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Brood of a New Age
98.
No sooner had their laughter faded than something crumbled away on Broadway's left side.
Everyone watched with huge eyes as debris fell to the side as ... something tried to dig its way through to them.
Fran opened her mouth and Travis put a hand over it. She slid closer to him (who still held her hammer) and clung to the thin fabric of his uniform. But he let her if that kept her from screaming and whimpering.
Travis saw Nashville's and Broadway's ears twitch, and the boy even sniffed the air as if picking up scent. Then he grinned broadly, somehow causing Travis's fear to fizzle out and change to excited anticipation.
At first he couldn't even make out what it was - despite his beam of light focused on that enlarging opening - too strange the shape, albeit small. With tail sweeping from side to side and large clawed feet first, a slender, bald gargoyle with flying skins between its arms and legs plopped into their chamber. He was full of cuts and bruises but seemed to have taken little serious damage. The Gargoyle stretched a bit (but then stayed in a kinda cute crawling position) looked around briefly, showing surprise at Marshall and Fran but a broad kinda cheeky grin to Broadway and Nashville.
"Evening," he said as if he'd just met them on a park stroll.
"Hi Lex," Broadway and the gargoyle kid said in unison and rather dryly.
"Nice to see someone from the clan. I was hoping you hadn't been squashed."
"We would have let you know in that case," Broadway said with a grin, even managing to shrug his shoulders in his tense posture without their concrete sky falling on their heads.
"You're holding the ceiling, brother?"
"Maybe the ceiling is holding me, too. It's hard to tell by now."
"Ah." The smallest gargoyle sighted so far, already known to Travis` through footage, eyed him with some disappointment.
"And I see ... the Quarrymen are recruiting TV celebrities. Better than ex-marines or merchenarys at our party, right?" joked Lexington, crawling halfway back into the hole he had come from.
"I'm really just here for a report," Travis said a little louder so he could be heard. He wouldn't let himself be accused of being one of those weirdos. Because now that he had met Nashville and Broadway, and even this little one by the name of Lex seemed anything but dangerous (although they could certainly be dangerous - he had witnessed a bit of the fight earlier), he knew that the Quarrymen were all deluded, stupid, murderous, or just plain insane like Castaway.
He didn't know if Lex had heard him, because he was groaning as he pulled something through his hole.
"Since ... you're making yourself at home here, it doesn't seem to be going out back where you came from," Broadway said.
"On the contrary. The part where I was, was deeper inside the building- your part further out- so I think there's less debris on this chamber here, too. Do you hear the sounds from above us?"
"Yeah. They must be digging for us," Nashville said, coughing hard again, which made his face contort in pain.
"For US-" Lex's finger wandered back and forth between him and Nash and Broadway, "- probably not so much." He looked up briefly from whatever he was trying to tug as gently as possible through the hole - though so far Marshall could see only a brown ... well maybe a blanket, and what looked like an overused gray-blond large steel wool pad.
The look from the small gargoyle's big eyes went from trying hard to be cheerful (perhaps a stress reaction to being buried) to very compassionate as he looked over Nashville.
"Oh Nash, how are you? Your wing looks bad."
"Half bad," Nashville said, again exposing the girl and grinning broadly. "We're both okay. I think. But ... you could maybe check on her leg. I was protecting her," the boy said proudly.
Lex puffed and smiled a little pained too. "You did good," he then said, and turned back to the thing to finally get it through the small hole.
"And look who I've saved here from being beaten to death by an iron girder!" he said again a bit more cheerfully and finally managed to drag his luggage through the opening. The thing with the steel wool head was in reality a woman! Quite disfigured with dirt and her hair not a steel wool pad but a crow's nest she was still unmistakable.
"That's -" began Nashville.
"Margot Yale!" exclaimed Marshal, pointing his flashlight at the disheveled figure with the torn thin summer coat by means of which she had just been pulled through the hole.
"Oh, no," muttered Broadway. "Not her again."
Lexington stood up straight - he was the only one who could stand up straight here where Broadway had to remain in a marginally squatting position - and patted his dusty palms.
"Yeah - I know Broadway. I don't know if she's cursed or if we are."
