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Brood of a New Age
45.
Dante threw the guns of the merchant they had just knocked out into the Hudson in a high arc.
Broadway's "Stop!" came too late. Ignoring the onrushing turquoise gargoyle, Dante hurled the harvested magazines of the weapons into the water.
Broadway stopped at him, dropped his arms and wings, and stared briefly at the prettily illuminated expanse of water flowing by.
"Why?" he asked.
"Why not? ," Dante replied flippantly. Which caused Broadway to turn, eyes blazing, and raise his voice for the first time.
"Why didn't you destroy the weapons?"
"Why should I?"
"Because-," Broadway puffed totally perplexed despite his anger. "Because they are weapons!?"
Goliath, who had just informed Elisa via his two-way Intercom of the whereabouts of the tied-up arms dealer (unfortunately, only a small street vendor), approached his patrolmen who were standing on the bank of the river.
"Why don't you render the weapons useless?"
"They were useless without a magazine!"
"Why don't you crush them in your hands like you saw Goliath and me do? What would you say if a kid found one of the guns when it washed up somewhere?"
Dante raised his hands with a pissed off look on his face, putting his thumb and forefinger together respectively and sounding like he was talking to a small child. "I repeat. No magazines. And what would I call it when a kid finds one of the guns? Early Christmas is what I call it. Kids love guns. Humans are into that."
"Are you nuts?"
Goliath put a hand on Broadway's chest and with difficulty stopped him from lunging at Dante, who, with that pissed-off expression that seemed to be typical of the gray gargoyle, was sullenly watching his currently frantic fellow but made no move to get into a fighting or defensive posture himself. This outlandishly calm trait, which Goliath had seen several times even when Dante was confronted with presumed danger, was so gargoyle-untypical that the Manhattan Clan leader couldn't be sure if it was due to his unusual upbringing or if it was his own nature.
"Why are you getting so worked up?" asked Dante, and Goliath squeezed Broadway's shoulder so tightly until he groaned in frustration, snapping out of his rage.
"Broadway has very formative prior experiences and trauma regarding organized crime and gun violence. It's a sore point that needs to be taken into account."
"Take into account - sure thing. It fits. But I made the guns unusable. You can't say otherwise, Big Leader," the gray one said, shrugging his shoulders, turning away from the other two gargoyles and fishing a pack of butts and his lighter out of his pants pocket.
"I also have formative prior experience with organized crime and gun violence, and I don't bitch about it. Why should I destroy absolutely beautiful and good weapons forever when one can still use them?" he muttered as he walked away, thus not seeing Goliath's face contort with concern at his words. Good weapons. No gargoyle spoke like that (- except one he knew). Not even most humans spoke that way.
He had to admit that their new clan addition on probation hadn't done too badly today. But this little episode - even if no one had been hurt - was still worrying. How could he ever come to a decision to welcome these new gargoyles into the clan with open arms and without fear if they couldn't trust them (especially Dante)? If they had to assume that these new Gargoyles (especially Dante) had ruthlessly hurt or maybe even killed humans in the past and were only now holding back in their probationary period? Then Dante and Grace were ticking time bombs. And a greater danger to the clan and its shaky standing in society than the Quarrymen themselves.
Dante had already climbed several dozen yards over the big breakwaters here on the shore to gain distance. Something the Italian gargoyles often did even if Grace's refuge was the chapel and Dante seemed content with any place where he could be alone with himself. There he stood, staring out over the surface of the water. The wind here at the river blew his wings aside like the hem of a coat, his cigarette holder glowing in the dark. Had it not been for his beak, one might have thought that there stood a sleepless human pressed down by the burdens of his past.
Goliath sighed loudly. Broadway looked at him anxiously and the clan leader tried to put on a confident face. Without particular success.
Then suddenly Broadway's fish-fin ears perked up and his eyes went wide. He had by far the sharpest ears in the clan apart from Bronx or Fu-Dog. That's when Goliath heard it, too. The frighteningly typical hum of hovercrafts. Too small for an enclosed flying machine.
"Sky sled!" hissed Goliath, already in motion. Then running, Broadway right behind him. The leader pointed to the remains of an old jetty that jutted far into the water. Scattered surviving planks and wormy poles protruded like rotten tooth stumps from the water, which was pitch black in that place.
"Broadway-there!"
"Got it!" Remarkably nimble, Broadway sprinted past Goliath, leaping on all fours over the stone breakwaters toward Dante.
"Dante! Take a deep breath!" shouted the middle one of the trio, and the unsuspecting Italian turned just as Broadway wrapped one of his arms around his waist and hauled him along with a mighty cat leap surely more than twenty feet into the river.
Goliath heard the whirring of the rotors, the words of the men shouting to each other, thought he could already feel the light of their searchlights at his back. He made a giant leap, dived and swam underwater to the outermost half-rotten post of the old jetty. There -hidden in the darkness - Broadway was just emerging, gasping for air. Dante was struggling in his grasp and would have flailed one hundred percent and verbally vented himself very loudly if Goliath didn't immediately as he surfaced wrap his hand, as did Broadway, around the gray hothead's beak and envelop both Broadway and Dante with his mighty dark wings, shielding them.
"Stealth. Keep quiet. Stay in the shadows!" hissed Goliath, and truly Dante's inarticulate grunts and frantic kicking almost ceased in his iron-hard grip and in the darkness of his wings. Goliath ignored the painful erratic scratching of Dante on his arm and, like Broadway, stared between his wings. They both tried to dip as deep as they could to their upper lips to merge with the black water.
