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Souls of the Night – Vol 3
55.
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Trigger warning for character dead
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Even after the second repetition of this Henry Coppa's panicked distress call, there was an icy silence. Elisa had learned decades ago that there was little point in trying to hide anything from gargoyle ears. Hell, they (now we) could even hear heartbeats if we concentrated hard enough. Not that I'd had enough practice, but I didn't need to because Elisa had gone pale, Brooklyn was making a face that was as startled as it was grim, and Goliath was growling so low it was almost sub-frequent. Lexington had stood up and I could feel how tense his muscles were with the hand I had on the small of his back.
"It couldn't have been a gargoyle. The whole clan is here," I tried to reassure them. Lex turned his head and his gaze was as stony and cold as I'd ever seen it.
"You forget we have clones. You're forgetting Brentwood," he said, brutally unceremoniously ripping the IV needle from the back of his hand. His eyes had hints of the cold white gleam.
"He - you think it was him?"
"Coppa gave the address we know his 'clan' lived at in 2009 - The perversion of a clan, at least. I could never forget it, that affair was a nightmare for our children," Elisa said, opening her general radio channel through which the other officer had just transmitted.
"All units; keep your distance from the building, GTF including air troops on the move. Shoot only on sight and only with M99."
As Lex and I climbed out of the ambulance, the other gargoyles were already rushing towards us. Not all of them were wearing their vests or riot gear. But before Brooklyn could open his beak to hand out assignments, I babbled again.
"So it was known all along where Brentwood and Thailog lived? Why- why weren't they arrested years ago? And what is M99?"
"Ethorphine. A powerful anesthetic for large wild animals. Works within seconds on gargoyles," Angela said, checking her police service weapon with a dissatisfied expression and perhaps only out of a neurotic impulse, because yes, she was wearing her police uniform since she had been on duty as an officer tonight.
"They don't live there. We checked out the new residents back then," Goliath muttered.
They all exchanged very intense glances and as usual - although I was an open book myself - I found it impressive and unsettling how many words they could pack into glances, baring their teeth, tail movements, raised eyebrows and ear flicks.
"Shit," Nashville muttered.
I gulped while the others were already climbing on the near fire trucks and ambulances, which were struggling under the weight. I saw something glinting under the shreds of my discarded jeans ... and grabbed the arrow Ares had fired at me, broke the shaft and put the rest in the pocket of my sweatpants, careful not to prick myself with it. I really hadn't thought that far ahead about what I wanted to do with it. Was I going to confront Ares later? Have proof that he'd shot at me - for whatever reason? I just didn't want to leave it here where someone might get hurt.
Brooklyn delegated who would land on the surrounding rooftops and wait for further instructions and who would assist the human officers on the ground around the building. Everyone agreed that there could be no rush job here. The people who had entered Thailog's "Lair" for whatever reason and had not made it out like Coppa wouldn't get out alive. The probability that they were already dead was almost one hundred percent. Without proof that this was not the case, no one would enter a house that was potentially full of traps and bombs. I shuddered at the word bombs. Could that be a coincidence? Lexington's company went up in flames and at the same time there was an occurrence in a house where one of the clan's oldest enemies was supposed to be? That didn't sound like a coincidence. It sounded like a distraction. At the thought that a billion-dollar company had been sacrificed, that innocent people had died, that LEX had almost died just to cover up something else (whatever it was), I growled, enjoying how inhuman and fierce I sounded.
Lex stroked my arm and his smile was so welcoming and proud that I preened under it even though I dreaded the action that would follow. I let go of him a little reluctantly. Now I understood the quirk that caused Lexington to keep making contact with parts of me with his tail or his hand. It was an easy way to make sure the other was there, that he wouldn't be swallowed up by the ground. Another thing I was thrilled to share with Davis - fantastic. The child she was carrying would be able to go to Harvard through my sessions alone.
When my friend tried to climb up one of the fire trucks, Katana touched him on the shoulder just as she touched me. Gentle but firm - our Second.
