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Brood of a New Age

107

At least Sonny didn't have to search for long. The NewYork-Presbyterian / Weill Cornell Medical Center was in the same massive block as the general hospital. More than 48 hours had passed since Graziella had been pulled from the wreckage along with Nashville, and with the gargoyles already back home for two nights, Sonny knew his bossgirl would be in worse shape than creatures that just needed to petrify to be squeaky-clean again. The crowd outside the hospital that he had seen on the news the day before had disappeared. They had moved on to other topics, but every news station still had reporters stationed outside the Eyrie building because the world wanted to know how the Gargoyles were feeling after that chaotic night and especially how Nashville was doing. But both the Gargoyles and the billionaire couple living there kept a low profile. Which wasn't difficult more than 500 meters above the ground in a castle in the clouds.

Just the fact that Graziella was supposed to live there if Xanatos had his way ... was she supposed to live there? Yes, Xanatos had definitely meant that. Graziella living in a cloud castle - that was a strange thought for Sonny. But with Gargoyles - together with Nashville ... it wasn't impossible that she would accept it. She could be very impulsive. He wasn't sure if life as the adopted daughter of a rich bigwig along with that freak show at the castle would be right for his bossgirl (or for him if Xanatos was true to his word).

But he had to tell her about this option. She had a right to know her options. Dino was still her "guardian" on paper as Sonny had learned, but her future was now very uncertain. Would Dino leave New York and take Graziella with him? Then Sonny would be alone again and he definitely didn't want that. Dino would certainly take him with him if he played his cards right, but the danger that they would then end up under his influence again as mobsters was even greater. And he didn't want Graziella to be under anyone's influence any more. Sonny realized that it was very strange to wish for an eight-year-old to have freedom and the ability to make her own decisions - especially because his choice also depended on her choices. It was probably a fact that, despite her intelligence, she would not be able to grasp the implications of her decisions. But why was his urge to follow her anyway - to give her exactly these choices - so big? What was wrong with him - apart from the obvious? Or ... no matter which path she would take, this path was also his destiny? Something predetermined that he simply had to follow? Not only had to, but did so willingly because it was simply the natural course of things?

These thoughts were a little too high for him and would only drag him into a spiral of thoughts that would distract him from his mission. He pushed all doubts aside, putting on a bored but not upset face, as was expected of visitors to a hospital. People who came voluntarily but were not really there voluntarily, but out of obligation to friends or relatives who came to this place of pain, cold surfaces and coercion due to illness and personnel structures. He held the large, colorful bouquet of flowers (which he had bought from his own savings as a cover) in front of him like a shield and marched purposefully through the first floor and to the elevators without giving the staff at the reception desk a glance.

If he had stood mindlessly in front of the information board with the map of the hospital looking for the children's ward, it would only have drawn attention to him and he couldn't think of a lie that would have helped him. If he had said that he was looking for his grandma or mom, one of the do-gooders here might have escorted him to the wrong ward where he would have had to admit his lie. If he had said that he was looking for his sister, the adults would have asked for her name. And he didn't believe that Graziella was also known as Graziella here. The gargoyles had not looked as if they had had the presence of mind to tell the people who the child was. So it was likely that Graziella was listed here as some kind of ... Jane Doe. He couldn't say he was looking for his sister and then reveal her name. And even if he did, they would have looked up her file and seen that a jet-black boy was hardly the "brother" of a white girl. Maybe he was, but they would still have been suspicious.

But ... with bouquet of flowers in hand, box of chocolates under his arm and an expression that said, take-care-of-your-own-shit-I-know-exactly-where-I-have-to-go, Sonny came to the elevators, was pleased to see that in the elevator it was also labeled where the children's ward was, went to the sixth floor and marched just as purposefully (but with a sharp look into every open room and at every nameplate on the rooms) across the ward. His disguise worked again. The parents barely gave him a glance, and the younger children didn't anyway. He didn't see any nurses, although he heard an adult talking sternly in one room, and the cleaning staff ignored him too. He heard children squealing that sounded hardly like illness or pain but also saw some children in the colorful and playful common area who looked really weak and sick.

