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Brood of a New Age

82.

At first, the tapping was imperceptible. But when, after the second or third time, the same sequence of knocking sounds peeled through Anthony Dracon's dream to the more conscious surface of his mind, he instantly startled, waking Giulia as well.

"Boss?" he heard a voice. But not from the door, and not Glasses' voice - the only one who had access to his private rooms in The Plaza at any time.

Tony grabbed his gun from the nightstand without turning on the light and pointed it at the balcony window where he saw a shadow even without the light on. He lived on the fourteenth floor!

Again, the same knocking sequence.

"Boss. It's Dante. I need to talk to you."

Tony lowered the gun but kept it in his lap.

"What do you want?" he asked cautiously. He loved having a gargoyle employee. One who didn't think he was a pet gargoyle but was just that to him. It was good publicity for the Dracon Syndicate and Dante had already proven to be very valuable because horror stories about his activities were already crippling the other families and their "customers" were already starting to migrate to the Dracons just to avoid being blacklisted by Dante. But that didn't mean this particular employee was allowed to bother him in the middle of the night.

"Boss, something has come up that requires your presence," said the inhuman silhouette outside his balcony doors. "Let me in and I'll tell you about it."

"You can't let him in!" screeched Giulia indignantly, who by now was not only as awake as he was but very alarmed. Her milk-white titties seemed to glow even in the dark room. Tony sighed.

"Does it really matter, Dante?" he asked.

The gargoyle outside the window laughed in a way that was lulling and sinister at the same time.

"Oh boss. You're going to piss yourself with joy."

Well. That certainly made the mob boss curious. He stood up and fished his underpants off the floor and put them on. Then he turned on his bedside lamp. Giulia had pulled the covers up to her neck and was as white as a sheet. Tony nodded toward the bed. "If you don't want him to see your naked ass, get out of here, sweets."

"But Tony," she said softly in fake prudishness which she hadn't had in a long time.

Tony just put on his pants. "In ten seconds I'm going to let him in. I don't care if you're still here then or not."

That made Giulia move. She slipped out of bed, fished up her clothes and scurried out with them to put them on in the living room of his hotel apartment as Tony was already on his way to the balcony door.

He opened it and Dante stepped into the room. For the umpteenth time, Tony was struck by how different his new associate was from the loincloth-wearing savage Samaritan gargoyles. He was a phenomenal sight with his clean, perfectly fitting suit (complete with Dracon-burgundy tie). Plus the neatly plaited braid and the cold-I-don't-give-a-shit-about-the-world-if-it-gives-a-shit-about-me scowl. There was something sublime about him. It flattered Tony's ego to know him under his thumb and the human, though smaller than the gargoyle and currently bare-chested, folded his arms and flashed his most patronizing smile.

"I hope it's good."

The gargoyle smiled.

"Tony, you're going to have to restrain yourself from kissing me right now."

.

.

Glasses took the first steps to The Plaza, almost panicking. Why wasn't Tony available? He suspected Giulia had turned off his cell phone. On nights he spent with her, it was sometimes off. And the concierge service pissed themselves so much because of Tony and his power that they didn't dare to disturb him at night - not even when his right hand man told them to.

But if what Maria had told him was true, Tony had to know about it. Before a whole Gargoyle clan paid him a visit. Because where there was one of them, there were more. And just because Maria had supposedly managed to knock out their scout - a scout in one of Tonys houses, where he had put up his own daughter, didn't mean he was safe in the hotel. It wasn't just his daughter who lived in that house, Glasses reminded himself. Also that fucking gargoyle Dante! That asshole must have betrayed them to the others! Glasses had known it all along. None of them could be trusted. Not even those who were obviously cutthroats. They obviously weren't picky about the throats they cut. Once again Anthony Dracon and with him the whole damn syndicate had been fooled by these flying parasites.

But this time it would be different. They had the scout - now at this very second the specimen was sitting tied up and still unconscious in one of the garages of the estate, just waiting for the boss to question it and then put a bullet through its skull. And Dante would be next if he let his tail show again. So far he had not been spotted in the mansion where he was petrified so far although the guys there had turned the whole place upside down. They had the element of surprise on their side. He still had a bone to pick with "Mister" Dante. Yes - this was going to be fantastic. They would get back at the gargoyles.

He strode past the concierge, who just looked at him open-mouthed, to the elevators. Pressed the button a dozen times because he was so impatient. And when the elevator finally opened, Tony was standing in it. And behind him was Dante!

Glasses grabbed his holster but Tony raised both arms as he stepped out of the elevator.

"Glasses! Finally there too. Dante beat you to the good news."

"Good news?" gasped Glasses. Tony walked purposefully past him, laughing, the smugly smirking gargoyle right behind him as if HE were his right hand man.

