Demona screamed in pain and indignant wrath as she realized that the Hunter had her pinned like an animal in a trap and she was powerless to escape. She didn't have the strength to remove the blade from the wood behind her and the slightest attempt at movement was excruciating. The Hunter watched her struggle with a sadistic, self-righteous delight.
"I may not be able to destroy you, Demon," the Hunter said bitterly, "But before Xanantos' security arrives, I can at least rid the world of these other monsters!"
"Stop!" she gasped, horrified at the weakness of her own voice, "I will do whatever you require to make amends. It's true you can't kill me yourself, but if you will leave the others, I will give you the secret of how I can be killed."
The Hunter limped past her, into the piercing daylight, where he bent gingerly to retrieve the laser cannon. The pain of the burns effected him greatly, but he found the strength to give her a cruel sneer.
"I'm to trust the word of a demon?" he scoffed.
"Listen!" she hissed urgently through teeth clenched in agony, "This very hour, a man called Macbeth is coming here. He alone has the power to-
"He won't come in time to save these demons," the Hunter snarled back dismissively.
"I will go with you willingly," she implored, every breath causing an explosion of pain in her core, "You can take me wherever you wish. Entomb me alive, if that is how it must be. I will be as good as dead. Only spare these innocent ones!"
"I would never get you out of this building without being stopped," he retorted, shaking his head at the absurdity of the suggestion, "I knew when I came here today that I would not leave this tower a free man. I knew that there was a good chance that I would leave it a dead one. This was my last chance to fulfill my promise to my father, or die trying. Now it seems that I can't do what I came to do, but before I die, I might as well take down as many as I can!"
"Please!" she begged again in her weakening voice, though it was no longer the Hunter she beseeched,
"Let it be me that is taken this time. Let no more of my dear ones be slain for my sake. Give me mercy." Every sob caused a blast of overwhelming pain, and the blinding light that bore down on her from above seemed to swirl and mix with clouds of darkness. She sensed she was quickly losing consciousness and wondered if that was meant to be the mercy she pleaded for.
"You know," the Hunter mused out loud, though Demona could no longer hear or comprehend his voice, "That monster there, could easily be taken for you. Yes, a very strong resemblance. I think I will save her for last."
He turned and raised his weapon toward Linnet first, but Xanatos and Luach charged in from the corridor, shouting for him to stop. Xanatos immediately fired on the Hunter, and, in surprise, the Hunter turned toward Xanatos and did the same. The blast hit Xanatos directly in the chest, wounding him mortally. Xanatos' shot hit the Hunter's weapon, causing it to explode in his arms, and bringing him to the ground. The slaughter had ended as abruptly as it had begun, leaving Luach alone and shocked in the silent courtyard. He reeled in horror at the bodies of the two men, who had destroyed one another without as much as a single word. Luach had known many a battlefield, and conditions had required him to take the lives of enemies before, but the ruthless ways of the men of this age horrified him. He knelt at the side of Xanatos and a feeling of helplessness washed over him. He relented all hope that his wounds were possible to survive.
Then he heard a soft groan and caught sight of Demona, drifting fretfully in and out of consciousness and still impaled to the remains of the wooden cabinet. He rushed to her, grabbing the hilt of the sword and withdrawing it as quickly and evenly as he could, then knelt down to gather her into his embrace. Demona rested her head against his shoulder, trembling violently as the wound closed itself.
"Demona, what happened?" he asked confoundedly as he held her, "Father and I found Xanatos bound up in his office. He didn't have the time to tell us what was going on, he only said you and the other gargoyles were in danger. We were coming to your aid when Father collapsed. He told us that it was the pain of your wounds he suffered and that you must be in peril and we should go ahead without him!"
"The Hunter attacked us," she gasped through her pain and emotion, "When he couldn't kill me, he went after my clan. Please, let me rise!" Unable to explain much more and panicking to get to her loved ones, she struggled to her feet. Luach offered her his strong arm and she allowed him to help steady her. Peering over his broad shoulder, she gasped with relief as she saw Ophelia and Linnet were safe. He led her a few steps around the archway, but she quickly broke free and ran ahead of him to check on the other two. She needed to lay her hands on her daughter's sleeping form to assure herself that she was safe. Satisfied that she was, she turned to find Luach had come to her side.
"They all look safe and sound," Luach observed as he took her hand firmly, "Are you alright, Demona?"
"I couldn't break the curse, Luach," she told him sadly, "I tried, but I failed. But they are safe. So, for today, I think I'm alright."
