Demona and Ophelia were not able to speak to Angela herself on the phone, as she was already fast asleep in the rookery when they called, but Broadway came to the phone and assured Demona of her daughter's comfort and progress. A bit disappointed, she returned to the patio, where Goliath and the others had assembled. She said nothing, but crouched on the stones in a corner near the firepit and observed the antics of the young ones, her wings wrapped around her shoulders and her tail curling gently as she relaxed in the moment of relative calm.
After a while, Thorn made his way to the corner where she relaxed and embraced her from behind, draping his impressive wings over her and resting his chin on her shoulder. Demona thought he must look like an overgrown child and she laughed.
"Are you trying to pester me, you unruly, troublesome thing?" she scolded affectionately as he playfully tried to wrestle her into a hold, "You're not going to hold me! I recall when you were small enough that I held you under my wings to keep you from the cold!" Thorn ignored her chiding and, releasing his grip on her, took on a serious face and changed the subject.
"My leader, I saw a rabbit on the edge of the wood just now, wiggling its nose at me in the cheekiest manner." He pressed his own beak into her shoulder, wiggling it in imitation and she laughed again.
"Is that so?"
"Aye, that it is! And I looked into that beast's eye and saw exactly what it was about. It squeaked, 'Thorn, I am the greatest of all my rabbit brethren. You have never known the likes of me! Of all the rabbits in the forest, I am the fastest, the most clever, and the most delicious! Oh, you may think yourself a great hunter, but you will never get the best of me! Never will you catch me by my long, lovely ears. Never will you roast my delicious, tender flesh over that fire! No Thorn, struggle as you will, I am too much for you, and the sun will only rise to find you hungry and frustrated!"
"The rabbit said all that?" she chuckled.
"It did. And I know I'm a prideful thing, and far too easily manipulated, but I just don't think I can take that kind of cheek off a rabbit!"
"Well, you'd best see to it, then," she agreed, wondering with some amusement, how Macbeth would feel about returning to his patio to find rabbits roasting over his firepit.
Thorn swooped off to catch a meal and Demona settled to listen to the others. It pleased her to see that Ophelia seemed to have recovered from her earlier embarrassment and was now laughing and joining in the conversation. Goliath, however, had his eyes on Demona and was just as pleased to catch the occasional, soft smile making its way to her face in the glow of the firelight. So much was he inspired by the change in her demeanor that he felt the need to take a risk and tell her so.
"You look very well tonight," he told her in a low voice that was meant only for her, "Being together with these young ones is doing you good, I think."
"Do you?" she replied, turning toward him and raising a brow suspiciously, "And what of it?"
He placed a claw on her caped wing, and said in a voice that was almost a plea,
"Will you not reconsider, bringing them to live with the clan?"
"I will not and you know why," she replied sullenly, turning back to the firelight in obvious disappointment, "And I do not wish to speak of it further."
With his other claw, he drew her face back to him.
"Not long ago," he told her, "You were so far away from us, I could never have dreamed that we would ever know you again. I mourned for you as if you were dead. And now, you are so close! You're a breath away! Reach, my sister! Reach, just a little further, and trust me again!"
His words seemed to petrify her, for she found herself unable to speak, move, or even look away from his earnest gaze. Had she the power to glance back through the flames at the others, she would have seen that they too had fallen silent and were staring at them in concern. She could not break her gaze into his eyes though, and had forgotten them all for the moment. For some time, they remained frozen, Demona yearning to respond to him with emotions that could not be expressed in words. But before she could come up with anything to say, they were interrupted by the return of Macbeth and Luach.
Macbeth paused at the top step, regarding Demona and Goliath with both mistrust and curiosity, then studying the others thoughtfully. Blaze and Linnet rose quickly and nervously at their arrival.
"Good evening, Your Highnesses," Linnet greeted hopefully as Thorn swooped back onto the patio with two large rabbits in tow.
"It is good to see you again, my friends," Macbeth said finally, addressing the trio, who all looked relieved that their former king was not bitter toward them.
"Demona!" Macbeth said sternly, "These warriors look woefully underfed to me. Take your clan into the kitchen and let them prepare whatever is necessary. You may take anything you need from the kitchen or the pantry. If we need more, I will fetch it from town."
"Thank you," she replied with equal coolness, "But we won't be staying long."
"Go," Macbeth directed and five gargoyles and two dead rabbits filed into the house, through the sliding door, leaving only Goliath and Demona behind.
"I thank you for your hospitality," Goliath assured him and Macbeth nodded.
"I have my son back," Macbeth replied in a state of euphoric disbelief, "I can afford to be hospitable. I can afford anything!"
"T'is a great deal we wish to talk about," Luach declared, "Father and I wish to spend some time together before I must part. When do we leave for Manhattan?"
"We?" Demona asked in surprise, "I didn't expect that you would be coming along with us any further."
"I intend to stay with you and your warriors until the journey's end. I gave my word that I would," he explained.
"But you practically have already," she argued, "The city is only hours away from here and Xanatos is on his way to retrieve us right now."