In a sitting area full of small plastic chairs and scattered toys, two boys were hissing at each other, jumping around all hyper and apparently playing "gargoyles", which Sonny could only roll his eyes at. And one room ... that had no stupid children's drawings on it, no name on it and was right next to the ward room seemed strange to him. Because there were no relatives sitting in it, no toys or other signs that the room was occupied, but the footboard of a bed was visible. A single bed where otherwise every room was occupied by two beds and therefore patients. It looked like the room of a "nobody". A Jane Doe. He closed the door behind him, peered again through the small plastic window in the door and then stepped behind the wall of the small bathroom so that he couldn't be seen from the door. And there lay Graziella, asleep.

He went to her, placed the bouquet of flowers and box of chocolates on the bed and looked at the girl he already thought of as his sister. Although no older brother would be as loyal to his sister as he was. She looked so different. She looked absolutely deranged. Deep, almost black circles under her eyes made her look like her skull lay just beneath her pale, scratched skin. Why had those assholes shaved her head? Taken away her beautiful dark brown curls? No - he remembered that even in the records under the rubble, she'd had short tousled hair, which made it easy to mistake her for a boy. Her tousled pixie cut had now been trimmed to half an inch by the ruthless but pragmatic use of a razor. But even if you could now wash her "hair" with a damp washcloth, he could still see black concrete dust in her eyelashes, on the ups and downs of her ears, under her fingernails, even after two days. They hadn't managed to wash her properly in two days. Of course Sonny knew that there were things that were more important - but it still annoyed him to see her like this.

But at the word "more important", his eyes went to the IV stand next to her bed. There were two bags of clear liquid hanging there. The larger one looked exactly like the one that had been hanging on Dino's bed, so it was probably just "liquid". He didn't know what to do with the information on the other plastic bag. But he took the clipboard that was stuck to the foot of her bed and used it to try and work out what had happened to Graziella. At the top of the first page it really did state "Jane Doe". He couldn't make out many words. But he saw a diagram on the second fold-out page with data. Blood pressure and temperature every two hours. And her first temperature reading was 104 Fahrenheit! After that, the values gradually got lower. So he had driven Graziella on a gargoyle rescue mission through Manhattan without warm clothes when she was already feverish, then she had run off on her own to play the heroine and in this stuffy hot rubble cave her temperature had certainly only risen.

Sonny turned back to the first page, sighing unhappily. Lots of barely legible gibberish with words he would have needed a medical dictionary for. Massive dehydration, antibiotics, muscle tear and surgery, he understood. She had had to have an iron rod removed from her leg, of course she had needed an operation. The image of the amputated Dino flashed briefly before Sonny's inner eye and he immediately grabbed the thin blanket over Graziella and tore it away. But his fears were not confirmed. She still had her leg. Everything was still attached, even if her hand - the hand that Nashville had refused to let go of the whole time during the recording - was in a thick cast and her thigh was bandaged so thickly that it looked almost ridiculous because that part of her leg was twice as thick.

And there was a transparent plastic tube with red fluid coming out of the thick bandage. Irritated, Sonny went to the other side of the bed. There was a thing hanging from the bed frame that looked like a ... it looked like the bellows of a thick plastic accordion. Sonny read the doctor's barely legible text again (shouldn't a DOCTOR's writing be legible?!). Was this thing a "surgical drain"? It seemed to suck blood or fluid from the area of the wound, although Sonny didn't know how that would work without a machine. But it was certainly important, even if it looked bad to see a tube accordion thing sticking out of his boss girl. And what was even worse ... Sonny pulled the thin hospital gown over Graziella's private parts with a dissatisfied face so that he didn't have to see the diaper she was wearing, then he wanted to spread the blanket over her again.

But then he saw that her eyes were open.

And she was smiling.

"Hy doctor," she croaked weakly but showed the kind of smile he knew she was only joking. She joked - in this situation. Her eyes looked strangely dilated; they had certainly given her painkillers, which made her a little groggy. But she seemed cognitively receptive.

A relieved smile crept onto Sunny's lips too.

