Unlike her older siblings, Bonnie was not one to brood or stew on an issue that was troubling her for long. Nor was she one to favor the strategy of sitting on information that others didn't know she had for any length of time. She didn't have the patience for any of that, so when something distressed her, her immediate response was to deal with what she perceived to be the source of the problem. And so, by the time the three older children had tracked their little sister down the hallway and back out into the courtyard, she had already found her clan's leader, perched among the other adults, near the fire.
Then, to everyone's shock, and Liam's chagrin, she made her concise and tearful inquiry.
"Goliath, is Demona real?"
Goliath's face, which had been filled with merriment a moment earlier, fell at once at the child's question. His eyes widened as he glanced around at the others for an explanation. For a moment, he looked almost panicked, but then he seemed to consider the possibility that he'd misheard.
"What did you say, Bonnie?" he asked gently.
"Demona, the sorceress," Bonnie asked again boldly, despite the obvious upset of all the adults around her, "Is she really an evil gargoyle? Does she really want to kill the clan and all the humans?"
As Goliath was too aghast to quickly reply, Angela knelt and asked Bonnie the obvious question.
"Where did you hear such a thing?"
"From Liam," she explained, "He said that Demona killed two hundred people and she's trapped somewhere in the castle."
"Liam!" both his parents snapped in unison, and the boy hung his head shamefully. Awkward, but old enough to know that an act of penance was required of him for having wrecked the celebration, he timidly approached the giant warrior that protected and led the whole clan.
"I'm sorry, Goliath," he apologized bravely before this intimidating figure, "I didn't mean for her to hear me, or to cause any problems."
"Where in the world did you hear about Demona?" Luach asked him sternly, and Liam glanced at his mother sheepishly, then handed the binder to Goliath. Slowly he opened it and flipped through the pages, understanding coming to his face. He handed the binder back to Laura, who upon realizing its contents, looked absolutely horrified. Goliath, laid his massive claw on Liam's shoulder, who flinched slightly.
"I didn't mean to upset everyone," he pleaded, his voice a bit squeakier than normal.
"We're upset that this has come to light," Goliath told him gently, "But I'm not angry with you, Liam." Liam looked up, clearly relieved. Goliath crouched down, hanging his own head as if in thought, and Elisa moved to his side, touching his shoulder sympathetically. He looked up at his friend with a level of confusion in his eyes that frightened Orion more than Liam's story ever could have.
"What do I tell them?" he asked her in consternation.
"You must tell them the truth," came a low voice from the other side of the firepit, where Adelpha sat, looking into the flames, her eyes emotionless behind her painted face. Goliath's gaze went to her, and so did that of all the other adult members of the clan. Orion sensed that they were about to be told the sort of Halloween story you wish you could un-hear, but Goliath still seemed very conflicted.
"She's right, Goliath," Brooklyn told him compassionately and their leader nodded his great head resolutely.
"Yes, of course," he replied, "The truth is always best."
He gathered the children closer and said, "Yes, children, Demona was real. She was one of us, and she betrayed us."
"She really killed all those people?" Sister asked in horror, "And tried to destroy all the humans in the world?"
"She did."
"And the clan too?" Bonnie asked, tears forming in her eyes, "She wanted us all to die? "
Goliath nodded his affirmation.
"But that makes no sense!" Orion cried out in a voice trembling with rage. Elisa rose and placed her arm around his shoulders to calm him, but he pulled away.
"We're clan!" he exclaimed, "We quarrel sometimes and get too involved in one another's business, but we love one another! And in a world with so few of our kind in it to begin with, why would anyone want to kill their own family? What was wrong with her?"
"She should always love her clan!" Bonnie added with a righteous stomp of her small, clawed foot, "Didn't anyone teach her that?"
"She knew it, Bonnie," Goliath explained, "She learned it well, from the time she was a little hatchling. She loved her clan with all her heart, just as you do now. But then, she began to leave room in her heart for fear. And fear in your heart will grow like a weed, if you let it. It will strangle out love, wisdom, faith, and forgiveness and leave room only for jealousy, resentment, guilt, rage, and finally hatred. And that's what happened to Demona."
"But, what was she so afraid of?" Micah asked him.
"The humans," Goliath replied simply.
"It seems like she was acting more like a human herself than a gargoyle," Lyra commented bitterly, "Gargoyles know better!"
"No, Lyra," Goliath cautioned her earnestly, "Gargoyles are susceptible to all the same temptations that humans face. We must all guard our hearts and souls, and we must always help each other to do the same."
"I can help!" Bonnie offered enthusiastically, and her four assorted rookery siblings all chattered their agreement and promised their aid to one another and the rest of the clan, who smiled and laughed at their eagerness.
"Goliath?" Lyra asked solemnly, "What happened to Demona? Was she destroyed like the news article said?"
