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Brood of a New Age

56.

Jack Levi was counting his earnings when there was a knock at the door. That was unusual. He had already closed, the shutters already down. And with cigarette vending machines scattered around town, it was hardly a customer. A specialized gun and tobacco store wasn't that important either. Whereby he did not run the really big guns at all. Rather knives of all kinds up to exquisite collector's items and special productions. Which didn't mean he was ill-equipped himself.

"We're closed." He called out, fumbling for his Magnum under the counter. Just to make sure. Of course, he knew it was still there.

"I belong to Anthony Dracon," the dark male voice called back.

Jack rolled his eyes. That was a new trick. But he knew he wouldn't have to pay again until next week.

"Don't know that one. Never heard of him. Come back tomorrow during business hours," he returned politely, glad that he had invested in the best security glass and lived above his own store and didn't have to go out to whoever. He noted his receipts and was about to turn off the lights when his door was kicked off its hinges and crashed with tremendous force into one of his display cases of bone- and animal horn- knives, which literally exploded under the weight, exposing half the store to a drizzle of fine glass. Jack fell to the floor in alarm before his twenty year old army reflexes kicked in. He rushed behind his own counter and reached for his Magnum. Just a second he wasn't looking. Not seeing what slid through his door - silently and purposefully - toward him. As he raised the gun to fire immediately, his wrist was grabbed, his gun torn from his hand and crushed by a creature Jack knew only from nightmares and blurry television footage.

He was immediately released, but held his aching joint as he slid down the wall behind him, where tobacco products from all over the world were stacked to the ceiling, and looked up wide-eyed as the gargoyle crushed his Magnum like tinfoil and threw it away. As he did so, he made a face that was as dour as it was regretful.

"Still hurts me to do that. But it's really too easy. Sorry man. Dracon sent me for some errands," he then said, leaning casually over his counter. As if he were a human being. As if he was a normal customer who hadn't just turned the whole store into a battlefield! Levi got up with his heart pounding and tried to be a pleasant shopkeeper for this "customer". Still, his smile had to look fake. As if his trembling voice would not give him away. But for this - for such a thing - the army had not trained him.

"Oh ... I didn't know a Ga-gargoyle worked for the Dracons. If I had known, I would have opened."

"Yes. Then your door would still be intact. But just like what I want here, you can just write the repair bill out to Tony Dracon."

"With wh-what purpose? So - your co-customer's wishes?"

The gargoyle seemed to think for a moment. Then he showed a monstrous grin with a lot of fang.

"Intended use: Equipment for Dante. That will do."

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"Sì. Sì, lo capisco, Ispettore Capo Costa. Ma non sono ancora pronto. Mi dispiace. E dopo tutto sto visitando dei familiari in America. Solo tra qualche settimana potrò valutare se sono di nuovo in grado di lavorare. Tornerò presto. Si. Un paio di settimane. Non preoccuparti. Buona giornata. "

Sighing, Luca switched off his phone. This was an unpleasant conversation. His boss from Naples wanted him to come back and resume his work. But it wasn't just that. He had also talked about "a career change," but he couldn't discuss it with him on the phone. Was he going to be sentenced to desk duty when he came back?! He had perhaps laid it on a little thick with the tear that had run down his cheek during his psychological evaluation and during the questioning in the Della Marra case, but that was no reason to declare him unfit for field duty before he even came back!

But ... maybe it was something else. Why else would his boss have sounded so uncertain on the phone? Although he was a pretty tough guy. A cop of the old school. Now he had sounded as if his own future depended on Luca coming back quickly and resuming his work, including the ominous career change. But no - he just wasn't that far along yet. Especially not now that Dante had disappeared and Grace was not only worried about her brother, but was also increasingly unsure whether she would really be able to settle into the Manhattan clan.

