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Souls of the Night – Vol 3

64.

When the after-effects of Oberon's passive aggressive power surges had worn off by morning we joined the others in the library. I really wanted to put it off until tomorrow night but Nathaniel was so restless and tormented by his run-in with Hassan and the wounds he had seen on his brother. It was hard to believe that his trip to the supermarket and his realization that his brother was already a victim of Masoud was only two nights ago - everything before the attacks seemed like an eternity ago. He'd told me about his promise to meet his family on Friday night and I'd given the clan a brief summary via text, making no bones about the fact that Nathaniel - the clan - couldn't rest until Masoud was stopped. Now that all the supernatural drama was behind us, everyone could focus on more down-to-earth problems. If you could call it down to earth that the punchline were basically: Honey, glad Oberon doesn't want to kill me and wipe you out for now and I know you just came back from the dead but would you join me for dinner at my mom's again for facing my rapist in-law?

The clan was scattered around the seating area with drinks and snacks, sitting on comfortable sofas, beanbags or on the floor. As Nate and I sat down on the floor in front of the couch where Katana, Goliath and Elisa were, the clan mentor brought his large paw to my friend and stroked his brow arch. My friend closed his eyes in pure contentment and hummed his approval- and my heart soared with how delightfully gargoyle he was again. THAT still had to sink in. He was Gargoyle again!

"You mean ... with two ... malignants inside me and with the most powerful being in the world on parole simply because I dare to go on living?"

He exhaled a cloud of white smoke as if one of his demons had something to say about it and patted his chest, looking constipated.

"Honestly ... I feel ... worn out. Everything has been ... too much in the last few weeks. I just want to ... calm down."

He turned his head to Alexander, who was also squatting on the floor like a teenager. "I ... I would like to remain a gargoyle permanently, but I don't need the rest."

Alexander grinned (half Trickster, half Fat Cat).

"Everyone's through pushing you into a mold that's obviously not yours anymore, don't worry."

Nate looked to Brooklyn with a questioning, insecure look and the clan leader smirked as well.

"All of us love having you resting next to us on your perch. But you won't be put on permanent mission control duty. You'll fly patrol dutifully. Do we have a deal?"

Nathaniel leaned against me, his head on my shoulder."Thank you," he whispered softly, and it was directed at everyone.

At that moment, Burnett came in. Owen put a wooden box on the coffee table. Heather - as always interested in anything that resembled a gift and contained a secret - pressed the bowl of peanut curls into Tachi's arms and stretched out her hands. But Owen slapped her fingers and she pulled them back, giggling.

Me and Nathaniel looked at each other in irritation while Alexander put on rubber gloves, opened the box and revealed a thing no bigger than a human head but wrapped in a tightly woven linen cloth.

"And that's nothing that could be dangerous to us?" Elisa asked critically. Alexander looked at her in confusion for a moment before his face lit up and he shook his head with a broad grin.

"Oh, that? No. That's one of the rare magical talismans that are virtually unthreatening"

"Virtually? I mean... you obviously don't want to touch it with bare hands," Nate muttered uncertainly, squeezing my hand.

"That old gizmo? It's not dangerous. We just don't need it to wake up on me. You know it," he said and unfolded the linen cloth.

Everyone was silent for a moment, then sounds of recognition came from many directions. Yes, we older gargoyles really did know it.

"That looks dull," Heather said with a pouting lower lip.

"Well, not all magic is fancy and exciting. Some things ... seem unimpressive and yet have a certain power. But those were also the things least likely to kill you."

"That was one of your 14th birthday presents," Fox observed, sitting next to her husband in matching silk pajamas and sipping strong coffee.

Xanatos shrugged his shoulders. "The description on the internet sounded more exciting than what it was actually capable of."

"Yes, that's why it ended up in the storage rooms down in the basement after a while," I said, where everyone else including me relaxed. Xanatos had learned after the Eye of Odin to listen to Owen's recommendations on magical artifacts despite his occasional flare-ups of megalomania. Emphasis- he listened to Owen's- not Puck's input. He didn't want to end up a pink penguin. Nate leaned back too and I couldn't tell if his frown as he looked at the thing was one of disappointment or relief and confusion. It was really ordinary. It was no different from one of those salt crystals you could buy in any New Age store for 19.95, even if the edges of the stone were remarkably sharp.

"How is this supposed to help me convince my family that Jussuf is not their savior?"

"By doing just that. It will force them to believe what it shows them," I said, rubbing my upper arms in discomfort as I remembered what the thing could do. It wasn't the power of the artifact that caused this sinking feeling, because it wasn't overly powerful. Just what it could do - that would tear up wounds in Nathaniel that he certainly wasn't ready for.