Goliath paused and Orion saw that he was considering his reply rather carefully. Sister wondered just how gory the ending of this tale was going to be.
"Demona was vanquished in the end," he told them at last, "She was defeated, after an unthinkably long and terrible battle, by one who fought with great courage and tremendous love."
Orion and Sister turned to look at the adults of the clan, who stood silently, not giving any further information away.
"It wasn't me," Thorn assured him, breaking the silence and Blaze snorted with laughter.
"Stop it!" both Ophelia and Linnet ordered in unison, and then they both laughed as well, which caused the rest of the adults to break into a cacophony of conversation during which Fleet whispered to Micah,
"'Vanquished' means 'killed', right?"
"Yeah," Micah replied confidently, then thought on it a moment before switching to, "Maybe."
Bonnie apparently had a similar train of thought.
"But what if Demona tries to come back while you and Elisa are gone?" she asked Goliath anxiously, "Who will stop her?"
The clan quickly fell silent at the little one's fretful question and Goliath seemed at a loss again, for what exactly to tell her.
"I will," Adelpha assured her resolutely. Brooklyn then stepped forward and placed his claw on Adelpha's shoulder.
"Yes, and I will help her, if need be," he vowed.
"We'll all help each other," Angela declared and the others voiced their agreement. Goliath smiled at his clan proudly.
"My warriors," he addressed them all, "The next few weeks will be difficult for us all. But we are a clan, and we stand together. I know you will all remember that while we are away."
The others responded affirmatively to this sentiment, and Angela pointed out how late it had gotten. Everyone began to help clear away the party and prepare for a patrol before dawn. The little ones reached for their mothers arms and Bronx carried the drowsy blue fairy to her own mother, who told Liam that it was time to say his good-byes.
Bonnie strode over to where Xanatos was talking with his son and gave Alexander's jacket an impudent tug.
"What do you want, Bonnie Boo?" he asked with a laugh as he looked down on her scowling face.
"I want Adelpha back!" she said adamantly, placing her claws on her hips. Alexander glanced over at the firepit, from which Adelpha had not yet moved. Still in the elegant but ghostly costume he had fashioned for her, she stared into the flames.
"As you wish," Alex replied warmly, and with a wave of his hand, Adelpha was returned to her normal attire, though she seemed too lost in her thoughts to notice the change. Bonnie smiled with delight at the sight of her own mother restored to her. She thanked Alexander politely and ran to her side. Orion and Liam watched as Adelpha scooped her into her arms and held her to her breast.
"I'm really sorry for causing all that trouble," Liam told his friend genuinely, "I would never want to scare Bonnie! But at least she seems okay now that Adelpha is comforting her."
Orion assured him that everything was fine, though he wasn't certain that Bonnie was the one being comforted the most in this instance.
Later, Adelpha found Goliath alone in a chamber of the castle to which the clan rarely ventured. In the early days of the castle, Prince Malcolm had designed the room as a chapel, and had gone there daily for private devotions. Xanatos hadn't really known what to do with the space. His parents had raised him in the Orthodox faith, and while as an adult, he'd never felt any particular need to practice the rituals and devotions he'd learned, they had left a stubborn spirit of reverence in him that would not allow him to simply decommission the chapel from its intended purpose. Instead, he had left the place in a hallowed condition, at least from his perspective. And upon its altars, he placed icons and works of sacred art from his personal collections, as well as some photographs of his own parents and grandparents, and the budded wall cross that had always hung in his family home as a child, which had come to him after his own father's death and deserved a proper place of repose.
It was a makeshift sanctuary, but it served Goliath's purpose well. He crouched on the stone floor, before an altar shelf that held a single blade in a decorative sheath, placed there with love and respect. Adelpha smiled to herself as she observed him, lost in meditation. He had placed a flickering votive beside his mentor's sword. Quietly, she entered and knelt beside her mate, not wishing to disturb him. After a while, he turned to her and drew her lips to his.
"I see you've decided to go 'old school' in your Halloween activities," she teased with a smile. Goliath nodded.
"I thought it fitting," he agreed, and then added, "And it usually helps me to turn my thoughts to Hudson, whenever I'm unsure about something."
Adelpha turned toward the altar with a grieved expression. It was of little comfort to her to know that Goliath was also unsure.
"I don't want you to leave," she admitted suddenly, "I'm afraid."
"Adelpha…"
"But I know you must," she continued, "I know all she means to you."
Goliath kissed her again, once on her lips and again on her brow.
"I wonder, though, do you know what you mean to her?" he asked her softly and Adelpha sighed.
"It's as if I am playing a stolen part. Surely my story was never meant to end this way. Why should it have? And yet…"
Goliath took her shoulder in his claw. He knew Adelpha's story was far from ended, and perhaps had barely begun, but it wasn't a point worth arguing
"Banish such thoughts from your mind, my Love. Your clan loves you and you are just where you are meant to be."