"What in God's name is she doing here? She- she was speaking in court as assistant district attorney for the people," Marshall said in horror, wondering if it was okay to keep his focus on her so his camera would catch everything or if his network and he would later be inundated with cease-and-desist letters from the snarky woman. He decided he didn't really care right now. There was freedom of the press, public interest AND he could have her visage pixelated later, after all.
"Yeah, she tried to put Goliath through the wringer," the little green-gray gargoyle said, rolling his huge eyes. "That's not what we're about, though. This woman has a flat rate on us."
"A- a flat rate?"
"Yes. Honestly - in the last two years, we've run into her and her husband or whatever this Brendan guy is half a dozen times," he said.
"Most of the time, her car got wrecked in the process."
"Which she's always been loudly bawling about."
"But, that we've saved her many times, she NEVER seems to notice," Broadway grumbled.
Lexington began to laugh - the distantly voice-broken laugh of a young man barely out of his teens. "If I were her, I wouldn't like us either, and I'd want to kick our asses in court. Her car insurance must be astronomical by now."
"If you were her, brother, Brendan would be your man," Broadway chuckled, and the wiry gargoyle somehow affectively but very artificially put a hand on his chest.
"I'd treat him better than her."
Marshal grinned as Lex did and looked down at the prosecutor when he noticed Lex looking at him inquiringly. Because that strange look from those strange alert eyes somehow compelled him, Marshal reached out. A gesture repeated a thousand times seeped into one so deeply as an automatism that the reporter only realized WHO and WHAT he was offering to shake hands with when the Gargoyle was already bouncing toward him. His movements cast dancing demonic shadows on the walls, because Travis' flashlight was by now standing upright, shining upwards and thus sending at least a little light everywhere. Frantically he tried to come up with friendly charismatic words to cover up his horror at his own gesture.
"I think uhh first names are appropriate in such a shared experience. I'm um - I'm Travis," the reporter said, sounding a bit suffering because Fran next to him was currently pressing her fingernails into his upper arm in barely concealed fear or anger at the fact that he had virtually invited the little monster to get up close and personal with him.
The skin on the palm and fingers of the non-human felt warm and somewhat leathery but not unpleasant or strangely scaly. The reporter didn't even feel the creature's claws.
"Nice to meet you, Travis. I'm Lexington."
"Like the Avenue?"
"'Exactly." The little guy's eyes drifted to Fran.
Travis cleared his throat. "This is Fran. This whole situation is really getting to her."
Lexington smirked in an eerily charming ironic way. "She'd be stone if this was NOT getting to her." Then he reached out to shake her hand, opened his mouth, and then faltered.
"Don't-don't come any closer!" hissed Fran shrilly but with hardened features wavering perhaps not between fear and hatred but between disgust and uncertainty. Travis's gaze lowered as did Lexington's. Fran, except for her mask, still wearing her entire Quarrymen uniform, including her gloves, just pressed a small silver cross against his olive-gray chest.
For a few seconds there was an awkward silence in their chamber. Travis saw Nashville stick his head out because he couldn't see very well what was happening.
"Fran, I don't think he's responding to your silver cross," Travis said after a long drawn out groan. Fran bared her teeth and now pressed the cross repeatedly against Lexington's face as if that would make a difference. The little gargoyle slowly turned his head, his face contorted in disgust, but not because of the cross. It was obvious he wasn't backing down offensively to give the ongoing religious running-gag they were locked in with here an argument that her "intervention" was somehow harming him even though it clearly made him uncomfortable.
"Has she been like this all along?"
"Totally," Broadway said a little gloatingly, and you could tell he was fighting another bout of laughter.
"Has anyone checked her for a concussion? Brain hemorrhage? Stroke? Stress-induced psychosis? Could you- Stop that, by the dragon!" he finally nagged, stumbling back because Fran had been applying more and more pressure to get a rejection reaction from him and his skin to the cross after all. Well ... it had worked for Travis. He was really repulsed by Fran.
Travis sighed in annoyance. He didn't know what to say. Should he apologize for his - well, fellow human? The gargoyle didn't seem particularly bothered. Maybe he was used to this kind of thing. If he was used to such things, this was just awful. An indictment on humanity. The outcome of the court case had given restrained hope - with his new knowledge, Travis felt that way. But everything the Quarrymen and Gargoyle-haters were doing now also appeared in a whole new light.