"Hi, bossgirl," he crooned, grabbing her unplastered left hand as she lifted it limply. Her fingers were ice cold and Sonny rubbed them with his as he spoke. "I'm glad you're okay."

"How's Nashville?" she asked, and though Sonny felt an anger-induced twinge in him that THAT was the most important thing on her mind even though the gargoyle was already in his cloud castle and she was lying here cut open, shaved bald, half dead and with a fucking tube accordion in her leg, he answered.

"All the gargoyles and Nashville made it out from under the mountain of rubble. Everyone's fine. Your dad and my dad are alive too. Nashville was holding your hand the whole time you were buried." Graziella raised her other hand with a strained groan as if the cast weighed a ton. She didn't seem surprised but actually smiled at the fact that the little gargoyle for whom she had literally marched to hell had broken God knows how many bones in her hand.

"What's wrong with my leg?" she asked and Sonny saw her trying to lift her head. He pulled the remote control of the electric bed from the frame and pressed the button for the headboard, which slowly rose.

"You had an iron rod in your leg. They had to operate it out. It will heal," Sonny tried to comfort her, but Graziella just blinked down at her leg. Sonny wondered if she was too dazed or too shocked to cry. She was a little girl who had been through terrible things - she should have been allowed to cry. Sonny wouldn't have thought any less of her. But she just laid her head back on her pillow.

"I'm so thirsty," she wheezed softly and Sonny was grateful that he could jump up to go to the lounge where he had seen a whole trolley full of tea carafes and cups. He even found a straw and Graziella drank the contents of the first cup greedily, even though it was still quite warm.

"How do you know Nash is all right?" she then asked in a more stable voice.

"There was a reporter under the rubble in the air chamber you were all in, who somehow filmed everything they said and did without the Gargoyles realizing it. And then there was a TV broadcast of it on all the channels around the world. Even the internet is full of it." These sentences were so strange and the facts so unlikely that Sonny himself shook his head in disbelief.

But Graziella didn't question him. Her eyes were on the television, which was switched off.

Sonny picked up the remote control on the table below, switched it on and searched for a channel that was still playing the loop.

After the second round of recordings, Sonny was starting to get restless. It was only a matter of time before a nurse burst in here to take and record the vital signs and then she would throw him out. At best, just throw him out. He had to slowly get to his actual topic.

He switched off the television and Graziella, who had been quietly watching the whole time, observing events that she had been a part of but hadn't experienced, even though her best friend had almost bled to death while holding her hand, looked at him emotionlessly.

"Are you sure Nashville's all right?" she asked again. The footage had stopped when the Gargoyles had climbed out of the rubble, of course she was worried.

Sonny nodded, annoyed that her thoughts only seemed to revolve around him. "Nashville's alive. You can watch the news later. They show the pictures of all the Gargoyles and him flying off the roof of the hospital still all the time."

"Good." Graziella smiled, laboriously grabbed the cup on her bedside table and sucked on the straw until only slurping sounds could be heard.

"We need to think more about your future now, Graziella," Sonny said and sat back down on the chair he had pulled next to her bed. For the first time, he lifted the large box of chocolates off the bed, opened it and brought the thick pile of papers to light. The box had also been a fake.

"I've met Xanatos. That rich dude who owns the castle where the clan lives - you remember. He wants to adopt you."

Sonny looked up and noticed Graziella blinking at him blankly.

"That means ... Tony wouldn't be your dad anymore. It would somehow be Xanatos. His wife would somehow be your mom. At least on paper. He would offer you a life without worries."

"Without worries. With Nashville?"

"Well- you'd probably live in the castle. And he lives there, too."

"I could ... live with Nashville?" Graziella looked out of the window. Her room was on the shady side of the building, but even without sunlight, the sky was fabulously beautiful with thin veil clouds that almost matched her best friend's skin tone.

Sonny smiled. He wanted so much for her to do what she wanted. And be happy doing it.

"You and him," he enticed. "And Xanatos would probably read your every wish from your eyes. No worries. Everything could be so easy. u could be a normal girl and could become a normal woman - except for infinite wealth, of course. You would never have to fight or be strong again. You can just be you."

