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Crimson Claws

33.

Please, Mr. Goliath, I just want to go home. I'll do what you want but don't lock me up with the others again. I won't tell anyone that you can turn into a human. Please, please don't hurt me again," begged the shivering dirty boy, who was only wearing his underpants. Then he burst into almost silent sobs.

"My name is Goliath from the Manhattan clan. But my human name is Grant Turnbull - among other names. And I think I'll eat this little guy now. "

…

"Wow," Elisa said dryly as the video ended with Goliath snarling and putting his huge paw around the neck of the child who was Warren Hill.

Her mate sat on her couch, face in his hands, looking up with tears in his eyes as she spoke.

"The boy is good. Admittedly. That could turn everyone against you- probably against all the gargoyles and their allies-"

"I removed the stripe from under my tongue in that video and transformed back. And the boy-"

"Yes, apart from threatening to make your metamorphosis with the Stripes public, which could have worldwide consequences for the Gargoyle race, he's insinuating you- well, everything this piece of crap suggests." She leaned back next to him and thought. She was very convinced that sick little Zoey had nothing to do with this, which was good because she didn't want to or couldn't grill her unofficial favorite at the children's hospital about the things in that video. Warren Hill had no interest in his sister getting in the line of fire. He just wanted the people (who was really just one person albeit in different guises) off his back. This video was an act of desperation.

"It looks so real," Goliath muttered gravely, almost rendered impotently.

"It doesn't look real at all. Warren implies a lot of things here, like that you've hurt him before- but he doesn't have a scratch on him. And I'm sure if I run parts of this video with Warren Hill's facial expressions through a facial action coding system, it will also come to the conclusion that he's playing his part. Do you see this?" She stopped the now silent video on a close-up of Warren's face. Goliath leaned closer, grumbling, not wanting to see another second of his vile acts even when (if) none of it was real. "Here, the corner of his mouth, it's twitching upwards."

"It could be nervousness or fear."

"Nervousness, maybe, but fear? He's trying hard not to grin, the little Rascal is playing it! He's defaming you and the whole race because he wants to keep you at a distance."

"But that he looks so scared - and in his underwear - everyone will think -"

"Yes, it discredits the gargoyle race and you in particular. That you- I don't know, keep a harem of little boys."

"Oh, by the dragon."

"Question is- HOW could Warren Hill and his supposed father pull a stunt like that with you."

"The water he gave me tasted normal. Most drugs we can smell when we get close."

Elisa rewound the video on the unfamiliar cell phone, where she stopped at a close-up of Goliath's eyes. Smiling so wickedly, he looked an awful lot like Thailog.

"Your pupils aren't dilated or particularly contracted", she murmured thoughtfully.

"I could never inflict harm on an innocent human. Never on a frightened child."

"I know that, Big Guy," Elisa said softly as she wrapped her arms around him. Goliath was so incredibly strong and in many ways overwhelming - but he was also a big softie. He was completely distraught not only about how the Hills had gotten him to perform this charade on camera, but also how terrified the boy had looked. It was already shocking for her to see, knowing that Goliath would NEVER be capable of doing this and it would give fodder to all the undecideds and haters. Enough for another genocide. Warren Hill may not have known the far reaching consequences if he shared such a video on more than this cell phone. He was just a kid who was scared. At least that's what Elisa hoped. Goliath broke away and turned his face away from her, disgusted with himself.

"I don't remember any of it. Nothing at all. What if I really-"

"NO! No, Goliath. Just No. If you don't believe in yourself, then I do even more. They've done something to you and we'll find out what."

"That's a warning, Elisa."

"Yes, definitely. You've been snooping on them and they're trying to blackmail you into keeping your distance. Letting you wake up on Times Square was a show of force but out of utter desperation. That's clear."

"And this alleged Mr. Hill."