"I see. Castaway was only recruiting the elite. Oh man," said Lexington.
She's just been watching too much TV. Buffy and the X-Files," Nashville opined.
Lexington crossed his arms, which just looked hilarious with his wings, and put on the same expression Marshall sometimes observed in his wife when she caught their son at something. "How do you know these shows? You're not supposed to watch them. You get stone-sleep daymares. Nashville looked caught, and then his face actually got a little color because he must have been embarrassed.
"I don't get daymares at all!"
"I can tell - the TVs in the castle need child locks," the gargoyle remarked, grinning broadly.
The gargoyle child grumbled unhappily something incomprehensible - as his son would have done. Meanwhile, because Lexington had moved away from them, Fran was crouching again, breathing hard. The adrenaline and shock had subsided to the point where her sense of pain was working once again, and she was holding her foot rigidly. Yes - she had been shot, after all. It wasn't bleeding massively through the sole of her shoe so she probably wouldn't bleed out but she wasn't really ambulatory either. Lexington looked pityingly at her and put his hand on the rather large fanny pack he wore around his waist.
"I have ... disinfectant. If you don't come at me again with your fanatical posturing, I can take a look at your foot. Maybe a piece of your fine uniform can be used to make a pressure dressing."
Fran looked up. Still petrified face. A spark of disgust, a spark of irritation, a spark of uncertainty. This sequence of emotions was good. But her answer was not surprising. "I'm not falling for that ... Demon. We're not going to assist you in bringing on the apocalypse by taking off our uniforms."
Lexington shrugged and wandered over to the two children where he gently pushed aside Nashville's wing and pulled a small flashlight from his fanny pack to look at the girl's wound. "Well - I'm not forcing myself on you. If the apocalypse comes, beep me."
Broadway and Nashville laughed. And so did Lexington.
"Ohoh, I got another one!" Broadway chirped, adjusting his voice so it almost really sounded a little like that particular actor.
"A demon is a creature of evil, pure and very simple. A person driven to kill is...is...um...it's more complex."
Nashville chuckled and his voice was higher than the actress in question:
"The creep factor is also heightened. It could be anyone. It could be me!"
"Now me again!" exclaimed Lexington, who didn't even manage to disguise his voice accurately, "Well, the Hellmouth, the center of mystical convergence, supernatural monsters: been there."
"I'm not worried. If there's something bad out there we'll find, you'll slay, we'll party!" quoted Broadway.
"Thanks for having confidence in me," Lex and Nashville replied simultaneously.
"You da man, Buff!" concluded Broadway, and all three gargoyles tittered.
Even Marshall did by now, although he suspected why the creatures were acting so peculiarly.
He was absolutely sure by now that the gargoyles were keeping each other happy so as not to let it sink in that, despite the audible digging from outside, they could still be slain at the last minute. And what happened when they ran out of air? And what happened if Broadway petrified? Would his statue be able to hold the ceiling? But if they were thinking about any of that, they didn't let their clan members (or at least the child among them) know. They were highly social, loving beings.
Fran just stared at the gargoyles. "What are they doing?" she asked, and Travis knew she was asking him the question. He sighed good-naturedly.
"They're messing with you, Fran. The demons, as you call them, are screwing with you by quoting Buffy - The Vampire slayer."
She looked at him in surprise and Travis hoped no one saw him blush. He was a seasoned man in his mid-forties. Why couldn't he have ONE show he liked to watch? Even if it was a teeny show. No one decided for him what he liked.
Everyone stopped laughing abruptly when the sound of thunder reached them. But it was not thunder, even if it was distantly reminiscent of it. It was also not the sound of the cleanup and search teams that just made everything around them tremble.
It sounded ... like it wasn't coming from above. Not from where Lexington had tumbled out but from the other side.
"What's that?" asked Marshall where Fran just slapped her hands over her head and whined softly. The Gargoyles all pricked up their ears but had pleased expressions on their faces.
"That's our kin," Lexington said, highly satisfied and as if not in the least surprised.
