Still overwhelmed with confusion, Sister glided down the tree-lined path and landed on the pavement, where the rest of the gang came to greet her.
"Well, Ruthless?" Vernita asked dryly, as she led them into a narrow alleyway, "What'd he say?"
Sister gave her a brief scowl, then bit her lip in thought. Sister wasn't at all sure what the old man had said. Was it possible that Orion and Lyra were the same gargoyles the gangsters had seen in their neighborhood? She couldn't see how. Or had Siren just been using their names as a code and trying to tell her something else entirely? And the other words he had said; Polaris, Great and Little Ursa, the red beacon, and the sixteen-ray star. What could they have meant?
Sister growled to herself and shook her head in frustration.
"He said that in order to find the gargoyles, we have to follow the emerald necklace," she told them.
The gang shared confused glances with each other.
"What does that mean?" Vernita demanded and Sister sighed.
"I was hoping you would know," she replied disappointedly.
"Never heard of it," Vernita declared impatiently and the others shrugged in unison. Sister growled again.
"Well, this was a complete waste of time!" she snapped at no one in particular.
"Sorry that we couldn't meet your soothsaying expectations," Vernita replied with a sarcastic eye roll.
"You'll still help us, right?" Marco asked uneasily, "Defend our neighborhood? Even if we can't find the other gargoyles tonight?"
"Are you insane?" Vernita asked him sarcastically, "Do you think she gives a shit about our neighborhood, or the family, or any of this? She's just trying to get what she wants and then, she's done with us."
Sister felt a twinge of doubt at Vernita's accusation, mostly because it was entirely true.
"The only way she's going to cooperate with us is if we make her!" Vernita declared, withdrawing the knife from her pocket. Sister watched the girl with great confusion. What did she think she was going to do with that?
"Hey, Vernita?" Nico asked, apprehensively wondering the same thing.
"We gotta show her who's the boss around here!" Vernita declared.
"I advise you to put that away, Vernita," Sister replied, trying to keep cool. Vernita, however, would not be dissuaded. With a grunt, she charged at Sister, the knife in her hand reflecting the dim streetlight. Sister caught her by the forearms and grappled with her for a long, tense moment while the gang watched in shock. Sister struggled to keep her balance as the surprisingly strong girl pushed against her and tried to make her lose her footing. She didn't quite know how to respond. Vernita seemed to have lost her mind. Sister knew that she could easily break both her arms and put an end to the fight at once, but that didn't seem right. She didn't need Vernita broken, she needed her calmed down.
Decisively, she lowered herself to a kneeling position, catching her opponent off balance, then tossed her backward, where she landed unstablely on the cracked concrete. With a turn and a whip of her tail, she smacked the blade out of Vernita's hand.
"You really want to do this?" Sister asked her condescendingly, but Vernita just snarled and charged again.
Sister had to admit that for a human girl, her adversary had some moves. She almost enjoyed sparring with her. For several minutes the gang watched in amazement as their leader wore herself out with attack after attack, all of which Sister expertly deflected, hardly allowing a hit. So determined to prove her superiority, Vernita seemed to be in a nearly manic state, but Sister was surprised at how her own generally wild temperament remained at ease. She didn't care for the girl. That was a fact. But she didn't wish to harm her either, nor even humiliate her in battle. In truth, she wasn't sure what she wanted, other than this pointless contest to end so she could be free to go find this emerald necklace as soon as possible.
But the fight continued, and though it was clear that Vernita was growing physically more exhausted by the minute, the rage in her eyes didn't fade.
"Are you not done yet?" Sister asked in exasperation after dodging her for the dozenth time. Vernita rolled to the side and picked up her knife again, garnering a sigh from Sister.
"Enough, all right?" she pleaded, "You're never going to beat me and I'm not willing to hurt you. Meanwhile, I have things to do!"
"We got things to do too!" Vernita snarled, "Like keep ahold of this neighborhood. Stop it from being taken over by hoodrats and rich, Gold Coast bastards who say they wanna make it better, but are just gonna turn around and throw us all out so they can make room for three gyms, a Whole Foods, and as many Starbucks as possible."
"I thought that's why you were working for the Draconis," Sister countered, "Can't they keep you safe?"
Vernita rolled her eyes.
"Old man Draconi loves this piece-a-shit hole more than anything," she snarled in a voice so low the others couldn't hear, "Cause his daddy and his daddy's daddy fought for it. Once he goes, who says the rest of these mobsters don't jump like all the other white folks did? The Draconis can afford to sell all this shit and hightail it out to Glen Ellyn or Evanston or some other nice, clean, peaceful suburb. Where are we gonna go? This is all we got."
Sister stared at Vernita, quite stunned by what she was hearing. It had never occurred to her that such fully grown-up concerns had been tormenting the haughty, aggressive girl.