"As you suspected, not Mr. Hill. Since nothing here fits in with organized crime and I'm on leave anyway, I had to call on Xanatos' information gathering arm - which ... does make me feel extremely icky - but we all have to jump over our shadows. I obtained several old highway surveillance camera recordings. Months old, of the real Calvin Hill." She spread the images out in front of Goliath, who was grateful to no longer have to focus on the shaky video and his vulnerability.

Some pictures were pixelated, blurry or taken from too far away. Others were clearly recognizable. Calvin Hill was a tall muscular man with a blonde ponytail and a beer belly. A cliché in itself but much more fitting for a trucker. More fitting than the slim, albeit fatherly-acting man he had met.

"So who was the man who pulled this stunt with Warren?" Elisa asked, pondering, and Goliath loved her so much in cop mode. Then she had this hunger for the truth. "If they could mentally manipulate a man like Grant and a gargoyle like you in such a way, they must have resources that are completely unknown to us. A lot of money to develop or buy behavior-controlling drugs that work on gargoyles or...,"

"-magic. "Goliath sighed, not even knowing which would be worse.

"Yes. Or that."

"Do you think that man I spoke to was magic? A fey who has the boy under control?"

"No, the public cameras matched his face to those on driver's licenses. His name is Holt Murrey. Hold on tight, he is an actor."

"Actor?

"Last arrested for drug possession three years ago after a series of setbacks."

"Mhmmm. Why would Warren and him know each other? Why would Warren help him drug me, bring me to this play? What do they have to hide besides a currently untraceable real Calvin Hill? This Mr. Murray is taking an incredible risk."

Both mates were thinking, on the coffee table in front of them the pictures and the cell phone with the explosive fake video. Elisa stood up and paced back and forth in the room, walking past the garbage can into which she threw mail that wasn't really mail but hate mail from halfway across the country from people who, even now that the focus of media interest had long since ceased to be on her, were still calling her a bestiality bitch and a racial traitor. Everyone knew that she should have moved long ago, but Elisa was reluctant to give up this part of her life because of hostile outside influences. She held the castle like a gargoyle. But Goliath knew how vulnerable such stubbornness could make you.

"What if...," Elisa said, "Warren doesn't help Mr. Murrey. But Mr. Murrey is helping Warren?"

Goliath sat up straight. "That would be a similarly disturbing scenario, when you consider what Mr. Murrey might gain from Warren for helping him," Goliath muttered.

"There are a lot of unknowns here and this threat with the video. But this isn't a ... overwhelming battlefront. It's one man and one boy. If they're threatening us, it means we've already gotten too close. That means they still have something to lose, but they're determined to hold on to it. We can fix this," Elisa whispered as she sat back down next to him and gave him a kiss on the arch of his brow. Her mate took a deep breath, gathering himself next to her with her calm, trusting presence. Before he spoke.

"I need to think about what I'm doing," he said then, stroking his claws over her palm, smiling down at her.

"Elisa, I appreciate that you trust in me and want to stand by my side in this. But ... I feel this is one matter I need to work out with Warren and his - this man, by myself."

"I know we can handle whatever comes," Elisa said, smiling broadly, not offended that he wanted to tackle this mission alone. He knew that she would hold down the fort with Zoey in the hospital, knew that her focus was on the sick girl who had grown on her in an inappropriate way for a volunteer. And in doing so, she probably made a more important contribution than either of them realized because Zoey would always be their most stable link to the mystery of her brother.

.

.

Goliath dropped into the middle of the pitch black patch at the edge of the financial district in lower Manhattan. From above, it was a yawning nothingness, even though they had all seen on TV how busy it was during the day. Not only because of the construction work taking place around it for a large memorial made of water basins and bronze parapets placed around it with the names of all the victims who died, including the helpers who died in the line of duty. Hudson's name would rest among them. There had never been a public debate about it and that was moving in itself.