"Then the journey will be just as brief for me when I return," Luach countered with a broad smile, "I would see you safely home." Demona looked suspiciously from him to Goliath, and then to Macbeth.
"There is no need," she assured him, "But you are free to come if you wish."
Luach and Macbeth took their leave and Goliath and Demona went into the kitchen where they found an epic catastrophe awaiting them.
"They did it," Thorn insisted irritably as the two leaders surveyed the counter smeared with rabbit blood, the collapsed shelf in the larder, the strange greenish smoke still seeping out from the seals of the microwave door releasing a foul odor and causing the smoke detector to chirp anxiously, and the bottle of soda that had exploded a layer of sticky syrup over most of it,
"I wanted to roast the rabbits over the fire like normal people."
"I'm sorry, Goliath," a bewildered Lexington exclaimed as he clutched the fire extinguisher he had discovered under the sink, "It all happened so fast!"
"We will put it right though!" Linnet assured them.
"Of course!" Blaze agreed. He gingerly opened up the microwave door, closing it immediately as a cloud of more foul-smelling smoke came out.
"I believe the fire has gone out on its own," he announced after a couple coughs and Ophelia groaned with further embarrassment.
"See that you do," Demona said as she and Goliath backed out of the doorway, then both burst into laughter as soon as they reached the hallway.
"Well, it's official," Thorn announced, "We are incompetents."
"Don't feel bad," Lexington offered, "I made a much bigger mess the first time I was in a kitchen."
Linnet's eyes widened.
"What did you do?" she asked eagerly.
"I'll tell you while we try to salvage that microwave," Lexington promised.
He and Linnet cleaned out the scorch marks from the microwave, while Ophelia prepared the rabbits in a dutch oven. The two brothers did their best to clean up the rest of the mess without making a bigger one and eventually, a meal was presented to the clan.
As they ate, the phone rang and Goliath answered it, announcing to the others that Elisa, her partner, and Xanatos would be arriving early the next morning to interrogate the prisoner. Demona took this news with both relief and a cringe. She did not wish to see the humans at all, but she had to concede the wisdom of letting the interrogation be conducted by someone with a much better record of leaving their witnesses alive and whole than she had.
She glanced at Goliath from time to time, and her mind involuntarily kept returning to the moment earlier when he had pleaded with her to trust him. There were so many things she had longed to tell him, and to show him, preferably while held tight in his arms, but she had to remind herself, just as she had reminded Ophelia, that his arms were no longer hers. He had chosen the police woman. He'd told her that months ago, and she would only bring herself more humiliation and pain if she did not accept it. Even if he had not chosen another lover, she reasoned, how could he ever love her traitorous heart as he once had?
Such pondering made the otherwise pleasant evening bittersweet but the hours passed and the dawn came. With all the other gargoyles at rest, Demona sat alone in her human form, watching the mist rise off the mountains until Macbeth and Luach returned. Lack of sleep had begun to show on both of their faces but they seemed content after the time they had spent together.
"Detective Maza and her partner are due within the hour," Macbeth informed her.
"I do not wish to see them," Demona said coldly, "And I highly doubt they are interested in seeing me."
"I can see why that would not be beneficial," Macbeth agreed, "But then I can't exactly run the risk of having you roam unchaperoned through my home while they are here. You'll have to be restrained."
Demona rose quickly, an enraged threat forming on her tongue, but Luach said,
"I'll stay with Demona, Father. She won't cause you any trouble."
Macbeth looked very uneasy with this plan, but he conceded at his son's word and guided them to an office off the main living room. Inside, a writing desk was built into the wall, surrounded by two walls lined from floor to ceiling with bookshelves. A small conservatory extended out from the room, with just enough space for a white, wicker daybed and a planter's rack holding a varied collection of cacti in decorative pots. The morning sun immersed this space in dapples of light, filtered through the trees that grew over that end of the house. It was a stark contrast to the remainder of the dark, but cozy room. Two brown, leather armchairs, each with a heavy quilt folded neatly across the back, stood along the final wall, with a pie crust table between them and a stained glass reading lamp. An elk hunting trophy was mounted on the wall above them.
"Not exactly your typical aesthetic, Macbeth," Demona noted.
"The furnishings came with the house," he informed them, "Only the books are mine. Still, it's a comfortable enough space to read and enjoy some sunlight. It ought to do you well enough."
"Aye, Father. That it will," Luach agreed. Demona said nothing as she crossed the floor and peeked into the conservatory, eyeing the inviting daybed and the lush, green canopy above the glass ceiling.
"Watch her, Son," Macbeth urged Luach, "Don't let your guard down." Then to Demona, he began in a firm voice,
"Let's have no more trouble out of you, Demona. Don't make my son into a liar."
Demona scowled at him over her shoulder, but didn't offer any other reply.
Once he had departed, she complained, "Why the rise in paranoia? He wasn't so concerned when I was 'roaming unchaperoned' in the house last night."
"Aye, he was," Luach replied, "The whole time we were talking, he was keeping an eye on you with his cameras." Luach laughed and said, "I rather enjoyed the scene in the kitchen!"