"Let us grownups be the grownups, Sister," she heard Angela's voice whisper in the back of her head, "You have a right to be children while you can." Angela often fed them this line when she or Orion were overcome with worries about the outside world and the clan's action in it. Sister knew her mother meant well and was probably right to say this. Still, it had never really helped to ease their anxiety. Now it seemed Vernita was plagued by the same kinds of fears.
Slowly, Sister stepped back away from Vernita, still staring at her rageful eyes, when she suddenly felt herself fall forward and a sharp pain in her leg. Clenching her leg in pain, she looked down to discover a large hole had rusted through an old grate that covered the storm drain. Sister, tried to withdraw her leg, but the sharp metal points dug into her skin until they drew blood.
Vernita sneered, brandishing her knife as she approached.
"Maybe now you'll want to cooperate?" she taunted.
Glancing anxiously at the blade, Sister whipped her tail once again, knocking Vernita's feet out from under her, then used one arm to hold the squirming girl down as she struggled to get her own leg free. Behind her, she heard excited shouts and sounds of the other children scrambling to take cover. Their warning cries echoed down the brick walls of the alleyway as she finally released her foot with a painful yelp. Turning she saw the shadow of a man in a dark coat in the lamplight, with the glint of a rifle at his waist. Instinctively, she threw herself down over Vernita, dragging her into the shelter of her own body. Sister shrieked again as the pain of a bullet pierced the tip of her left wing. Another whizzed past her ear and sent small chunks of concrete flying.
"Stop!" she heard one of the children cry.
"It's Vernita!" cried another.
"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" cried a man with a deep, but frantic voice as he waved his large hand to signal a pickup truck behind him to stop, "Vernita! No!"
Sister dropped the girl as the truck's headlights passed just before them and rose to her feet quickly, glancing at the painful, but not serious wound in the membrane of her wing.
"Vernita?" the horrified man pleaded again, as he raced down the alley, followed by three other men who had quickly gotten out of the truck with guns in hand.
"Dad!" Vernita whispered in consternation, then looked back at Sister with a strange look of expectation. Understanding, Sister rose and scampered down a stone stairwell, praying that the approaching men didn't see her in the dark.
"Vernita?" the man shouted again, catching his daughter as she tried in vain to do the same and disappear behind a dumpster.
"What the hell are you doing out here, girl?" he scolded frantically, "I thought you were one of those gargoyles! I damn near shot you!"
"Looky, what I found, Andre!" called Angelo who had caught sight of Fiorella, peeking out from behind an overgrown yew that was hanging over the top of a fence.
"Not so fast, goombah!" Gianni growled as he snuck around the side of a dumpster and scooped up Marco in a rough headlock just as he was about to make a break for it, "What do you think you're doing?"
Nico and Stanley tried to dodge the other way and ran straight into Ragazzi, who grabbed Nico by the neck and shoved Stanley to the ground.
"What are you doing out here?" Gianni bellowed in what looked like genuine consternation, "Don't you know we got monsters flying around? Are you trying to get shot?!"
"But Pop!" Marco protested, "We wanted to look for gargoyles too! Vernita had this idea, see, that if we found one, we could-
Ragazzi interrupted the boy's explanation with a manic cackle, "Well at least the kid's got more cajoles than his brothers!"
Gianni shot him a dirty look, but Angelo grabbed his son roughly by the collar of his coat. The boy tugged away, more to save face than actually try to flee, then lowered his eyes to the concrete with a defiant sneer.
"Unless you want to be gargoyle bait, we have no use for kids out here,"Angelo said in a tired and dangerously frustrated voice, "Take your sister home, Rico." The boy looked up angrily.
"Nico!" he corrected with an outraged shriek and Ragazzi laughed again at his comrade's inability to accurately identify his own progeny.
"Nico!" Angelo thundered, "We just got word that our associate has security footage of the gargoyles in a park on the waterfront. We've got a job to do! All you kids, beat it! Now!"
"We're not kids!" Marco insisted angrily.
"Yeah!" Nico added, "We're not afraid of gargoyles! We can help!"
"That's right, Angelo!" Ragazzi taunted, "Maybe if you took your boy out with you once in a while and taught him to hunt, you could actually remember his name?"
Angelo sneered but Marco looked up curiously at the suggestion.
"You wanna take us with you, Pop?" he asked in a unsure voice, eyeing his father with surprise and suspicion.
"Absolutely not!" Gianni replied emphatically, looking at Rigazzi with disgust for having mentioned the idea.
"Why not?" Ragazzi taunted again, "Let the kids prove they're not as spoiled and soft as they seem."
Now it was Marco's turn to be outraged.
"We're not soft!" he insisted.
