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Souls of the Night – Vol 3
42.
"Because of your preposterous gift basket with the ridiculous message, Fake, there's a rumor going around in my company and on the Internet that I have an Arab lover," Demona said and Graziella burst into shrill laughter. Vito laughed too and even Sonny laughed quietly.
I looked from the gangsters to Destine and back again, bewildered.
Then I remembered my manners.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to... cause any problems with that."
"Buttercup did that? If you'd gone into more detail we could have teased him about it," Graziella said and absurdly and strangely off character she grunted mid-laugh while catching her breath, making her child giggle even more shrilly. Demona made an annoyed bitch face and took a deep breath.
"I don't want it shouted around town," she said in a regal aloof manner.
It took some time for everyone to calm down and it also helped that an obviously anxious waiter dared to come into the Séparée to take drink orders. Afterwards, Demona waved her hand half-interestedly.
"How do you have the dubious pleasure of knowing this wretched creature?"
"Oh, we had a spa day together with a Jacuzzi and sauna session when he was still a gargoyle. He was quite entertaining."
Destine looked from her to me and I nodded curtly, disturbed by the memory alone. But Sonny's menacing monster dong, Graziella's naked body and the crotchless flight home were better memories than other recent ones.
"The fake is definitely entertaining," the red-haired demon murmured musingly without taking her eyes off me and I shoveled my mouth full of raspberry ice cream.
The drinks, including several shot glasses and a fancy-looking full bottle of whiskey and two plates, were brought. Destine and Graziella had the same dish, steak with fragrant lemon risotto with parsley pesto. I had been quite happy (as "happy" as I could be at the moment) with my ice cream but my mouth started to water. Until they both cut into their meat and I saw the blood running out of the flesh. It wasn't just very rare ... it was as if they were eating a chunk of their respective victims.
Sonny and Vito didn't even seem to notice it as anything out of the ordinary, and I wouldn't do anything but point out to one of the two deadly women that maybe beef shouldn't be THAT raw. A soft chirping sound went off on Destine's cell phone on the table, and the smartwatch on her wrist buzzed as well. She switched both off and started rummaging in her handbag. Until she pulled out a silver box containing a few patches. They looked too much like the Gargoyles' morphing tools to assume they were real nicotine patches. I felt my eyes widen and I realized that gawking didn't make a good impression (or keep my patrons/grownman-nappers amused) but I did it anyway.
Only now did I notice that it must already be evening. More than evening. Sunset. Destine unbuttoned the top two buttons of her blouse, stuck the patch to the exposed skin there and pressed the integrated spikes into her skin. But unlike when other gargoyles transformed, nothing happened. She buttoned her blouse again and continued to eat, unmoved.
"I thought ... the morphing patches were only given to registered clans and gargoyles," I said, because I was sure I understood the system by which these important tools were distributed, unnoticed by general or political human knowledge and control. And Demona was known and infamous worldwide - but shouldn't even be in this program because she was also considered a major criminal by most gargoyles, someone you wouldn't want to support with such helpers.
Destine stared at me, chewing, which made me slightly nauseous and my heart race. "I have ways and means," she stated sinisterly, and I wasn't quite sure if she was just talking about acquiring the patches.
Again, both her cell phone and her smartwatch chirped and now she put down her cutlery, leaned back and closed her eyes. A few seconds later, she groaned softly and I could see her skin ripple as if it were a small pond being caressed by a gentle breeze. Depending on the light, you could have imagined it and anyone who didn't know what was going on - that Puck's powerful spell could be overridden by something as ridiculous as an equally magical plaster - would think they had imagined it. She was visibly in pain, gritting her teeth so hard that they crunched, then it was already over. The three people around us hadn't even bothered to interrupt their meal, not even the child, and I didn't even dare to imagine what that meant. Demona also set about finishing her meal.