As they turned back towards the wrecked corridor, Demona cried out. The Hunter, on the brink of death, and with barely the strength to move, had managed to crawl to where Xanatos' laser had hit the ground. He could scarcely hold the heavy weapon up, leaning with one elbow on the ground, but he brandished it unevenly at them. His eyes were so wild in his blood-soaked face, that Demona wondered if he was even fully aware of himself at all, or if his hatred, sustained by the power of the Hunter's curse, had possessed him to the point that his dying body had become no more than a mindless, soulless machine, programed to bring destruction. Either way, the Hunter screamed in rage one final time and the laser began to fire haphazardly in their direction. Demona instinctively pushed Luach behind her, not knowing whether she should stand still and shelter him, make herself a shield for the sleeping gargoyles, or run in the other direction in an attempt to draw the madman's fire. But before she could do anything, Macbeth stepped out of the darkness of the corridor. He had recovered from the shared pain of Demona's injury, and with a grim expression of disdain, he lifted the blood stained sword from the rubble and dealt a final, merciful blow to what was left of Jon Canmore.
The laser cannon fell silent. For a moment, the only sound was the wind and the occasional crackle of the fire still burning in the fire pit.
"Come, Demona," Macbeth called to her, his tired, gruff voice echoing across the hard stones of the courtyard wall, "T'is over now."
"But only for today," she lamented as Luach placed his arm around her shoulder and guided her, "The curse remains and there will always be another Hunter."
Luach brought her to where Xanatos' body lay, and she looked at him mournfully.
"David Xanatos," she scolded in a voice tinged with both fury and tenderness, "You can't just leave me. Don't you remember? You promised me that you were going to live forever!"
As if she didn't wish to admit her pain, she quickly wiped the tears from her eyes.
"You somehow managed to keep all the rest of your impossible promises. You built your ridiculous fortune and your tower. You delivered our castle here. You brought my clan back to life. You…brought me back to life as well. And through all this madness, you kept us safe, just as you always said you would. You kept all those promises, didn't you? Why can you not keep this one last impossible promise as well?"
Her tears flowed freely now and she knelt beside him and placed her own hand on his.
"You always said you were my friend," she whispered, "But I never believed you. I couldn't believe you. I believe you now. Forgive me."
"He was a rare man, indeed," Luach observed reverently, "It seems there was far more to him than the world knew."
The three of them mourned in silence for a moment, but were soon interrupted by the heart-wrenching arrival of Owen and Xanatos' wife and son, who ran to his fallen body with shock and horror. Luach quickly pulled Demona away from the body while Macbeth had the sense to cover the horrible wounds in Xanatos' chest with his own jacket. As Fox fell upon the lifeless form of her husband, sobbing and shaking violently with grief, Demona could only close her eyes tightly and disappear into her own mind. She had once known such grief herself and though she had never known Fox well, her all too familiar screams of pain and rage distressed her greatly.
As she stood to the side, however, she became aware of something warm and strange in her hand. She looked down and found herself staring directly into the frightened face of Xanatos' young son, who had somehow found Old Felix's healing stone and was now desperately pressing it into her hand.
"Go!" he whispered tearfully, "Adelpha, please!"
In confusion, she looked from the glimmering stone in her hand back to the anxious face of the young boy, whose eyes seemed to emit the same, unearthly light as the stone.
"It's not too late," the child exhorted her in a familiar, bell-like tone as he pulled at her arm frantically, "You can still save him! I know you can! Please, hurry!"
Almost as if in a trance, Demona stepped forward and knelt beside Xanatos' body. Her mind swirled with doubts, but she placed the stone on his chest. Before she could let go, she felt the power of the stone seizing her. Astonished, she found that she couldn't withdraw her hand from it, as it seemed to be drawing some energy from her. Bright red flames encompassed both the stone and her hand and it suddenly became hard for her to breathe. She could neither move her legs to pull away, nor open her hand to release the gem, so she closed her eyes and waited.
Finally, the energy seemed to have passed through her and she was able to drop the stone from her hand. When she opened her eyes at last, Xanatos' eyes were already open and he was staring at her intently. He sat up slowly, and Fox fell into his arms again, this time sobbing with relief. The boy climbed into his father's embrace as well, beaming a smile at Demona as he clung to his arm.
"You saved my dad," he praised her thankfully, "I knew you would!"
"You?" she whispered in complete disbelief, "But, how…? It was you the whole time?"
"Say my name!" he coaxed her eagerly.
"Alexander?" she replied softly, still not quite convinced that what she saw before was was real. The fairy child smiled again and laughed, clearly pleased with her.
"Yes!" he congratulated her, "Alexander is my name! Alexander Xanatos!"