"Neither of you is wearing a Kevlar vest and you've both had a very upsetting and exhausting night. You'll be the last to take action."
"But-," Lex began.
Katana cupped his face in her hand. "Lexington. Brother. I know Brentwood's involvement and misdeeds are never-healed wounds on your soul. But stay back with Nathaniel. Please. It's admirable that you both want to be involved shortly after these happenings here, but your safety comes first. I don't want to have to order you to do it. Or even send you both back to the castle."
Lex cleared his throat, looked at me. I took my hand off the ladder to the roof of the car. I had wanted to climb up and take wing for a potentially life-threatening mission without thinking about it. I was a gargoyle again for 10 minutes and it was like an instinct to want to help my clan, to want to follow my clan leader, to want to protect the innocent. More gargoyle instinct than I had ever felt before. I took a deep breath, searching for the fear, the insecurity within me. But although these feelings were there, they wouldn't have stopped me. As if with my ... acceptance of becoming a gargoyle again, something new had awakened in me. Lexington, on the other hand, made a very conflicted face. I knew that everything that was going on here was something that hadn't even been touched on in the stories I'd been told. I would soon get a better picture. But now we had to hurry and not hold up all the action with questions and discussions. Maybe people were in danger. Lex seemed to come to the same conclusion. "Okay," he said throatily.
The three of us climbed onto the ambulance. Goliath had picked up Elisa in the old fashioned way and nodded to Katana, who took off at the same time as him. While my friend and I let our eyes wander over the grounds of LeXa ltd. The smoking buildings continued to be extinguished - perhaps just to make sure that all the smouldering embers were doused. The jets of water were strong and my gargoyle nose told me it was coming from the basin behind the site. There were also dozens of people behind police, fire and NYCEM barriers. I saw my work clan huddled together like chickens with two police officers apparently at their statement. Lavonne raised her arm and I automatically waved back. Dozens of pairs of eyes were on the departing Gargoyles anyway - and on me. The creature that had leapt a 30-foot distance as a human and emerged from the building as a red-glowing fire-absorbing gargoyle. I saw my department boss Humphrey, quite frazzled but well, staring at me with eyes the size of dinner plates. My recently started working life seemed to be in ruins like the company itself.
Of course, the investigation was just beginning. But I was no longer naïve enough to think this wasn't a hate crime. Not with three assassins that I knew had to have a grudge against me and Lex. Beefy was dead. The guy Ares had hit with an arrow would probably go to jail, but Floyd had gotten away. If he hadn't died in the smoke, he'd probably still be a danger. Maybe it had never been any different. Maybe gargoyles were always in danger in this human-dominated world.
Lexington's hand in mine snapped me out of my thoughts. He was still so dirty, looking tired and weary (perhaps mourning his company and his employees, perhaps knowing as I did that this might not have happened if "the boss" hadn't been a gargoyle). Still, he smiled, brushed off guilt and grief and desire for revenge to rush to where the proverbial next flashpoint might be.
He still found the strength to smile and encouraged me to carry on.
"Ready for a new adventure, my hero?"
I huffed. "With you by my side, always, my love," I replied, feeling silly and simultaneously deliciously comfortable with these sickeningly corny phrases.
"Then show me if you can still glide or if your gorgeous wings are just for show," he teased and literally pulled me over the edge of the truck. My wings snapped open where he stretched his arms and legs so that his wings could stretch free. I allowed myself to be caught by the wind, and although I sensed that Whisp in me had basically exhausted its power for the night, a wind that was too strong not to be magical quickly lifted us higher. More than that, we caught up with the others. I felt a sense of ecstasy take hold of me. I had missed gliding as a human being incredibly. And not just because of the echoes. Who wouldn't miss THAT? Yet I couldn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to, I wasn't allowed to because I had more pressing matters to deal with. I let go of Lexington's hand and slipped between the others, who automatically made way for me like in a flight formation of birds without us bumping into each other.
