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Souls of the Night Vol 3

15.

My and our wake-up call came earlier than expected. It felt like Christmas even though it had just been Halloween (with no joy but a sudden surge of stress because you thought you had SO much time to get ready). By the time the night came around, I was completely overwhelmed. Lexington's cell phone rang just before everyone flew out on patrol.

He pulled it out, bewildered, and his eyes grew wide as he looked at his display. He raised his eyes to Brooklyn and Goliath. "It's the back-up phone that was hidden at the airfield in Brooklyn!"

Then his eyes slowly went to me and it wasn't a pleased expression. "Alex is back."

It felt like my heart was sinking into my pants and I didn't even know why. This was the moment - the night I had been waiting three months for. Now it was here sooner than I expected.

The phone rang and rang while there was an otherwise awkward silence. But I stepped up to him and touched him on the shoulder.

"Take the call. It's time," I said and he gritted his teeth and nodded unhappily.

He took the call, forcing himself to adopt a joyful tone as he spoke. "Hi Alex! Welcome back! We're so happy that you-"

He broke off as a strange voice began to speak, one we could all understand with our heightened senses.

"This isn't Alex. Am I holding- am I holding this thing the right way up? Hello? Hello, by all four directions of the sky, how can humans use these phoney things? Is there the gargoyle named Lexington on the other end of this device? Why don't you use crystal balls - at least those don't have buttons behind a glass plate on which claws slip!"

Lex curled up his upper lip in confusion so that his nostrils flared before he held the phone to his ear again. Others in the clan looked at least as perplexed as he did.

"Yes. Yes. This is Lexington Wyvern. That- this phone should only be used by Alexander. Who is this?"

"I... let's say I'm his traveling companion. Among other things. Well- he said to call a guy named Owen but the human shell isn't answering- is that what it's called? Answer it? Alex is a bit under the weather at the moment. Indisposed. I wish he wasn't and wouldn't leave me alone with this weird infernal machine. I've seen him use his own- but I-"

"WHAT do you mean indisposed?" I snarled into the phone, feeling my eyes light up at an unseen enemy. Whoever was in control of my fosterling would pay for it in blood.

"He's fine. He's just ... I don't know. The training took its toll on him and he just slumped on the way back. I think he's just sleeping. At least he's breathing."

"WHERE IS HE!" I screeched and the person on the other end growled because I was shouting in their ear.

"Where he was picked up too, I guess. You know where the three sisters landed the boat? Come here and bring strong gargoyles. For some reason he's heavy as lead and I can't move him or protect him once the sun comes up.

"Who are you?" Lexington asked, now more exasperated and confused than angry.

"Ares. Now come here - wherever I am."

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After Goliath had reminded everyone, Nathaniel and me that Puck would have intervened if there was even the slightest danger to Alex, we made our way to the Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. The small airfield with the huge hangar where historic airplanes were on display was deserted, as was the campground, although I could still smell the charcoal from the people who had been there that day.

Crashing with nearly a whole gargoyle clan (Angela was on patrol in her human job) somewhere looked a bit like overkill, but even if we could rule out any mortal danger to Alex from this guy called "Ares", we still didn't know what to expect. Other members of the clan were probably just curious.

"Heather, stay here," Nate hissed after we landed.

I sniffed the air, but the dominant sea breeze a few hundred yards beyond the tree-lined picnic area clouded my sense of smell. But we had our secret weapon with us.

Broadway put Fu-Dog down, who sniffed excitedly on the ground. Nashville bent down to her and rubbed her ear, which she pricked up curiously as he spoke.

"Good girl. Find Alex. Find our brother. Whoever's got him, don't kill him, just hold him." Then he gave her a pat on the flank and the gargbeast, which had already been sniffing for Alex with puffed out nostrils while he was speaking, bolted across the barbecue area, almost mowing down the information sign with the camp gateway regulations for the national recreation area, which also stated that no dogs were allowed. We followed behind her, Brooklyn splitting us into three groups, Nathaniel and I staying with him and following in a direct line after Fu-Dog while the others swarmed left and right to encircle the potential danger.

But we quickly heard a shout - less panicked than angry - a gargoyle roar, barking and then a loud, shrill whimper. We all started to run - because of the undergrowth on two legs - but the others were ahead of us on the riverbank where Fu-Dog lay lifeless on the ground, an arrow next to her. No blood - but light brown dust on the beast's slack face. The others were all in attack stances, staring into one of the big trees there. I looked up and there ... crouched a gargoyle. A tall but thin male in a loincloth. He aimed another arrow at Tachi, who was held back by Katana from climbing the tree and going for his throat. He had a bite wound on his upper arm but didn't seem overwhelmed by the superior number of Gargoyles.

