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Brood of a New Age

81.

Dante had spent the rest of the night gliding over Manhattan. Although he felt like venting his frustrations on something or someone because of the behavior of his new boss and the women at his table, he had avoided the two Quarrymen patrols when he had seen them from a distance. He wasn't even sure why. But he suspected their screams and blood would not satisfy him. He glided until his wings were tired, pausing only to smoke. He landed on the roof of the mansion around four o'clock and just then saw Maria step through the front door with two full plastic bags, grumbling and visibly pissed off. She was followed by a nondescript man who, however, showed little insecurity and carried a dark leather bag that looked like that of a doctor in an old film.

Curious why the house dragon had come to work so early - but not curious enough to face her when she was in that mood - he strolled to the other end of the roof and looked out into the courtyard. Where a dozen guys were standing or sitting. Oh yeah ... that was the batch of guys who were going to take apart Slaughter's other, second meth lab. Well, the batch that had declined when Dante had offered to join them later for support. They must have taken quite a beating when they ran into resistance from Slaughter's people. Dante grinned with satisfaction that his group had escaped without major injury (due in part to his involvement in taking out the able-bodied personnel, of course) and that the others had suffered such losses. Hopefully Tony would notice the vehement difference and not treat him so condescendingly again. Dante sincerely hoped so. He really wasn't used to this kind of behavior from Italy. Either humans had pissed themselves because of him or they had had tremendous respect for him - either because he was a gargoyle but probably more often because he had been a Della Marra.

Dante lit another cigarette as he saw Maria step out the back door, loudly shooing home those who needed minimal first aid and then dictating in the four or five guys she had to patch up with the maybe-doctor. Not a very tempting atmosphere in that house down there. He would wait up here until all the humans were gone and hoped that would be before sunrise. He didn't want to petrify in the immediate vicinity of people he didn't trust yet.

He was about to flick his first of several cigarettes from the front of the roof when he saw a small figure hobbling along the street. Irritated, he leaned forward. But even before he heard the person whimper or saw its face under the wild hair, he knew that the human child heading for this house was Graziella. He looked around, saw that no one else was on the street at the moment and no car was approaching, then jumped off the roof and let himself soar down from the roof thanks to the air resistance that his spread wings caught. He landed right in front of the entrance door through which the child had just been about to pass.

"Graziella," he hissed, and when the girl lifted her head he saw that she was completely in tears. Snot was even pasted on her dress. Her white tights were torn at the knees and blood had stained the white fabric. For a second, a surge of sheer terror and unspeakable rage raced through him as he thought of rape, but then the child raised her arms sniffling and he saw that her palms were scratched as well. She had probably just fallen down. He glanced hurriedly at the door, then back at her.

"You can't go in there now. The house is full of people," he whispered as he picked her up, as she demanded, and climbed up the facade with her. She clutched his neck tightly and whimpered and cried into the crook of his neck.

On the roof, he crouched with her in the shadow of the brick stairwell where, even if one of the humans came up here, they would not run the risk of being seen. He took off his suit jacket and wrapped her in it, pulling the burgundy handkerchief from the suit's breast pocket and letting her blow her nose before sitting her in his lap.

"It's all right, Graziella. It's all right. You're home again. What the hell happened? Why are your hands and knees scraped up?"

She wiped her face with her forearms, confirming his suspicions whimpering. "I fell down. I was tired and scared and the distance was so far."

"Where were you?"

"I was ... with Nashville."

A terror of a different kind gripped Dante. "I thought Nashville would fly you wherever you wanted to go. Where is he? What happened to you? Was it Quarrymen?"

She shook her head and clung to him.

"He stayed with them. He helped me get away but couldn't go with me. And the walk was so far and I was so exhausted but I didn't think to call a cab or one of Dad's co-workers to pick me up. I didn't even have my wallet because it wouldn't have matched the dress and I wanted so badly to make a good impression but everything turned to shit and I'm so messed up and I'm scared for him."

Dante grabbed her by the upper arms and gave her a quick shake.

"Graziella, pull yourself together now. You want to be strong?"

She nodded through clenched teeth.