"What is this about?" Fox asked nervously, giving Owen a sideways glance. She had never cared for the idea of having Demona living in the castle. Though she accepted the necessity of the situation, she would have preferred that Demona never have reason to give their young son a second thought.
"Yes. What have you been up to, young man?" Xanatos demanded suspiciously.
"Oh, it's nothing, Dad," Alexander replied with a dismissive giggle, "Don't worry so much!"
'What is this thing?" Xanatos asked, lifting the stone from where it had fallen in his lap.
"A healing stone," Demona explained, "I meant to use it to break the curse, but I was too late. At least we got some use out of it though."
She looked down at the stone disappointedly, "We went to so much trouble to get it."
"But Adelpha, you did break the Hunter's curse!" Alexander informed her happily.
Demona looked back up at him sharply, "I did? How could I? The Hunters are all dead and I didn't make amends with any of them."
The boy looked down a little sheepishly.
"Well...remember how I told you that I wasn't very good at reading visions yet? You see, I was wrong when I told you that you had to make amends with the Hunters to break the curse. Luach's mother is the one who put the curse on you in the first place. It was her forgiveness you had to earn to break it, and well...the other night, when you sacrificed yourself to save her son's life, that's when the curse was really broken."
"Then it really is over, Demona," Macbeth told her with astonishment, "Jon Canmore was the last Hunter. You are free."
Then, to Demona's surprise, Alexander climbed quickly from his father's lap and embraced her tightly around the shoulders. Mistrustingly, she tried to rise and draw away from him, but he held fast and stretched to his tiptoes so he could whisper in her ear.
"You'll always be mine now," he told her in a voice so soft, no one else could hear, "I'm the one who bought you from those awful Weird Sisters. And I brought your friends through the Phoenix Gate too. Well, my teacher helped me a little. I brought them to help you with your quest, and so you wouldn't feel so alone! You won't be alone anymore. I'll take good care of you. You'll see. "
As she listened to his explanation, she gradually allowed her arms to wrap around him. She couldn't find enough pride to be angry at him for his presumptive attitude about buying her and keeping her for his own and she was surprised to find that she didn't really mind the notion of belonging to this small person. Of course, not in the sense of being owned, bought, or sold, but simply belonging to him by virtue of their unconventional friendship. And though this boy required no covenants from her, she was becoming more and more convinced that she would always watch over him as well.
Oh, don't forget your present!" he cried suddenly, "You did finally guess my name and I promised you a present!"
Turning to look up at Owen, he asked, "Can I give it to her now?"
Owen looked upon the scene with a undeniably disapproving expression, but he nodded his head at the request.
"Do you remember the incantation?" he asked Alexander in his cold, robotic tone.
"Of course I do!" he replied cheerfully, laying his hands on her shoulders, "I'm ready!"
"Ready for what, exactly?" she asked hesitantly, "And what does that tricky little lackey have to do with it?"
But the boy didn't answer and instead, began casting the spell. For the second time in just a few minutes, she felt a wave of power flowing through her, though this one traveled and did its work much faster than the healing stone had. When it had finished, it flushed away quickly, leaving her with a strange but familiar sensation within her.
"What have you done?" she asked in wonder, but the boy just smiled at her.
Overwhelmed, she stepped away from the crowd of humans, all looking at her.
"Are you all right, Demona?" Luach asked her.
"Let me go!" she demanded of Xanatos, who was just getting to his own feet and looking with shock and disgust at his blood-soaked clothes.
"What do you mean, 'let you go?'" he asked irritably, "Where on earth would you go?"
"I don't know. I don't care. I need to get away from here," she explained anxiously, approaching him and invading his pockets like a greedy child looking for candy, "Where is the controller?"
"Hey! Get off of me! You're covered in blood! The only place you need to go is back to your room for a shower!" he scolded, but she gripped his shirt in her hands and gave him a shake.
"Turn them off, Xanatos!" she insisted, her voice rising in fury, "Let me leave!"
Xanatos stared, still not comprehending what was wrong with her, but seeing the desperation in her plea.
"Owen," he called, "The controller?"
"I'm not sure that's advisable, Mr. Xanatos," Owen replied.
"Go ahead, Owen," he ordered, "I suppose I owe her one."
Owen looked very skeptical, but he removed the controller from his pocket and began to punch in buttons.
"I hope you are planning on being back before dark," Xanatos grumbled, "I don't want to have to explain your absence to Goliath."
But she had already turned and was running away down the corridor.
"Hey! Where is she going?" Alexander demanded.
"I'm not sure," Xanatos replied.
"Will she return?" Luach asked him, looking a bit concerned.
"Of course she will!" Alexander assured him, "This is her home!"