"Where are you going?" Demona asked Goliath as he slid open the patio door to Macbeth's house.
"To call Elisa," he explained.
"Why?" she demanded.
"Because, we would do well to find out where that man was headed. With any luck, we may find out the location and identity of a whole host of Quarrymen, perhaps even locate the Hunter himself. And my criminal interrogation skills are far too…heavy-handed?" Demona chuckled and gave him a genuine smile.
"Well, we all have our gifts, Goliath," she replied, stretching back in a notably vulnerable position on one of Macbeth's chaise lounges, as she watched over the edge of the patio. The younger gargoyles had rediscovered the ATV and had been enjoying the excitement of it, but now, they were once again gathering around Lexington, who was perched on a ledge with his computer. Only Ophelia remained on the patio, looking out at the stars and fireflies thoughtfully.
"Shall I call Xanatos as well?" he asked, "I think perhaps it is time to return to the castle."
Demona cringed a bit at the inquiry. She did not think the time was right to return to the castle. She didn't care to return to the castle until she had found a safe, new home for her charges, and even then, there was the business of finding and hopefully curing the Hunter's crippled brother, which she was still unsure she was prepared to do.
"I need some time to think," she declared suddenly, raising up from a recline, "I wish to go for a walk."
"A walk?" Goliath repeated uncertainly. Demona reached into her bag and pulled out the remote control and handed it to him.
"You'll have the power to incapacitate me, if you feel I've been gone too long. And Lexington's GPS can find me. Let me go. I need some time alone."
"Very well," Goliath agreed reluctantly.
Demona walked past the young gargoyles' frivolity and into the wooded hillside. It wasn't hard to find a trail among the ledges and she followed it to an outlook that gave a wide view of the valley. Clouds of dense mountain humidity rose from the hollows where streams and small rivers flowed, reminding her of rising smoke. The night had grown cool, even chilly, but she was calmed by the sight of the stars and the earthy scent of the forest.
Sadly, she crouched on a craig that jutted out over the trees. Of course, she had realized that it was unlikely that a proper home for her three young charges would just materialize for her, but she had allowed herself to settle on the hope that a solution would be found that prevented her from making this impossible decision. Now, it seemed that her time had run dry.
She knew that, despite the freedom she'd been indulged in the previous weeks, Xanatos, and Goliath by extension, had her completely in their power for all practical purposes. The three young ones, with the help of Luach, could easily defy Goliath and get away, but away to where exactly? To what corner of the earth could she possibly send them where they could be safe from the humans? Even if there was such a place, she feared that they would not be willing to leave without her, even at her order. They were young and inexperienced in the world, but they were still formidable warriors. She had trained them so herself. They could give Goliath a great deal of trouble if they chose to confront him.
For a moment, she laughed bitterly at the irony. Not so long ago, at the peak of her madness, she would have been thrilled to have three competent warriors with which to challenge Goliath. She would have thrown them at him without a second thought in yet another maniacal attempt to take control of the clan herself. Now, such a battle was her most urgent fear and, try as she might, she could not see a situation with both clans living in peace, with one leader permanently imprisoned and diametrically opposed to the another.
And oppose him, she must. She knew that Goliath and the others would do their best to welcome the new gargoyles among themselves, but unlike her involuntary imprisonment, their admission to the clan would come with a price, and that price would be a lifetime of serving mankind. How could she allow that? She could not. She realized that she would have to stall until another option appeared, though what that solution would be, she couldn't imagine.
Dismayed, she rose from the rocky ground and made her way back to the path. She hadn't gone far when she noticed a strange glowing ahead of her. Creeping upon it as stealthily as possible, she soon realized that it was the light from Lexington's computer screen, illuminating his face.
"Lexington?" she asked, "What are you doing out here?"
"Adelpha!" he replied, a little sheepish at having been caught off guard, "I was trying to get this new video call program to work. I was hoping I could talk to Brooklyn tonight, but it's not ready and…I guess I just needed some space."
Demona crouched beside him, watching him quizzically with her arms crossed. He continued with his programming, glancing irritably at her every now and then. Still, she watched him, her eyes seeming to bore into him. Finally, he sighed, and closing the laptop he turned to give her his full attention.
"Is there something you wanted?" he asked.
"I have noticed an inexplicable but no less significant level of peevishness from you. You seem to be particularly bothered by the three newcomers. Please explain."
"No, I'm not," he denied sullenly, "Well…maybe. They just get on my nerves, is all."
"They are new to this world, as you once were," she pointed out, "It's natural for them to look to you as an older, more experienced warrior. You could be something of a mentor to them, with a bit of an attitude adjustment."
"It isn't their hanging around or Linnet's relentless questions that bother me," he retorted, "It's nothing they've done at all, really."
"Oh?" she asked, raising her brow, "What is it then?"
At first, Lexington didn't respond. His face formed a scowl as if he were trying to contain a frustration that he wasn't sure he could express without breaking into a full rage.
"I have a question for you, if you don't mind," he told her, his tone growing even more incorrigible.
"I don't mind. What is it?"
