Elisa probably shouldn't have been surprised by the number of fire trucks, cruisers, ambulances, unmarked cars, and ominous black SUVs that swarmed the neighborhood.
But she was.
They fell on the block like a cloud of red-and-blue glowing locusts with shimmering carapaces in many colors, packed in loose huddles and crammed against the wall of the building. Firefighters and officers trickled into buildings like ants into anthills. Lights were on in nearly every window, and curious eyes peered out at the street, as if anxious to leave once the all-clear was given.
Elisa couldn't blame them. She had her hands in her pockets, sitting on the hood of a white cruiser. She felt dog-tired, and would have absolutely taken a nap right there on the ground if she didn't already have ten other things to do at that moment. Looking at the sea of plain-clothes, armored, and uniformed officers and first responders, she found herself looking for a particular puff of red hair.
Ah, there he was. Her favorite pain in the neck. Matt Bluestone.
She leaned forward, walking towards him. She lifted a hand. "Hey, partner."
Matt looked up at her. He was handsome, with a strong jaw and laser-blue eyes that seemed to focus tightly on anything nearby that caught his attention. He seemed to live for the detective stereotype. He was so disappointed when Captain Chavez refused to let him wear a fedora on duty, but he still wore that vintage trench coat like he was born with it. His hair was almost a comical shade of red, so bright and coppery that it would have looked more at home on a clown than a cop. It didn't help that the other detectives saw Matt as a clown in his own right.
Matt was an odd duck, to be sure. What made them both odd was that, even before the towers went down, neither of them exactly fit in with the rest of their cohort. What set them on the outside? Well, they both actually gave a damn when they weren't paid to. It was probably the only thing they had in common, along with Derek and Morgan. It was all they needed to have in common.
He tucked his notebook into his trench coat pocket. She could see the indecipherable line of scratches and loops that made up Matt's own invented form of shorthand. He put his pencil behind his ear, and smiled at Elisa. "Hey, partner." He replied. "You're the one who called this in, right?"
"On the heels of about forty phone calls to dispatch." She sighed. "I happened to be in the neighborhood."
"Anything you can tell me?" Matt asked.
"About nine different suspects, one of them a minor. No clear looks at any faces, so no solid leads, except for part of a license plate and the name of the juvenile connected with this."
"You know her?"
"She was in my cruiser when I responded to the bogey call a few hours ago. I was about to drop her off at her home address. I ended up having to fire shots before I chased the bogey here on foot."
When things started getting 'weird' in the 80s or so, no one wanted to say 'monster sighting'. 'Monster' had a lot of uncomfortable concepts attached to it. Concepts like invulnerability, unstoppability, unfathomability. It made people think of Godzilla, King Kong, and the Thing. It made people refuse to take such calls unless they were paid to do it, trained to do it, and could reassign anyone else to do it. There were no monsters in the NYPD's official records. There were 'bogeys'. And bogeys were for suckers.
She and Matt were Manhattan 23's designated suckers; they handled 'the bogey calls'. A fool's errand, until they had no other fools to throw at a deadly, unimaginable, eldritch problem. She and Matt were both bullied relentlessly in the office. Once, someone had gifted her a plush toy of Slimer the Ghost… by attaching it to a tripwire on the door of their office.
The entire reason she was even working the Purple Dragons case–the first serious case she'd had in almost a year–was because all of the perps swore up and down that they were tied up and left in the dumpster next to the police station by Martians.
Matt whistled. "Chavez is going to fry your ass and serve it with waffles. You started your shift without me."
"I know, I'm sorry!" Elisa groaned, massaging her eyes with the heels of her hands. Thank god she never wore makeup. "This was supposed to be basically a babysitting errand. I was already going to be working on the last of the paperwork for that Purple Dragons case, and then–" she gestured at the storefront, the Blockbuster sign hanging by a single power cable, arcs of water from firehoses soaking the steaming rubble. "–this blew up in my face!"
She still couldn't look at the ruined shop directly. And looking around at the sea of faces around her, it was clear she wasn't the only one having a hard time looking at it. They all had a different heap of rubble on their mind.
She saw one unfamiliar black Jeep that stood apart from the rest, a late model with tinted windows so dark that they were black mirrors. There were three officers–or maybe soldiers–milling around it. They wore black uniforms, with black rounded helmets that hid their eyes and showed only their mouths and jaws. One held what looked like a geiger counter, sweeping it over the rubble like a magic wand. Two more were talking to a man in a black suit, who wore a pair of dark shades. Neither the officers nor the truck bore any markings to tell her who they were, or what department they were from.