"That's the sound of gargoyle claws slashing through concrete and breaking through steel," Nashville clarified, again pulling his wing over the child to protect her as dust and small trickles of concrete fragments trickled down on everyone. Marshal let out a fearful shriek, where the gargoyles looked in alarm at the part of the "wall" that was threatening to cave in and perhaps cause them to be buried and crushed. But then a shout was heard from the other side. It was incomprehensible but that didn't stop Broadway - who probably had the strongest lungs.
"We're here!" he shouted loudly.
Again stones crumbled to the side, all heard how something big strong scraped against concrete. Then the reporter flinched because a red demon fist rammed through the last thick piece of reinforced concrete. Accompanied by a small "landslide" and coughing. Briefly, dust swirled around the artificially created room, swallowing all the light from Marshall and Lexington's flashlights.
"We're going to die. The demons are coming to eat us," Travis heard beside him.
"Fran, I swear if you don't shut your mouth right now I'm going to knock you out," he hissed. At least she was too rigidly terrified to keep bitching. Then a figure appeared in the cone of light. Formerly jet black and now gray powdered hair, and a deep red face with red glowing eyes. Briefly, the gargoyle woman looked surprised to see Marshal and Fran, then her gaze drifted to Broadway, Lexington, and Nashville. And the horrible grimace relaxed at the latest at the sight of the child waving weakly at her and became a strange if beautiful woman's face.
"Caro Dio. I am so relieved to have found you," she said in a heavy Italian accent, flashing a delightfully warm smile before squeezing through the hole she had dug, coughing and groaning.
Broadway sighed. "We're glad to see you too, Grace. Can we get out through your hole? Or at least the kids?"
The red gargoyle woman had knelt down to Nashville across from Lexington, who had just pulled out some kind of pen, and stroked the smiling boy and then the human child across their dusty faces. Then she looked up apologetically.
"Mi dispiace molto - i mean. Sorry, Broadway. But where we were - this chamber was even much tinier than this one. But your laughter brought us here - even though I don't know ... why you are laughing - in this situation." She looked around, now that the dust had settled, with an unhappy face. Travis could see from the expressions on the other gargoyles that they knew what she was looking for - but couldn't find.
We? Marshall wanted to ask, but by then he heard a groan from the darkness of the hole from which the female named Grace had emerged.
Again, the hole was beaten and scratched larger with red clawed hands, then a figure was pushed through the hole. The figure of a lifeless black man. He looked like he was dead, but since something (someone) took the trouble to push him in here, he certainly wasn't dead. Travis rummaged in his brain where he knew the dusty and bloody face from ... then remembered again from the scattered reports of arrests. That was Dracon's right hand. He must have lost his glasses, but Travis recognized him anyway. After the lifeless human slid through the hole and over a small mountain of rubble to Fran`s and Travis` feet, another gargoyle squeezed through the opening. Also with red (now grayish) skin coloring but a dominant beak, metal splints on its arms, and protective breastplate that made him look a bit like a soldier. With little elegance and groaning in pain, this gargoyle also slipped through the hole, did an involuntary somersault and landed on his back right in front of Broadway, who grinned down at him as he opened his eyes.
"Hello, Brooklyn. You've been more graceful."
The beaked red gargoyle laughed modestly in a deep pleasant voice then raised his tail which, however, bent on the middle in a strange and very painful looking way. "I broke my tail. Doesn't make my balance the best even when I get most of the damage put back in."
"Ouch- that hurts. But we are glad to have you with us. This is Travis Marshall- who really only got in here for a report, and Fran, a passionate gargoyle haterette," Broadway said with amusement. The red gargoyle stood up, patted his turquoise (brother? nephew) on the chest, uplifting and probably glad he was still alive, while his puzzled, somewhat grim gaze passed over Travis and Fran, wandered over Margot Yale, and he raised the skin of his beak (or upper lip) disapprovingly at the sight of her, then fell on the small group at the other end of the chamber. Instantly he gasped for air and, despite obvious balance problems, had covered the distance in a second. Grace slid to Nashville's head where Brooklyn fell to the ground beside the child. Only then did Travis realize the immense resemblance.