"Then be strong now. Tell me where you were."

She blew her nose again into his by-now completely contaminated silk cloth before she had gathered enough nerve and breath.

"I was at his place. This castle. He invited me over. And everyone seemed to like me but then I said my full name and a couple of them got all mad and one of them yelled and it was really bad."

Dante's face had already gotten all hot after her first sentence. He felt every muscle there and at the same time he felt like he was paralyzed.

"Cazzo," he then murmured while the child sat on his lap and sniffled softly.

He rubbed his forehead. That's why the cake. That's why the flowers. And she wore a little red coat like Little Red Riding Hood!

"What did they do to you?" he asked tonelessly, acutely aware of the knife in his pocket for the second time that night. Fortunately for the Manhattan clan, she shook her head.

"Nothing at all. But... they were angry. And the ones who weren't angry were trying to stop the ones who were angry. And I was really scared. Dante, is it true?" She looked up at him with a trembling lower lip, clearly trying not to go into another crying fit and be strong.

"What, Bambina?"

"Is my daddy one of the bad guys? A mobster? And are all his co-workers mobsters too?"

He pulled her away from him a little to look at her. A child that slid from one pain to the next. And might break from it. Break completely.

"Is Tony a criminal? A really bad one? That's what one of them said."

"He ... "

"Please tell me. Please."

He took a shaky breath. And then slowly took the child into his arms so he wouldn't have to look at her when he told her the truth. She smelled of filial innocence, desperation, and blood. He hated that combination so much.

"Your dad, Anthony Dracon, is the leader of a big crime family."

For a few moments the child remained silent as she tried to grasp something she was many years too young to understand. He felt her small hands clutching and kneading his braid. Sure - her gray snuggle bunny was out of reach right now.

"He's causing trouble for everyone in town?" she then asked.

"I guess it depends on who you ask."

"But gargoyles fight evil people. And if my dad is evil-"

"Tony's not evil. I mean ... no human and no gargoyle is ONLY evil. We all have good and bad sides in us. It's just ... your dad makes money with the bad sides."

"If he's ... a criminal, then Nash and I are enemies."

"Graziella, that's not true! I don't ever want you to say anything that stupid again."

He hugged her tighter. As tight as he could without hurting her.

"You're too smart not to know how it really is. Nashville is your friend. You two are ... how do those Yanks say it? You're like peanut butter and jelly. Just because ... your dad and his people and the Gargoyles are on different sides doesn't change that."

Dante took a deep breath, glad she couldn't see his face. He wasn't really lying to her. He wanted so much to believe himself that these facts didn't change anything. The child stroked his head comfortingly as if she knew the truth despite the assurances.

"But ... I can never see him again. They won't let that happen."

"I don't have a solution for that now, Bambina."

"Does Maria know? What kind of job Tony has?"

"Yes, she knows. Everyone you've met here in America probably knows."

"If you're not with them ... but you work for my dad, you're a criminal too, Dante?"

"Yes. Yes, I am." He was telling the truth. Only the truth. So why did he feel so disgusted about it? Was it the ponderous sorrowful sighing of the girl in his arms? Her voice was so pressed and low that it was hard to understand even for gargoyle ears.

"I'm really just a stupid, weak child. I didn't know anything all this time."

"That's not your fault. Adults always try to protect children. Not by the best means, and often by not speaking the truth - but even your Maria and I tried not to hurt you."

"But now it hurts."

To that, Dante knew nothing to say. He felt ashamed that he hadn't been able to spare her this pain, and yet, even in retrospect, he couldn't think of anything he could have said or done to prevent today's low blow to the child. Briefly, he thought he heard the faint sound of wings in his head, but he suspected that he was imagining it because the nocturnal buzz of the city around them was playing tricks on him. None of the do-gooders would be that quiet. And on the roof, except for the deafening awkward silence of the inhuman killer and the gangster princess, it remained silent until the latter stirred again.

"I'm afraid for Nashville."

"They won't hurt him. They're his family, after all. And he didn't know who your dad was either."

"But you knew. Since you've been living with us?"

Dante took a deep breath.