Something about this mystery rover sent a cold shiver down her spine. The man in the shades was turned away from her, but something about him made her think that his eyes were watching her. It gave her the creeps.
She looked back to Matt, and for a moment, Elisa swore she could see his lips forming words. His eyes were distant, his shoulders rigid. Tam Ooo Pish-ip?
No. No, her lipreading was wrong, she realized. Damn you, Bishop. But who was Bishop?
"It really is not your night, Maza." Matt tsked. "Why don't you tell me more about this?"
"You got any coffee in your cruiser?" She asked.
Matt frowned. "What the hell happened to your cruiser?"
"Bogey."
Matt laughed. Not the kind of laugh that he'd utter at a joke; the kind that made her think that he thought she was going as crazy as he was. It was a pity laugh. "Yeah. Hope you like it black. Last time I had creamer in my cruiser, it turned into cheese."
"Nice." Elisa pursed her lips together, trying not to think about cruiser-cheese in the hot sun. Matt's car was notorious for being uninhabitable for anything but cockroaches.
But coffee was still coffee. She sat in the passenger seat, sipping lukewarm bitter blackness, and told him as much as she could. Of course, she withheld the key details–Goliath, his elder, and their pet–but detailed everything else.
Matt listened intently. But his eyes kept glancing up at the rearview mirror, to the unmarked black Jeep, staring after the dark-haired man in black. Even behind those black shades, it was clear that he was staring right back. A coy smile played on the man's lips as he turned and walked back to the truck, hands clasped behind his back.
The man in black lifted one hand, and waved at Matt's car as he walked away.
For many, rage was a heated feeling. But for Matt Bluestone, it was a wash of ice in his veins, like a cold shower in January. Damn you, Bishop. What could you possibly want?
"It makes no sense." Goliath murmured, fist propped up under his chin. They were miles away, overlooking the scene where red and blue lights glowed like a distant watchfire below the dissipating smoke twirling into the sky. There had been no flames, but the heat of the smoke had proven to be a useful updraft. They'd gained enough height to coast to a far-off building.
"No, it doesn't." The elder agreed. "Why would the humans be chasing the girl if she was allied with them?"
"They wouldn't." Goliath rumbled. "There are more pieces to this."
Their knowledge was fragmented, but they had a few key pieces; the girl was in league with the four creatures. She had been fleeing the human with the golden claws. The four creatures fought with the same weapons that the machine-men had used to ensnare the false gargoyle and his insect companion.
As to the four creatures themselves? The human with the white mane had an injury on his shoulder, a deep cut. One of the creatures had been carrying a bloodied sword. They wore the clothes of humans, in such layers and arrangement that their identities would have been obscured from view. But their odor was unmistakable; not gargoyle, and not human. Furthermore…
"The one in the long coat." Goliath pondered. "He called me 'another one'."
"He's seen other gargoyles." The elder reasoned. "Impossible, unless…"
"Unless he encountered the Trio." Goliath finished for him. He stood up, wings splayed wide. "We find the girl and her four pets, we find our clan-children."
"I circled above before I joined the melee," The elder said. "Two of them were running on the rooftops towards the explosion. The purple and the blue one. They'd exited a vehicle. White, of unique make and appearance. It would stand to reason they'd return to it."
"Your judgment is sound. We shall return to the human Elisa Maza and our beast, and share what we know. I will assist her in locating the girl. You must return to the vehicle. Follow it if you must, but do not be seen. We will return to this roof in one hour."
The elder popped his back with a groan. "This night is a wearying one. I had expected it to be simple."
"It seems you were right, my mentor." Goliath agreed grimly. "This is a cursed night."
The police lights eventually cleared away in the distance. Goliath could feel his internal clock ticking forward. There were only four more hours left until sunrise. He had to find his rookery-sons before then, or else. Goliath's keen eyes scanned the roofs, and he eventually spotted her. The human stood on a roof, waving her arms slowly over her head. The two gargoyles banked, swooping down to land beside her. Their beast boofed in greeting.
"You are still with us." Goliath sounded surprised.
"By hook or by crook. So to speak." She put her hands in her red leather jacket pockets. "I was the first DT on the scene, so this is officially my headache. Matt–my partner–is interviewing people in the neighborhood. There was a kid working the desk in the store, he's talking to him now."
"Is he likely to give us any information?" The elder asked.
"Judging by the smell of pot on his clothes? Nothing credible." She looked to him. "How about you two? If you have any good news, I'd love to hear it."
"I did spy a vehicle. Two of the four creatures left it, heading towards the explosion."
