Demona's merciless eyes burned as she stood over Goliath's sunken form. Weakly, he stretched his once powerful arm toward her, and pleaded inaudibly. But she returned an empty, robotic gaze. Cold and unfeeling as she turned her murderous weapon on each and every member of the clan, showing no compassion, even for the children. Her ears seemed not to hear their screams, nor his cries of anguish, nor her own that came from within. At last, she turned her hatred on Goliath, who was too broken to fight back, and she took aim and fired.
Adelpha screamed in desperate fury. Too late to stop the horrific vision, her body seemed to regain the freedom of movement as she thrashed blindly in the darkness. Her talons finally took hold of something she could grasp and tear at and she felt a strange, rough substance come away in her claws and release a foul smell. The horrific ringing in her ears seemed to be a combination of the residual effects of a bomb going off and her own screams, but slowly she began to perceive and comprehend other sounds as well. From what seemed like far away, a familiarly deep and callous voice said,
"She's useless now. Get rid of her."
She blinked, pressing her trembling talons to her eyes that didn't seem to want to focus.
"Get rid of her?" repeated Coldsteel's mechanical voice as if in scandal, "But she is our sister! "
The second voice snorted in disgust and her eyes finally focused enough that, to her dismay, she made out the silhouette of Thailog.
"You!" she snarled, "I would have thought you were dead by now!"
"Fantastic!" he growled, rolling his eyes in open contempt, "The wretch is waking to join us!"
"Sister!" Coldsteel crooned as he crouched beside her and offered his mechanical arm, "You have recovered! I was so worried when you went unconscious!"
Adelpha shot him a cold and suspicious look and chose to rise unsteadily to her own feet without his aid.
"What happened?" she demanded through a rasping throat, "What have you done to me?"
"My sensors discovered a tracking device hidden beneath your skin," he informed her.
"A tracking device!" Thailog replied in a fury, swinging a massive, clawed fist at Coldsteel, who dodged it with an expertise that suggested that it wasn't the first time, "And you brought her here, you fool?!"
"Not to worry!" Coldsteel answered, "I have already disarmed it!"
"Disarmed it?" Adelpha groaned, stretching her aching muscles and straining herself to maintain her balance, "With what, a nuclear warhead?"
"Certainly not," Coldsteel replied tonelessly, leaving the other two to wonder if he had even understood the sarcasm.
"Where am I?" Adelpha demanded, scanning the dark, filthy room around them. Rotten carpet was the substance she had torn up in her claws as she writhed around on the floor. That and the dilapidated furniture from a bygone era suggested a very old, and long-abandoned dwelling. The crown molding, and the very plaster of the walls seemed to be decaying around them and there was a distinct stench of rodents in the vicinity. The sconces from the wall were hanging lifelessly from where they had once been installed. Adelpha suspected someone had been searching for copper wiring behind them. Now the only light in the room came from three computer monitors, which the two miscreants had assembled on a large, heavy desk, and the urban glow that poured in through the windows of an adjacent bedroom, casting the shadows of a four-poster bed on the floor.
"Welcome to the glorious, Golden Adler Hotel," Coldsteel informed her with a dramatic sweep of his wing as he turned his shoulder on her. Adelpha sniffed as she rubbed the mold and filth from her claws.
"This is a hotel? I think I might have to file a complaint with the management," she retorted snidely.
"I am the management," Thailog told her in a sharp, threatening tone, "And I don't take well to criticism."
"It could do with some renovations, to be sure," Coldsteel conceded, "But it has everything we need for the time being."
"Including a steel, walk-in meat freezer with your name on it, if you don't behave like a lady!" Thailog added aggressively, which triggered another growl from Adelpha and she lunged for him. The uncanny clone of her mate laughed arrogantly as he caught her wrists in his large claws.
"My friends, please!" Coldsteel beseeched as his steel tentacles shot from his sides, pulling the two foes apart, "Are we not brethren? Must we have this animosity between us? After all, we each want the same thing!"
Both Adelpha and Thailog gave the cyborg a dramatically incredulous stare.
"I find it highly unlikely that either one of you could begin to imagine what I want," Adelpha finally replied in a bitter tone.