Brooklyn hugged Nashville's head that his torso briefly lifted five inches off the ground, causing the child to shriek.
The red gargoyle let go of him so he could sink back into his pile of rubble, but still had his hands on his face, rubbing dirt off his skin, stroking his hair and repeatedly pressing his forehead against the kid's as he spoke. "Sorry. I'm so sorry! So sorry. I'm so glad I found you, Nash. My little Tengu. You're so freaking me and your mom and the clan out. God, what would we have done if Castaway had killed you? What if you had been crushed by debris? I am SO grrrrr- I want to give you Rookery-Arrest for the rest of your life but ... I'm SO happy you're alive!" He lowered his head to his child's chest and a shaky sigh could be heard from him, reminding Travis of the day he lost sight of his son in Disneyland (the longest hour of his life). Nashville awkwardly patted his father's gray hair making it dust.
"Dad, not in front of the humans. That's embarrassing."
All the Gargoyles laughed softly, even Travis. Brooklyn's laugh had something desperately relieved about it.
"I'm your dad. It's my job to embarrass you. You can get back to being pissy and grouchy with me later. I'm just so happy to have found you. And the rest of my clan." Brooklyn straightened up, stretched his arm, and pressed his knuckles against Lexington's protruding brow bone. The smaller gargoyle smiled broadly, pleased. At that moment there was another shake, dust trickled, concrete crunched against each other and steel struts squeaked. Everyone looked up and you could really imagine that the helpers were already above them.
"Maybe we really can all get out of here," Broadway muttered softly.
"Yeah, if they don't let the ceiling cave in on us with their machinery."
"I don't think so, Travis. Coldfire and Coldstone have heat sensors. They should detect us and inform the rescue workers to be careful," saif Lexington matter-of-factly.
"Coldfire and-?"
"-Coldstone. They're our brother and sister. One's a cyborg made of magic and science, the other's a robot. But complete gargoyles internally because the souls of two of our clan members who were shattered in the Middle Ages were transferred via magic into their current avatars."
Travis gasped in horror.
"Magic- cyborgs- me- that's-"
Travis looked aghast at Lexington, who had delivered all of this with such disinterest as if he had been talking about a short science article whose findings couldn't possibly be anything new."
Brooklyn rolled one eye.
"Thanks Lex, for giving the reporter the inside scoop."
The little gargoyle flashed a grin full of fangs. "Who would believe him? For humans, magic is pulling a dove out of a hat." He twisted the pen he had pulled out of his fanny pack and held in his hand the whole time, and a thin glaring red laser beam shot out, bathing his face in red glow. "Okay. I'll get to work cutting the steel struts that are pinning the kids to the floor so we can get them out of here first."
"I could just rip through the struts," Grace offered.
But Lex shook his head. "Nashville's wing can take it. But we don't know if a major blood vessel in the human child's leg wasn't ruptured by the strut. The metal might be the only thing keeping her from bleeding massively. That's why we need to cut the rod under and above her leg and fix both ends so the humans can't remove the rod till they get to the hospital."
Brooklyn looked around, stood up, hobbled over to Margot Yale and pulled the coat out from under her.
"That's enough to fix it?"
"Yes. Rip it lengthwise."
Lex nodded before crouching down to let the small laser cut the strut between Nashville's wing and the girl's leg. Brooklyn and Grace, meanwhile, tied the two pieces of mantle thickly around the struts while making a tight bandage above that spot to reduce possible blood flow. The sounds above them, the banging, rattling of a hammer drill, the mechanical whir of a circular saw gave hope and terrified at the same time. As the three gargoyles worked, Marshall looked at Broadway. The latter nodded his protruding jaw in Fran's direction. Marshall looked to the side and noticed her stare at the creatures.
Travis leaned toward her and whispered:
"Pretty human for demons, right?"
"Yeah," she said just as quietly.
"Glad she's not about to freak out again," Broadway said, raising his tail to scratch his neck because of course he couldn't move his arms.
"If I were a human, I would find the gargoyle density in this room by now alarming."
"If I were a human with a brain, - " Lex said while working very intently already on the second strut with his now stuttering ballpoint laser, "-I would find the gargoyle density in this room comforting by now."