"Creatures?" Elisa repeated. "You mean to say that they weren't human either?"
"Decidedly not." Goliath affirmed. "Your young ward seems to mingle with undesirable company."
We should form a club. Elisa thought to herself. Once I find her, anyway.
"I know her name, and she gave me an address. Whether either of them are legitimate, I don't know yet. But it's a start. If we can't find her tonight, I can look–"
"We must find our rookery-sons before daybreak." The elder asserted. "It is imperative."
Elisa chewed on the inside of her cheek. "That's going to be tight. But why daybreak?"
"Let us just say…" Goliath hunched down, lowering his head to her level. "You will not have our aid, and our sons will be impossible for you or your police to find."
"Alright, I believe you." She shelved the question for the moment. What does happen to them at dawn? Are they like vampires? Do they turn into dust? She thought of a rerun of Buffy the Vampire Slayer she saw the other night, and the image was suddenly slightly more disturbing. "Right, Goliath, you're with me. We can check out the kid's address. And you…" She gestured to the elder. "Sir, I don't mean any disrespect. But I have to call you something."
The elder laughed. "A gargoyle needs no name! Nothing is real to you humans until you box it, label it, contain it! Can you contain the sky? Can you contain the river?" He gestured to the west.
Elisa smirked. "The river is called 'The Hudson'."
The old one seemed to ponder this. For a city so great and so near the ocean, the river represented a lifeline of trade and contact with a world outside their own. Its ancient path, worn by eons of storm and flood, brought life to the people who lived beside it. He smiled. "Then I, too, shall be The Hudson."
"Hudson." She repeated. It seemed to suit him. "Great, I can work with that. Hudson, since you saw the van, go see if you can follow it. If you can't tell me the make and model, I just need at least part of the license plate. That's the metal plank on the back with the letters and numbers."
Hudson gave her a very firm look. "And if this can'nae be done?"
"Then we won't be able to find them at all. We need that license plate number so we can track down who owns that van. I can use it to look up the owner in a registry, and we can find out who they are and where they live."
"That sounds like a task for the daytime." Hudson shook his head. "It will be too slow. But I will follow it as far as it goes, and I will tell you where the device sleeps at night."
Elisa couldn't believe she hadn't thought of that. "That… actually sounds more ideal."
Goliath didn't want to tell her that she had come up with more or less the exact same plan that he had, in about as much time. He was impressed. But one detail remained unsettled. "Our beast is injured, and needs a place to recuperate. Flying with his injuries imperils him."
Elisa looked over at the animal. She tried to keep her voice cold, distant, professional. She was still, after all, dealing with monsters that put other monsters through a wall. But even with his stony, scaly skin and face like the back of a bus, she couldn't help but feel pity for him. "Poor guy. He reminds me of some pit bulls I knew in a shelter in the Bronx when I was a kid. They didn't deserve it either."
"Bronx?" Goliath asked.
The beast lifted his head, and boofed. Elisa, with both hands, massaged the dog-creature's face. It was hard to hide her heart around animals. No matter how hard she tried to keep up that cold, silver shield around her heart, anything with four legs somehow managed to just walk around it. "It's where I grew up, before we moved to Harlem after I graduated. Good music. Good people. It's a beautiful borough, but some people who don't understand it might call it ugly."
The beast boofed again, closing his eyes as Elisa rubbed his neck with gentle, kneading motions. Goliath smiled. "If our elder has claimed a name, and you insist on referring to us with them," He placed a hand on the beast's side. "Then you may call him Bronx, after the beasts you once knew."
"Good boy, Bronx." Elisa smiled. She looked up. "I think I know exactly the place he can hide. With all that's happened, the departments are reorganizing. We have a space that we're clearing for Records. No one will be bothering you there."
"I can't believe it! We've looked EVERYWHERE!"
The air was getting colder. The closer it got to dawn, the weaker the updrafts became as the earth cooled down. Without heat from the sun, no updrafts would form. The darker the sky became, the colder the temperatures dropped, and the thermals they so desperately needed vanished. They'd been lucky to find a few steam vents that let exhaust above-ground, it had been enough to keep them airborne. But they couldn't rely on them, not without mapping every single one between here and wherever their brother was.
In the old days, stranded gargoyles could build a bonfire, use it to form one enormous updraft, so that its heat could lift them up into the air. But that was a thousand years ago. A blaze that big would bring humans and their firetrucks screaming. It wasn't an option.
The cinnabar gargoyle was beyond frustrated. He was furious.