"To regain the trust of the clan, of course!" Coldsteel replied as if the answer was obvious, "And with Goliath gone, we have a very good chance with Brooklyn if we play our cards right!"
Thailog sneered.
"Do you expect me to go sniveling to that weakling for mercy?" he exclaimed, "No! If anything, it is they that will come grovelling to me, once I defeat their leader!"
At this, Adelpha gave a cold and bitter laugh, to which Thailog returned a cold, calculating glare.
"You dare to mock me, Demona?" he challenged, with an arrogant smirk, "You are weakened, unarmed, and outnumbered here. Do you not know what I could do to you?"
But Adelpha was unmoved by his threats and gave him another haughty laugh.
"How can I not laugh when you air such delusions in my presence?" she retorted.
"You don't think I can get the best Goliath?" Thailog demanded, folding his arms indignantly at her brazen refusal to cower at his greatness.
"I do not."
"Was I not designed to replace him? Am I not as physically powerful? Was I not endowed with superior intellect? Am I not unaffected by his foolish, sentimental weaknesses and his an idiotic desire to serve pitiful humans who will never love him in return?"
Adelpha gave a slightly sardonic smile at the clone's infuriated rant.
"Oh, you may be a match for him in direct combat," she concurred in a nonchalant tone, "Physically perhaps, though even that is debatable. But he has strength that you are too foolish to even take into account. Even so, we both know that even at your best, you will never be half the warrior he is."
Thailog's narrowed eyes seethed at this insult and for a moment, he looked as if he might strike her. But at that moment, Coldsteel whipped his tentacles out with a disturbingly mechanical laugh, and tethered Adelpha's arms and wings, drawing her from the altercation and into his protection with a sharp tug.
"My dear sister!" he exclaimed as she struggled, "What a pleasure it is to be in your delightful company once again! I have so missed these stimulating intellectual conversations! Now, do calm down, Thailog! My sister's whitty tongue may get a bit heated at times, but it's all in the spirit of good-natured debate! What else have we to do to pass the time?"
"Intellectual conversations?" he retorted with a sneer, "This unsophisticated hellcat? You can have a good conversation with her if you're a weak minded fool who craves nothing but vengeance! But there's no profit in that, and I have far greater ambitions to focus on! Get her out of here!"
He turned away from them, settling himself at the computer, still sneering and grumbling under his breath.
"Intellectual indeed! That miserable bitch is only good for one thing and there's no profit in that either!"
"Get off of me!" Adelpha hissed at Coldsteel, shoving his tentacles away, "I don't need your protection!"
"Very well, my dear Sister," he replied in a hush tone, withdrawing them with a slinky sound, "But please, do try to restrain yourself! Our friend is sensitive about his…origins, but we can make use of him!"
"I've no use for that man-made nightmare in a test tube! ," she replied, turning toward the bedroom and the large windows with tattered, mouse nibbled drapery hanging around them, "It's been a lovely visit. I'll show myself out."
"No, please stay!" Coldsteel begged and he followed her, "Truly, we can help one another! If we go to Brooklyn now we…"
Adelpha sneered again.
"I don't need help from either of you, nor do I need to get past Brooklyn. He and I are friends now. The clan forgave me long ago. Goliath loves me. Whatever conspiracy you and that…facsimile…are trying to cook up, it can only wound the trust I have strived for years to regain. I have my clan back now, and I will not risk losing them again."
"Your clan," he repeated skeptically, "A clan that sends you away when you become inconvenient?"
"No one sent me away," Adelpha informed him, "Alexander wanted me to join him here."
"Oh, Sister!" Coldsteel replied in a pitying voice, "They might have at least told you the truth! You are here at Brooklyn's request. He sent you away because Coldstone and Coldfire have returned to the clan and they couldn't stand the thought of you being there among them. So to keep the peace, you had to go."
"You lie! Brooklyn would never do that!"
"I had many conversations about it with one of the clan's daughters," Coldsteel continued, "Sister. A lovely, intelligent child, but empathetic to a fault. She was most concerned about you and the injustice of it all."
"She must have been confused…" Adelpha muttered, more to herself than to Coldsteel, but then her head shot up and she glared at him suspiciously.
"How would you get the chance to converse with Sister?" she demanded.