"This artifact can show you and others your memories."

"My memories?"

"Even the ones you think you've forgotten," Brooklyn said with a sour face. He also knew that it would hurt Nate immensely if he decided to use this tool. Not physical pain, but mental damage so strong it could crush someone like him.

I tapped Nate on the temple.

"It's all still there - just not retrievable. And what years of therapy or hypnosis can do, this stone can do instantly. It ... copies your memories about a certain topic or person onto the stone and it feeds this information to the next person who touches the stone."

"And what is the price?" my friend asked.

"Knowledge is both a gift and a burden," Brooklyn said, and everyone knew he was speaking from personal experience.

"No price or a stumbling block? I thought all magic had something more or less like that," Nathaniel muttered.

"It's not a powerful artifact. A little blood will do," Alex said with a shrug. "I mostly used it to find things back then."

"'Tidying up your room would have done the trick," Angela said, and Alex and she smirked at each other.

Nathaniel sighed and leaned forward to look at the thing from a different angle. Maybe he sensed something. He had magic- many magic- empowered beings could sense other magic.

"Blood? Why is your magic stuff always about bodily fluids?"

He laughed uncertainly and his voice echoed in the library despite the seating and thick carpets. When those sounds died away, it was only the quieter.

"That is, if I use it ... will my parents, my siblings see my experiences with Jussuf? They will ... they will SEE what he did to me?"

No one answered him, but the horror reflected in his face and the way his color changed from blue to almost purple was heartbreaking. A shrill and at the same time choked sound emerged from his throat. For almost 18 years he had tried to keep the truth away from these people. Had hoped that they would save him without him having to reveal the true extent of his ordeal with and literally UNDER Jussuf Masoud. And if he had said it, they wouldn't have believed him. Now he had the opportunity to show them in an irrefutable way. And this possibility was perhaps more traumatizing than the deeds themselves had been.

Nathaniel took several deep breaths and rubbed the tears from his eyes. Heather handed him a rather crumpled handkerchief that was certainly already used.

"Thank you," he said stifled.

And repeated it again, clearly to practise his voice so that it didn't break again. Then he nodded.

"What Jussuf did to me ... what I let him do to me, it should never have come to this. But it happened and I may suffer from it for the rest of my life. However ... it's all the more important that it doesn't happen again. That they might realize the truth had been simultaneously a hope and a nightmare for far too long. If this thing ... forces them to recognize Jussuf's true nature and banish him from their lives ... that's good. They will also see what I am really like, why I am like this. After that ... I will really be dead to them. But... I have you, don't I? I have Lex and you all, yes?"

The last words had gotten increasingly shriller and hushed before Nate burst into tears, flapping his wings in front of his quivering torso and face over which he'd lost all muscle control so that his emotional outburst and our compassionate, troubled looks wouldn't embarrass him even more. I was immediately with him, pushed myself into his wing cocoon and hugged him.

I was almost crushed when suddenly it felt like the whole clan invaded our space and the world became dark, warm and comforting. Heather, Goliath, Broadway, Angela assured me with fulsome or gentle words that Nate was good and precious and more than wanted, and even Tachi, Katana, Nash, who were less verbose, interjected expressions of affection that only made Nate cry more, but more out of gratitude for his new family than grief for the presumably imminent loss of his old one. This was a new kind of emotional pain for Nathaniel and we all knew it. This fear of the truth, of this conversation, had been fermenting inside Nathaniel for nearly two decades. Facing it now, having to face it now without much possibility of putting it off any longer - was like cutting an umbilical cord. It hurt and was liberating at the same time, but mostly it was terrifying. He thought one hundred percent that the Sharifs wouldn't stand the truth or him afterwards. They had been SO nasty to him but family would always be family.

I wanted to deny that. To whisper to him that he gave his human kin far too little credit and that they would be on their knees begging his forgiveness for enabling him to be trained by Jussuf into this abused character. But honestly ... I would have felt like a liar. His brother might not have been quite so bad. But Nathaniel's sister, his mother - they'd probably rather push Nate over a cliff than give up their blind faith in Jussuf Masoud's honesty. I was almost glad that they would soon realize Nathaniel's trauma but didn't expect much remorse for their own behavior or a wonderfully schmaltzy reunion scene. Accepting his story would mean that they would have to give up their illusions of all the good things they dreamed of. That they would have to admit their own weaknesses, their own failures. I didn't expect them to show remorse for the past.

When Nathaniel had finally calmed down a bit and my clan gave us our space again, I rubbed the snot off Nate's nose with my sleeve and we both laughed bashfully at the gesture.