"Yes. I knew."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I should have told you that your dad - my new boss - was a bad boy? Would you have believed me? Would you have let it stop you from seeing Nashville?"

She sighed wearily. Not so much physically drained as emotionally drained.

"No," she then admitted,

"I figured not."

"What's going to happen to him and to me now? How can I see him again?"

"I don't know. It depends on the other gargoyles whether you can see each other again. But before that, maybe they'll punish him because now they know he's been sneaking out of the castle so often to meet you."

"What will they do to him?"

Dante swayed his head. He had never been punished for anything by his father because bad had been considered good in his family. Even when he had hurt their own people and had destroyed his father's property, it had only been put to rest as the natural "play instinct" of the Hellspawn. Therefore, although he had been tortured with nice regularity by Guiliano, he knew nothing of child punishment other than what he had seen on television.

"Probably just a slap on the wrist or something. Grounded for a few days or weeks."

"Weeks?," she asked, startled, which was almost funny that something like that could scare her.

"I don't know, Graziella. Just because I'm one of the big ones doesn't mean I have all the answers."

.

.

Nashville ignored the roof, from which he might have been able to sneak down, when he saw several cars parked in the property's yard. He came out of his sinking flight to a rather rough landing on her balcony and immediately ducked down although he guessed that a human would have had to look up to see him at that very moment. But he didn't have his camouflage clothes on, he didn't have any paint on, and he still felt the leaden heaviness in all his muscles because his body had twisted during the seizure as if he were possessed by a demon. That's what Aurelio had called it back then (in the far distant future). Most importantly, he had no backup from any other clan member. Nashville knew he was outmatched in every conceivable way in this battle. But he swallowed his fear. This ... he shouldn't think of it as a battle. It was just a reconnaissance mission. And even without camouflage, he was good at sneaking. All the adults had always said so.

He didn't see any of Graziella's dad's "staff" in the courtyard, who he now knew was Anthony Dracon all along. Briefly he thought of the two times he had been here. Once when he had escorted Graziella home without her knowledge. The second time when Dante had dropped her off here on the roof. Two occasions in which he/they could have been discovered by trigger-happy gangsters. Gangsters, the majority of whom had already had so much contact with gargoyles that they would not have been paralyzed for fear. A shiver ran down his spine and with a pounding heart he turned to the room where Graziella lived. It was dark. He opened the balcony door, crawled in and sniffed cautiously. The room was as cold as a room in New York could get on a July night. He hopped on all fours to her bed and sniffed the made sheets. That scent, too, was cold. Nash rubbed his head.

There were two possibilities. Number one: Graziella wasn't home yet. Number two: she was home and in another part of the house. But he heard other people in the house. Several adults. Quietly though, separated by several floors or distorted by old ventilation shafts, he heard voices. Hadn't she said she was always alone at night? What were these people doing here? What had brought them here if not - He pricked up his ears. Excited voices. Scolding voices! A fearful chirping broke from his throat, still aching from vomiting. What if Graziella was sitting right now, tied up in a chair in another part of the house, being questioned about where she had been, what she had done, who she had met. Maybe they were shining a bright light in her face that hurt her eyes! Maybe they were threatening her with knives or guns! They were gangsters and even if Graziella was Dracon's child, Nashville didn't think he would go easy on her if he wanted to get something out of her. After her traumatic evening at the castle, the rest of her night would now be many times more traumatic!

Would that be the cause of all the blood he had "seen"? He shook his head in the darkness of the room. No, that was nonsense. Nonsensenonsense. He couldn't think straight because of the seizure. Tony would not tie up his child somewhere and question her like the member of a foreign criminal family. But the fear for Graziella remained. Nashville crept to the door and listened at it. Opened it a crack when he was sure no voices or footsteps could be heard nearby. She might have been - just might have been in another part of the house. Maybe she was with the other people, but they weren't doing anything to her. But he had to check. Just one look at her face. Then he would wait until they took Graziella to her room and he would show up, apologize, explain everything to her - and take her away.