Sonny only realized what he had said when Graziella's smile instantly disappeared at his last sentences. She turned her head back to him and her face was completely unreadable. But Sonny still thought he had somehow just fucked up.

"Isn't that what you want? To be with him without having to be afraid?"

Graziella licked her chapped lips, thought, and then took a shaky but silent breath as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders.

"It ... is what I want. But ... I need to think about it."

Sonny stood up.

"If you decide to do this, Dino will have to sign these sheets too. And I don't know how much longer he'll stay in this place where I think he's hiding. So ... I'll come back tomorrow when you've thought about it?"

Graziella nodded. She suddenly seemed terribly tired and absent again. Sonny was sorry to have to give her an ultimatum, but maybe she wouldn't even remember their conversation tomorrow.

"I'll go then, okay?"

She nodded again. Without looking at him. Although Sonny had spread the blanket over her again and her leg was covered, she looked at her broken hand. Her little fingers, only the tips of which peeked out from under the thick plaster, were stained red-orange from the disinfectant they had probably smeared on them. Sonny didn't want to leave - not when she was suddenly like this. But he was about to get caught - he could feel it.

"I'll come back tomorrow," he said uncertainly. She nodded again. Sonny left and was totally unhappy without knowing what was going on.

.

.

Without realizing it, Graziella had dozed off over her whirling thoughts. Since she had woken up for the first time after her operation, she had repeatedly slipped into phases of sleep and wakefulness due to painkillers and sleeping pills, almost so seamlessly that she couldn't tell how often the nurses working around her and the doctors talking over her head really woke her up and which episodes had only taken place in her foggy head. But the visit from Sonny- she remembered most of it. She remembered his words. And for the first time in two days, those words made her awake and lucid enough to become restless.

She tried to reach the button thing that dangled from a wire above her head because she'd seen on a soap opera that you could use it to call a nurse. But it was hanging too high. Outside in the corridor, she could hear children stomping, shouting and giggling and adults talking. Graziella held her plastered hand and rolled around in pain. And then moaned loudly because something was tearing at her leg. She tore the blanket off over her so that the sheet sailed to the floor - and remembered that there was a thing hanging out of her leg that was attached to the bed frame on the other side of the bed. Although it sent violent waves of pain through her hand and even more through her leg, she managed to sit down on the edge of the bed on this side. Although she hadn't eaten for two days, she pressed her healthy hand to her mouth because of the nausea that was building up - and had to take it away again before she toppled to one side in bed.

More than the pain, dizziness and nausea burdened her, she was annoyed. About herself and about the fact that all this was causing her problems. She was Graziella Dracon! She had survived a building collapse. Nashville had survived. And she had the opportunity to live with Nashville. She and he could be together. A broken hand and a tube thing in her leg wouldn't stop her from coming to him. She would limp out of this room, demand more painkillers, a phone and a phone book and call this Mr. Xanatos. He wanted to play her "dad"? Should he. Should he and that red-haired Mrs. Xanatos with the tattoo over her eye play mother-father-child with her. She could pretend that she loved them. She could pretend to be her "daughter". She didn't care about a life "without worries". She didn't care about Tony. Those rich idiots too. Even the rest of the clan. As long as she could be with Nashville, she would pretend to be the sweet, simple girl for everyone. Even if she would find that difficult with his dad because he was quite a moron. Nashville needed her, after all. Maybe he was back on his feet now - but he was still just as alone as when he'd met her. Graziella knew he needed a friend. That hadn't changed, even if the adults were now on the Gargoyles' side. Nashville was still alone. He would need Graziella's strength.

She gritted her teeth, leaned to the side and pulled the IV pole close to her, pulling herself up with difficulty. As her bare feet touched the ground, a flash of pain went through her injured leg, almost causing her legs to buckle under her again, and only her one-handed grip on the IV pole kept her upright. Why did everything hurt SO much? Despite the painkillers she was under (she remembered that familiar hazy sensation from the days when she had drugged herself with Oxycontin. But the fact that the blissful pain-free, oblivious feeling hadn't returned now was just proof that the stupid adults hadn't given her enough stuff). Graziella wrinkled her nose with a grunt, stubborn and more determined than ever to get her way, grabbed that weird plastic thing from the bed frame with her own bright red blood in it and took her first wobbly steps.

