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Brood of a New Age

23.

At the exact same time as the meeting of the children and P.I.T. ended, Dante was strolling through a lonely part of Central Park called The Ramble, which was heavily wooded and so dark that not even muggers, drug dealers, or homeless people strayed in at night. He had also always wandered through the woods around the Della Marra estate when he wanted to avoid his human cousin and his Minion Rocco.

Here, deep in Central Park, he could almost forget that he was in another place, another city, another part of the world. But only almost. His sharp gargoyle ears could hear over the mostly sleeping animal life around him and picked up the whisper of the foreign city, the roar of cars, the wail of distant sirens. Above what people here would describe as a pleasant summer "forest smell", the gargoyle smelled the pollution, the smog, the ozone of the metropolis. Naples was also a big city, noisy, sometimes dirty. But this was still different.

And Dante hated it. He missed almost everything he had known from Italy. Of course, he didn't miss Giuliano, that power-hungry asshole who had even convinced him for a short time that his sister was dead, just to destroy him not only physically but also psychologically and morally. But he missed everything that had connected him to Italy. He even missed being called Fiore. Of course, "flower" was not really a suitable name for a killer or, if his father had had his way, the leader of the most successful Camorra family south to Rome. And if a person had ever made fun of his name, he would have cut him into strips. But his sister had given him the name back then. When he had been speaking in sentences for a long time, not a word had crossed her lips, and her father had said maybe that was because she somehow remembered that the adult Gargoyles had been killed. But then she had spoken. Her first word. A word that should describe him - ridiculous as it was. And whenever she had called him that since then, he had felt so warm. There where his heart had to be if he had one at all.

Dante stopped abruptly and touched the tattoo with the stylized flower on his right shoulder. The tattoo artist he had forced to do it had sweated blood and water for ten nights in a row because every stitch he had done at night, every color he had used the night before, had been healed and absorbed without residue by the gargoyle body during the day. Even ash and Indian ink - highly poisonous for humans - they had tested. Until, on the tenth night, he had cajoled a few drops of Eva's blood to mix with the paint. It had been only a fleeting idea. But it had worked.

He missed her calling him Fiore and he missed calling her Eva, even though he liked the new names. New names, new life. Where had she gotten this stupid idea? They could change countries but they would still be them. Grace would have no problem showing her best and most peaceful side to these new gargoyles should they prefer that. Because she could be as good as she was deadly. But him? How did he get this pain, this anger, these memories out of his system? The things that made him lash out and stab. He had tackled those shitty Quarrymen yesterday much harder than was necessary - at least two of them. But ... once he started his program he couldn't stop until almost the end. If the girl hadn't taken off her hood, he would have beaten her to unconsciousness, too. That was his repertoire, that was HIM. The Della Marra's hell-brood. Merciless to the end. It was the only thing he knew how to do. Hurting. Spread fear of death. And unlike Eva, he had felt good about it as long as his actions had protected his father and family. Good? Well, not good, but ... okay. He had known who he was. Now, however-.

Dante walked on, plucking at his left bracer over his wrist, lost in thought. There were six small knives in it. There were just as many in the bracer on his other wrist. Around his ankles as well. 24 switchblades.

Thin 10 centimeter blades. With a claw, even his tail, he could make them pop out of the bracers into his hands, stab and throw them. If he had had them yesterday, the situation would have been quicker to handle. And then the people would be dead. All of them. The girl would not have had time to piss herself or take off her hood. And he would have more corpses on his conscience. Brutal, stupid, deluded people. But just people. And Grace would have suffered again. She probably said a dozen times more prayers for him than for herself or anyone else. She was so afraid for his soul and salvation and wished so much that he would find an outlet for his anger. Something that could slowly heal the wounds Giuliano had torn. And she knew that couldn't be achieved with weapons even if handling them felt like the most natural thing in the world. But what was he without his knives? What could he be without them? They were an extension of his body, his emotions, his being. They were him. He was them.

Suddenly angry again, he trudged along one of the trampling paths, startling innocent animals. Whenever he saw small animals he got hungry. Not for a nice brisket in lemon sauce or vitelo tonato but for a bloody steak. Soon he would fly back to see if anything in the hotel refrigerator satisfied his cravings. Or break into a closed supermarket to get something from the meat department? He wasn't at one hundred percent after last night, and if Grace had had her way, he would have stayed at the hotel. But the urge to fly out had been too great. And what was she lecturing him about anyway when she was flying out on her own. To pray! Heavens! Now they were out of Italy and she was still running into churches. Well okay, Dante got that. Smoking and the knives were his valves- kowtowing to God and sniffing incense hers. Should she. She was a big girl just like he was a big boy. She could take care of herself. And one more time those Quarrymen wouldn't surprise him. He had his knives. And he didn't have to tell Grace if he was forced to use them lethally.