"What have you done to her, you bloody bastard!" shouted Tachi, eyes glowing red. The orange gargoyle grinned, the strange hedgehog spikes on its forearms standing up as he aimed his arrow at her - no arrowhead but a small cloth bag attached. Nathaniel hissed softly at the vague threat to the young one, but I grabbed him by the arm and we took cover in the shadows where Brooklyn stepped forward, the stranger only twitching his tail to show that he had at least noticed him.

"Stay calm, hatchling. I wasn't going to get knocked over by a hostile beast. I'm already a bit strained by the state of my mates anyway, so I would say no one's going to make a fool out of me now."

For a few seconds, all that could be heard was the gentle rushing of the sea, the distant hum of the nearest highway and the waves that lapped at the shore and the cement jetty. Katana had knelt down next to Fu, reaching through her thick fur to feel her pulse on her neck. "She's really just sleeping," she assured calmly, then looked up. "What kind of magic is this, stranger?"

"Valerian root and lemon balm, milady Katana - their effects multiplied a hundredfold by a spell. If you wipe the powder off the beast's face, she'll regain consciousness in ten minutes - I think."

"How do you know her name?" Heather asked, standing behind Broadway but baring her teeth menacingly.

"I know all your names, young Heather. Alexander told me about all of you. We are ... close."

Brooklyn moved into his field of vision and stood in front of Tachi, who finally lost her glowing eyes, causing the stranger to lower his arrow slightly.

"You're the one who called us?" he asked.

"Yes honored Brooklyn. I'm the one."

"You are one of our descendants from Avalon?" Goliath asked, and the stranger smiled for the first time in a casual way.

"By all means, honored Goliath. It's a pleasure meeting Alexanders clan."

"Where is he?"

"I hid him and camouflaged his scent because I didn't know what to expect. I regret the bad first impression. Would the Manhattan Clan allow me to move within their territory without flaunting hostility so that we can take care of him?"

Apart from Nashville, who, like us, kept to the shadows so that he could intervene if necessary, the members of my clan exchanged quiet words and small hand signals. Then Brooklyn nodded, everyone gave up their warrior poses, folded their wings and stepped back.

"Friends and protectors of Alexander are also friends of the Clan. Please, lower your weapon and come down," Goliath said, smiling benignly. The orange gargoyle took a deep breath, then relaxed, put the arrow in a quiver at his back and jumped down from the tree. He landed on the dusty ground, straightened to his full height of probably 6.5 feet and then performed a bow with his wing.

"The name is Ares, of the Avalon clan. It's a pleasure," he announced, raising his head proudly and giving us all a look that wasn't really warm and heartfelt, but not rejecting either. Just expectant, as if he were a clan member waiting for orders.

Brooklyn, Katana and Goliath stepped forward. Warrior handshakes were exchanged while Nashville, I and Nate stepped out of the darkness and Tachi and Heather washed Fu Dog's face with salt water. The beast grumbled a little like it was in a dream.

When Ares' eyes fell on Nate, he grinned broadly, causing me to straighten up a little and glare at him.

After all the gargoyles were introduced, Brooklyn asked for Alexander and Ares gestured for us to follow him as he walked along the shore. There, after a dozen yards, was a deep rut in the sand that led into the scrub. But not far. Ares bent down and, groaning as if he had to move two tons, pulled a lifeless body out from under the foliage. We all gathered around Alexander and anger bubbled up inside me again. Not really because of Ares, but seeing Alex lying there lifeless evoked unpleasant memories. What's more, he seemed to be tied up by something. Dried out but sturdy-looking tendrils, whose branches wrapped around almost his entire body but whose "core" of thick gnarled wood sat on his chest and radiated out from there like a starfish, clutched him. In a strangely affectionate way, Ares wiped leaves and dirt from Alexander's face. Alex's pulse was also felt and confirmed that he was alive.

"What are these bonds?" asked Broadway.

"That's Flora. During the return journey, Alex suddenly slumped. Flora wrapped herself around him and suddenly lost her form. This is what remained of her. I- I don't know what to do. Those evil sisters just threw us off the boat and laughed. I hate those witches," Ares snarled, stroking Alexander's chest where the gnarled bark was thickest."

"What's a flora?" asked Goliath, sticking a claw under one of the seemingly withered shoots. Ares stopped him, with a pained look on his face that for the first time didn't seem aloof. "Please. She's Flora." He tapped the core. "She's Alexander's and my mate. I don't know how she reacts to having parts of her body cut off when she's in that state."

"She's-it's a she?"

"If that's what she wants, she's a she. Like most children, she has the freedom of choice. But she identifies as female."

Broadway blinked with irritation."And she's your mate? Both of yours?"

"And you are-?" I begann.

Ares smiled in a charming way that made him look much friendlier. "Alexander granted me this boon. He granted it to us. Recently. But yes. We are a ... well, a trio. But instead of delving into our relationship status, I'd like to get them both to safe terrain."