"But you knew they lived in New York?" I asked loudly over the wind up here. It wasn't meant to sound accusatory but somehow it did and I lowered my ears under Brooklyn's expression. But he seemed mostly unhappy with himself.
"Brentwood and Thailog haven't been seen with any misdeeds in years. Thailog was basically incapacitated by his ... reversal, and no one thought Brentwood would do anything blatantly illegal without him."
"And on what charges should they have been arrested? Everything they did was either untraceable to them or time-barred because gargoyles didn't have legal status then," Nashville commented from the sidelines.
"Even as a midget, Thailog is too cunning to leave a trail," Tachi growled, gesturing with a snarl. "No. No, it can't be a coincidence. Gargoye attack at the address where Sevarius was registered at the time."
I stared at her in irritation. Midget? Wasn't Thailog Goliath's clone?
"But they don't live there, we checked. Vernon and Eudosia Bywaters live there," insisted Angela, who had just put her cell phone away because she had probably checked that very file again, even in the middle of gliding.
"Oh, my fucking God!" Broadway gasped, losing his buoyancy in sheer horror and almost knocking Nash and Lex behind him into a dive before they could all catch themselves. When he was back in our midst, he looked like he'd been punched in the stomach. He apologized quietly, probably because he and Angela were the ones I'd never heard swear before. The two of them were practically made up of rainbows and sunshine (figuratively speaking). But Goliath adjusted Elisa in one arm and reached over to Broadway with the other, grabbing the pale gargoyle by his massive shoulders and forcing him to look at him.
"What, Broadway!"
"The names. I never thought about it. But..." He looked at Lexington. "It's - it sounds like an anagram."
Tachi groaned after she must have - faster than anyone else with her brilliant mind - flipped through the letters. "Gravel, he's right. Those don't sound like real names either. The humans who were interviewed back then and moved in "new" were maybe just actors - hired to play their parts as covers for Thailog's bunch," she speculated.
"So they slipped through the radar? For more than ten years?" I asked now with an appropriate amount of dread.
"I knew Enya somehow rigged her cell phone so that we could only ever locate it outside Brooklyn. But looking in that house, which was basically scorched earth..." groaned Lexington.
"Well, Enya, Brentwood and Thailog always manage to surprise us with their wackiness. Or they're so stupid and obvious that we just can't figure them out because we don't think like lunatics," Nashville snarked.
"Rarely," Lex grumbled next to me. Everyone seemed completely taken aback. The radio message may have only been five minutes ago, but it seemed so much longer when you've been exposed to so many mind-blowing facts in a row.
Maybe that's why I (as the least experienced, most inadequate fighter) felt called upon to blow courage into the others.
"But we'll get them tonight!" I exclaimed resolutely. "Now they've done something we can track back to them! Now we'll get them," I said as if I was seriously part of the team again after 15 minutes of being a gargoyle.
"Phuuu, sounds good Nate. But how are you going to explain to the humans that there's a vicious genius in a gargoyle hatchling barely older than Heather?" Broadway asked, adjusting his massive paws on his daughter, who had just landed on his back mid-flight, perhaps because she couldn't keep up with our pace. She looked at me with serious eyes - before cracking a wide smile and raising her voice.
"Uncle Nate's right, though! We are gargoyles. We save what can be saved and capture Brentwood if he's hurt one of the humans. I'll take care of Thailog if I have to." Before an awkward silence could spread or I could open my mouth again for a dozen questions (Thailog, the mighty Goliath Clone a child! And they were going to send Heather into the ring with him?) Nash laughed absolutely genuinely and cheerfully, dropping back so that he glided right under Broadway.
"Well said, monster! Our secret weapon is right. The little shit will fall over his own oversized wings so full his pants will be when he spots my sister."