"Sure, kid, sure," Ragazzi replied with a condescending chuckle, "Or you can send them home to Nonna for a nice story and maybe a cannoli before bedtime?"
Angelo glared at him. He'd had enough, and there wasn't time to argue.
"Nico, Marco, get in the truck!" he ordered coldly.
The two boys glanced at each other in surprise.
"Really, Pop?" Marco asked suspiciously. Gianni looked just as stunned at this pronouncement, but he nodded his head as his son's inquisitive look. As if they weren't sure if they were being pranked, the boys made their way down the alley and got in the truck, followed by the still cackling Ragazzi and Gianni.
Angelo kicked a coke bottle that had eluded the dumpster toward Stanley, who was still cowering on the ground.
"Go home, you little rat!" he barked and the boy jumped to his feet and disappeared into the darkness in the other direction. Then the angry capo turned to his tiny daughter.
"You're still Fiorella, right?" he demanded sarcastically.
She looked back at him with wide, pleading eyes.
"Huh?" he pressed her further, his voice lowering in a threatening tone.
The girl's lips moved slightly, as if to form the words, "Yes, Papa."
"Get yourself home and get in bed!" he ordered.
"Vernita will take her, Boss," Andre pledged, pushing his daughter toward the little girl, "You get her home and then you go home yourself!"
"But Dad!" Vernita replied, "What if the gargoyles-
"Andre!" Angelo bellowed, already halfway down the alley toward the truck.
"Nita!" Andre hissed hastily, "You listen to me!"
"No, you listen Dad!" she retorted, "This could be our opportunity to turn things around here! I don't think Mr. Draconi should send them back to Xanatos! The gargoyles are-
"Vernita!" he interrupted, "With what Mr. Draconi is offering us for catching these monsters and finding those kids they took, we CAN turn things around! I can pay off Vanessa's college! Then you and me, girl, we're out of here!"
"What do you mean?" Vernita asked in shock.
"Once I get my hands on that money, I don't care if we have to leave with just the clothes on our back, I'm gonna get you out of this! I'm gonna take you some place better!"
"What about my brothers?" she asked in horror, "What about the neighborhood?"
"The boys can come too, if they want," he replied bitterly, "And you'll make new friends wherever we go, in a nice school that don't have guns and drugs snuck in and holes in all the walls! I promise! We gonna get out of this hellhole! It's finally gonna be good for us!"
"Andre!" Angelo bellowed again from the truck.
"I gotta go, baby girl!" Andre told her hastily, "You get that child back to her people and you get yourself home where you belong!"
Without giving her a chance to argue, Andre headed toward the truck. With a strange, defeated expression, she watched as the truck departed.
Slowly, Sister made her way out of the stairwell.
Vernita eyed her up and down.
"I guess this partnership is effectively dissolved," she stated in a sarcastic tone.
"Occhi!" Sister gasped, seizing the girl by the shoulders, "You were the one who saw those other gargoyles, right?"
Fiorella nodded.
"You have to tell me more! What did they look like?"
"Girl! She don't gotta tell you diddly-squat!" Vernita said with a laugh, "She don't talk to her own daddy! How she gonna talk to you?"
"Would she tell you?" Sister pleaded.
"She might," Vernita replied snidely, "But I don't really see the point in helping you out anymore!"
"I need to know!" Sister cried, kneeling down beside the girl and taking her hand in her claw, "Please!"
Vernita snarled and grabbed the little girl by the arm.
"Leave her alone!" she demanded, shoving Sister away, "Come on, Occhi! I'm a take you home now!"
"Vernita!' Sister cried, but the older girl ignored her plea and headed down the alley, leading the girl by the hand.
Desperate, Sister leaped to a brick wall adjacent to the alleyway and quickly scaled the building to the roof to see the direction the truck was heading. To her surprise, she caught the headlights of the truck stopped in a driveway near the church with the elementary school. She could hear some shouting from the men, though she couldn't make out the words. They were moving a large, dark rectangular object from a shed in a nearby yard. Was it a shipping crate, or some kind of safe? Whatever it was, it was too heavy for them to lift into the bed of the truck and they appeared to be arguing over that fact. Sister watched as the four men left the truck for the back of the house.
Vernita and Fiorella had turned the corner and were headed in that direction too, for the shop across the street, under the house where Angelo's family lived. Sister panicked as she tried to think of what to do next. She needed to know if the other gargoyles really were Orion and Lyra, but if they were, she needed to follow this truck to find out where they were! Overwhelmed with the situation, she decided to do something drastic. She leaped from the rooftop, gliding in a circular pattern to gain height, until she could see the whole neighborhood like a map laid out before her. Then she dove, right toward Vernita and Fiorella.
With a shriek and a squeal Fiorella was torn from Vernita's hand as Sister caught her from behind and lifted her above the trees.