We all exchanged rather puzzled looks again. Alex went to his training ... and came back three days later with TWO mates - one a male gargoyle and one a ... plant thing? A child of Oberon. That was ... Wow. What would Xanatos and Fox say? Confirmation of Ares' strange story would have to wait until Alex woke up.

"Whatever's up with Alex and uhm Flora - Owen or Puck will be able to clear it up," Goliath stated.

Brooklyn nodded. "Yeah, if the Trickster isn't buzzing around here yet that means it can't be anything threatening. And he probably expected us to take Alex home." He sighed, bent down and tried to pick Alex up.

Ares opened his mouth but Brooklyn's yelp of pain beat him to it as soon as he tried to pick Alex up. Our clan leader stretched and held his back, his face contorted in agony. "Heavens! He's heavy!"

"Maybe you're just getting old," Nashville muttered and Brooklyn slapped him reprovingly on the back of the head with the flat of his hand and grinned snarkily at him. "You pick him up, champ!"

Nashville huffed in amusement, bent down and ... lifted Alex five centimeters off the ground with a loud groan before dropping him. Then he held his own back and stared at his father, who wore a rather broad grin. "Welcome to the slipped disc club."

"Guys. Am I the only one who pays attention in our physiotherapy courses? You must lift from your knees," grumbled Broadway.

"He's no Water Dispenser jug, bro. He weighs more than you right now. Must be magic," Brooklyn groaned.

"Maybe a protection spell for his safety," I speculated, and Ares shrugged with a furrowed brow.

Broadway bent his knees, slipped his hands under Alexander's shoulders and lifted him. His eyes immediately widened. A strained grumble escaped him.

"Goliath?" he groaned, and our former clan leader and Broadway together managed to hoist Alexander into Goliath's arms. And this mighty gargoyle, who could throw a van across an entire street, was standing there grunting and wide-legged, struggling to hold up the smaller, unconscious human with his tendril carapace. "I ... not sure I can fly him back to the castle," he admitted.

"How do we get him out of here? I can't leave him and Flora alone," Ares said anxiously, looking up at the sky as if the sun was about to rise.

I sighed and pulled out my cell phone.

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.

"Thanks for the help," Brooklyn said as the two men with the heavy load exoskeletons lifted Alexander from the heavy-duty van with hydraulic whirring motions. The van shuddered and cracked because the massive load was suddenly gone where it had groaned before when the lifeless quarter-fey was lifted onto it. But even though the car, lowered by the load, had barely made it into the underground parking garage beneath the Eyrie Building, the axles had held up.

"That's okay. Cool to see members of the clan in the flesh and talk to them for a change," said Miguel Garcia, the head of recovery and transportation department, as he handed Brooklyn a clipboard on which he had to sign the documents. All the humans had been a little taken aback when, for once, they had to remove not a statue but a magical paperweight in the shape of the son of their billionaire employer, but even the two youngest, who now stayed in the van, had said nothing. It was part of their job to keep the strangest secrets and you only kept your job (and possibly your life) if you kept your mouth shut. All the clan members found it strange to suddenly interact with the people who had transported each of them as stone statues over the years. That's why most of them had already flown ahead or started their patrols.

"Where to take him?" asked the beefy bald man they'd called Bob, who, with a brown-skinned man Garcia had dubbed Momo, held the oblong composite titantium plate that served as Alexander's stretcher in their mechanically extended arms and crude artificial three-limbed steel hands like paramedics holding a gurney.

"I'll take you to his room," I said, and after a wave from Brooklyn, Nashville accompanied us. Ares came with us anyway. He had also ridden in the van with the humans - unwilling to be separated from "his mates" for even a minute. As an Avalon gargoyle, he shouldn't react so stoically calmly to everything (humans, exoskeletons, a ride in a windowless van to a location he didn't know) but as long as he could stay alert next to Alexander, he did just that and didn't seem to care about anything else. I looked at Nathaniel, who hadn't said a word since the "movers" showed up and even now mostly looked at the ground and seemed like he wanted to sink into it. Still, he followed us as we and the men got into the large freight elevator that went up to the service areas of the castle.

Even as the men carried their load to Alexander's room, I kept noticing that Nate, although he mostly kept his eyes down and stayed behind us, kept glancing at the man called Momo. But the human didn't notice my friend's staring, just did his job until they pulled Alex off the slab and onto the bed in his room. Which immediately collapsed and we all jumped back.

Then the people were gone. Ares visibly relaxed, gently stroking the starfish of roots that armored Alex's chest and vital organs.

"Are you okay, Nate?" I asked, rubbing his back.

"Yeah... me. I only knew one of the men, that's all."

"Yeah?"

"That was the son of one of my second aunts. But ... he didn't recognize me."