"But if justice is left denied, could it not visit itself upon our children in my place?" she asked anxiously.
"No," he told her firmly, "I say, there is nothing that has been left unsatisfied. The part you play now was fought for courageously and won justly. This is where you belong."
She embraced him, letting her cheek rest on his powerful shoulder.
"I need you," she confessed.
"You have me," he promised, "Now and forever. If a millennium of grief, rage, and betrayal couldn't change that, then what could a few weeks of temporary separation do?" Of course, Adelpha knew the sense in this, but it couldn't quite erase the dread inside her at the thought of his leaving.
"We must tell the children the truth about me," she told him sadly.
"Have I not done so?" he asked in surprise.
"What you have done was gain us a bit of time with some crafty dodging," she explained bluntly, but with an appreciative smile, "But the children are clever. The older ones certainly know there was much that was left out, and eventually, they are going to seek out the rest. When they do, they will see our well-meaning omissions as no less than another betrayal."
"I was not ready for that tonight," Goliath confessed and she nodded.
"Nor was I. Seeing their faces so…" She paused with a grimace of pain as she remembered Orion and Sister's angry ranting. The quiet rage that had seethed in Lyra's eyes, was too like her own, and it frightened her. But the hardest to endure was the tearful confusion in Bonnie's face as she tried to make sense of the senseless.
"But I can see no other way. They must be told the truth," she concluded and Goliath didn't protest.
"It can wait until we return from this trip?" Goliath asked, kissing her wrist and she nodded.
"Yes," she agreed, "Let us not invoke two tragedies at once!"
"There will be no tragedy," he insisted with a touch of criticism in his tone, "This will be good for us. For all of us. Did Hudson not have to step away willingly in order for me to have the confidence to take the lead? Brooklyn is more than ready."
"He is."
"And you will heed him, won't you? You'll obey him as you would me!"
She looked up in surprise, then smiled sweetly.
"Oh, much more so!"
She wasn't in the habit of making promises, but this one was easy. She greatly wished to please and prove herself to Goliath's second in command. Goliath smiled at her sense of humor.
"Come, then," he compelled her as he rose and pulled her abruptly to her feet, "There's only an hour before the sun rises and I must catch my flight. I'll escort you to your room."
"I've interrupted you here," she replied, "You needn't trouble yourself if you wish to stay."
"Oh, but I must," he argued, a look of ravenousness rising in his eyes, "For if I were to do here before this sacred altar what I intend to do when we arrive in your room, the Good Prince Malcolm would consider his sanctuary to be desecrated!"
Her eyes widened at this and she laughed wholeheartedly.
"Then by all means, let us hurry!"
And they did, almost gleefully, make their way to a cramped and awkwardly twisting servant's staircase that they hoped would allow them to reach her quarters unmet by anyone. Moments later, they had forgotten all their fears amid their desire for one another and the rushes of pleasure that soon overwhelmed them. Soon, she found herself gently cradling her love's head in the crook of her arm as her own body still trembled slightly and deliciously from his efforts within her.
"Desecrated indeed!" she laughed haughtily, half to herself and half to the mysterious Creator, "Grant that I am merely an irreverent demon, and know little of sacramentals and such things, but I can think of nothing in this mortal realm that is purer or holier than the love of this warrior!"
But the time came for him to depart, and he gently carried her still-feverish body to her bed, where he laid her and attempted to cover her with the blanket. She stopped him, as she was enjoying the coolness of the nearby fan on her glistening shoulders and breasts. Their last farewells were wordless expressions of affection and once he'd left her, Adelpha curled up and waited for the pain of her transformation to her human form. As she rested there, her mind drifted to the mission Goliath and Elisa were facing and she thought of the night Orion had hatched.
She had not been permitted to visit or enter the rookery since the incident with the trespassing woman. In fact, she and Goliath had barely spoken a word to one another since he had decided to release the interloper. But once the egg had hatched and revealed the precious infant within Goliath couldn't wait another moment to proudly bring him to his birth mother's arms.
Joyful tears warmed her face as she thought of the moment Goliath had come to her room and placed his small wiggling form on the bed beside her. The infant had looked so much like his father had when he was small, though his scalp had not yet revealed the reddish-brown curls that would crown him soon enough. She and Goliath had stayed tucked away together for most of the night, while she warmed the fragile little one with her wings, nursed him at her breast, and enjoyed every moment that she had once so foolishly forfeited with her first hatchling.
At last, Xanatos and Elisa Maza had arrived, reminding Goliath that the sun would soon set. Heartbroken to have to take the child from Adelpha's arms, Goliath had asked the two humans to stay with her, and let her hold the hatchling as long as she wanted. He warned them not to leave her alone and to return the infant safely to the rookery, once she was ready.