Since the deadly and absurd had probably been normal for Vito since his birth, I was hardly surprised that he became a little more fidgety and unfocused after satisfying his most urgent hunger. He kept looking at me and then away again when I looked up from my gelato. At first I thought he wanted a dessert too. I was generally impressed by how well-behaved he had been so far with such a sumptuous and tempting sundae ( I was already full and had only finished half of it) near him. Heather would have been drooling left and right out of her mouth and asking me in her sweet, gluttonous way if she should help me finish that bowl. Just the thought of my dearest little niece made me screw up my face in sadness. So far, the Dracons and Demona had done an excellent job of keeping me alert, shocked and distraught so that I hadn't cracked, but I could feel this emotional thinness rising to the surface again and didn't know how much longer I would be able to keep my head halfway clear. And surely, without being aware of it, the child was adding fuel to the fire and putting his murderous family of blood and choice on the scent too.
"I don't understand why you've become human again," Vito said, somehow offended and poking discontentedly into his fried potatoes, whereas he had immediately devoured the fish.
"If I had the chance-," he mumbled and fell silent when Sonny put a paw on his head and shook him gently.
Everyone fell silent, somewhat somberly. I went back to staring into my ice cream and worked on the vanilla. Everyone ate for a while and nobody paid any attention to me. Graziella and Destine talked a little about their respective businesses and about some project and I listened intently because the fiber in me that still felt like a gargoyle was perhaps hoping to get clues about crimes the clan had to prevent. The thought of being useful to them even as this useless "fake" was appealing - before I realized that my relationship with Lex (and presumably with the clan) was on more than a shaky foundation. And that made me sniffle again, despite the wonderful sundae. I wiped away the tear that rolled down my cheek, but the damage was already there. Everyone was staring at me.
Demona and Graziella exchanged serious glances, then the disguised Gargoyle woman pushed the whiskey tumbler she had filled for herself towards me. I shook my head. I wouldn't let alcohol loosen my tongue (it had ruined my life and the lives of everyone around me once). But when Sonny cleared his throat, even though he was still completely engrossed in his food, and put his gun on the table in front of him as if it were a mere trifle, my hand automatically flew to the glass.
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The scratching of the pen on the notepad tucked into her clipboard annoyed me immensely. It probably wasn't any louder or more annoying than usual and it was my tension that made me feel that way. How could I not be tense? After waking up and seeing that Nate hadn't answered me but had seen my message. His tract cell phone signal hadn't allayed my worry and guilt because he'd obviously been wandering all over fucking Brooklyn and half of Manhattan all day without much of a break.
So I'd hijacked Davis' session with a human client (though a generous check and a friendly growl had helped me get the other psycho to leave). I needed to discuss the matter with someone. She seemed suitable enough. She should do something for the generous rates for gargoyle sessions.
And now I had reviewed the story from my point of view (without elaborating on every moan, she didn't need to know that much) and she had been writing and writing and writing for- I looked at the clock on the wall - for three minutes.
I took a deep breath and didn't even know how much intention there was in the fact that a rumble came out of me at the same time as the air was expelled. She looked up from her pad and lowered her clipboard.
"You wouldn't be the person I think you are if this didn't get to you, Lexington. You have a right to your anger, to your disappointment, to your confusion."
She raised her hand when I opened my mouth.
"Although I think the first two things will fall away with the third thing sorted out."
I brought my hand to my brow ridge and rubbed it thoughtfully. But the calm and warm feeling that this was supposed to bring just didn't come. Not internally.
"I haven't even given him a chance to explain himself. To explain these wounds. And his words. I was too afraid of what he would have stuttered out. Instead, I basically sent him to Jussuf if I couldn't satisfy his needs. If I had thought beyond my own wounded pride over this alleged breach of trust, I wouldn't have even hinted at such a thing. He's scared to death of that bastard. Even if he needs pain somehow ... currently - for whatever reason ... why was I so cruel?"
"We both know you didn't say it like that. And you're not cruel, you said thoughtless things in the context of your own shock. But it wasn't your intention to hurt your friend psychologically - I'm quite sure of that."