"Sure good news. Dante has been preparing this surprise all week. He managed to lure one of these parasites to one of my houses, where it was captured. And now it's waiting for me, nicely tied up."

Both, mob boss and gargoyle wandered down the gallery and then down the magnificently wide staircase into the main hall. Glasses tried not to let his horror be apparent. But how that asshole Dante looked at him. The way he smirked. Had he really set this up? Or was this a plan of a different kind altogether.

He joined the two as they walked past the concierge, who was so pale it was a wonder he didn't faint at the sight.

"Boss," hissed Glasses, knowing at the same time it was futile to be quiet. The gargoyle next to them heard every word anyway.

"I know what you're thinking now, Glasses. But don't worry about it."

"This can only be a trap," Glasses insisted, and Tony's smile widened. "Just let me handle it," he said. Dante and Tony got into the car-in the back seats. Glasses were left in the driver's seat - downgraded to chauffeur.

.

.

To Glasses' satisfaction, three guns were pointed at Dante while Tony grinning surveyed his "gift," which was tied to a chair with thick ropes. Still the gargoyle was unconscious, and as Tony pulled the monster's forward-slumped head back by its shaggy mop of black hair, he saw the huge bloody bump on the ice-blue skin.

"Fuck, Maria. You and your frying pan could take on Rambo."

"That's not funny, Tony," said Maria, still holding her household weapon as if a whole horde of gargoyles might storm into this side garage to the main house, and she would have to fight them off. She didn't know who she should keep an eye on more. Tony and the small gargoyle - who was really so small that he had something childlike despite his beak - or Dante, who was standing on the sidelines, calmly smoking despite the guns pointed at him. He looked grumpy but a constant smile played around the corners of his mouth. And that was worrisome. Was it true what Tony had said? That Dante had set it up for this gargoyle to break in here to see what a fellow species was doing in there? Had Dante put a member of his own kind's head on the butcher block for Tony? Or was something else going on here.

"No wrong move," growled one of the guys from the less successful Slaughter confrontation and whose head was bandaged as a result.

Dante gave him a cool look while lighting a new cigarette.

"You guys are making it really hard for me to decide," he muttered darkly.

"What are we making hard for you?" another wanted to know, leaning against one of the walls because his leg was obviously injured.

"In what order I'm going to knock you stupid bastards out for pointing your damn guns at me."

"He's right. Put the guns down," Tony muttered while lifting one of the gargoyle's loosely hanging wings.

"Boss, this guy is dangerous. I'm not buying that he purposely led the little monster here just to trust one of us or Maria to make it unable to fight."

Dante shrugged his shoulders. "Could I have known that in this otherwise deserted house, tonight of all nights, the bear would be kicking? No. But if Maria hadn't gotten to him before I did, I would have taken care of him. That was the plan. It's not my fault you lumped me in with the Manhattan Gargoyles. "

"But that little monster looks just like you!" one of them exclaimed, and Dante grinned so broadly that everyone instantly felt nauseous.

"What do you stupid humans think? That all gargoyles know each other or are related if they share a body feature? Do you think that pathetic thing on the chair is what?- my child?"

"It's a child?" Maria's look at the creature on the chair took on a different quality that made Dante a little more conciliatory. But not enough to stop tormenting them.

"He is a child. There you see how the Manhattan gargoyles are knitted. They use them as lookouts and spys - I've observed from afar many times. They send their chicks to sniff around under your inattentive human asses. That's what I've been working with. It's not mine, it's theirs. How many times do I have to say I don't have anything to do with them?"

"Mhmmm. I can't blame my boys for not trusting you. They've all been fucked by gargoyles before."

Dante laughed listlessly and rather annoyed.

"So what do you suggest, boss?"

"You could ... cut off some of its fingers. I mean, that's totally your thing."

Maria gasped, obviously remorseful at having hit a child (of any race) and horrified at the prospect of this child having anything cut off.

"True enough," Dante muttered, plucking his goatee in apparent contemplation. Then he waved it off and looked downright offended.

"But you didn't keep my last fingers either. I don't want to feel like the boyfriend whose chocolates get thrown away again."

One of the boys laughed and even Dracon twisted his mouth into a wry grin.

"If the supermen here would allow it, I'd suggest something else, boss"

Tony nodded generously whereupon Dante strode to the workbench in this garage and surveyed the tools hanging on a perforated wall above.

Then he picked up the combination pliers and strode over to the small figure in the chair.

He pulled the head of the motionless gargoyle far back so that its beak opened automatically, clamped its head under his arm and brought the pliers to his mouth. Maria and basically all the boys including Glasses and Tony were horrified that the gray gargoyle calmly and with strange routine began to pull the sharp fangs. It made a wet and at the same time gruesome creaking sound every time he pulled one out. One of the boys gagged and Maria slapped a hand over her mouth and closed her eyes. Where most had turned away Tony Dracon could only stare. Already four teeth lay on the table next to the bound gargoyle as Tony found words again. He was at pains to sound unruffled - which didn't mean he succeeded.