He knew it was hard to change the future. To steer it to a new or different time-stream plane or multiverse reality. But he had to try. His father had tried to stop the Space Spawn and save the future of the entire world population including all gargoyles. And he had succeeded (probably). Why wouldn't Nashville manage to save a single human child? Though, of course, she was so much more. Graziella was more than his friend. More than a girl, more than a human. He loved her. He loved her! And he would not leave her to her alleged fate. It didn't matter what it would cost him himself. But he had to try to save her - from whatever horrible destiny. He crept, as anxious and alert as he had ever felt, through the story in which her room was located and toward the voices. Whatever was going on in that house, he had to know. Either it was about Graziella or it wasn't. If it wasn't and he couldn't find her in the house, he would wait. He would lie in wait. He was a Ninja. A shadow warrior. He was small and imaginative. He could probably live in the same house as a dozen humans for nights on end, sneaking around them, hiding without them even suspecting that a gargoyle was spying on them. Who would even suspect something so insane? That a gargoyle lived in the same house that they had to watch out for. Always have the element of surprise on your side - rule 4 of his father.

.

.

He got up carefully and set her on her feet even more carefully because honestly his were just about to fall asleep and he needed to walk a little. She pulled his suit jacket tighter around her, looking unhappy and worried but at least not crying anymore. He picked a sliver of oxy out of his pants and she opened her mouth when she saw it, as if she was already trained to do that at the sight of drugs. Dante didn't like that at all, but her knees and hands certainly hurt. And after all that crying, her head was probably buzzing too. Gently he stroked her cheek with his claws.

"Don't worry about it. I'll sneak you into your room. You're all cold and snuggle into your blankets now."

Again she took up the traveling position on his neck and he climbed down two stories to her window where he settled on the railing of the small balcony and set her down. To his amazement, the balcony door was already open and as he followed her into the room he was even more amazed at the very fleeting, yet somehow familiar smell. Again his memory had to play tricks on him because he had been thinking so much about Nashville just a moment ago.

Of course, in it's thoughts and with it's sadly deficient human senses, the child didn't notice either, but turned on the light on her small bedside lamp and awkwardly stripped off his shoes and dress. Dante turned away. He was many things- but a pedo he was not!

He heard the rustle of her dress and heard the clips of the barrettes snap open and how she put them down on her princess dressing table. Then she opened the closet presumably to get a nightgown or whatever kids slept in these days. He walked around a bit, always keeping her at his back. The tingling in his feet was better but what was that feeling? This smell? Almost as if the boy had been here. Which was impossible, of course, the Manhattan gargoyles would sit on their only chick like it was made of gold. Now more than ever. And he was sorry about that. He would have liked the children to have each other.- On the other hand ... there were too many circumstances against them. Destiny was against them.

Like Romeo and Juliet, Dante thought, taking a deep breath and flinching as he heard a loud metallic PLONG and Maria's loud scream from below. Dante turned to Graziella and if his look was half as horrified as hers then that would still have been an extraordinary expression for him. Instantly gargoyle and child were at the door and just as automatically a small human hand found that of the adult gargoyle. Dante opened the door and both were as quiet as they could be and Dante had to assume that the child heard every word as well as he did because no one two floors below was quiet right now. It was one clamor of voices from at least six people.

"-Shit. What are one of them doing here?" One of the loudest male voices.

Then Maria's, completely agitated.

"I thought it was Mister Dante sneaking around. I-I was just trying to teach him a lesson! I would have just caught him in the chest but this one is much smaller!"

Graziella pushed past Dante and was instantly out of the safety of the nursery. The Camorra prince could at most keep up with her while she, wearing only cotton shorts and a tank top, scurried with bare child's feet across the stairwell carpet, which swallowed the sounds of her approach as she headed toward the commotion. He was able to catch her at the landing to the first floor and put a hand over her mouth. She grunted with wide eyes but no one had seen or heard her and she fell silent and nodded as Dante made the universal gesture of silence, pointing with index and middle fingers from his and her eyes to the scene below. She understood and he was able to let her go. Gargoyle and child inched their way down more stairs, finally leaning over the stairwell's railing to see what was upsetting the people in the house (as if they couldn't both guess that from the snippets of conversation and expressions of outrage). But really. Several men, some with bandages around their heads, arms, hands, but also Maria were standing there around someone lying on the ground. Maria valiantly clutched a very heavy-looking iron frying pan.