"So? Sure within the scope of your profession?"
"Sure within the scope of my many years of knowledge of sentient beings. You're not a psychopath, not a sociopath. You are full of empathy and can critically reflect on your actions or omissions."
"If I feel like it, maybe," I growled, pressing my own claws into my upper arms.
"Falling into self-loathing is not productive. But the fact that you're in the mindset to talk about it so honestly with someone is a huge step in the right direction. Although I don't appreciate that my other client - who is unstable, by the way - was bullied out of his scheduled session by you."
"Oh how nice that I was able to satisfy you with my despair. I mostly bribed him out of the session," I murmured resentfully and then took a deep breath and loosened my grip on myself. She was right. Goal-oriented thinking. "Sorry, Doctor Davis. Yes. You're right. I'm not refusing to talk, I'm not in denial. I screwed up. Astronomically big screw-ups. And I want Nate to know that, that I'm a freaking idiot and I'm sorry and I can work on myself however he or you see fit and maybe ... maybe he'll take me back. But ... Why would he?"
I lifted my head and knew she saw the moisture in my big eyeballs.
"I love him. Why can't our relationship be beautiful? We both want this, I know we do. Nate is unwaveringly neurotic and motivated by angst. Afraid of not being understood or he wouldn't have hidden his skin from me. And me... I'm controlling and co-dependent."
I let out a rather snide snort as the doctor briefly glanced at her notepad, which probably stated exactly that. As if I didn't know where my problems lay. After a brief moment of embarrassment, the doctor replied with a gentle expression.
"You're terrified of becoming the person you're most afraid of. But your current relationship difficulties are not leading you down that path. On the contrary. You will both come out of these problems stronger if you face them together."
I stared at her coldly before I no longer even felt the will to fight.
I leaned back warily in her armchair reserved for clients.
"Ever since Nashville dropped that Future Tense Lex bomb back in the day, I've been afraid of it. How do you know that these events now won't make me want to control the world around me? I want to control Nate too, and already with him I realize that the more I try to control him, whether overtly or covertly, the less control I have. What if this is the snowball that triggers the avalanche through which I enslave the world and kill everyone I care about or let them die as pawns. You're not clairvoyant and neither am I."
Davis looked at me thoughtfully for long seconds. The shrink had been waiting for years for me to be ready to talk about this particular trauma. But now she didn't seem to want to pursue the matter in favor of more pressing issues.
"Nathaniel Sharif is your anchor to sanity. Not the only one, because you have clan and familiars, purpose and reason. Your safety net is strong. You are loved and wanted. And all of this ... applies to Nathaniel too. I don't think your words yesterday - careless as they were - have changed Nathaniel's feelings towards you. The relationship between him and you was exposed to almost insurmountable hurdles and strains from the very beginning. These conditions taint everything that happens between you and him or could develop positively. You have not yet been able to establish a routine, a lasting tranquillity in which the two of you can simply be. But those times will come. Times in which you can get to know each other outside of raping brother-in-laws, magical transformations, near-death events, loss of control - and alienation symptoms with your own body and other crises."
"Get to know? I know Nathaniel," I said under my breath, shrinking under Davis's sternly raised eyebrow.
"So -so what would your recommendation be? Very specific?" I asked, probably sounding like someone requesting the `Relationship for Dummies` edition. And didn't I?
Davis smiled graciously. "You give Nathaniel the space he needs without making him feel abandoned. Small gestures of affection and that you're thinking of him - not Manhattan apartments for 50 million dollar gestures. Think about what would make him smile. That shouldn't be a problem with your profound knowledge."
Her sarcastic tone made me smile.
"I'll try to think of something. And after that?"
"Open discussions without any pressure. If you offer him a hand, he'll take it. If he really did look for and find someone who inflicted the hematomas on him, then he will tell you about it when he feels safe and comfortable enough. Although at this point I don't think it's what it looked like. The joint sessions will continue - of course. And when everything has calmed down again - a few dates would be a good start to practice normality."