"Exactly! Wuhuuu!" Heather shouted, throwing her arms up and rolling off Broadway without opening her wings again, crashing straight into Nashville's back, who yelped under the extra weight but barely lost a yard of height. Together with Tachi, they gave each other high eights. Brooklyn and Broadway, and even Lex, though a little more subdued, laughed kind of dirty. THAT was another thing that would have to be explained to me in more detail afterwards. But if no one saw a problem - well, I didn't either. For a change.
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After Thailog had killed the human crawling away (more to spare himself from hearing his whining than to relieve him of his agony), he had entered the code to lock down the house. Heavy iron shutters rolled down in front of every door and window. None of this would keep Gargoyles - especially his "father" Goliath - at bay for long. They would come, no doubt. Thailog had heard the call for help from the guy who had escaped him from outside. A COP! Miller had not only sought out his own pathetic "allies" though he had given him a list of reliable mercenaries and criminals who detested gargoyles. This worm had also dragged these most namby pamby wannabe Gargoyle butchers into his house! No wonder they were already terrorized enough by Brentwood alone. But all right. Thailog, like Xanatos, was not one to cry over spilt milk. He would work with what he found. He could still hear screams, gunshots, hissing from below.
"God, how low gods must sink to keep their followers," he sighed, slipping off his shoes, removing with bloody fingers the patch that forced him into this disgusting human shell from his arm, vibrating with the pain of transformation. Now he could see more as the fuse for the lighting had apparently blown. He briefly considered whether he should fetch his arm splints with the blades - before he remembered that he had already taken them to his warehouse. Of course he still had one or two weapons in the house. Since he couldn't even lift his big firearms with his child's body, normal weapons - but even those were a pain to use with gargoyle claws. Well, then just inelegantly with claws and fangs.
Of course, it would also put on a better show if he - even as the master - dealt with the situation in a somewhat agitated and frantic manner. Brentwood was a brain-amputated imbecile - but Thailog had no desire to deal with even a hint of doubt about his own involvement in the situation. He needed a renewed loyal, isolated, downright dependent Brentwood. He, Thailog, was to be the alpha and omega in Brentwood's world while the little mongo* fooled himself into believing they were equals.
Thailog was not romantically inclined. Romance was a nuisance, at best a means to an end, as it had been with Demona. But he loved to possess. Even something as pathetic and flawed as Brentwood and Enya. Another shot from below, shattering glass, a gush of liquid that rushed and splashed against cellar walls and furniture as if a huge bathtub had tipped over. And Brentwood's desperate heart-breaking cry - if Thailog had a heart that could break. As it was, he just puffed with a sardonic smile - at least SOMETHING could go right here. Byebye Etan.
He took another breath, dipped his hands into some of the larger smears of human blood on the tiles of the entrance area and smeared the cold liquid over his face and arms to simulate more fighting than had actually taken place.
"Showtime," he whispered before drawing in a breath and screaming much more shrilly and childishly than he would have liked;
"Brentwood! Brentwood, I'm here!"
He stumbled (pretended to stumble) to the open basement stairs, the inhuman yowl of Brentwood already ringing painfully in his ears. He rushed down the stairs, panting. Gasping with artificial horror in his wide open eyes where in truth he loved the sight of the breeding fluid, stained red by all the blood, flooding the basement floor 3 inches high. He loved how a carcass with Miller's stature but with his face all but clawed away lay in the middle of the room. He loved how another human with two shredded arms but fully conscious was crouched in a corner, croaking soundlessly, probably unable to move due to pain and shock.
And finally how Brentwood shed gigantic crocodile tears, hiccupping and whimpering and barely getting enough air to scream over and over again, slumped over the tiny clone still connected to the ruptured chamber by the artificial umbilical cord but suffocated. A blood-drenched nightmare figure in deepest mourning. Yes, they fell so very low, those who did not pay enough respect to the mighty Thailog. That's how servants were put in their places. Thailog wished he had a camera to capture this magnificent overall picture. He would have liked to print the scene on a wallpaper and decorate his new premises in their future home with it. His gaze flew to the real smashed camera lying in the liquid. Well - you couldn't have everything. Not dwelling too much on his inner triumph, Thailog rushed over to Brentwood and put his arms on his shoulders.