Xanatos and Elisa had sat chatting at the large card table in her sitting room, while she had held her son with a desperation that neither of them had noticed. The baby gargoyle had begun to fuss again for nourishment, but she had soothed him gently, watching the minutes on the clock on her nightstand as her prison cell of a room had no windows.
The human's smalltalk was interrupted by the sound of her moaning and they looked over to see her shoulders shuddering as if in great pain.
"She's transformed," Xanatos explained unnecessarily, and to Adelpha he had called, "Are you ready for us to take him back to the rookery?"
"Yes," she had replied in a strange voice that sounded almost like a sob, and Elisa had reluctantly risen and wheeled over the plastic stand with the Moses basket on top, in which she had planned to carry the stone child back to the elevator. But as she leant over the back of Adelpha to lift what she had expected to be a fairly heavy gargoyle statue, she gasped out loud.
"Demona?!" she had exclaimed in shock.
"What?" Xanatos had called, jumping to his feet anxiously, "What's wrong?"
"Did you know this was going to happen?" Elisa had asked in amazement.
Adelpha's eyes had lowered as she answered.
"I suspected it."
Xanatos had already rushed over from the table, expecting something terrible.
"What's happened?!"
"The baby turned into a human too!" Elisa had exclaimed, and the two humans had immediately broken into a fretful conversation, of what had happened and what could be done. Meanwhile, Adelpha had rocked her son gently, mourning for a piece of him. He was still hungry. She could tell. But she didn't nurse him again. Behind her, the frantic discussion had clearly turned into something of an argument, and it was decided that Elisa would go down the hall and bring in Owen, who might have some insight.
"Elisa Maza!" Adelpha had called in a loud, firm tone.
"What?" Elisa had replied, stopping at the doorway.
"Are you not a member of this clan?" Adelpha had asked in a strange, authoritative tone and Elisa's eyes had widened in outrage.
"Don't you dare!" she had bellowed, "You know very well that I…
"If you are a member of this clan," she had interrupted urgently, "Then you must come at once and feed your son!"
Elisa and Xanatos had looked at each other aghast. Elisa had not a drop of trust within her for this wicked, deceitful creature, but perhaps it was her daring, almost teacher-like tone that perked up Elisa's defiant streak. She stepped closer and sat down in the armchair beside the bed, primarily because this monster didn't think she would. Adelpha had placed a pillow in the crook of her arm, and then gently swaddled the human child as best she could manage, and placed him in Elisa's arms. Then she had reached to pull her t-shirt over her breast and Elisa had almost given her an elbow in the face.
"Just how many kinds of crazy are you?" Elisa had demanded, "I can't just breastfeed a baby I didn't give birth to!"
"Our children belong to the whole clan," Adelpha had reminded her and Elisa had grunted in frustration. She was beginning to think this whole charade was some sort of cruel, sick demonstration to prove that Elisa could never truly be part of the clan.
"That isn't how this works!" she had retorted angrily, "Don't you have a bottle?"
Adelpha had given her a scowl, but responded in a still gentle voice as she reached into the drawer of her bed stand and retrieved a deep purple vial.
"It so happens I have," she informed her, holding it out to her, "Here."
"I am not drinking that!" she insisted, "How do I know where that came from and if it's safe?"
"It came from a six-year-old fairy and it very well might not be. Drink it anyway." Elisa had looked at Xanatos in disbelief, who shrugged his shoulders. Giving it a short moment's thought, Elisa had snatched the vial and obediently drank it.
Over the next hour, the baby fussed for nourishment and Adelpha unabashedly violated Elisa's personal space, instructing her as best she could to no avail, as Elisa couldn't seem to get the newborn to latch on long enough to draw any milk. Meanwhile, Elisa saw that milk was dribbling from Adelpha's own breasts and the baby wouldn't stop crying.
"Why don't you feed him yourself?" she demanded, "The poor kid is miserable! He wants you!"
"He will need a human mother," Adelpha had insisted as angry tears formed in her eyes, "He will need someone who can teach him, guide him, and protect him in this world. And I am helpless to do that when I am kept prisoner in this castle."
Elisa had stared at her, completely dumbfounded, but when she looked down at the precious child in her arms, he had found his latch at last and was nursing peacefully.
"Please," Adelpha had begged, kneeling before her sworn enemy with a newfound humility that would not have been possible under any other circumstances, "Please, do this for my son. Do this for our clan. Goliath says you are one of us. He says I must learn to trust you and think of you as family. If you would grant me this… mercy, then how could I not call you my sister?"
It had not been an easy arrangement for either of them, but time had improved their relationship. Now, as Adelpha lay curled up in her human form, still basking in the comforting, protective scent of her mate. She thought of the woman who had kept her vow to her for over twenty years and she was able to find hope for her in her heart, and that made her wonder if Goliath had been right to tell the children that Demona had been vanquished. If that was try, she was certain that moment had been the final blow.