Dante had approached the edge of the supposedly more natural woods without noticing it consciously. He could already see through the foliage the light of a streetlamp on a rather trafficked path and back there was a small bridge from which he could surely jump off to catch a breeze that could lift him into the air. But then he heard voices. And shortly after, yelling. He groaned and rubbed both hands over his beak while the screaming for help from a woman grew more fearful and desperate and the cursing of a male voice more menacing. Not that it was any of his business.

"Can't a man be alone with his thoughts for ONCE?" he growled, wanting to turn around to find a quieter corner in this damned city to leave from. But then he stopped, the screaming behind him. All of a sudden the bracers on his wrists felt remarkably warm. When was the last time he had used his knives? Months ago, during his fight with Giuliano and his men. Since then, he had had neither opportunity nor reason. And wasn't it a shame to have skills and then let them wither? Hadn't he neglected this part of his being a bit because of all the English learning, research and other stuff? Suddenly it seemed as if he was pulled by an invisible force in the direction of the bellowing. He didn't even think about it, turned around and ran towards the disturbance of the peace by the annoying couple to drive a knife into at least one of them (preferably the man because this could be at least a minimal challenge).

But it was not a lovers' quarrel at all. A man wearing a cap that hid his face tore at the handbag of a woman who was clinging to it in absolute desperation. Dante stepped up, his thoughts mostly switched off. He had often witnessed crimes - when he hadn't committed them himself - and he had always been indifferent to the fate of the victims. Most of the time he had even found that these people themselves were to blame for their misfortune, because almost always they had a chance to get off lightly. If they simply let themselves be robbed, gave away what they had. What was jewelry and money worth when life was at stake? And although humans were fragile, sad creatures, they still fought back when they were attacked by their own kind. That was just stupid. If one was not clearly the superior part - physically or strategically - then one had to duck or flee. And also with this stupid woman, who clung to her handbag as if her firstborn was in it (which would hardly fit in there) he had not the slightest pity. He was not even interested in helping her. But the knives on his arms and ankles seemed to vibrate, eager to be used.

At least once. Just once, Dante thought as he ran onto the bridge toward the two people. The woman saw him first. Her gaze went blank for a second, her grip around the bag's strap loosened, her cry for help, part fearful part angry at the cheap little attempt at robbery stuck in her throat as she saw the gray creature burst from the thicket. The devil with beak, red hair and glowing eyes. Not warlike and inhuman roaring but - all the more terrifying - soundless like the monster from a silent movie. The planks of the massive oak bridge did not even make the slightest creak when the creature with the huge clawed feet advanced on them. The thief had his back turned to Dante and did not see the threat. He only noticed that his victim had apparently given up resisting and snatched her purse with a triumphant grunt.

"Now give me your ring and your-"

He did not get any further. He did not know what hit him. Two hands thundered left and right on his temples, beating every thought and even the strength of his muscles out of him with precision. Before he could slump, the gargoyle shoved him against the balustrade of the bridge, causing the individual oak balusters to crack and the ornate iron grating between them to tremble. Reflexively, the culprit's hands found the wooden handrail to support himself. Dante was only too happy to help him keep his balance and not fall into the water, pulling out two knives in a heartbeat and nailing the man in place as he rammed the blades through his palms and into the wood below.

And the man would have screamed even though Dante had already sensed from the low resistance of the tissue that he had not pierced any bone. But as Dante was a rather quiet contemporary, he detested noise, slammed the head of the man who had already opened his mouth to holler his pain into the world onto the handrail between his pinned hands. The man sank unconscious to the ground without his hands moving from the spot. He had something of a butterfly specimen pinned down with pins. Dante, deeply gratified by the sight, winced as the human woman behind him regained her voice and shrieked instead. He whirled around, his eyes lighting up again, and hissed at her.

"Stai zitto! Farò tacere anche te in un secondo."

The woman had fallen to the ground and was shrieking and screaming without letting him out of her huge glassy eyes as if he were a fucking car crash that you just couldn't look away from. Dante knew why he always preferred to act from the shadows and disappear into them as quickly as possible. That look - that stunned, insane terror. He hated being looked at like that. People had every reason to give him that look, but he hated it anyway. He puffed hard, trying to remain calm, although he would have liked to throw the frightened wench over the balustrade into the water so that she would cool down. But he had to remember the lessons Grace had put together with her sleuth in case they encountered gargoyles or humans who were not a direct threat. Don't look like a monster or a killer- okay, he had just messed that up with the first impression. Don't kill anyone - he hadn't, the purse snatcher was just passed out. Don't scream - he had just done that. Don't speak Italian but English - oops- messed up too. Dante groaned again- and then tried to act like his oh so smart sister would.