Demona snorted at this observation and stretched out comfortably on the daybed, enjoying the sunshine. Luach settled himself in one of the armchairs and picked up a newspaper that was laying on the table, trying to distract himself from the way the sunlight, shimmering through the leaves of the trees, painted such interesting patterns on her bare thighs and abdomen.
Suddenly, Luach became aware of a strange sound that seemed to be approaching the house. Demona heard it too, and she rose from the daybed and peeked over the planter's rack of cacti and through the glass wall of the conservatory to see what was happening.
"It's Xanatos' hovercraft," she announced, and Luach joined her to have a look, gasping in astonishment at the enormous, flying machine and the brave individuals being lowered from it.
"Which of those men is Xanatos?" Luach asked her.
"Neither," she replied, "The man in the gray jacket is his servant, Owen Burnett. The other man, I believe, is called Matt Bluestone."
"And the woman?"
"Elisa Maza," she replied in a voice so dripping with malice that it drew Luach's attention from the miraculous machine in front of him.
"And how has she earned such a contemptuous gaze from you?" he asked.
"She is a human who has infiltrated my clan and convinced Goliath that our most crucial purpose is to risk our lives protecting her city from an endless supply of criminals working within it. All despite the indisputable evidence that an alarming percentage of the people of her city are more afraid of us than the actual criminals and resent every sunset that awakens us. Goliath believes that she protects the clan from these murderers, and even if he is right about her intentions, which I doubt, he has to understand the limits of her abilities against such a powerful threat."
"And?" Luach urged and Demona gave him an incredulous look.
"Is that not sufficient?" she demanded.
"I just sense there is more."
"Well, there is more," she declared, the pitch of her voice rising in anger, "My clan regards her as one of them, as if a human could ever truly be a sister to us! They love her. They trust her. They would risk anything for her. And every last one of them prefers her to me. And before you tell me that this woman bears no fault in this, I already know that. I broke their trust. I abandoned my place in Goliath's heart and at his side. She merely occupies the place that I foolishly left empty. I know all this and it changes nothing as far as I am concerned. I hate her. Mind you, I will never again seek to harm her, for their sakes. But she has taken what was once mine. I cannot forgive that and she will never, ever be clan to me."
Luach listened to her rant in silence, then with fatigue evident in his every move, returned to the leather armchair. Demona observed his silent departure with suspicion. He gave a small cry of alarm when he rested against the back of the chair, only to have it give out behind him and the leg rest rise to catch him as he was involuntarily reclined. Then, once settled in a chair that had proven so unpredictable, he sighed and seemed to lose himself in thought.
His complete lack of response unnerved and frustrated her, but she didn't know how to snap back at silence. She returned to the daybed, laying on her back again to watch the trees above her, tears burning her eyes, until he finally chose to speak again. And of all the possible things he could have said, he chose to declare,
"You know, my dear Demona, you are absolutely wrong."
"Oh, really?" she spat back, her tone both indignant and menacing.
"Aye, really," he replied, "And you may not wish to hear it but t'is the truth nonetheless. I do not believe for a moment that Goliath loves you any less than that woman."
"How dare you!" Demona snarled, leaping to her feet, but he continued, unthreatened.
"I've no doubt she is a pleasant, easy-natured lass and what are you? Wild and rageful as a hurricane! Yet he keeps you near. You complain that he trusts her in all things? T'is easy to trust one who has always proven themselves trustworthy. And what are you? Mischief the essence of your nature and treachery always in your wake! Yet still he follows you across the sea, across the world, and beyond to Oberon's own realm, because you need his help and his heart won't allow him to give up his hope for you. You lament that he takes too great of risks for her? And what has he risked for you? Are these New York criminals you speak of greater in power than the children of Oberon? Was it not Goliath himself that stood before the Weird Sisters, prepared to give his life to save yours? Was it not his blood that I saw spilled? Did this woman require the fortitude it took for him to continue fighting for you when you were overwhelmed with madness? Does she require the mercy it takes to forgive you each and every night? Nay, I say you are not loved less, you blessed fool, you are loved far greater! Go on sulking and poisoning yourself with jealousy against this woman, if you please, but a more ungrateful wretch never walked the earth if you do!"
Outraged and furious, Demona crossed the floor behind him. Leaning menacingly over him, she reached down and snatched the quilt from behind his head. She then turned away from him and carried it back to the daybed, where she wrapped it around her shoulders.
"I'd wager the rest of your brethren feel the same way," he called over to her tauntingly.
"If you can be assured that I won't awaken, then there is no need for you to guard me for your father," she declared, showing him the control for her implants, "I've no wish to speak to you anymore. This control will make me sleep for four hours. You really ought to rest yourself as well as you are clearly delirious with fatigue that you would dare to mock me that way."
"I will not stay silent while you carry such a lie in your heart," he replied, not looking up from his paper.
"I should have known better than to trust you," she said bitterly, "You are no different than the others." With that, she hid herself beneath the quilt, face and all, and after a moment, lay silent and still.