"Dates?" I asked blankly.
Davis nodded with a smile.
"Dates. You know, where two people casually go to a different location than their respective own spaces to indulge in togetherness."
And that - despite everything - made me laugh. Not because the frigid doctor was letting her façade crumble, probably because of the pregnancy hormones, but because I was one of the smartest individuals I had ever known - and after the first coffee shop date with Nathaniel, which ended in a fight and a trip to the castle's infirmary, I had never once thought about "dating" again. I was still frustrated (mostly with myself) and would remain so until Nathaniel got in touch and we had a conversation characterized by trust and calm. But damn - DATES. That sounded good!
.
.
By now Graziella looked like she had bitten into a lemon.
"Okay- Ooookay, I know he has a therapeutic effect. It's a gift. But can I have my child back now?"
"Five more minutes, Mamma. He needs it," Vito said, stroking my hair over and over again. I cradled him in my arms for a few more moments - as I had been doing for the last twenty minutes while I reviewed my recent trauma.
Was it asinine to tell last night's affair to the Manhattan clan's greatest enemies? Probably. But the way Graziella and Sonny were staring at me - as if only Vito was keeping them from tearing me to shreds - I wouldn't get a chance to regret this. Now they knew a little pathetic Nathaniel Sharif relationship drama - so what? Yes, the two or three shots (or four or five?) had loosened my tongue a little - but I was quite sure I hadn't said anything vital about the clan. Quite sure.
It had done me good to tell my side of the story and even better when Vito forced me to give him a hug a few seconds into the story. And then he had latched himself onto my chest gargoyle-hatchling style and refused to let me go. So I had really been able to tell the story without much stuttering or (big) crying fits. I trimmed it down a little because I didn't want to pass on the existence of the entities, real or imagined. But the alienation from my body, the echoes. that maybe the moon had disinhibited me enough to ask Lex to hurt me (I left out the sex part to spare Vito's ears, but I could tell by the looks on the adults' faces that they knew what was going on).
Demona (it was after nightfall and I would just call her Demona internally now even though she still looked human thanks to the patches) just looked at me with this mocking smirk.
I sniffled again.
"Say what's on your mind."
She shook her head, rolling her eyes, and raised her glass of whiskey (the most expensive kind because it was the only kind worth having) to her red lips.
"It amazes me that even I, with a thousand years of plotting and planning experience, can't make a scheme out of this disgraceful story to harm the clan or get them on my side."
"Strange, I can think of a dozen," Graziella muttered before grinning wolfishly at me, making me 51 percent sure she was kidding. Her snarky manner reminded me of Nashville but that didn't comfort me, it disturbed me a little.
"I can't think of any way we could take advantage of this either," Sonny muttered, downing his own shot. "I think you and Gremlin can fuck this up all by yourselves."
"He's NOT a Gremlin!" I said simultaneously whiny and biting, clearly made more world-weary by a little alcohol.
Now ignoring the gun on the table, I met Sonny's death glare with my own (probably quite tear-stained) one, squeezed Vito again, then patted him uncle-like on the back. "Okay, buddy, I'm fine now," I assured him.
"Friends argue - but they can always make up eventually. You can be sad if your friend doesn't understand you and you're afraid to talk to him. But if you don't talk, he'll never understand you. I'm also sad sometimes when I think about my dad and that he can't be with us. Family is just difficult," the child explained to me with far too much mature empathy and disturbing matter-of-factness.
I really liked the little mobster offspring and smiled with genuine gratitude while still holding him on my lap.
"You're very clever. And the hug was a good idea. That was very nice," I praised and the child grinned proudly while Sonny growled (not a gargoyle growl but something in three pitches that would have raised the hairs on my body if I hadn't shorn them off) and I frantically corrected myself.
"Not nice as in arousing! But um- okay? Comforting? Yes! Comforting. Therapeutic."