He picked up the purse the malefactor had dropped, crouched down on the ground to avoid looming over her, even folding up his wings. This position somehow always felt more comfortable to him but father had always told him a Camorra leader doesn't crawl around on the floor like an animal. Straighten your back, stick out your chest. Nevertheless, he slowly approached the woman, holding the handbag out to her. She backed away crawling backwards still alternating between breathless gasps and screeches (where did she get the energy to do that?).

"Shut up," he spoke clearly but no longer yelling. "I'm not going to hurt you. Here's your bag. For heaven's sake, woman. Calm down" he grumbled, trying to get through to her. He even tried to force a smile out of himself. Him! Dante! Tried to calm a human being down and stop her from screaming with his beaky inhuman SMILE. Which had rather the opposite effect. She continued to back away and he continued to crawl towards her, wanting to say something again.

But then he heard the rapidly approaching roar, the primeval screams announcing an attack, which froze him and instantly roused something inside him that he had never known had ever been there. Now himself with eyes widened in bewilderment, Dante turned his head - only to be hit and knocked over by a powerful force. A tremendous weight squeezed all the air out of his lungs. It hurt, but he couldn't avoid suddenly lying on his back with his wrists pinned to the floor as if HE were the butterfly. When he opened his eyes again he saw a terrifying figure towering over him. A monster that roared at him with its mouth wide open. A monster without a beak but with turquoise skin, a bald head with three stumpy horns on it, ears like fish fins and glowing eyes. Eyes like he had himself when he was upset.

He was so awestruck by the sight - and so confused - that he could not escape the rock-hard grip of this creature, even though he could have easily grabbed one of his knives on his legs with his tail and rammed it into his massive body. But as it was, he could only lie there and stare.

"Stay good and remain lying there! We've got you now, Scarface. Katana, this is the one Elisa told us about!" spoke the guy - it was a guy.

The screams of the human woman faded away and above Dante and the turquoise creature a slender female figure appeared. She had applied dark paint to most of the areas not covered by clothing, but when she pulled the gray scarf away from her face, he realized that she had an almost ice-blue complexion - and a short beak that made her face look a little like his own. In addition, full black hair flowed over and along her gracefully curved horns. She looked down at him with a furrowed brow.

"Yes Broadway - obviously this is the new gargoyle. The human female has passed out," she said in a slight accent that nevertheless sounded quite different from anything Dante had heard before. As the roundish guy on top of him wore only a loincloth, she had on a somehow Asian-inspired short dress, which - apart from her appearance and her withdrawn reactions - gave her something classy and confident.

In contrast, the turquoise seemed younger and more upset. His eyes only slowly lost their glow as he said in a threatening voice:

"Assaulting a couple, injuring the man and making the woman half insane with fear. That will be added to your bill, gray one."

Dante barely listened to him. Unlike the woman - Katana - Dante remembered seeing the fat man - Broadway, as the street was called here in New York - in the television footage after the bombing. That's why his gaze now followed her as she walked to the man still pinned to the balustrade. She briefly examined the pierced hands, then dared to pull out the two knives, whereupon Dante's former victim fell completely to the ground. Katana briefly took in the scene, looking at the unconscious woman at her side, then at the handbag that had been dropped again - and lastly at Dante, who stared at her with his beak open.

"I don't think he assaulted those two people. The man is wearing a ski mask. For sure the human tried to mug the woman and he wanted to prevent the crime."

Her neutral look at him made Dante - though he had not yet recovered his voice - nod in affirmation. He turned his head to the guy named Broadway, who was still grim but no longer furious with anger. Dante guessed he should stick with the "preventing crime" story. That probably went over well.

Katana looked again at the bloody knives in her hands before her claws found the small push buttons that made the blades snap back. She looked disgustedly at Dante's most cherished possessions. "Yet - human means and weapons were used here. In a most brutal way. Just as Elisa told us about the attack on the Quarrymen tonight."

Dante's torso was briefly lifted by his vest and slammed roughly onto the planks of the bridge.

"It was you! The one who almost killed the Quarrymen!" speculated Broadway with another angry face. "Do you know how much trouble something like that can get us into? Do you know how to talk! Say something!"

Dante licked his parched lips. He couldn't remember ever having lain under an opponent for so long without the one who had brought him down dying a sudden death. But he had been so stunned so far by the appearance of his fellows (they had to be fellows, the older woman had said so herself!) that not even his anger was kindled.

And they already knew about him? And about his encounter with these human scum. And although he had left all of them alive, they didn't seem to be thrilled. What had he done to be treated so harshly by the other gargoyles? And Grace had thought HE would make a bad first impression. Obviously, as Miller had told him, these gargoyles were not murderers. Or were they just not trained well enough to be? But he couldn't mess this up. He had to try to mend fences. If not for himself - then for Grace. He wanted that so badly that he swallowed his pride as a man and an Italian.

He looked back and forth between Katana and Broadway, cleared his throat, and croaked.