"Dante, you really taught them a lesson. I never doubted you, of course."

"Of course not, boss."

The mafia hitman tossed the pliers aside on the table, pulled the cloth from his breast pocket and wiped his hands, which were shiny with saliva and blood.

"Oh that was terrifying," Maria said, her eyes moist now truly compassionate.

"Oh - he's a child. It's much harder for adult teeth to come out," Dante lied, because of course he only had experience pulling out human teeth. All the people in the room looked downright repulsed, Maria most of all.

"You just pulled out the teeth of a child of your own kind!"

"Yes. I did. And you beat him half to death with a frying pan. Don't set the bar so high if you don't want someone to jump over it."

"But ... what do we do with him now?" one of the men asked.

The gargoyle lit another cigarette and was the only one who didn't look at a loss or pondering.

"Logically, he must be taken away. My suggestion - I'll get him off your backs."

"You would kill one of your own kind?"

"Fuck, no. If he were one of the adults- with pleasure, I love challenges. But I don't kill kids, boss," Dante said in disgust. That was actually one of the few conditions in Dante's "unofficial" employment contract. No children, no innocent women.

"I would have taken him far away. His ripped out teeth will be a lesson to the others not to go after the Dracon Syndicate. They will understand the message and keep their distance," Dante assured.

"You don't think so yourself. They will take revenge and would know where to go thanks to the little monster."

"This house we would have to clear as collateral damage. A small price to pay. As if the family didn't have or couldn't acquire dozens of similarly good houses. They would take revenge if we killed the little monster. Blood for blood. That's where they're similar to us as an organization," Dante insisted, and he and Glasses bombarded each other with deadly glances before the human broke off the imaginary duel.

"I'm going to kill him," Glasses said, struggling to get back on Tony's good side. "We could question him first. He could give us valuable information that we can use to get the other gargoyles. Their real clan size. What other lairs they have in the city - I don't think they're all dwelling in one place in Xanatos` Cloud Castle. Their allies other than the Maza screw."

"Phaa," Dante laughed, and Glasses glared at the non-human as he spoke to him rather top-down.

"Didn't you hear what I said? He's a fledgling." The Camorra prince's gaze wandered over the humans and Dante knew his facial muscles showed fairly well played astonishment.

"Oh, man. You humans don't know."

"What?"

"Gargoyle children are little more than obedient animals. He won't tell you anything, no matter how much you torture him."

"Can children of your kind speak? If so - Everyone talks with proper torture," Tony argued, rather amused at the vocal slugfest between his best people.

But Dante disagreed here as well. "The young only listen to the clan leader. Their actions, thinking and cooperating are limited without instructions from the pack leader even to the point of enduring torture for a very long time. You will get a bloody growling bundle but no informative witness. And how long should this torture last? By the time he speaks we'll have the rest of the clan on our heels and-"

"Dante is right," Tony said, breaking off the argument. "It's only a matter of days before Maza somehow gets this address out and feeds it to her pets. This thing has to disappear."

"Thanks boss," Dante said, hoping no one heard the word was actually a sigh of relief.

The gargoyle wanted to go to the bound boy to "get him far away" but Tony stopped him.

"Not you, Dante." The mob boss strutted up to the young gargoyle and, smirking, picked up one of the longer fangs as if considering whether it could be made into a fancy pendant. His smile seemed friendly but Dante knew he had thoroughly screwed up. Tony suspected that he didn't want to kill the child because he was a child, but that there was more to it than that, even if Tony's not overly high intelligence, but above all his arrogance, forbade him to think more deeply about it. He did not trust him. And that was Nashville's death sentence.

"I appreciate your gift. It really proves you're on our side," Tony purred, making the following sound like a concession. "Glasses will kill him. And get rid of the body. The monster found its way here on its own by following you - you said so yourself. So none of the others know where it went. And dead he won't tell them either and the estate will remain in our possession. Even if Maza or some of the other monsters storm in here at some point - by then we will have completely removed all traces. As much as I want to get rid of the others - it's safer this way. One less monster to worry about - that's the best we can get out of this. Soon the sun will be up. You can retire."

Dante stared at Tony. Then Glasses, who grinned at him over Tony's shoulder rather maliciously. The growl- much less Della Marra than Gargoyle - bubbled in his throat, but did not rise to the surface.

"Thanks boss, have a good day," he said gruffly instead and marched out of the garage as calmly as he could. Barely out of sight, he ran into the house.

Excellent. We are approaching the showdown. You think you know how it ends? You have no idea! Wuhahaha.

Thanks for reading, Q.T.