.
Brood of a New Age
83
Dante crouched over the arched skylight that gave him a view into the garage. He hated these guns, which were not made for him or his sister. His finger didn't fit behind the trigger, his claw scraped across the plastic of the trigger without a grip. But this gun was the best he could find in a hurry. For this he had broken into Tony's private room with his lockpick set (of course he had one as well as his sister. He preferred to kick open doors and destroy padlocks but the little metal tools were such wonderful toothpicks).
He had really hoped that his plan would work. That he could have pulled Nashville out of this huge mess he had maneuvered himself into without losing his job or his head himself. He had pulled Nash's teeth for effect only. He knew they would grow back after a few nights. It had always been that way with him. Giuliano had probably pulled a hundred teeth from him over the years.
Tony had maneuvered himself out of it. Killing the boss certainly wouldn't be the best PR, but there were plenty of syndicates in town who would appreciate his skills. Or no, rather go a little further away, then he wouldn't have to worry about the other clan. Whether there was an Italian syndicate in Chicago? The windy city had a nice ring to it for a gargoyle. He would have to start his courtship again but he would manage. The important thing was that he saved Nashville. By creating a bloodbath. Just his style.
He heard people's voices through the plexiglass. After they talked some more - about where they would bury Nashville's corpse - Glasses stepped up to Nash. And now, of all times, the boy stirred!
Dante's gaze flew again over the currently still living dead in the room. Three guys, Maria, Glasses, Tony. He could use the six bullets in the drum to wipe out the five men before they knew what happened to them. Maria was a normal woman and would be paralyzed with fright for the time being. In the house were the doctor and two other guys he had to patch up and who were sure to come limping as soon as they heard the shots. These three he would kill barehanded, with the last bullet as a backup. He could do it without him or the boy being riddled with bullets. He unlocked the gun as Glasses did the same, counting to three internally where on three he would begin flooding the room with human blood.
.
All the people, even Glasses, took a step back as a low croak came from the creature that Dante had described as a child of his kind. Although its arms were tied behind its back, along with a shaky wheeze, an equal tremor went through the half-grown body from tail to drooping wingtips.
Glasses looked questioningly at Tony while Maria spoke. Her voice was a pleading croak.
"Wait until after sunrise," she said.
"We wouldn't have let you clean up the blood anyway," Tony returned as if he didn't know exactly what her problem was.
"He wouldn't feel anything if you did it after sunrise."
"But maybe we want him to feel something," one of Tony's boys said almost gleefully. Maria knew one of the Manhattan gargoyles had broken his arm last year. Many of Tony's boys, and of every other syndicate, had suffered injuries because of these creatures. Maybe often not on purpose. It was like when a pit bull played with a chihuahua. They were just so much stronger.
The gargoyle child's groans had grown louder and visibly disoriented, he lifted his head and blinked around. Bloody saliva had run out of his beak in long threads and dripped onto his shorts. He ran a frighteningly long tongue over his beak and around in his mouth, whining even though he didn't look like he understood what was wrong within. The light in the garage seemed too bright for him. In fact, it went brighter than that. The spotlights above the lifting platform, which could be switched on if necessary to illuminate an engine compartment, were not even on. The young Gargoyle didn't seem to realize where he was, probably he had a concussion, Maria thought. He - yes. It was a boy, because his face just didn't look like that of a female specimen, although none of the humans knew how exactly a female specimen of a beaked gargoyle should look. For the first time, now that he perceived the strange people around him as foreign, he tried to stand up. The chair lifted a few inches off the floor then he collapsed again and rolled his eyes as if he were dizzy. His bound body swayed a bit but toppling over was not an option for obvious reasons.
The creature seemed horrified for a few moments as it finally stole into his presumably aching skull that he was a prisoner. He began to wriggle in the chair and yank on his ropes, which creaked under his superhuman strength.
"Hold him!" shouted Tony, and two of the boys threw themselves left and right against the gargoyle who had just begun flapping his unbound wings. They managed to press them against his body and his unchained tail was also pinned to the ground with a powerful stomp. The gargoyle opened his beak and a scream came out of his throat that started low and rumbling but became more and more shrill while his eyes lit up. Glasses struck out and slammed the hand holding the weapon against the gargoyle's beak, throwing its head to the side and silencing the roar after a yelp. Still with the two guys clinging to him so that his wings wouldn't revolt, the half-grown creature raised its head, now with a bloody nose, and glared angrily at Glasses. His eyes were no longer glowing but his look was pure loathing.
"That's it for you then, you little monster," said Glasses, pointing the gun at him.
But then everyone, even Dante on the roof, who had just been about to pull the trigger of the gun pointed at Glasses' head, heard a shrill scream that it was setting your teeth right on edge.