"Why Demona," he replied, "I've been in the castle for weeks, ever since my brother and sister brought me there as a prisoner. You didn't know that we were there?"
Adelpha looked away in distress.
"I noted earlier," Coldsteel continued, "That you told Thailog that you thought he was dead. But how can that be? When he has battled against the clan on several recent occasions? When young Sister and your own son stood with the clan against him in the most recent conflict? But you were not among them? And you know nothing about it?"
She did not reply, but Coldsteel seized on what was left unspoken.
"Do they ever allow you out of the castle?"
"I…"
"Do they ever even allow you to leave your cell?"
She shot him a dirty look, but still didn't answer.
"Demona, are you truly a member of this clan?" he asked her, "Or merely a prisoner with… conjugal visits?"
A long, painful silence fell between them, and the only sound was the ill-tempered Thailog grumbling as he shifted from his seat in the next room.
"What is it you want from me?" Adelpha finally demanded, with a hint of exhaustion in her voice.
"Only a chance at redemption," he assured her, "If you, who have committed murder and treason, can earn Goliath's forgiveness, then should I not at least get a chance to do the same? And if you will help me, we might win over our rookery brother and sister as well, and you could return home with no animosity. You'd like that wouldn't you?"
Adelpha kept an unfeeling expression as she pondered this, not wanting Coldsteel to sense her hesitation. She knew she could not trust her sinister rookery brother. But she also knew that, by her own nature, she never truly trusted anyone. Oh, she could get by with putting her faith in Goliath, Angela, and the rest of the clan, by virtue of her love for them. But she had no real affection for Coldsteel, and she couldn't even muster a remnant of pity for Thailog. Still, this deceitful serpent had an ironic way of striking its victims with jagged shards of truth. In the absence of any sensible alternative explanation from Alexander, Coldsteel's claim of the real reason she had been sent to Chicago rang true. This distressed her, no matter how many perfectly reasonable explanations she turned over in her mind. She didn't know what to say to him, and she needed more time to think. Fortunately, Thailog unwittingly intervened on her behalf.
A loud band of a fallen chair came from the next room, followed by Thailog swearing. They heard him approaching the room with all the grace of a drunken hippopotamus and he thundered in a low voice,
"Look what you've done now!"
Adelpha glanced instinctively at Coldsteel, but his mechanical face betrayed no hint of whether he had any idea what Thailog was talking about or not. Thailog strode toward them and shoved a tablet into Coldsteel's hands.
"Gargoyle sightings in Chicago," the robot summarized almost immediately, scanning the website electronically.
"It's all over social media," Thailog informed them, "At least three of them! It's the clan. They're coming for her, no doubt! And you've led them right to us!"
Coldsteel offered Thailog back his tablet.
"You've leapt to many conclusions, my friend," he replied, "This many sightings in such a short time? Hardly like the Manhattan clan, who have been living in an urban jungle for decades and are rarely seen."
Thailog opened his mouth to argue, but seemed to stop and consider the wisdom of Coldsteel's observation.
"But no matter," Coldsteel assured him, "I will use my resources to break into the city's security camera systems. We will soon know exactly who we are dealing with."
"I hope so!" Thailog grumbled, and without warning, he swooped toward Adlepha and placed his claw too tightly on her shoulder.
She looked up at him questioningly as he began to force her back into the sitting room, "In the meantime, my dear little loose cannon, I intend to keep you close at hand."
Adelpha snarled and took a swing at him.
"Like hell, you will!" she bellowed.
"That will be enough of that, feisty one!" Thailog growled impatiently, catching her by the throat and pinning her until she ceased struggling, "I wouldn't want to have to make use of that meat locker downstairs! But unless I get some cooperation here…"
"Please, my friend" Coldsteel interceeded, rushing to her side like a protective brother, "I will bind her, if need be."
A tentacle shot from Coldsteel's side and wrapped around Adelpha, binding her arms, tail and wings.
"There, now. Are you satisfied?" Coldsteel, "I hate to do this, my dear! After all, we are clan! Can we not at least be civilized amongst ourselves?"
"Uncivilized, am I?" Adelpha growled as they led her back into their den, "I'm crushed to hear you say that, Brother! After I've killed you both, I shall have to write a sonnet!"