Sonny took the child from my arms and placed him back on the cushioned bench where Graziella immediately stroked his cheek with a loving smile - but also somehow sadly. She really loved him ... and that was all the more worrying when you thought about Graziella's life and Vito's fate. What was to become of him - apart from following in her ill-fated footsteps? Now she was still enchanted and all taken with his warm, sweet, understanding nature. When and how quickly would they train him to be completely different? How would they break this child to force him into a mold that ran exactly contrary to his current one?
"Do you need me, mamma?" Vito asked, having naturally noticed the look on his mother's face. He stretched out his arms towards her ... as if it was her turn now. His next appointment.
I swallowed the painful lump of distress and confusion. He would do for her what he had done for me. Partly out of love and kindness and the childish understanding that everything got a little better with cuddles - but also because he thought he had to do it. As if it was his job. The job of a seven-year-old to serve as a comforter for broken adults. How many times had he served his mother? How many times had this powerful woman clung to him to make him see himself that way - as a tool for stress and grief management? That was not right. Children should be able to trust and rely on adults. Not the other way around. Luckily, Graziella giggled as if she had never taken him up on it and pinched his little nose in a loving, teasing way.
"Everything's fine Vito. Thanks for asking. I'm peachy," she chirped, seemingly amused. Vito looked at her for a long moment as if trying to figure out how high the Mommy-cracks-up meter stood, then turned to Sonny and tugged him like the kid he was by the jacket.
"I have to go to the loo."
Sonny nodded and ruffled his hair with his big paw. "Man, me too. I almost forgot if you hadn't reminded me." Vito giggled at this while the hunk pushed himself out of the bank and made me stand up for a moment. He looked at Graziella again with his typical poker face.
"Behave, Graziella," he insisted as if he were the boss but as if she could be trusted to do any, truly any dirty act ( to me) in the three minutes he would be gone.
"Sure, brother," his mistress replied with a predatory smile that implied she could be trusted to do anything.
With an uncertain look, I watched Vito pull Sonny, who was more than twice as tall and three times as wide, away. It was good that one deadly threat was gone. But not that my little living reassurance of not being shot at this table was likewise gone. But no panic set in at all. Probably the alcohol starting to kick in even though I'd only downed a couple of shots out of courtesy.
I blew my nose loudly into my napkin without worrying too much about manners ( which usually got lost under alcohol first).
Destine grimaced in disgust at the noise and presumably at the general act.
"Oh, how did I end up in this company?" she asked herself grimly.
Graziella smirked. "Birds of a feather flock together," and unlike me, the buzzed Graziella wasn't at all put off by the glare she got. And maybe it was the alcohol, but now I found both women somehow-
"Funny," I said, laughing shrilly and briefly (my old bad stress-induced quirk) at the surreality of my sentiment.
What?" Demona asked. I cupped my face in one hand.
"It's probably the whiskey ... but you're both somehow ... not sooooo bad."
"Ohhh Fake - you clearly haven't heard enough stories about us," Demona growled and I imagined I saw her eyes flash red briefly. Which made me giggle.
Graziella grabbed her "aunt" by the arm and held her in place.
"Right - we're not so bad, buttercup," she cooed. "We can be your best friends. We can have pajama parties and braid our hair and talk about our mean, stupid exes," she tempted, but by the last sentence at the latest, my mirth had evaporated. Her smile became grotesque and her basically human teeth looked almost like gargoyle fangs as she raised her shot.
"Well - the way I see it, we are a very homogeneous table community. Cheers to three bitches brought together by the same suffering! Cin cin!"
Demona emptied her glass but then glared at Graziella, who blew her a raspberry.
"What are these sufferings supposed to be, niece?" she said in a mocking but not malicious tone. "You have the audacity to say that I have something in common with Sharif? I didn't see any similarities between his pathetic story and mine."
"In his story itself, the relation was hardly recognizable. But the simple overarching fact welds us three fellow sufferers together: we were all royally fucked by males of the Manhattan clan, violated, almost crushed and hated ever since. We could form a "The First Wives Club" and think about how we could finish them off."