"He's been totally knocked out by you, Maria," one of the men said over the chatter of his colleagues.

"Fascinating, I've never seen one of these up close before," one person said, and it wasn't until Maria took an unsteady step to the side that both Dante and Graziella could see that the nondescript man, in whom Dante had assumed the doctor to be, had lifted a leathery dark wing and was also eyeing the rest of the obviously downed intruder like a newly discovered animal. When he stirred and revealed a view of Nashville's face, both spies saw the bloody bruise on his forehead.

Graziella gasped for air to scream. Not out of fear. But a gargoyle-worthy roar of rage while she was already lunging forward to jump down the stairs and stop the adults from hurting Nashville further. But she had arms wrapped around her body and hands over her mouth. She struggled and wanted to scream at Dante to let her go, but all she could get out was a choked "Mpfff!" before the gargoyle carried her into her room, using his tail to push the door shut and throw her onto the bed. She immediately jumped up and wanted to pass him, but he pushed her back onto the bed.

"Calm down," he hissed, trying to be quiet.

"I have to get to him!" she screamed, and Dante grabbed her again, holding his hand in front of her mouth.

He stared at her with his most commanding chilling gangster stare that had already made grown men tremble and women weep. But her gaze was spraying sparks, burning flames, and had she not been a child but an adult (woman or not) that gaze too would have made adults cringe. So the 130 pound heavier, thirty year older gargoyle struggled to hold on, loosening his grip so he could be sure not to hurt her, but not letting her go.

"Be quiet! Calm down! It won't help if you rush down there and throw yourself at them now. Take a deep breath. I'm not letting you go until I can be sure you're not yelling."

She was breathing heavily and he felt the warm air from her nose on his hand which was over her mouth. Her gaze was unwaveringly agitated and angry, but slowly her breath rate decreased. He turned her down so that she was standing with her feet on her bed - his eye level.

"Okay ..." he said after a minute or two, during which they'd only heard the waves of agitation spilling into the second floor but no one had come up.

"I'm going to let you go now. We're going to talk. No yelling, no bitching. Be cool, and most of all, be quiet, okay?"

She took another deep breath. Then she nodded.

He released his hand from her mouth and took a step back.

"We have to help Nashville!" She prodded in a whisper, and Dante was amazed that she was really trying to be quiet. Quite a bit of self-control for a little girl. He lit a cigarette, needing it to think but wandering a few steps across the room so she didn't catch so much smoke. Always keeping himself between her and the door, the little girl, currently as alert and feisty as a nasty little terrier, didn't take her eyes off him either. Terrier? Maybe more like a little gargoyle ready to pounce, he thought as he watched her move her fingers as if she were sharpening invisible claws to slam them right into the nearest opponent.

"We're not doing anything here," he muttered. "You can't do anything. And I don't even know if I can do anything."

"They hurt him, though!"

"Maria obviously got him with her frying pan," Dante speculated with an irritated expression on his face. He guessed that blow had been reserved for him. But how she had mistaken Nashville for him was beyond him. Or did all gargoyles with beaks look the same to humans?

"What are they going to do with him now?"

"They're going to wait for Tony. Without the syndicate boss, nobody's going to do anything with him - except maybe tie him up."

"I'm not going to wait," Graziella hissed.

"What are you going to tell the adults? Your father's gangsters? `Let him go, he's my friend`?"

The child's evil smile was so Dracon (yet at the same time so much more) that Dante almost fell the cigarette out of his beak.

"I'm going to get all the knives from the kitchen and-"

He stepped to her and pushed her backward. Since she didn't have the best footing on the bed, she toppled into the sheets with an uff.

"That's exactly what they're going to do to you," he said coldly as she struggled back up. "Graziella. Your marksmanship is a huge talent. But you can't take on six grown men. If there aren't more by now. And Maria with her frying pan. You want to drive a knife into her, too? She loves you like her child."

She looked at him defiantly but with clear desperation. But if he had to hurt her to keep her from doing something stupid, then so be it. He put as much heart into his magical voice as he could though his words were cruel.

