store of horrors.
A small scene that goes a bit off track. I emphasize that the author does not share any of their characters' statements and opinions (especially not Dante's). The words he thought to label the Americans with Arabic / African roots were all NOT okay. He is a bad boy so I let him eat some dirt here (again). And at the same time gave a mini teaser to Souls of the Night, because if you know the first two books (and you all do), you know who the kid with the creepy eyes is. But now enough with the previews of upcoming/past stories. We come to the last third of the story and step it up a notch.
Thanks for reading, Q.T.