"I'd be up for that," Demona agreed, and the way the two women smiled at each other made me scared and angry at the same time. I jumped up and had to hold on to the table (half because of the alcohol, half because my legs and feet still hurt like hell and resented a sudden change of position).
"Lex wasn't fucking with me! Not like that anyway! And he doesn't hate me!" I exclaimed. "He was always good to me, more than good. It's just ... my shit makes him tired. And it confuses him. Damn - I AM tired and confused. We both can't get a break from my- this magical madness. He said something he didn't mean. I know that. AND I would never deliberately harm him or my clan!"
"Is it even your clan, fake?"
I snarled at Demona for hitting the mark and for the first time her expression became almost ... approving.
"Never growl at your enemies if you don't intend to finish the fight, Sharif," she advised.
Graziella folded her hands and leaned back in the upholstery like the queen she was. "He said you should go back to the asshole who literally broke your neck ... if I got the story right. He thought your self-harm was a sexual kink and inflicted by someone else, probably even your attempted murderer. And he sent you back to him. That's pretty bad ass," she argued.
"He didn't mean it like that! He wanted to apologize but I ran away like I always do and I'm the idiot! He thinks I hate him now and that's not true. I love him."
"I love Nashville and it didn't work out. And Demona loved Goliath. Sometimes love isn't enough if you just don't fit together or don't fit together anymore."
"He and I are compatible. I feel good and safe with him and the clan and when these echoes and everything pass and we can really get to know each other outside of this madness then we'll come out stronger and more united."
Demona refilled her glass with a look that was cold but sober despite the high proof booze. "The odds are against you, Fake. You have to be stronger than what you showed us today to pull this off."
"I CAN be stronger," I insisted venomously, peeling myself out of the bank without taking my eyes off the women. "I can grow and get better. Just like he can because he does because he loves me. Me and him can work it out and we'll stay together. And I don't need ... no mafia queen and millennial magician to teach me about relationships. Me and him- we make our own rules," I said with my head held proudly high and turned around. But my phenomenally glorious exit from the stage was abruptly halted when, after sweeping the curtain aside, I crashed into Sonny's steely chest, nearly breaking my nose.
"Ah... Sonny! Sharif has just decided to leave us. Will you take care of him?" she asked cheerfully, as if she hadn't just assigned my executioner to his latest job. She hadn't finished speaking when Sonny had already grabbed me by the woolen fabric of my poncho and was dragging me away. Vito waved to me before crawling into the bench and pulling my colorful, now quite melted, half-eaten mountain of ice cream closer to him.
.
"Not all, Vito," Graziella said, handing him a new napkin while her child eagerly scooped up the ice cream. He nodded with his mouth full, his eyes scanning the mountain for the flavors that were most important to him.
Demona, meanwhile, grumbled discontentedly.
"You're a fool, Graziella Dracon."
"I have no idea what you mean, dearest aunt," the Capo-ness replied, visibly pleased with herself and unaffected by the rebuke.
"Save your antics. Why are you playing cupido for these deluded fools? We do not strengthen our enemies. We weaken them or lull them into a false sense of security in order to harm them later."
"Just because they fight me and are bad for business doesn't mean I have to act like a cliché-gangster bitch. Wouldn't it be nice if there could be a little more love in this world? Relationships that last? What's the harm in buttercup and Lexington staying together?"
"You're so talented and promising - if you weren't such a romantic git."
"You've done nothing to undermine my performance. On the contrary. Evidence A that you're not as cold and emotionally numb as you pretend to be. On that topic; how are things going with your blind, adorable gargoyle-playing rent-boy? Nikolas was his name? Do they glue beaks on their employees at Guilty Pleasures too? Then I would also-."
"Niklas!" Demona spat, glaring at Graziella. "And he's no longer available to others," she added.
"Evidence B," Graziella said beaming and poured herself and Demona rather satisfied a drink.
I am a sucker for the bad girls who aren't quite so bad. ^^
Thanks for reading Q.T.