"Of course he didn't. Would you have wanted that?"

"No! But ... it was strange. I didn't know he was working for Xanatos Enterprises and transporting us - you, that is - if you don't turn to stone at the castle."

"I'm sure that's only a fraction of his work. And many people work for Xanatos or for one of its subsidiaries. Besides, most employees in sensitive areas of the company sign very strict confidentiality clauses and are paid for their silence. So ... all good?"

He nodded, strangely affected, and looked down at Alexander. "If he's like that, he won't be able to release the spell."

"He'll wake up again," Burnett said behind us, making the three of us gargoyles flinch with his sudden appearance. Brooklyn came into the room behind him, his face grim and demanding wordlessly to be enlightened as to what was going on with the member of his clan.

"Damn it! We'll tie a bell on you one of these days, Owen!" hissed Nashville.

"You're Puck!" Ares exclaimed.

The disguised fey nodded, placed the large glass jug of water he had brought with him on the bedside cabinet where two glasses were already standing and looked at the gargoyle who was a stranger to him.

"Among other things, yes. Don't worry about Master Alexander."

He stepped over to the bed and lifted Alexander's hand as if it weighed nothing. The non-existent hairs on the back of my neck suddenly stood up, and with Brooklyn looking at me and Nate grasping the back of his head, I knew they felt the same way when Burnett showed a crack in his human facade, slowly examining Alex from head to toe as if his body was a medical tricorder for initial diagnosis.

"Just as I thought. He's just drained and automatically fell into a power-restoring stasis when he broke through the magical barrier after Avalon. It's nothing threatening."

"Because his training was too strenuous," I said with an understanding nod and Owen shook his head, looking at Ares as he spoke.

"From the pact he made with his partners."

Ares crossed his arms and stared at Owen. "We didn't do anything with Alexander."

"The covenant with you does not drain the young Master. It's the covenant with the little nature nymph you both chose as your female consort."

"Flora? She ... did this with him?"

"Not willingly. She probably didn't even know it was going to happen. And her power dwindled too as soon as she separated from Avalon's energy. To put it briefly and simply ... the state of both of them is a process of acclimatization until Flora can cling not only to Alexander's magical signature but to the magic of the environment far from Avalon."

"So ... like an ivy plant that's been torn from a tree it's clinging to and has to get used to a new host," Brooklyn murmured thoughtfully.

"In a very reduced sense, yes. Something like that."

"How long will this condition last?"

"Not long, maybe a few days. Alexander should wake up tomorrow and be back to full strength by the middle of next week.

"And Flora?" asked Nathaniel, earning a small, grateful smile from Ares.

"As soon as she has been able to attach herself to the energies in this area of influence."

"What magical energies should be in New York?" Nathaniel asked uncomprehendingly and Owen stared at him blankly. A few long, agonizing seconds passed before he gave a rare smirk. "We call it magic because it sounds more prosaic, droll and simple than explaining physics and physical transgressions where mortals are still centuries away from grasping the concepts. But it is energy. Energy that wavers between the energies already known to humans and holds the world together or can shake it. Energy seeks other energy, which is why, strangely enough, metropolitan areas are a magnet for the supernatural and its knowing or unknowing representatives, as well as for humans themselves. Energy is energy and Flora will be able to cling to the energies here automatically. She too will recover. And until then-" He placed the water jug on the ground close to Alexander ... and with a soft creak and crack and a few splinters of wood trickling down, one of the gnarled vines twitched and snaked its way into the water jug.

Owen stood up. "Refill the water every evening and every morning. There's a natural pool down in the atrium with no chemicals in it. Don't take the water from the pipes," he instructed Ares, who had pulled up a chair and sat down on it. His tail, the end of which could fan out into three thin limbs as I only now realized, had wrapped itself around one of Alexander's fingers and was caressing it without Ares' waiting neutral expression changing.

The strange gargoyle, who was supposedly Alexander's mate, would probably not leave his side. Owen said goodbye and after a few words from Brooklyn to Ares, who wasn't really communicative, we all went out.

I closed the door to the room behind him.

"Are you sure it's good to leave this Ares alone with Alexander?" Nate asked, rubbing his hands together uncertainly.

Nash and I looked at each other and then at him. He hadn't been a gargoyle for long and maybe wouldn't be one soon - it wasn't his fault he didn't see what we had seen. "His affection for Alex and that Fey attached to him is real."

"Yeah. Only gargoyles when watching over their mates have a look like that," Brooklyn muttered, patting Nate on the shoulder as we passed.

Nate and I made our way to the kitchen. It was a little early for dinner, but Ares was probably hungry and would need something delivered to Alexander's room.

"So... a few more days," Nathaniel muttered.

"Yes - a few more days," I repeated, not even knowing if his hand found mine or mine found his.

Thanks for reading, Q.T.