She made it past her bed. And out of her room. Three joyfully squealing children running past, chasing each other, almost ran her over, two dodged, the third came to a halt at the sight of her and stared at her open-mouthed. Like Graziella, the child obviously had a needle in the skin of his arm, albeit covered with a white bandage. But apart from that, the boy, who was perhaps half her age, didn't look ill at all.

"What are you looking at," Graziella hissed between clenched teeth. "Fuck off." She lurched past him, gasping in pain, in the direction where the corridor opened up on one side to a large lounge full of seating for adults and children, soft short carpet, scattered toys, picture books and cuddly toys.

Graziella's eyes widened when she saw a blonde reporter on the TV hanging in the corner of the room with a picture of Nashville (a snapshot of him smiling without showing his fangs from the footage under the rubble). Graziella - who had seen in the other footage that she had been lying next to him the whole time - had been cut away.

"Hey!" she called out in a remarkably firm voice to the four adults sitting together at one of the tables. Their eyes all got as big as saucers when they saw her, but Graziella didn't care.

"Turn up the TV. I want to hear what she's saying," she ordered coldly and after a quick glance at the other two, the man in the group stood up, stretched and turned up the volume on the TV screen, causing the voice of the grinning reporter to echo through the lounge area.

-" after the dramatic events in "The Granary" that deeply moved the world. But let's look to America and America's new favorite family." The image of Nashville switched to camera footage of people demonstrating but without the reporter's voice fading out. "And with thousands demonstrating nationwide and in front of the Capitol in Washington for the swift drafting and implementation of gargoyle protection laws - even gargoyle expert and P.I.T. co-founder Lenox MacDuff has been invited to speak to the president - a similar offer has so far been rejected by billionaire David Xanatos' media department, under whose protection the clan stands, citing the need for the clan and Nashville to recover from the events. But it is likely that this resistance will soon crumble in the face of media and public interest. We have received reports from around the country that not only is there a rash of pro-Gargoyle sentiment among previously unconvinced adults on this issue, but that numerous active Quarrymen members are publicly shredding their uniforms and turning in their hammers to hazardous materials collection centers. No-not only the adults are on fire for the clan and especially for their youngest member seen so far." Grinning, she walked three steps, the camera panning with her and revealing a view of two dozen fidgeting children and a few adults. Almost all of them were holding colorful posters with slogans like "Rights for Gargoyles", "Clan Protects", "One World". There was even one that said "Nash" and was covered in hearts, which made Graziella screw up her face in hatred.

"I'm standing here at Manhattan middle school in the East Village where, despite summer vacation, Gargoyle fans big and small, new and old, have gathered to write letters to Washington, the Clan and especially Nashville in a summer campaign." She bent down with a grin to a blonde boy holding a sheet of paper in his hands, looking more than a little nervous and shy.

"Hi Jamie," the reporter fluted. "You've written a letter to Nash. Do you want to read it to us?"

Jamie nodded, lifted the sheet of paper in front of his shame-red head and read, stammering:

"He-hello Nash, I saw you on TV and I'm glad you're feeling better. The Q-Quarrymen were so mean and hopefully everyone who tried to hurt you and the other Gargoyles will go to jail. Thank you and your family for pro-protecting us every night. I was scared of you before but now I'm almost not. I think you're cool now - like the Ninja Turtles or almost better. You said you wanted friends. I'm Jamie , I'm nine years old and I like dolphins, hot dogs and baseball. I'd like to be your friend and my parents said it's okay if I sometimes stay up late at the weekend. If you ever want to play together or go to my Little League baseball game when they play in the evening, that would be cool. My mom would drive us, too."

The reporter laughed good-naturedly, which only made the boy blush more as he lowered the paper. " After that, it just says my phone number," he whispered, but the reporter had already stood up again and was looking into the camera.