"I'll sit next to you. All the time. You're not alone. And the others will be waiting outside and we'll fly back to the castle and you'll never have to face that part of your past like that again. But you are SO brave for wanting to go through with it," I praised, scoring another kiss (I wasn't necessarily going for it but I would never complain).

We repositioned ourselves, him in my lap, my arms around him. He stroked my flying skin as he spoke.

"They won't believe me - and that's okay. The artifact will make them believe it - yes? I need it. They'd otherwise never trade the mendacious relationship with Jussuf -"

" - for the truth?" Elisa asked, sniffling a little herself but playing it tough.

She didn't deal well with the subject of abused or neglected children - it reminded her too much of her own.

"I don't know your family," she said, "but most parents want to keep bad things away from their children. Even if they've messed up with you - they'll want to help Hassan. They want to know the truth, even if they're not aware of it yet."

"Tradition and reputation are of great importance to my parents. The fact that their blood-related children don't live up to this makes them all the more attached to Jussuf. A "son" who presents the perfect image to the outside world. Perfect job, perfect behavior, perfect Muslim, perfect son-in-law. Not for me ... but maybe they'll exchange that for Hassan." He looked at the artifact with an unhappy expression.

"If Jussuf Masoud really has chosen your brother as his next victim, we must act soon. This Friday you said - that's good," Elisa said deadly serious

"This human is not only an amoral sick subject, he's also crazy. Looking for his next victim in the same family is infamous," confirmed Flora, who was sitting cross-legged on one of the poufs with Ares.

"It's more pragmatic and useful. Hassan would go through the same ordeal as Nathaniel, perhaps at a faster pace. The family would simply think he was just as mentally ill or labile as Nate. It would run in the family, so to speak," Nashville speculated resentfully.

Nathaniel ran his hands over his horns and mop of hair in an agitated gesture.

"I have to stop Jussuf! In a way that he will NEVER look for a new victim again, neither inside nor outside my family. But just because I tear this ... leech away from my family - what's to stop him from doing the same elsewhere?"

"WE are going to stop him, Nate. Let's get involved, okay? We nail this scumbag," Broadway said firmly, exchanging grim smiles and nods with his brother and Rhydderch, and yes, I was the youngest - but man, was I proud and did I love everyone here right now.

"That would really be a service to society," Angela said, crossing her arms.

"But ... bringing Jussuf before a court of law ... for what he did to me-"

Alexander shook his head. "We're not going to expose you or your family to that. We'll ... make it a clan affair."

"What does that mean?"

"That we deal with him where it matters, past the state," Goliath deadpanned before taking a sip from a teacup too delicate and florally lacquered to match his massive claws and cold words. Nathaniel stared at him. But more thoughtfully than with the shock in his eyes that came with the realization that this Gargoyle - the first to refer to the peacefulness and law-abidingness of Gargoyles under oath in court nearly thirty years ago - would say such a crass thing. But we were no choirboys and no pet Gargoyles - we were still warriors, highly protective of our chosen protectorate and the weakest in it, and pragmatic. More pragmatic than human laws could ever be.

"I can't ask for that," Nathaniel said under his breath. Which was not a no. He was neither as naïve as he had once been.

"You don't have to ask for it. We want it. There are simply things that are none of human society's business. We'll handle them the old-fashioned medieval gargoyle way. If you're okay with that..." Broadway added.

"It would be our pleasure," Alexander said with a devilish smile and laughed in a way that even gave me goosebumps, as did his parents, who kept a remarkably low profile at the other end of the seating area.

"I can suck him dry! When he is old he cannot –"

"No, Heather. No more death games for this month. We don't need Anubis on our heels too," Brooklyn declared.

Nathaniel lowered his eyes and bit his lower lip.

Then he took a deep intake of breath and lifted his gaze with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"I want him to regret what he did and ensure he never does it again. Thank you - if you'll help me with that."

Our red niece flashed one of those scary fang-spiked mean grins that only Gargoyles with beaks can pull off while balling her hands.

"We're gonna scare the shit out of him so bad this motherf-"

"Strike one."

"MOM!"

"No, Tachi. Even retaliation plans are knitted without vulgarities."

Katana frowned briefly at her own sentence, which made me chuckle. Her priorities were too funny. She had also changed in the last 25 years. Like all of us. She was no longer so bound by her steely bushido code. Something could be respectable even though or precisely because it did not comply with the applicable laws.

"How do we go about this?" Nate asked with renewed vigor, doing what a gargoyle would have done. He asked his clan for help.

"I already have an idea," I said, but before I could elaborate, Alexander interrupted us.

"You have to try out the stone first. It has to ... adjust to you, so to speak, Nate, so that other people can access your memories without you having to travel with them. You have to focus your thoughts on the parts of the memory you want to share. But it's not as easy as it sounds, it's basically uncontrollable what exactly you share."

