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Brood of a New Age
46.
Lexington had checked his e-mails as soon as he woke up. Hacking into the Italian police and prosecutor's files and Interpol had been, shockingly, a snap for him. Was he that good or were the stately and international systems just that poorly secured? After pulling out the data, however, he realized as he sifted through the material that he barely understood a word. The filters had spit out everything with Elisa's search queries, which he had been able to translate with a dictionary from the Internet.
But no translation program was good enough to translate whole texts, reports, files with technical language. He couldn't type in the stuff anywhere to get the text spit out in English. There should be a universal translator. Something like ... Lingua translate. And the search engines in general he found not ideal. Lycos, Altavista and Yahoo - all okay for the current needs of the average citizen. But in the future there should be something better, more structured. Something where the search results could be customized to the individual user by means of a more sophisticated AI than was currently the case. Lexington inwardly promised himself to work on it.
But musing hadn't solved his immediate problem. Fortunately, over the past year, he had developed a motley network of contacts with similar interests. Among them was an insomniac fifteen-year-old from Minnesota who had once mentioned that he spoke and read Italian fluently because he himself had only been in America for three years - a bit like Lex, an immigrant. After consulting with Elisa, Lexington had sent what were probably the most informative newspaper clippings, police reports and interpol files to the Snow Belt. This acquaintance was curious why "TIN-MAN" wanted this info translated but the web-wing was pretty sure that the boy was not a Quarrymen sympathizer and would not mention any of the clearly Gargoyle-associated content to his parents or friends. Later that night he would get the translation in exchange for the cheat code on how to unlock the blood in Mortal Combat. Nothing was for free and Lex could live with the remorse of allowing a minor to bypass the index of the youth protection authorities.
Nevertheless, even with the little he had been able to translate for himself from the simpler newspaper reports, it seemed that mostri e demoni, in the service of the Camorra, had really kept the Naples region in suspense for several years. Of course ... the word monster or demon could also refer to a human murderer, since humans liked to use these terms among themselves to insult each other. But humans had vanished in heaps or had been killed (not by claws or anything but witnesses had spoken of Attaccanti non umani = non-human attackers). And as human as Dante AND Grace fought, it was likely that a great deal of injuries or deaths had been attributed to human perpetrators. In addition, many people had simply puff-disappeared. The number of their victims could be in the hundreds. Or even ... in the thousands?
Lexington - startled out of his nightmarish thoughts - involuntarily tumbled to the side and almost fell off the roof, on the edge of which he had been crouching, when Grace nudged him.
He looked at the gargoyle woman with wide eyes. He saw her beauty although that kind of beauty didn't appeal to him- but first and foremost he saw a potential murderer. He didn't know how to be inconspicuous around her, and the fact that Hudson was forcing him and Grace to spend more and more time together outside and during patrols, or to stay near each other, didn't make things any easier.
"Are you okay, Lexington?" asked Grace anxiously, who by now had acquired the typical squatting, wary gargoyle posture when they waited for crime. The young web-wing bit his lips that his lower fangs bored into them and tried a tense smile. "Sure, it's all right."
The Italian female who had broken Angela's bones so easily rubbed her earlobe insecurely.
"This is almost killing you, isn't it?"
Lex felt all the color drain from his face.
"Wh-what's killing me?" he shrilled, backing away on all fours from Grace, who, however, didn't move and gazed at the store fronts deep below them.
"That Hudson obviously wants to play our Cupid. It makes me really uncomfortable, too. I mean-" she looked at him and smiled, her full lips with bright fangs gleaming between them. "-affection of that sort should develop on its own."
A stone the size of the petrified Goliath fell from Lex's heart despite the unpleasant topic. He crawled back up next to her, trying not to look like someone who was accusing her of being a mass murderer. A camorra killer.
"Yeah- Hudson was the clan leader before Goliath. And he probably considers it his duty as elder to the younger generation- " he waved his hand searching for words. " - to help the younger generation out in terms of relationships. Elders love nothing more than lots of eggs in the rookery."
Grace giggled, but like every time she laughed, she sounded kind of restrained. Depressed by her conscience, Lex assumed. Why else would she keep sliding around in the pews of the chapel - ridiculous as that was for a gargoyle.
"Do you ... find me attractive that way?" she asked a little shyly, and Lex cleared his throat in embarrassment. If she were his type (tall, horned, funny, with delightfully feathery wings, and most importantly, a penis) he would have dropped dead at the question, and if not that at least choked on his stuttered answer. But like this, it was embarrassing but not impossible for him to answer.