Four Quarrymen on two vehicles hovered over the breakwater where Dante had been standing a moment ago.
"Where is it now?" one of the guys said, looking around like the others.
"We've searched the whole area!"
"I don't know, man. These critters have gotten so good at throwing us off."
"We'll report to Castaway. It looked like the monster was carrying a kid. Just like he said - they're kidnapping kids." Goliath and Broadway dipped a moment deeper as one of the two bright searchlights flashed across the water.
"That's because shitty lefty liberal parents like that don't watch their brats. We need to make this known at the next rally. And keep an eye on the missing persons reports so we can find out who it belonged to."
"That's for Castaway to decide. Let's leave it at that for this night." Slowly, the men made a u-turn on their vehicles and glided away across the boardwalk and then between the houses. Goliath exhaled deeply the same second Broadway did.
"Boy, was that close," the portly gargoyle said as Goliath lifted his wings and he swam out from under them.
"Yeah. But every time they don't see us, it discourages them. A lot of people stop showing interest in hunting if they never see prey." Goliath loosened his grip on the Italian gargoyle, which had given up any resistance during the humans' conversation. But not out of insight, as Goliath now realized. The gray gargoyle plopped out of his grip into the water and sank like a stone. Broadway turned and stared in bewilderment as Goliath pulled Dante out of the water and shook him like a doll. But he didn't budge, his beak was open and his eyes were twisted in their sockets.
"What's wrong with him?" gasped Broadway in horror.
"I must-I must have cut off his air unnoticed!" Goliath waded hastily through the water, hoisted the dripping, unconscious malefactor onto one of the broader stones on the bank, and did what he had seen Elisa do to Angela that time. He placed his palms on Dante's chest and began CPR. "One-two-three-" By the fourth time, he heard ribs cracking in Dante's chest and he knew Broadway heard it too. Less pressure! He was too strong - much stronger than Elisa. He couldn't do mouth-to-mouth exactly the way his beloved had done, but he bent Dante's head over the same way, put his hands around Dante's beak so his mouth was just a little open at the top, put his lips around the tip of his beak, and blew air into it. Then he repeated the cardiac compression with less pressure. Again mouth-to-mouth resuscitation- again cardiac massage.
"He's not waking up! He's dying on us!" shrilled Broadway - despite his previously displayed rejection and lack of understanding of the potential killer's nature - full of compassion and concern. Goliath felt his own heart racing and, although he was completely soaked, panic heat rising in him. HE was the clan leader. Never- never directly had a fellow gargoyle died because of him. Not because of such a foolish carelessness. He saw blood running down his arm in the light of a distant streetlamp and spilling onto Dante's chest. The scratch marks the gray gargoyle had inflicted on him were deep from his struggle for air and life, and he hadn't even perceived it as a death struggle from all the adrenaline because of the Quarrymen! He was so suspicious of these new gargoyles, waiting and scrutinizing, but such a mistake had never happened to him before. What was he going to tell his sister?
He would NOT have a gargoyle on his conscience. Not another one after the Wyvern massacre. Again heart massage, again ribs cracked near his sternum under Goliath's desperate pressure. Dante was as cold as ice. Goliath's eyes began to glow.
"No! NO!" he roared into the night. Raised his fist and brought it down on Dante's chest. Dante cried out, spitting water, snapped his eyes open, swiped at Goliath with his claws, and reflexively turned on his side where he vomited a gush of water. The Italian's painful groans and heavy bubbling breathing filled the night air alongside the sloshing of the waves against the stones.
"Thank God," whispered Broadway, who by now had sunk to his hind legs and looked as exhausted as Goliath felt.
"CPR, the gift that keeps on giving," Goliath repeated Elisa's words from that time more than gratefully, running a hand through his wet hair.
"Merda! Che male!" gasped Dante, rasping and whimpering at the same time.
"We're so sorry Dante. We didn't realize," Broadway said, stroking one of the drooping wings of the fellow he disliked so much after all. Instantly, Dante lashed out with it causing Broadway to topple backward.
"Don't touch me!" he gasped in English, coughed up more brackish water in obvious agony because of his broken ribs, and then struggled to his feet. His braid had come undone and his red hair hung down on him like a wet mob, making it look almost comical. He pulled strands of hair from his beak. Goliath tried to support him, but Dante slapped his hands away too.
"I'm sorry for what happened, Dante. Please - let me help you."
"You almost killed me! Have you both taken leave of your senses?"
Dante glared at Goliath, so full of disgust that even the purple giant lowered his hands.
Dante rubbed his face with both hands, trembling with shock or pain. Then he spread his wings, fluttering them as if to test whether he could glide even with broken ribs.
"I just want to return to the castle. Okay?" he hissed and took off, indifferent to whether Broadway or Goliath came with him.
"What are we doing, Goliath?" the aquamarine asked.
"We're breaking off for the night. And we'll stay close to him in case he can't make it up to the castle with his injuries."
He grabbed the radio receiver around his neck and opened a general channel while Broadway was already jumping off the boulders to catch an updraft.
"To all patrols. Quarrymen incident. Our team is calling off for tonight due to injuries. We'll leave it up to you if you do the same."
For loving Dante (Fiore Della Marra) so much, I make him eat a lot of shit. But there are coming chapters where the scarred one in every respect gets his money's worth.
Thanks for reading, Q.T.