They had talked about it a lot among themselves during the last nights. There were good hours where she functioned, for example in the patrols. She liked fighting for a good cause, even if she didn't like the vigilante mentality that inevitably surrounded the Gargoyles' missions. To do good and yet be mistaken for the bad ones - that hurt her. But how else could it be done without governmental recognition? Then there were bad hours and nights where she - as Dante had absolutely correctly pointed out - curled up in the chapel and prayed for things that no God could give her. Probably she herself did not know what she was praying for. Perhaps for serenity. Maybe for acceptance.

Those were nights when she struggled not to stand out with anything she said or did and to deviate from Manhattan gargoyle behavior, which she herself did not yet know by heart. She smiled and spoke seemingly normally to everyone - but her smile was tense, her stance submissive as if she wanted to make herself smaller than she was. She spoke softly by now, as if she were always in chapel, and thought a lot before she said anything at all. And Luca hated to see her like that. He loved his queen of hearts with straight back, real smile. She was such a wonderful, strong woman - and here she was wasting away to a shadow of herself. He didn't want her to just be functional! He wanted her to be herself.

Luca entered his room, shortly after sunrise. His own jaw so tense from his own tension and the depressing thoughts about his beloved that he had to take a painkiller.

Often in the last few days he had considered whether he should just drop the bomb. Say what Grace and Dante had done in Italy under the thumb of their overbearing father. For most children, their parents were gods. And Italians, even when they grew up, usually respected their parents to the highest degree. How hard it had been for Luca to move out of his mother's house at the age of thirty-one. He could have moved out of home at the age of twenty-three - it wouldn't have been because of money. But because she hadn't wanted him to, a grown man had stayed in his nursery. From the outside, it might have seemed ridiculous. But in Italy it was almost normal. So how could Dante and Grace have gone their own ways, when they weren't even human and their father and the life he offered them was the only thing that had ever been available? In fact, they had thrown off their chains when old Della Marra was killed. And now ... Grace wanted to put on new chains.

He almost wished he could bring himself to say what Grace and Dante (Eva and Fiore) really were. But he couldn't trample on the efforts of his lady of the heart. Then - when Dante had grabbed them the day before yesterday and ordered him to pack suitcases, his heart had fluttered with happiness and he would have loved to shout Yes, sir! Right away, sir! But Grace had refused. Luca would never admit that he thought Dante was right about this. That they were all quite unhappy here. That perhaps they would be better off in Italy - however they were to live there. But Grace had to decide. She had to come to that conclusion herself. Because without her, neither Luca nor Dante would leave. Luca would never leave her alone.

He closed the shutters, undressed, and dropped onto the bed. He now took a sleeping pill after the analgesic. He needed to sleep. He had to turn off his thoughts.

Luca fell asleep without checking, almost neurotically, as he had done the last few days, to see if the pick-up slip for the engagement ring was still in his suitcase under the bed. A ring that, even if he held it in his hand, he wasn't sure he would give to Grace. If he could. If he should.

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It was ten minutes after sunset when there was a soft knock on Luca's door. There was no answer and Grace was about to leave. But then she remembered why she had come here. She needed Luca's cell phone. She would not call Dante first. Not because that would have been a sign of her immense concern and it would have pissed Dante off, but because ringing at the wrong moment could have cost her brother, who was just making his way through Manhattan alone, his life, for example, if he was hiding from Quarrymen. She would have to wait until he called. Or until by chance one of the patrols stumbled upon him.

She pushed open the door and peered into the darkened room. Through the light from the hallway, her gargoyle eyes caught more than enough and she smiled when she saw Luca sleeping soundly on the bed. The cell phone was on his nightstand. She slipped into the room, closed the door behind her, quietly opened the window and the shutters to let in the already cooler night air. Even now, the not quite dark sky offered more than enough light. She pocketed the phone ... but then couldn't tear herself away from Luca's sight.