"Brentwood! Partner! Are you hurt?"
The little idiot blinked at him with tear-blurred eyes.
"Thailog! Mas- my mate. Etan- he."
Brentwood hiccupped over the dead clone, who was already turning gray. This thing really did look like a hatchling. A cold shudder ran through Thailog because of an old memory. The last "hatchling" that had come so close to him had cost him his old life, his old body. He would have loved to rip that thing out of Brentwood's arms and slam it against the wall until it was nothing but bone pulp. But he was better than an old trauma. He was the string-puller here, even if not all the puppets had moved in the direction he had planned for them. So Thailog lifted his trembling hand - and Brentwood would think it was trembling from shock and horror at the loss - and stroked the clone's pale skull, from which a fuzz of brown hair grew, across his forehead where the beginnings of small horns emerged, trying to ignore the death-covered ice-blue pupils that seemed to stare at him even through half-transparent lids.
"I'm so sorry, Brentwood. Oh no, that poor innocent little one. I wish I had been here sooner." Then Thailog lifted his head and his eyes flashed at the surviving human. "How could this ever happen!" he hissed so low and hateful that he almost sounded like his adult version.
He waded through the liquid towards the human, who simply stared at him with glassy eyes and didn't even screech. Because he couldn't as Thailog then saw. A puncture wound just above the Adam's apple! Thailog had done something like this himself once. On a victim who had been lying very still. It was a wound that was lethal but led to extremely slow bleeding while the recipient couldn't even scream. Brentwood had been watching. But how had Brentwood - the runt of the litter, the only one stupid or obsessed enough to follow him back then - managed that in his agitated state in the middle of the fight? Even though the human's arms look like he'd held them in a chopping machine, Thailog growled at this otherwise "clean" work that wasn't his. Not wanting to deal with this new evidence of Brentwood's evolution right now, he leaned over to the croaking human, who was shaking and smelling of piss but couldn't fight back, paralyzed with fear and pain as Thailog brought his hands to either side of his head. They were the hands of a cub, far from the powerful paws they would have to grow back into, just like the rest of him would have to grow back into old glory. But he was a gargoyle. So much stronger than a human even as a hatchling.
Thailog made sure the human understood him despite Brentwood's howling in the background as he pulled his face to his, his eyes staring into the wretched human's.
"I generally prefer not to get my own hands bloody. But I make an exception for miserable staff like you," he hissed and squeezed. The human's eyes widened, despite his gargoyle claw-pierced vocal chords, his croak grew louder, becoming a pig squeal, before Thailog crushed his skull bone and compressed it to half its normal size with a wet cracking sound, bloody brain matter spilling over his hands and splattering his face.
It should have been satisfying - but it wasn't because at that moment a familiar voice, distorted by a megaphone but intelligible, rang down to them from outside. Elisa Maza.
"This is the NYPD. We've got the building surrounded. Escape routes by air are being blocked by members of the GTF and the Guardian Citizens. Open the lockdown of the building and come out with your hands up. Resistance will be met accordingly."
Thailog grumbled discontentedly. He hated being rushed. He hurried to Brent and tried to help him up.
"Come on, Brentwood. We have to get out of here."
The pathetic creature remained unmoved. "No. No, we- Etan."
"You can make yourself a new Etan. We'll overpower this laughingstock who lets Lexington fuck him eventually and drain him of enough blood to make a whole army of Etans. Let go of the clone, he's dead." Thailog- unusually patient so far- reached for the clone, grabbed it by its umbilical cord. And backed away, hissing, because Brentwood had bitten him.
"You bit me...," Thailog whispered as Brentwood jumped up and backed away with the clone in his arms as far as the umbilical cord would allow. Shaking his head, he licked Thailog's blood from his lips, as if anything he did with the clone now made any sense. As if it wasn't just a lifeless sack of cells. The look in his huge blood-red eyes was so stubborn that Thailog almost shrieked as he held his bloody hand.