"There you hear it Nash. One of dozens of letters from students at New York Middle School. Probably one of thousands being written all over the country right now. There's no question that Nashville, the little gargoyle from Manhattan, is the most popular kid in America right now and will hardly be able to save himself from friends. And with that, Olivia St. John from Manhattan Middle School bids farewell with the words -" the camera panned back to the group of wriggling children, who were all shouting at the same time;

"ONE WORLD FOR ALL!". Before the report switched to the next one, one of the girls shouted "I love you, Nash!" from the background.

Which caused Graziella to drop the plastic bottle, in which her own blood was collecting.

She gasped for air and only then realized that she had barely breathed during the crazy report. Trembling, she tried to bend down for the bottle. One of the adults came to her but before he could bend down, the three children came running again and one of the other boys fell over one of the profiles protruding from the base of the infusion stand to which the rollers were attached. The child fell on his nose, caused the infusion stand to rock which caused Graziella to fall to her knees and howl. Her vision went black in an instant, but only for a second, because the child's bawling kept her in the present. She wheezed and heard the other two children making noises of disgust behind her. And her anger at this brought her back to herself. She glared at the two other brats while an adult came out of one of the rooms and picked up the crying child who had fallen over her IV pole.

"Urrrrrgh! You've pissed yourself, ugly!" said one of the two other boys and Graziella bared her teeth.

"I didn't!"

"You did!"

"Tim!" nagged one of the women who had just been sitting by the seating area.

"Don't be so mean to the sick uhh girl."

"That's supposed to be a girl? But she's peed herself and is dying here in the corridor! Sick children like that belong in bed. And she's ugly."

"That..." the woman looked from him to Graziella, eyed her pityingly and then said to her Tim asshole.

"Don't be so mean to weak, sick girls."

"I'm not weak! And not sick!" Graziella spat, and just to prove it to everyone, she hoisted herself to her feet by the IV pole without the arm of the other adult next to her. She saw that she was standing in tea that one of the snotty brats had spilled. How disgusting.

She lifted her eyes and saw one of the other children in the ward also holding onto an IV pole. An incredibly ugly, small, weak thing with a shaved head and sunken eyes that looked like it was about to die. The fucked-up looking boy in the hospital gown opened his mouth to say something at the same moment she did. Then someone slid in from the side next to the other child and attached his bloodsucker bag to one of the hooks on his IV pole at the level of his leg. The same hooks that were attached to her-

"There you go, poor little thing. That's where your drainage needs to go," said the man, awkwardly patting the boy on the head. Graziella jerked her head around, and the adult withdrew his hand from her. She looked at her IV pole with her drainage hanging from the lower part. "You don't have to carry it. And now I'll get a nurse to take you back to your room and clean you up," the adult said as he walked away while she turned her head back to the other child. Who had never been another child. It had been her. In the reflective glass of the empty ward room.

She raised her plastered arm with her orange fingers, trembling, and the ghastly figure that had once elicited a delighted sigh from all the adults did the same. Graziella looked down at herself and only now felt the dampness on her legs. She clumsily lifted up her open-backed hospital gown with the rough part of her cast and saw the large diaper she was wearing, which was so full that it could no longer contain the urine that had just come out of her because of the pain. And the tea she was standing in - wasn't tea. She looked at her reflection again. A pathetic, unbelievably nasty, WEAK creature who had pissed herself, was wearing a diaper full of shit and piss, was pale as chalk, could barely walk, had dark circles under her eyes like a skeleton in that old Halloween Disney movie and a shaved skull.

"I'm not sick. I'm not..." she whispered, but her voice was shrill and squeaky. She felt tears fill her eyes and the room began to spin, her legs gave way beneath her and she collapsed to the floor in her own piss, exploding pain inside her and robbing her of consciousness.

So ... neither Nashville nor Graziella had much luck by becoming friends. I would really have to add "drama" to the description. I would almost be tempted to say that the children bring each other misfortune. But of course Graziella's bad luck started with the death of her mother. And apropos - the next chapter will be a mindfuck extraordinaire for you.

Thanks for reading, Q.T.