"You are a beautiful female, Grace. You're conscientious, friendly, and as we saw in the fights, quite strong too", he teased with a toothy grin, making Grace blush.
"You are everything a gargoyle could want as a mate and as a comrade in arms, and perhaps you have other qualities which we haven't even noticed yet. But I couldn't be together with you," he admitted, taking a deep breath- rather impressed with himself for getting this speech over so smoothly. Grace put one of her hands on his, and her smile was deeply grateful and somehow sisterly.
"I'm glad you said that. Until a few months ago, I thought my brother and I were the only ones of our kind. And the thought of finding you to choose a husband from your ranks had not even occurred to me. I just wanted to find out what and who I was. And the fact that Hudson now wants to bring us together really makes me uncomfortable because I can't see either of you in that role."
Lexington - despite his apprehensions about the new red female - grinned broadly. Oh, most of us can see exactly who you imagine in this role, he thought, and decided to say it a little more subtly out loud.
"So- husbands don't exist among gargoyles anyway. If you want a husband- with something like a Christian wedding, you'd have to marry a human being. If you can find a priest to perform the ceremony. Unofficially."
The female gargoyle next to him was almost devoutly silent, and Lexington let her keep quiet so that she could sort out her thoughts and feelings about Luca De Santis. But by then they heard the unmistakable crashing sound of strong claws being driven into a stone facade. Less than one minute later, Brooklyn and Hudson leapt onto the rooftop, panting. Hudson had insisted on exploring with Brooklyn alone why there was still a light on in the bank below and what the white van in front of it was for. Thus Lex and Grace had once again been given time and space to "get to know each other."
The elder and Brooklyn stretched and something cracked in his back as well as in Hudson's which made Lex and Grace giggle at the same time. The red Second in Command sparkled at both of them but more amused than annoyed.
"You hatchlings get as old as me first," he noted sarcastically.
"Ai, or as old as me," agreed Hudson as the four Gargoyles went into a circle for a briefing and Brooklyn took the floor as patrol leader.
"Okay guys, despite the frosted glass windows, we were able to check out the situation. Like Hudson said - something's not right. Definitely hostage situation. Four tied up in a corner, four hoodlums with regular firearms."
"What were these people still doing in the bank anyway?" asked Grace. "It's long after closing time."
"What clothes are the humans wearing?" inquired Lex, turning to Hudson, and the old warrior ran his claws through his beard. He didn't pay much attention to clothing. Neither of humans nor of other beings "- The four criminals dark clothes and these scraps of cloth that cover everything on the face except the mouth and eyes. What is that called? ... ski masks? Of their hostages, one man wore a suit and the other three wore gray overalls."
Lex rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Mhmmm. Most definitely the manager of the bank, who stayed longer, and three of the cleaners. The criminals will want to extort from him the code to the safe deposit boxes or the vault perhaps by threatening one of the other hostages."
Hudson clapped his hands. "We can't let these fiends hurt the innocent. The first priority is the lives of the hostages." Grace and Lex nodded in unison before Brooklyn pulled them to him and explained his battle plan.
.
.
The four gargoyles limped as fast as they could out of the back entrance through which they had entered five minutes ago, accompanied by the blaring sirens of the alarm system. Also as fast as their wounds would allow, they had scrambled up to the roof and flown away, worried that the police, GTF and Quarrymen would be attracted by the alarm system and the call from the bank manager, which he was still making at that very second (as well as it could be done under the wailing of sirens). Brooklyn didn't have to ask the others if this was the strangest fight all four, including Hudson and Brooklyn himself, had ever witnessed. Witnessed? Barely participated! He knew it was the strangest.
Three blocks away, Brooklyn noticed that Lexington could no longer keep his one arm with the bullet wound straight against the blowing wind and was losing altitude. He directed everyone to a rooftop. They were far enough from the scene of their ... well, what, actually? Was it a triumph or a defeat? The criminals were stopped, the hostages rescued but it didn't feel like a victory.
"Oh, what was that!" groaned Hudson first after he landed heavily on the roof, whipping his long tail back and forth in frustration. Tiny shards of bank counter safety glass, through which he must have crashed, were still falling out of his hair and beard.
Brooklyn smiled as he saw Grace approach Lex, pull a handkerchief from her jeans and tie it around his bullet wound. It was only a graze but one of them would have to carry Lex or (less embarrassingly) take him on a tandem glide.
"I really have no idea what that was," Brooklyn muttered, rubbing the bump on his forehead. He was under the impression that he should know what had been going on in there but the way he'd got a roasting, he wasn't really capable of subtle thinking.
"Okay," Lex groaned, rubbing his arm. "Let's recap the operation just now. The plan was good, it shouldn't have gone wrong."