"YOU bit ME?! You stupid little shit, how dare you!"
"Thailog. Sorry - but - don't touch Etan. Umbilical cord still intact, machine still running. We are repairing. Wait for Enya, Enya and I will fix him. He mate. He future. Clan will grow but-."
"Haven't you picked up on anything here you worthless, fucking psycho! There are humans AND the whole Manhattan Clan out there to bag us. We don't have time!"
They both flinched as metal squealed shrilly on the upper floor. Powerful gargoyle hands crushing the security shutters as if they were crepe paper. And the fact that the alarm system, including the gas traps, didn't go off probably meant that the attack at LeXa ltd hadn't killed Lexington. Only Brentwood's blueprint could have hacked into his system from the outside. Thailog grabbed the weapon that had probably been lost by the human whose head he had just crushed. He awkwardly put his claw behind the trigger and took his eyes off Brentwood, who was staring at him with hatred, to focus on the staircase. By now, Brentwood's loyalty was no longer really important to him. He would come with him anyway. Brentwood had no one but Thailog, and Thailog would somehow force Enya to reprogram Brentwood to be more loyal and submissive than ever before. He would stir around in Brentwood's head so much until there was nothing, not even potential, left in there except for Obey Thailog.
"We don't have time" he said icily. "You will be punished for your actions here. Because of you, humans have invaded our hideout, because of you, Etan has been destroyed. And yet you choose this rotten product over ME? Bite me? Do you know what happens to bad mutts that bite their masters?! You have no right to be so mindlessly petulant and NO right to a mate if I don't fucking allow you to! I should be your only and biggest priority! And this clan will grow if I want it to. I don't give a shit about your mate, you useless defective rat. Now come on before I take you out myself." Thailog backed away to the far wall where their secret tunnel was hidden. But Brentwood simply remained crouched and stared at him. New tears ran down his ugly face. And Thailog saw that these tears were because of his words. There was nothing Brentwood and Enya feared more than being defective. The fact that Thailog had now stated the truth probably hurt more than any beating he would give Brentwood.
Thailog laughed, glee in his voice despite his haste. "Did you really think you were my equal? That you would be more than a half-blunt tool? How can you deceive yourself so intensely for so long? You're nothing more than-"
At that moment, something fell on the back of his neck. It was small, but since he was not tall himself, he was pulled to the ground by the weight and fell into the breeding fluid. He hissed and flailed his wings and arms and threw the equally hissing thing off him, tearing off tufts of white hair. And as he whirled around, he gasped in horror. For his nemesis was perched on the ground in front of him.
Her eyes glowed red and a devilish smile distorted what was usually a chubby cute hatchling face.
But that wasn't a hatchling, was it? Never had been. Thailog crawled back without taking his eyes off the thing.
"I see you still remember me. Can't say the same for me, but the grown-ups told me what I did to you back then," purred the creature they had named Heather. Heather! What a dull, misleading name for this nightmare beast!
"Don't come near me," screeched Thailog, found the lost weapon under his hand, grabbed it and jumped onto a table as if the little creature crawling after him on all fours was a rat and he was the hysterical housewife lifting her skirts. With a trembling hand, he aimed at the thing while her clan and his Gargoylefather stumbled down the stairs. Brentwood just sat there! And watched. Everything went to hell! But he wouldn't give up without a fight. If he killed the thing, everyone would be so horrified that he could escape.
Thailog bared his teeth and fired. The bullet hit the little turquoise female right between the eyes and jerked her head back. A lucky shot that made all the gargoyles shriek and roar - before the bright giggles of a child rose from the horror. The thing called Heather brought her head back forward, the bullet just pushing its way back out of her forehead, black veins running from the bullet hole that was slowly closing. The child's laughter reminded him of ancient gods. Thailog had never figured out why Heather Wyvern was what she was and could do what she could. And with dread, he realized he would never find out either. He just looked down at the child when Heather suddenly had her hand on his ankle.