"I didn't know you guys would get problems like that. They almost killed me. I just wanted to incapacitate them and for them not to follow me to my sister and our human. I was ... scared."

Broadway above him snarled, and Dante - against every instinct he had - closed his eyes and waited for a punch or a claw blow. Or anything else. These other gargoyles-at least the turquoise one - seemed strange to him. Somehow primeval and animalistic. But though he himself sometimes growled and snarled and hissed - just like Grace - this one had a different savage quality. Were real gargoyles like that? Were he and his sister supposed to be like that and had just never learned?

"Broadway-" a softer voice said from behind the rumbling gargoyle, and Dante opened his eyes.

"Broadway, let him go."

"But, what if he runs off!" the fat fellow exclaimed in a sort of funny indignant tone. Katana put a hand on his wing.

"He won't run away."

"I won't," Dante confirmed in the softest voice he could manage. "Me and my sister have been looking for you guys for weeks. We traveled around the world and searched all over Manhattan just to find others. I would never run away now that I found you."

The other gargoyle stood up and Dante also got to his shaky feet. He eyed the two other gargoyles. He noticed that Broadway was as tall as he but Katana a little shorter. Probably the fatso was stronger than him, but his attack and every move he made were somehow crude, so Dante didn't doubt that he could handle him - if he didn't let himself be surprised again. Which would not happen. But no! He didn't want to fight at all. He wanted to give a GOOD impression. At least a good second impression. Or third? He rubbed his arm, straining to look like a good little gargoyle and not like a mass murderer.

"I'm Dante. It- it's nice to meet you. Sorry about the Quarrymen."

He looked down and didn't know what to say. But light blue clawed feet slid into his field of vision. Just two toes- not like Grace and he had. Katana smiled at him.

"Hello, Dante. Don't be offended by Broadway. But you came to Manhattan at a tense time. The leader of the Quarrymen, Castaway, is just waiting for an incident like yesterday to rail against us more, and the last few weeks and months have been even harder than usual for us. We're all a little thin-skinned. You had no way of knowing that. I'm Katana. This is Broadway. We're still glad you made it here." Her hand touched him on the shoulder. And that touch, of skin like his, of a hand like his that didn't belong to himself or his sister- absolutely stirred him. He had never had a mother- but SO his mother must have been for sure. Before either of the other two gargoyles could react, he had grabbed Katana around the waist and hugged her.

"HEY!" he heard Broadway shout next to him but he couldn't care less about the guy. He hugged the surprised gargoyle woman tightly, more fiercely than he ever could have with a human but more gently than he would have with his sister.

"Thank you. Signora Katana. I am SO glad!"

And he really was. About the fact that at least this woman forgave him for his faux pax with the hooded humans. So glad that he didn't even struggle when Broadway loosened his grip around Katana's waist as if he were her personal guardian of morals. So glad, in fact, that Dante felt like teasing the fatty a bit, turning to him, grabbing him by the shoulders and planting a most Italian kiss on his cheeks, first on the left and then on the right. A horrified gasp escaped the other gargoyle as he stumbled back, leaving Dante enough space to now grab Katana by the shoulders and do the same to her. A delightfully indulgent, motherly soft laugh was heard, confirming him in what he was doing.

Just a kiss left and right - nothing more. She was not an object of desire or courtship for him. She was beautiful- he really thought so although he had no idea of Gargoyle beauty ideals. But she was older than he was- and appealed to something in him that was more child than fertile man.

Still grinning like an idiot - but it was a real grin, oddly enough - he now took a step back and looked expectantly at the other two Gargoyles.

"Uhhh," Broadway made, and his gaze flew to Katana with an unequivocal request to decide what to do with this guy.

She showed a friendly smile, but the gleam in her eyes revealed an underlying slyness and confidence in her ability to handle the foreign gargoyle.

"So Dante-kun," she said, "come with us to the castle. There you can meet the others."

The beaked gargoyle grinned broadly and hopped up next to Katana on the wooden railing on which the human's blood still glistened, then they took off, gliding over the lake and toward the skyscrapers on this side of the park.

"So much to pin him down," Broadway grumbled, looking back and forth between unconscious woman and knocked-out thief. "I guess that means I get to call the cops and give the others a warning."

Translation:

Stai zitto! Farò tacere anche te in un secondo. = Shut up! I'll silence you too in a second.

Here you learn a little about Dante's (Fiore's) background.

I had to make most of it up because the original story is lost. A reference picture to the story with Fiore's name can be found on AO3 or under devianart: From that moment by ritam. A WONDERFUL picture. Gargoyle children have never been drawn sweeter and more alive (my opinion). Fiore is SO adorable.

And of course his meeting with the Manhattan gargoyles. Very tense right from the start. I have to be careful that it doesn't look totally like a mother complex with Dante.

Thanks for reading, Q.T.