"You are not trained to hurt and kill people. You lack the strength to do so. Physically and emotionally. The adults will laugh at you and if Tony believes you, he'll probably make you watch him pick off Nashville like a mutt. Because that's what criminals are like. You can't compete with that."

As he spoke the last few sentences, he could tell his voice was working. All the will to fight seemed to flow out of her. Graziella's face showed confusion as she held onto one of her bedposts as if she was at the end of her rope for the night.

"What is he doing here anyway? He didn't even know where I lived."

Dante laughed softly. "I flew you home last week, remember? But even without that, he probably would have known where you lived. Gargoyles have a habit of following people they care about. Even I have that. He must have followed you one night after one of your meetings to see you home safely. Damn, the kid's been lucky so far. But tonight it left him," he concluded, puffing on his cigarette to keep himself from getting upset.

"But why is he here?"

"What would you have done?"

She raised her head again and sparkled at him - a little demon in angel disguise.

Dante sighed. "He wanted to see if you got home all right. Or he wanted to make sure you were still friends, or if that idyllic family scene back at the castle had scared you away forever. You are friends. Your worry earlier was completely unfounded."

She slumped on her bed and slid to the edge of it. Her big dark eyes looked at him so pleadingly that it hurt him.

"How-how can we help Nashville? I'm afraid for him. Right now, they may be hurting him. If they kill him... I'll be alone. He promised me he wouldn't die. Who will call me sparrow if he dies? What will I do without him?"

He stubbed out his cigarette on her nightstand and sat down next to her on the bed. "Stop talking like he's already dead. No one is going to kill him. Not even Tony. I ... have a plan to make sure of that. He's not perfect. Maybe not even good. My sister's always been the smart one. But I'll try."

"What can I do?" Graziella asked more alertly now.

Dante looked at her unhappily.

"You do what you've always done. Pretend. Be a clueless, adorable girl. It's safest for you that way...and just to be on the safe side-. " He put one hand to the back of her head and covered her nose and mouth with the other. The exhausted child took a few seconds to realize what was going on. To understand that this was not another gentle gesture from her daddy's most special employee. But no sooner had she begun to struggle, to thrash and kick, than her movements became weaker as the lack of oxygen in her brain made itself felt. Dante had no trouble holding her back as she struggled to the best of her ability. He had already killed more grown men this way than he could count on his hands. He had driven quite a few uninvolved women or bystanders to fainting with this cheap trick. To do the same to a child - one he liked very much - was painful to him.

But he couldn't use a distraction. He didn't trust her to stay in her room while he was doing his thing. There was too much stubborn do-gooder gargoyle in her for that. She loved Nashville too much for that. He felt her weakening heartbeat through the skin of her cheeks and even her lips. When the child stopped moving, he waited five more seconds. Then he laid her down on her bed, pulling the sheets over her that had been rumpled during her hopeless kicking. He bent down to her again, and for the first time did something that was basically gargoyle instinct when it came to their own brood. He inhaled deeply, her face right in front of his, taking in her fragrance that was only hers to never forget and to be able to find her even in a crowd if need be. She was one of the most innocent beings he had ever known. And at the same time, there was something else in her. Maybe it wasn't in her DNA. Maybe not even because of her destiny. But the darkness that was immanently already wafting in her and that was so similar to his own, so tragically sweet, urged him to feel connected to her. He straightened up, looked down again at her now resting figure, whose chest was imperceptibly rising and falling, indicating to him that he had not overdone it.

"In a few hours the world will already look different, little sparrow. Let's hope for the best and expect the worst."

Then he strode across the room to re-dress. A supreme performance called for the right costume.

Here we see again that Dante's conscience is rather fickle. To suffocate (even if the attacker does not intend to kill you, but only to temporarily eliminate you) is one of the most horrible torture methods there is. It is not for nothing that waterboarding enjoys unbroken popularity in military and "governmental" organizations worldwide (and I mean worldwide) for a long time. Something like that could have severely traumatized Graziella - another notch in her psychological walking stick. Apart from brain damage, that is.

Thanks for reading, Q.T.