"He's never been away from any of us this long." The web-winged one's brow furrowed. They'd made it to the top of an immensely tall building, an obelisk of enormous proportions with a tall radio antennae that would have dwarfed Goliath's own wingspan. The crown-like arches of cold silvery steel arced over their heads, supported by glowing, triangular windows. The eldest crouched just behind the head of a severe, sharp-lined bust of a silver falcon.
The long-beaked gargoyle, sitting next to him on the peak of the Chrysler Building, crossed his arms. "If he's out looking for us, then he needs to get his eyes checked. I think we're sitting on top of the most obvious landmark in this whole damn city, aside from the Eyrie Building and Mr. Xanatos."
"That's an idea!" The smallest one snapped his fingers. "Maybe he turned around and went home to the castle, figured we'd find him there!"
"How do you think he'd manage that?" The eldest sounded agitated. "There aren't any updrafts that we can see between here and the castle. There's no way he'd make it there without being spotted!"
The olive one shrank back at this outburst. The eldest sighed, remorseful. "I'm sorry. I'm just–" He ran his four clawed fingers through his long white hair. "I'm s…"
The younger one drew his knees up to his chest. His arm-digits curled his wingflaps tightly around his legs, his chin buried in his small cocoon. "Scared?"
"... yeah. That." He sighed, relieved that he didn't have to utter it aloud. "He's our brother. I love him, and I'm worried about him."
The green gargoyle cast a half-hearted, hopeless eye to the ground far below. "Yeah. I love him too." His eyes wandered the streets, tiny headlights like distant fireflies glowed in lines up and down the nigh-abandoned streets.
"Wait a minute!" The smallest one leapt to his feet, nearly knocking his big brother over. "I think I see him!" Without warning, he tucked his arms into his sides and dove down the glass and steel escarpment!
"Wait!" The eldest backpedaled. He lifted his wings and dove after him. "Come back!"
The smallest didn't hear him–wouldn't hear him–as he tucked his elbows in and dove at breakneck speeds! He swore he could see a winged shape on a building below, arm upraised, as if signaling to them! It was right there, he could almost see his–
No. The green gargoyle's arms opened wide to embrace the air, braking hard with a sudden whumpf! He fell several feet, readjusting attitude to circle what he saw.
It was just a statue.
The building was a blocky copper-green rectangle the color of pond scum from above, and a stately Greek-Revival affair with tall columns from street-level. From the air, the two gargoyles circled above the statuary that graced its front, massive marble figures posed majestically around the face of an equally massive clock.
No one below looked up. Eyes fixed towards the ground, the brave few who wandered the sidewalk cast no glances above the horizon, as if a great weight pressed down upon their shoulders. Cars seemed to crawl along as if they were beetles scuttling about with but one thought to mind; returning to the logs, stones, and parking garages they'd crawled out from underneath.
The eldest alighted next to the figure of a barely clothed man wearing a winged helmet, looking out upon the street with sightless stone eyes as he gestured to the sky with one hand, a staff loosely held in his other. The outstretched wings that he had seen above belonged to an eagle whose head peeked out from beside his right leg. A man and a woman, regal and relaxed, were carved in an eternally reclined pose at his left and right, flanking the massive clock face above Grand Central Terminal.
Seated on the wing of the eagle, the youngest put a hand on the fifty-foot tall Mercury's knee. He hung his head in shame, and sorrow.
"I… guess I was wrong." He murmured.
Gently, the eldest reached out a hand to touch him. The younger pulled his shoulder away, a snarl in his throat, rejecting his comfort. Careful to not damage the sculpture, he crawled behind it, away from the view of the street. He pressed his back against the facade, facing the MetLife building to the north, and returned to the position he'd assumed atop the Chrysler Building. Knees up to his chest, he solemnly returned to a miserable green cocoon.
Whup-up-up-up-up-up… High overhead, the eldest could have sworn he'd heard gargoyle wingbeats high overhead, and for a moment hope sparked in his chest. But craning his neck and squinting against the skyscraper lights and the dark black sky, he could only make out the shape of a helicopter passing overhead. Hope faded, replaced with bitter anger.
He leaned out and looked down at the clock, each number dwarfing him in height. The hands, like the slender trunks of iron trees, read 2:30 AM.
The eldest scaled the statue, sitting down next to his brother. He lifted one wing, as if offering out an arm for a hug. The youngest, wordless, leaned into his side. The red gargoyle enveloped them both in his wings, blocking out the cold wind.
This is my fault. The eldest nestled his beak beneath his folded forearm, his other arm curled around his brother. I shouldn't have let them split us up. I should have gone with them both.