But it was not a gargoyle roar, but that of a little girl.
Shit, thought Dante, who raised the gun at the same moment as Glasses put the gun in his holster. At the same time, everyone saw Graziella - barefoot, wearing only a tank top and shorts - standing in the garage doorway with her hands in front of her mouth. Her eyes were wide when she saw the gargoyle on the chair, her face contorted. To excitement. She rushed at Tony and he was so perplexed that he caught her as she plunged toward him. She nearly knocked him over and her bright child's voice, as joyful, as excited, as unbelievably happy as anyone, not even Maria OR Nashville had ever heard, rang through the room.
"You are the best! The best dad in the whole world!" she shrieked.
"Huh?" made Tony - universal, international I-have-no-idea-what's-going-on sound. Graziella had her bare arms wrapped around his neck and was showering him with kisses. And in between, her expressions of love for her father began to make sense.
"You're the best. No one is as awesome as you! Maria said she asked you. And I waited and waited, already thinking you had forgotten the request. You'd forgotten me. I thought you didn't love me. But you are the best and coolest daddy in the whole world. I asked for a dog and Maria said that maybe you would only allow a little bunny. But you were just pretending! In fact, you've been working and searching all this time to get me a GARGOYLE!"
"What? No!" Maria exclaimed, but Graziella paid no attention to her. Children's tears of happiness ran down her cheeks and these moistened Tony's face while Graziella did not stop cuddling him and assuring him that he was the best father in the whole world. None of the adults got a word in edgewise and even Dante up on the roof and Nashville tied in his chair had their jaws hanging down.
"I can't believe it!" chirped the mob boss's only child. The beautiful, delicate, charming, talented child, however, that none of the people had ever seen laugh heartily or rejoice. "My own gargoyle. Not one of the big ones but a small one to suit me. You saw that I'm not afraid of gargoyles anymore since Mister Dante lives in the house and you were SO smart to get me one of my own. You are the most amazing papa."
"Dolly! Wait a minute," Tony croaked, trying to scratch the kid off his neck. He managed to get her to her feet, but she immediately wrapped her arms around his waist. "I love you!" she cried. "I love you so much. Much more than I ever loved my Mamma or Nonna. No other child has a gargoyle but I have one now!"
"Graziella," Tony said almost reprovingly with a furrowed brow but when the child raised her head in joy he could only smile awkwardly. Everyone saw how red his head had turned, and it wasn't because his daughter had stifled his breath. "I love you. You've given me the greatest and best gift in the world," she assured him with shining eyes, in which one could imagine that there was desperation but of course no one assumed that with her effusive words.
"Dolly, I don't know if a little gargoyle would make a good pet," he said as meekly, almost apologetically, as even Glasses had not heard him in years. The child shook her wild mane with a laugh.
"You got him for me! I want to keep him! We can train him. I can teach him tricks like catch the ball. Or he can bark at Alessio when he gets naughty again."
Tony and even two of the boys laughed. Maria and Glasses exchanged glances, urging each other to intervene immediately. But both hoped Tony was putting his foot down. Once again, the kid pulled him up to her eye level and gave him a child's peck on the cheek.
"No one has such a cool, generous daddy than me. Not even the son of Xanatos has a little gargoyle of his own. Not even the children of that Volkov or that Yingpei. That's what the wives' kids called your business rivals. They all look so incompetent compared to my daddy, Tony Dracon."
Tony rose again and stroked the cheek of the child - his child, who clung to him and looked up to him as if he were God himself.
"That's right," he said, a little embarrassed but mostly proud. "I'm the best."
"Yes, you are! A thousand times better than that Ms. Yingpei and that Mister Volkov. They are nothing!"
"Yes- clearly I am better. But-" his gaze went to Maria. She wanted to take the girl under her arms and lift her up.
"Come on, Graziella, let's go into the house. You don't even have shoes on."
"In a minute, Maria!" the girl twittered, hopping over to the gargoyle in the chair. "I want to see my gargoyle turn to stone."
The two men at the gargoyle's sides were so perplexed they were barely holding it in place. And her supposed new pet, looked at her out of eyes so wide, you'd think they were about to fall out of his sockets.
"Don't get so close!" warned Maria, arms outstretched. "He's more animal than-."
"I know, Maria," the child giggled. She looked at her daddy and also at Glasses with wide smiles that could melt hearts. "I'll take good care of him, and I'll clean up his mess, too. Someone put clothes on him- we can get him clothes in your shade of red so everyone will see he belongs to us. After we get him trained, I can walk him in the evening. And the wives' kids will freak out and be jealous and see that my daddy is the best."