"Hey!" Vernita screamed after them, but she was helpless to stop Sister.
The small girl clung to Sister's shoulders as she watched her world pass her from above. She was shaking with adrenaline, but didn't scream or cry.
"Don't be scared, Occhi," Sister told her over the sound of the wind, "I won't hurt you! I just need you to tell me what you saw."
Sister glided over the row of houses and landed in a tree above the truck. Fiorella clung desperately to her captive, clearly afraid of being dropped to her death. The men were still behind the house and Sister could hear loud clanks that sounded like machinery being moved, as well as an occasional curse word being shouted. The large metal box did look like a big safe, with a complicated lock on the door. Sister dropped to the ground to investigate through the open door, holding her claw over Fiorella's face, lest she cry out. The heavy metal structure was just big enough that a typical human could stand without scraping his head, and wide enough that one could step in, fuss around with stuff, and turn around and step out again. There was nothing inside now except a few empty shelves and drawers that were permanently installed in the wall, and a dusty drop cloth laying on the floor. She imagined this vessel was designed to secretly store all manner of sordid mobster paraphernalia, but she expected its purpose tonight was to store captured gargoyles. It occurred to her that inside this trap might be the one place in the city the mobsters weren't looking for her. Still second guessing, and third guessing her judgment, she slipped inside, carrying Fiorella with her.
"Shh! Don't be afraid," Sister pleaded with her captive, and to her surprise, Fiorella didn't seem nearly as traumatized as she expected her to be. Her eyes were wide and alert and she looked at Sister with a sense of expectancy, as if she understood the gravity of the situation. She was tougher than she looked, Sister acknowledged, and smart enough to know it.
"The gargoyles you saw, Occhi," she whispered, "There were two of them?"
Fiorella glanced at the open door as if considering the likelihood of escape.
"Please, tell me!" Sister begged, holding her hand in her claw, "They could be my brother and sister and I don't want those gangsters to hurt them."
Slowly, the girl nodded her head and Sister gave a smiled slightly in relief. A breakthrough!
"Were they grown-ups? Or kids like me?"
Fiorella pointed to Sister emphatically.
"A boy and a girl?" she pressed and the child nodded.
"Could you see them well?" she asked, "Did the boy have red hair and the girl black."
Now Fiorella looked uncertain. She seemed to think about the question for a moment, before shrugging her shoulders apologetically.
"It's okay," Sister assured her, becoming more and more sure by the moment that the two missing gargoyles were somehow Orion and Lyra. How they could have come to Chicago so quickly, she had no idea. Why they had come, was even more confusing. Sister tried to think back to Siren's prophesy, and remembered that he had mentioned a third constellation.
"Were they alone?" Sister asked, "Or was there someone with them?"
Fiorella nodded, emphatically pointing to her own chest. Sister's eyes narrowed in confusion.
"A human girl like you?"
She shook her head 'no' and flattened her hand against her own chin.
"Smaller than you?" she asked, even more puzzled. Who could Orion and Lyra have with them? The only little girl the clan knew was the MacMoray's young daughter, and she couldn't imagine any reason she would be there with them.
"Did she say her name?" Sister asked and Fiorella seemed to consider this, then smiled, nodding.
"Was it Ursa?" Sister asked hopefully but Fiorella's expression indicated that she wasn't even close. Sister frowned.
"Bear?"
Fiorella shook her head again and raised her two hands to her chest, bending them forward like paws and making a jumping motion.
"Kitty?" Sister guessed again, becoming desperate. She shook her head again, then lifting two fingers, made her hand hop around in front of her.
"Rabbit? Bunny?" Sister continued to guess and the little girls' eyes widened.
"Bunny?" Sister repeated in confusion, "A little girl named 'Bunny'?"
Fiorella nodded and smiled triumphantly, but Sister was still dismayed. Where could Orion have met a little girl named 'Bunny', and why would he be dragging her around Chicago? Except…
"No!" she thought out loud, "Not 'Bunny'...Bonnie!"
Fiorella nodded again.
"You must have seen her before the sun set!" Sister realized, "When she was still in her human form. But…Why are they here? And where are the grownups?"
Fiorella looked on with wide eyes. She had no more information to give, and no more time to give it as they heard the voices of the men approaching.
"Quick!" Sister whispered, lifting up the corner of the drop cloth. They both scrambled under and laid as flat on the floor of the box as they could, but the men didn't bother peeking inside. Sister heard the gasp and crank of a jack and felt the box shiver as it was lifted into the back of the truck. The gangsters covered the container with a blue tarp and secured it to the truck bed. Then they felt the truck bounce as the men got into the cab and quickly tore down the street. As they turned the corner onto the main road, Sister heard a voice crying, "Dad! Dad! Stop!", and she knew it was Vernita, who was too late to stop them.