He finally spoke after a few minutes of silence. "It's almost 3. That duel's starting to look like our only shot at finding him."
"Then go." The small one snarled. "Why should we stay here? It's not like looking for him has been any help. We're not gonna find him in a city this big."
The eldest didn't want to admit he might be right. Still, he couldn't give up hope. There was still time before dawn, and that meant they weren't out of luck yet. He pulled his wing tighter around his brother as a gust of cold wind blew across the roof.
"Listen to me." He said softly. "We can't leave him in this city alone. Even if it means searching until dawn, we can't give up on him."
The small one didn't reply. But the older one stood up, caping his wings. "I'm going to go to this Brooklyn Bridge. If that… thing has any sense of honor, then he'll be there. And he'll know where our brother is. If he doesn't?" He curled his claws into a fist, pounding it into his palm. His tail lashed like an angry lion, eyes burning white. "Then I will rip him apart with my bare claws."
"There are plenty of slope drafts and good currents between the buildings. If you can catch them, you should get enough height to make it there." The smallest one drew himself to his full height and continued. "If you're not giving up, then I can't either. I'll try looking on the ground. We'll meet back here, find him, and figure out how to catch an updraft home."
"That's really dangerous." The red one shook his head. "Are you sure?"
The green one wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. He shook like a leaf. But his spine was iron. "It's the only thing we haven't tried yet." He lifted his chin to look his brother in the eye. "And you're right; even if it means searching until dawn, we have to find him." He lifted a hand and slapped his brother on the back. "Now go get that creep!"
The wind began to rise again. The white-haired gargoyle opened his wings, gathering it up, and he sailed from the building off into the distant black.
"Look, I messed up." Elisa admitted. "I ran into a construction yard full of armed perps without a plan, without backup, without you, like a goddamn rookie, and I'm real damn lucky to be alive. My brother will never let me hear the end of it, and I was a jerk for ditching you at the station house."
Matt looked her up and down, chewing on his pencil, holding his notepad full of shorthand chicken scratch that looked suspiciously like question marks. "Well, I was just looking for an apology for spilling coffee in my car, detective." He stated simply. "But given that some 1600-pound monster with a penchant for chasing little girls turned yours into modern art, I'll overlook it."
Elisa sucked in air through her teeth, looking down at the growing brown stain on the crumb-covered carpet. "Yeah… and I spilled coffee in your car. Sorry."
Matt smirked and tipped his pencil in Elisa's direction. "There we go. Now, here's what I got from the pothead who ran the counter…"
"He didn't give you any runaround?"
"I told him that if he spilled his guts about everything that happened between him taking that first drag and when he crawled out from behind the dumpster where he'd been hiding, I wouldn't tell his buddies that he pissed his pants and got caught smoking weed by the ATF."
Elisa snorted a laugh. "Alright, what'd he see?"
Matt detailed from the beginning–with surprising accuracy–the events of the entire fight. Right down to Goliath slamming one of the four creature-ninjas into the wall with his tail. She suddenly felt very lucky and very grateful that Goliath insisted she'd stayed behind.
"So, you were right about that bogey being dangerous. I haven't been to that construction yard yet, but I'll call Morgan and ask him and a few POs to cordone it off for the night so we can investigate it next."
No, dammit, I can't go backwards! Goliath doesn't have that long! Elisa's mind raced.
"Hey, better idea." Elisa held up a finger. "We get Cipes and Fagerbakke to check the construction yard, relay what we got from the desk clerk, and go after her. The girl's a material witness, if not a suspect. While she was in the interrogation room, I got a few key life details from her. We can track her down instead. She did give me an address."
"She give you a DOB?"
Elisa shrugged smugly. "How many April O'Neil's are Editor in Chief for the school paper at Rob Paulsen High in the class of '04?"
Matt sucked in his cheeks, fighting temptation for an easy lead. "She knows you're looking for her. And I really wanna see these robot ninjas."
"She probably thinks I'm dead." Elisa pointed out. "She hasn't seen me since the construction yard. As far as she's concerned, the only cop who knew she even exists just ate dirt. Her trail's still hot. And she might still be in danger."
Matt tapped his pen against his cheek, mulling over the idea more.
"The address she gave me is fifteen minutes away from the precinct."
The pen stilled. He took a deep breath in, and out. "Alright. Good plan. Let's drop off that report at the station house, get a warrant, see if this qualifies for an Amber Alert, and get started finding this kid."
Elisa allowed herself a very small, very quiet sip of victory coffee. It tasted like motor oil.