"Okay. Why is it that those three come along after all these centuries and you're all 'My warriors! How I've missed you! How strong you are! How clever!'... but when you saw my brothers and me after a thousand years, you were all, 'Oh, you three again? Let me blast you in the face with a laser cannon!'"
Demona's eyes widened at his sudden burst of anger.
"I…I was not expecting to be asked that question," Demona replied shakily, "But I suppose it is a fair one."
Looking down at the ground, she struggled to think of something to say that would make sense to him, but how does one make sense of insanity?
"I was so sick, Lexington," she said finally.
"Sick?" he exclaimed in disgust, "You were our sister! You taught us! Trained us! People don't just get that sick that they randomly try to murder their own brothers who they helped to raise !"
Shaking her head sadly, she tried again.
"I could see no way forward for us. No hope, no future, no anything, except the unrelenting desire to annihilate what I believed was causing my pain. I am sorry, Lexington. I already know that makes no sense, but there's no sensible explanation I can give you. I am sorry for hurting you and the others. I should have asked for your forgiveness a long time ago, but I didn't know if you and the others were ready to hear an apology from me."
"We've been ready to hear it for a while now," he told her, with a cut of bitterness in his tone, "We've tried to forgive you, even without your asking for it."
"I know you have, Lexington," she assured him, "That has not gone unnoticed. I am grateful to you all."
She paused for a moment, becoming suddenly hesitant.
"What is it?" Lexington asked.
"Since we are in the mood for honest conversations, perhaps I might tell you one of my secrets; something I haven't been able to tell Goliath?"
Lexington's face became mistrusting, "I will not keep a secret from Goliath for you! Absolutely not!"
"You're a wise one, Lexington," she praised with a bit of sadness in her voice, "But it isn't that sort of secret. In fact, it isn't anything Goliath doesn't already know. Only something I cannot bear to say to him."
"Go on, then," Lexington said, still looking a bit suspicious.
"I was afraid today," she confessed.
"Well, you were in a pretty perilous situation with Macbeth's henchmen trying to kill you," Lexington replied.
"I was," she agreed, "And Luach assures me that I acted the same way any reasonable person would have acted in the same situation."
"Yes," Lexington agreed, "We all thought that, once we'd heard the whole story."
"But I was not a reasonable person, and I enjoyed killing her far too much."
Lexington swallowed at this gruesome confession. He didn't know how to respond, but before he could think of something to say, she continued.
"The rage that killing her required, it relieved my pain for a moment. So much did I relish that relief that I wanted more. One was not enough to satisfy me, and it took all the strength I had, plus the knowledge that he might be able to lead us to the Hunter, to restrain myself from killing her accomplice as well."
"But you did restrain yourself," Lexington pointed out, "You were stronger than your rage."
"But I'm not free from it," she told him, "It's still in me and I'm afraid. Because of it, I can't be a leader to the young ones who depend on me, I don't know if I am really capable of breaking the Hunter's curse at all, and if it ever takes me again, all of you are still in great danger from me."
"But it won't take you again!" he assured her.
"How can you be so sure, if I can't even be sure?" she demanded, "This battle is going on inside of me and if I ever fail, none of you would know until it was too late!"
"That's what you think!" Lexington replied with no small amount of arrogance.
"Are you a mind reader now?" she scoffed and he smiled.
"Just yours," he said with a smile, "Come here, and I'll show you."
He took out the computer again and Demona crept closer beside him, watching him swap from window to window, until he rested on a screen that showed a long chart with several, different colored lines on it.
"This is a scan of your brainwaves," he explained, "This is your brain right now, and this disruption…is from the 'incident' a few hours ago." Lexington zoomed out further, showing her a larger stream of time.
"This sort of flat area is probably where they knocked you out. There's the battle with the Weird Sisters. That little one is probably the unexpected white water rafting trip we took. I'm not sure what this weird one is from the other day when we were all asleep…"
"That's really intrusive!" she interrupted and Lexington shrugged.
"It's nothing voyeuristic or anything. I only opened it to show you that you are much further away from losing it than you think you are. Look. That red line is your panic line, and it's set very conservatively. If you ever got anywhere close to that line, alarms would be going off, bells would be ringing, and if necessary, I would turn off your implants myself. But even as out of control as you felt earlier, you got it together and stopped yourself."
"I knew that Dr. Chattoorgoon had scans of my brain waves, but I had no idea you had access to all this," Demona told him.
"Yep! I have had access ever since you broke out of the castle last fall," he explained, "Xanatos gave me full access to your software, your security systems, and all your implant readings and told me to make sure it never happened again. Now, I know the system better than he does! We're not going to let you lose it again and I've even put some things in place to look out for you in case Xanatos gets a little carried away with making unauthorized adjustments. I can lock him out in a snap!"
"You have?" she asked in surprise and he nodded.
"That was Brooklyn's idea. See? Even he's got your back!"
"Lexington, you are indeed a fierce little force to be reckoned with," she said with a mixture of fondness and respect.
"Yes, I am, but that's not the point," he told her, "The point is, we are a clan, and we fight our battles together. Isn't that what you always taught us?"
Demona shook her head, fully bewildered.
"Is it? I'm not sure I can remember that far back."
"I remember," he told her confidently, "And I won't let you forget it!"