"Are you going to regress me into an egg this time?" he asked tonelessly.
Heather's claws pressed into his flesh and now she looked very grave.
"The risk that you will even then retain your memories is too big. I've got a better handle on it than I did then. I can't let you hurt my family anymore."
In any other situation, Thailog would have fought, resisted, plotted, negotiated. But the black veins that now snaked from the girl's arm towards him, bridging the barrier between two bodies with magic and flowing ice-cold into him, captivated him too much. Xanatos had been chasing immortality for years. Sevarius had done the same in a different way. Neither of them had gotten what they wanted. This thing in front of him, however, whose skin color just now turned corpse-gray, carried in her the blueprint for life and death.
Thailog didn't realize at first that his perspective on the other gargoyles staring at him from the end of the room was changing. He only realized that he was growing when his clothes began to stretch, tighten, burst. He grew taller and wider until he was massive. The table could no longer hold his weight and he crashed to the floor without the child loosening his grip on his now large ankle. More and more magic rushed into him and he found it ironic that he was now getting at the speed of sound what he had been missing for 15 years but so much faster, so much more and more and more that he suddenly began to shrink again. His muscles became thinner, his skin paler. His wings behind him shook like autumn leaves on dry branches. The groaning that came from his throat because his whole body suddenly ached deep down into his bones was that of an ancient oak tree that would no longer be able to bear the weight of the snow next winter. Thailog's gaunt face collapsed with a splash on the wet ground. His dry tongue ran over his now rotten, blunt, brittle fangs as the thing pulled its claws out of his leg, took a deep breath and then crawled on all fours back to her family. They stared at Thailog with their mouths collectively open. Angela even had her hand in front of her mouth.
"I had to," Heather said wearily. Her skin color was slowly coming back to life.
"How- how old did you make him?" Goliath asked with tight lips and ... pity in his eyes?
Heather looked at him again.
"Maybe 220?"
Thailog looked to his minion. Brentwood stared at him as if he had never seen him before, shaking like a leaf but making no move.
"We ... we could dish up the humans he experimented on himself and it went awry," Lexington murmured thoughtfully, crouching at the top of the stairs next to a skinny blue-skinned fellow who must be his mate and who was almost as pale as the life-stealing monster.
"I'm so tired," this one said. Nashville leaned toward her.
"Is it safe to touch you again?"
"Yeah. I'm really ... drained?"
"Yeah, bet you are. Come here," he said gently and took her just as gently in his arms. Broadway stroked her back and Angela also touched her lovingly. Thailog could have laughed at that. This clan was pathetic - he would have used such a secret weapon much more efficiently. 220 years old. The mighty Thailog was a decrepit geriatric. What would happen now? Would they put him in a nursing bed in prison? Would a nurse wash him? How laughable! This clan didn't kill if they didn't have to. But this was worse, more undignified than death. He was almost proud of this unconscious cruelty. But since he was the victim of this procedure, he couldn't leave it at that.
He saw the gun lying on the ground in front of him and managed, with an effort he had never had to muster before, to move his arm forward and grab it. His fingers hurt so much, his knuckles brittle and crippled by gout. But he managed to wrap his chapped, blunt claw around the trigger. The Gargoyles were momentarily so preoccupied with their in-house death goddess that only the new blue one's face contorted into silent horror as he raised his head briefly. What was his name again? His senile brain had forgotten. But those eyes - those icy blue eyes.
"Oh, how deep mighty gods fall," breathed Alexander Thailog, the first and so far only perfect clone in the history of the world, hoarsely, without taking his eyes off this other gargoyle, before shoving the weapon down his throat and committing the final act of ultimate self-determination. The last thing he perceived were the simultaneous baying of Brentwood and this other one.
- mongo* = or mong can be a slur for a "stupid" person. Mongo is also used in New York to describe items picked from the trash.
Thanks for reading, Q.T.