Brooklyn and he exchanged a brotherly look at the praise his savvy, now much younger brother had offered. Brooklyn was no longer a hatchling and didn't need anyone to brush his belly. But a modicum of approval was nice sometimes.
"Still, the whole thing went to smithereens. After you picked the lock on the back door and cut the power supply, Lex, we should have had an easy time with the sightless people in the main room. The light coming through the frosted glass windows was never enough for them. But for us it was perfect. But then-."
"That light. It was so bright. Like I was looking at the sun," Grace said almost awestruck, crossing herself.
"It only seemed that way because our pupils were set for night vision," Lex murmured thoughtfully. "Maybe one of the humans had some ... kind of light bomb that blinded us."
"All of us at the same time? Was that the one that flattened you and me at the same time, too? It felt more like two bodies fell on us from a dozen feet. Although I think I got a rusted lumbar vertebra loosened up by that."
"No matter which one of them it was," Hudson said. "We were more defenseless for seconds in there than the tied-up humans. That could have ended badly. We were lucky to get out of there. The criminals could have killed us in that condition."
"But they didn't. Because someone took them out. Which one of you did it?"
All three were silent for a moment. "We thought it was you. We heard you shouting, didn't we?"
"Honestly- in that nuthouse in there, everyone was shouting. I even imagined that I heard someone yelling Japanese orders and pulling a blade. It's definitely a sign that I've been practicing swordplay with Katana too much when I've been hearing ghosts. What a mess," Brooklyn muttered, rubbing his head.
Grace hesitantly raised her hand. "I uhh incapacitated two of the bad guys . One with a blow to the temple with only a little force like Signor Goliath showed me."
"Oh yeah. Thanks for that Grace," Lexington said for the first time not with massive conflicted emotion on his face.
"Prego, Lexington. I wish I could have disarmed him and knocked him out before he shot you."
"Ai, and also I owe you my deepest gratitude for stopping my attacker," Hudson said.
"Yes. That was ... a great shot even half-blind," Brooklyn admitted.
The red female smiled a little guiltily, though. Something Brooklyn couldn't or wouldn't hang himself on right now.
"I hope I didn't kill him," she muttered meekly, and Hudson waved it off. "Even humans can't be killed by a shot in the shoulder. Just him falling against me wasn't ideal." The old warrior plucked one of the small glass shards from his beard and flicked it away.
"Okay, that makes two out of four. But when the lights came back on, all four were on the ground. And if it wasn't one of us, we had backup. Did any of you - any of you, even briefly - see our, I'll call them 'helpers'?"
All three of them shook their heads.
"We were all too blinded. And after those seconds, my wound kept me busy," Lexington grumbled discontentedly, making a cat hump with a sound of pain. A sign that whatever had fallen on Brooklyn had caught him properly, too.
"After I fired and destroyed the gun, someone crashed into me so violently that I fell among the hostages. I didn't notice anything because of the kicking limbs. And they were shouting. Because of me." The red female shook her head and looked downright distressed. "I've never seen people so scared. Because of me. Even though they could barely see me."
Lex patted her hand. "You get used to it, Grace. That's why we do this night after night. So people see that we're not as awful as we ... we look." He sighed and gloomily lowered his blank head.
"I didn't see anything either. The light made me lose sight of my opponent I was running towards and I had ... this accident. Those glasses in front of the bank counters aren't as sturdy as they should be. And when I picked myself up the lights were back on and it was just Lex and you standing between the unconscious criminals and the hostages running around." He turned to the presumed new clan member and gave her shoulder a fatherly squeeze. "You proved yourself a level-headed clan member today, Las. But next time, people stay tied up until we can be sure the danger to them has been removed. It was dangerous and a hindrance to have everyone running around in confusion."
Grace looked visibly nonplussed and shook her head. "I- I didn't do that. When the lights came back on, no one had their shackles on."
"Okay. That's even stranger than it already was. Who took out the other two idiots and cut the hostages' bonds?" asked Brooklyn more to himself than the others.
"And who turned the lights back on?" commented Lexington and Hudson nodded.
"Mysteries we're not likely to figure out by guesswork."
All four looked at each other, at a loss. Until Brooklyn clicked his tongue.
"Okay. Suggestion. We keep the strange occurrences in mind but don't shout the embarrassing action from the rooftops. I don't want to worry the others."
"And don't make an idiot of yourself in front of your mate," Lex muttered sarcastically, and Brooklyn gave him a friendly slap- right on his injured arm. For which he was rewarded with a claw poke on his bump. In that second, his intercom came to life.
Thanks for reading, Q.T.