She knew it was indecent and unchristian. And improper for a lady. But she was terribly fond of seeing him bare-chested. And now even just in boxers. He was lying on his back, one arm resting over his head on the pillow, the other stretched out from him. Defined six-pack like Dante but Luca's physique was more angular, more compact, less graceful (even if graceful was not the right word for Dante's body. After all, he towered over Luca just as Grace towered over Luca). A human body was so very different from the body of a gargoyle - she had learned that since she had been here. Like Dante, the other gargoyles were hairless except on their heads or faces. Their skin tones were colorful, their skin was leathery, every muscle in the right place even at an older age, not only through training as in humans but also through genetic inheritance.

Human males, on the other hand. Luca, on the other hand. She slowly settled down on the edge of the bed. Luca did not wake up. She felt his body warmth and smelled his own odor. Sweat and musk, however, not unpleasant. Was it indecent that she liked Luca's scent? Was it strange that she felt she could follow his scent blindfolded in a hall full of people until she came face to face with him? She reached out and hesitantly placed her hand in the thicket of his chest hair. Once again, he didn't wake up, and a cursory glance at the pack of pills on the nightstand triggered both concern and relief in the red female. She didn't like Luca swallowing sleeping pills. But what if he needed sleep? He stayed up all night, contrary to the human biorhythm. He should take what he thought he needed.

She stroked him - now a little more bravely over his chest hair. She felt his calmly beating heart under her claws. Her own heart was beating wildly as she slid her hand deeper. Although he shaved his head, he had thick fuzz on his belly as well, disappearing further under the fabric of his boxers. So very different from a gargoyle body. Tougher. More fragile - especially in her hands. In her murderous hands everyone was fragile as Grace had experienced in an unpleasant way. Muscular Luca certainly was - but that didn't matter to Grace at all. She even liked the fact that Luca - for a human in the middle of his life - was already putting on a little flab. It occurred to her that she would like to see his chest hair turn gray. It would certainly look good in silver or white.

She licked her lips and blushed at the same time. This wasn't right. She shouldn't desire Luca. After all, she wasn't even human. Luca was a good friend. The best friend gargoyles and former hitmen could have. But he had millions of women to choose from. Women of his own species. Eventually he would want to separate himself from his gargoyle wards and live a life of his own again. A life with a woman he could court, give a ring to, carry across a threshold, and father children with. And Grace would then be only a distant memory. At the thought that at some point Grace would no longer have Luca around, something in her clenched painfully (and that on top of the other tension.)

This had to work! She had to be able to purify herself, because eventually it would come out what she had done in Italy. Only if she adapted as much as possible and proved that she could be a good gargoyle they would still take her in. She couldn't lean on Luca too much. She wouldn't put him in chains. She loved him too much for that. She took a deep breath. She loved him. She loved this person. She had been pleased when she heard that Elisa and Goliath were a couple. They loved each other! And they smelled of each other (mixed scents, which Grace had only gradually been able to classify) - so they also slept together. That was nice for both of them - that it was working. Love was the greatest feeling on this earth. Love was never sin. Grace really believed that because she knew the Bible better than most priests who preached that this or that form of love was unchristian.

But sex?...There were no teachings in her Catechism to guide her on the subject of a gargoyle and a human attempting to consummate the union, though she highly doubted such a thing could ever be considered natural in the eyes of the Church, much less sacramental. And now her dearest human lay here befuddled by sleeping pills, tender and rosy and smelling of masculinity, and Grace felt the welling purr in her throat at the stimulating thought of just having to lean down and run her tongue through his sweaty chest hair. It was an impulse she had hardly known before. Where her brother had often had "relations" with prostitutes, she had always gratefully declined her father's generous offers to provide her with one or two willing lovers of her own. She didn't just want sex. She wanted love. Foolish, hellspawn-untypical, girlish love. In addition to sex, of course. With a sigh of surrender, Grace stood up, bent down once more to kiss Luca gently on his stubbly chin, and slipped out of the room. She had nothing but longings and dreams. Nobody could take them away from her, even if they would never come true. But against certain voluptuous longings she would have to say some additional prayers later in the chapel.

Thanks for reading, Q.T.