"Yeah, we even save criminals," Brooklyn muttered. "That'll make me sleep well later."
"Glasses will let you sleep well? I guess my Yale is the fatter fish."
"You don't mean that now," Brooklyn uttered scandalized but you could hear in his voice - and in Lexington's - that they were just getting back to lightening the mood. Which was probably what Broadway had started with his gargoyle density comment.
"How many times has Glasses shot at one of us? And how many times Yale?" argued Brooklyn.
"Yale shoots with words. And her tongue is poisonous! My Yale beats your glasses by a mile."
"Are you kidding me? A mobster who has tried to kill us ten times is worth more than an imaginary top-drawer snipe."
"Correction. An imaginary top-drawer snipe who would have loved to deport Goliath and all of us to the nearest concentration camp! She virtually called Elisa a race traitor and a violator of her professional constitution in court, on camera, because she admitted to loving Goliath romantically and protecting him. She was so close to being dishonorably discharged and is now only allowed to assist the GTF as an advisor and whether she will ever again not be looked at askance by the other humans or her colleagues is questionable. Yale's more dangerous than a mobster with a gun."
"Oh come on! What kind of comparison is that?" Brooklyn nudged his son. "Nashville, you say something to that. Who -."
Brooklyn looked down at his child. But he lay still and stiff. Whether he was gray with dust or just pale was hard to tell. Travis's heart skipped a panicked beat at the sight. He looked like he was- Brooklyn shook him a little more and Nashville flinched and snapped his eyes open. Automatically, he looked to the human child beside him, sighing with relief to find her there.
"I must have dozed off for a minute," Nashville said in a croaky voice. He pulled his arm awkwardly out from under her head and grabbed her small hand instead. Travis saw Lexington raise an arch of his brow questioningly but probably swallow what was on his lips.
Brooklyn snorted. "Don't scare us like that, Nash. Let's call it a night."
Nashville smirked but looked very tired. And very weak.
"I'm, I'm sorry that I ... so ... that I didn't hear. I'm sorry for everything."
Brooklyn shook his head. "I'm not angry with you. I even understand it. But ... it's just not that easy. You can't throw yourself into trouble and think you can do this on your own even if your intentions are good. You see what comes of it."
"I'm sorry. Really, I wish I was ... the way you'd like me to be."
Brooklyn's face contorted with sadness. Oh, thought Travis . This would take a longer conversation. And Brooklyn probably saw it that way, too, stroking his son's damp forehead. "We'll talk about it when things settle down. Soon we're going to get out of here. Your mom is going to be so relieved. Everybody's going to be relieved. Get ready for a huge group snuggle."
"Yippee," Nash said wryly but with a grin. "That's good that it's about to go out. I'm so cold by now."
"Cold?" said Grace, puzzled. "It must be nearly 35 degrees in here - I mean ähhh 95 Fahrenheit I guess. And you're drenched in sweat."
"Not at all, I'm freezing," he raised his hand and she took it. Wide-eyed, she looked at Brooklyn.
"You're really cold."
After Brooklyn also took Nashville's hand, visibly irritated at his child's obviously chilled-out body, Nashville pulled his hand away. "See? And I'm really tired. I'm going to go to sleep before the sun comes up. As soon as we get out of here."
"You've really earned your rest, Nash," said Lex, who had taken the longest to finish the last few millimeters of the strut because his pocket laser had obviously run out of juice. Now he put it away and stood up. "That was an exciting night for all of us."
"Yeah," Nash mumbled sleepily. "I'm just ... glad she's okay. She's ... the most important one."
"I think you should get up and move around. Then you will get ... warmer," Grace said with a lot of uncertainty in her voice.
Nashville nodded.
"Okay. Lex, help me up."
"Sure, buddy." Lex smiled and slid both hands under his back to push him up.
Suddenly Nashville slipped out of his hands and fell to the ground again which made him cry out shrilly and inhumanly.
Lex, on the other hand, raised his hands in front of his eyes, which became so big that they looked even more absurd. Then, with a petrified and at the same time absolutely horrified face, he lowered his hands and showed Broadway, Travis and everyone else that his palms were completely dripping with blood.
Thanks for reading, Q,T.