Tony, grinning just as broadly, folded his arms, enjoying himself so much in the role of superdaddy that he obviously no longer thought about the fact that Graziella couldn't possibly have this thing as a pet. The new proprietress of the world's most extraordinary pet turned to her new gargoyle for the first time, and her smile was almost a snarl. Her hand trembled as she stroked it over his hair.
"Don't worry, little gargoyle. I will take good care of you. You will be fine with us. We Dracons take good care of our things."
Nashville was so horror-struck that he had begun to tremble himself. He felt the sunrise tugging at him, and Graziella's face, almost insane with joy, and that of her proud father, whom he thought she really hated, was the last thing he saw before everything went dark. A single tear rolled down his cheek before he turned to stone.
.
.
The shrill screech of an angle grinder echoed across the yard. Displeased, Glasses watched from the third floor of Tony's study as four of their boys, who were skilled craftsmen, set up the cage in which the gargoyle would remain for the time being.
"Tony, you know that's not going to work."
"Why again?" asked his boss, turning the titanium collar in his hands with half-hearted interest. It was the smaller version of the same shock collar Goliath had worn at Rykers and in court. Since neither the city nor the GTF had known beforehand which gargoyle they would capture (if they succeeded at all) they actually had several copies of it made in order to be able to react to large or smaller bodies. Where did Tony get this exemplar that no one would ever miss? It was enough to note that people from many different backgrounds were in debt to the Dracons. Glasses pointed with both hands to the window and to the scene outside.
"You can't give Graziella the gargoyle! She can't keep him. It doesn't matter if that thing is one of their cups or not - they're going to want to get us for capturing him. We must get rid of him!"
"Did you see the way she looked at me?" Tony said quietly musing that he could barely be heard over the sound of the welding torch even though the window was closed. "Hundreds of people have looked at me with wide eyes. The ones who knew a snap of my fingers could kill them. The ones who begged for their lives or their business. Or the broads who wished I would make them into whatever. But I've never seen a look like Dolly's. A smile like that. Have you?"
Glasses sighed and strode over to Tony who was reclining on his couch. He plopped down next to him in the upholstery. "Maybe with Sonny- many years ago when I told him I'd spend all summer practicing with him learning to swim."
"So, is he good at it?"
"I don't know. Already skipped the first appointment. And now I don't care and he's too old anyway."
"And your daughter?"
"Lakisha's okay. Just like little girls typically are. Wants a fucking pony. In New York. I know she'd look at me the same way - for maybe five minutes - if I told her I'd buy her one. But the whining afterward if I didn't do it would be too unbearable."
"She looked at me like I was the most important person in the world. Not even gods are looked at with that unquestioning love."
"You're catching a crush, Tony," muttered Glasses, looking to the side with his forehead creased in deep wrinkles where his boss stared ahead with a soft smile.
"Could be," Tony said, not meaning it sexually in the least but in a way he couldn't place at all.
"We could ... certainly contain the gargoyle with this collar and the cage. We could ... pull his teeth and claws. Maybe he's not a pet but he could become one. And if need be, Graziella and the thing just move from one house to another every week. That could work."
"That's crazy, Tony! If she likes nasty critters that can kill her and have to be kept in cages, buy her a ... damn commodo dragon! With that one, at least you can assume the relatives didn't fly in to kill you or us."
"That's not going to happen, Glasses. You worry too much."
"It's my job to worry if you don't ..." Again the whir of the circular saw, like a drill right into Glasses' brain. When that died away after a few seconds, Tony spoke again.
"I have to think about what to do with that little monster. I can't kill him now or have him smashed. That would break Graziella's heart. I want to see that look on her face when she looks at me for as long as possible. Might be the only and last time I see that look without the other person knowing who I really am."
Glasses sighed.
"I don't know if she doesn't already know. She's been around the wives' kids so much, and some of the brats prattle among themselves."
"If she knows and gets what I'm doing - and still looks at me like that, all the better."
"Then she really would be a Dracon," Glasses muttered, and Tony didn't realize how irritated he sounded.
"Yeah, that would be pretty cool."
"And Dante? You know there are loopholes in his loyalty. He can't be trusted. He may be a thug like us but he's too stubborn to follow your every whim. Right now he's standing out there petrified on top of the garages! He didn't listen to you when you sent him away but spied on us."
Tony smirked at his best friend since youth. "Actually, I said he could retire. That he can't watch from the loge while you kill his kind, I never said that. He's not going to take your job if that's what you're shitting your pants about."
"I-I know!" stuttered Glasses huffily, and Tony shook the collar like a jingle ring.
"If he doesn't perform the way I want him to, I'll be able to get rid of him quickly. Or ... we'll just put the collar on him and fry him until he's obedient. As long as I know where he sleeps, I'll have him in hand."
Thanks for reading, Q.T.