"But ... you want me to share my memories with Jussuf NOW?" he asked in horror, his ears, the intact as well as the tattered one, dropping down.

"No. Choose other memories. Something nice you'd like to remember," Flora said.

Nathaniel brought his hand to his mouth. Until he remembered that he no longer had fingernails to nibble on nervously. Instead, he rubbed the horns of his jaw. He thought for so long that Heather began to fidget, was fobbed off with her tablet and the adults were already giving each other uncomfortable looks. Was there nothing - nothing at all - that Nathaniel considered worth repeating or beautiful in his memories?

Ares heaved himself out of the beanbag and leaned towards my friend. I felt the urgent impulse to growl at the guy who had tried to hurt (or kill if necessary) my man two nights ago, but Nathaniel only looked up as Ares gently laid a hand on his knee.

"It... can also be things... that you only remember vaguely. A trigger to unlock them will bring them back to the surface," he said softly.

Nathaniel looked at him for a few moments, then gave a half-smile.

"Uncle Murshid," he murmured.

And then louder, looking around. "I want to see my Uncle Murshid again."

"A loved one - that's a good start," Alex said. "Just prick your finger with your claw and then put your hand on the stone. Take Lex with you, he can ground you. He knows the drill with the stone."

"Ahhhh, I don't know. That's a bit more private than finding your latest homework in your disorganized room," I said uncertainly.

"Why? Don't leave me alone in my head!" Nathaniel whimpered and his pleading look made me cave in immediately.

"Okay," I said artificially coyly as he now pulled me forward closer to the stone. "But you must know something about what we're going to see."

He looked at me intently.

"Remember that thing about the barges leaving Avalon? That they don't send you where you want to go but where you need to be. It's very similar here. Maybe you'll see things that you won't like but that the magic "thinks" you need to see. That's what Alex meant by not really controlling ... we might see your memory from September 11th. Are you sure that's what you want?"

Nathaniel licked his lips.

By now-after several months of living together, the clan knew of Nathaniel's cherished uncle who had died on September 11. We had all been in the middle of it- as auxiliaries. And though we had lost Hudson, each trauma was unique and cruel and agonizing in its own way. But again, my loved one showed that he was so much more resilient than he had been months ago.

"Let's do it... I never have more courage than when you're by my side. But if you don't want to see it- ."

"No!" I cut off his words, beaming with pride but also with that twinge of old grief and current concern for Nathaniel's psyche in my heart. "I want it. It will be... just an illusion. And because we both know it's an illusion, we'll be able to move freely within it. Anyone who doesn't know that is just a spectator - paralyzed by the images. But we will be like... avatars in your memories - only without being able to intervene," I explained hastily because Nate was like me in this aspect. The more information he had beforehand, the less stressful everything would be for him.

"Are we going to see everything from my eyes?"

A new horror flitted across his face. The thought that his whole family could see Jussuf raping him through his own eyes was too horrible.

"Strangely enough, no. It's like... an artificial intelligence that fills in everything you've seen - seen at some point - on its own. So... even if, for example, in this one particular memory you only saw the room from the left - if you saw it from the right at some point before or after, it will complete it. It's not a blank page where only one corner is sketched and colored in."

"Okay... that sounds... okay," Nathaniel muttered, turning his gaze back to the stone.

"Just a drop of blood?"

"Yeah."

"What ... if I ... see something that makes me burn? From stress?"

Xanatos, Goliath and Brooklyn pulled fire extinguishers from behind their seats almost simultaneously, where Tachi unceremoniously chucked one of the fire extinguisher chips at Nathaniel's head. He pocketed it and put his head on my shoulder, grumbling, without taking his eyes off the stone.

"Think about your uncle- about what you remember."

"Everything about him is kind of a blur. It ... was a long time ago," he admitted. I lifted his head so he was looking at me, his eyes so blue and unsure. "You can do this." I kissed him on the cheek and he gasped.

"I know something!" he whispered excitedly.

"Okay, cool. Less snogging, more magic," Nashville piped up impatiently, clapping his hands to break us two love-birds apart. We both knelt in front of the stone. I pretended to pout. "That was magic just now."

Nathaniel chuckled - I sensed and knew my prince would appreciate my confidence and levity.

Gargoyles just did that. In stressful situations, when time would allow, we tried to lighten the mood and smooth out frayed nerves.

Nate pricked his finger with a claw and let a drop fall onto the stone, which began to glow. Nate took a deep breath and looked at Alex again, who nodded encouragingly.

"Wow. Well - here we go," he said, placing his hand on the stone at the same moment I placed mine on the back of his neck.

Thanks for reading, Q.T.