There was no museum yet - but when it was finished, they would donate Hudson's sword. So that it would inspire others. Not in its function as a weapon, but as a symbol that even a warrior from another time and another species had given his life for New York, for the people. They had scattered Hudson's dust in the old Gargoyle way in all four directions of the sky and, like that dust, had glided over their protectorate one last time together with his spirit. Why did Goliath feel closer to his oldest friend here in this place of so many losses, made up of scaffolding, huge machines and concrete, than in the air?

But even now there was a small memorial that Goliath could step up to.

The round basin with the two outlines of the holes in the twin towers was, as always, covered with flowers, the light beige stones from which it was built, although only knee-high, covered with colorful highlighter lettering. Messages from New Yorkers, from those who had stayed behind. There was always a collection of inscriptions created by the New York City Department of Records and Information Services for the September 11 memorial transcription project before there was no more room.

Goliath knelt before the temporary memorial, gently running his hand over the stone.

"Oh, my mentor, tell me what I can do."

After a few moments, he continued. "I feel used and vulnerable. For a long time I've felt myself being pulled in two directions," he whispered hoarsely, as if the truth made him uncomfortable even in front of the dead. He raised his eyes to the sky. No stars but gray on the scattered clouds due to artificial light pollution.

"I know and want to give my bride everything she hopes for, even what she has convinced herself she doesn't want. To do that, I need to be there for her more, not just be a part-time partner. Is this disempowering event with Warren a sign that it's time to stop half-heartedly sitting on two chairs at the same time? Am I a coward for thinking about it?"

Goliath growled and squeezed his eyelids together to collect himself.

"Warren cuts into my heart with everything he does. Why? Not just because he ... did something to my head. But in a completely different way. Maybe the way Elisa fell in love with his sister. Some ... people won't let us stop even though they do us wrong. Elisa thinks this boy is behind the fact that our whole species is in danger. But also that his act was one of desperation. How can I ... help him if he equates help with a threat and in turn threatens us in his childish ignorance of the consequences? What if he is not ignorant at all? Should I just let him go even though I can sense that he is lost? And that he needs help? What would you have done?"

Goliath tried to relax, kept his hand on the stone and listened. Listened to the muffled cacophony of the most populous city in the world. Into which they had inserted themselves as a clan and as individuals. With victories and oh so bitter losses. This was a place so full of pain and sorrow. Just for the fact that the humans (without claws, without fangs, mostly without warrior attitudes) could change this place of loss into a place of love, community and hope through an instinctive collective wordless promise - Goliath loved the humans for that. They were weak in their bodies and often in their actions - but they drew infinite strength from the most painful experiences. It was inspiring. Just as Hudson himself had been inspiring even after his death.

Goliath took a deep breath and smiled as he opened his eyes again.

"Thank you, my mentor," he breathed, standing up with tears in his eyes. He had made a decision.

.

.

Broadway used his walk with the egg to cover areas that were not frequented for no reason. Besides, the longer he wandered around with the rookery's only inhabitant, the longer Bronx and Fu-Dog would be free of guard duty together. They were good beasts who, probably because of Tachi's eggnapping in 1997, were so much more dogged with the new egg than the first time that they could rarely relax and frolic together. Broadway also tried out the wrap Katana had made him - 10 years tried and tested on Nashville's egg - no Amazon review needed. The thing was great and he had his arms free. Like, for example, to lean against the lintel of the door to their wardrobe, from which he had heard noises.

The door was open, and in the large room which housed to one tenth of the clan's clothes that they didn't wear often and to nine tenths Nashville's wardrobe of donated designer goodies from the last few years, their youngster was scurrying around. Tachi, who had wandered with Broadway, sometimes traveling along riding his neck, sometimes crawling at an agonizingly slow snail's pace, distracted by every waving blade of grass, now toddled into the room where Nash walked around muttering frustratedly. The shrill noise it made when he stopped in front of one of the many clothes rails and frantically pushed clothes back and forth on hangers grated on Broadway's nerves.

"Hey Nash," he said, half amused, half startled, as his nephew jolted and whirled around, falling over Tachi. The hatchling squealed. One of the rare normal gargoyle toddler reactions happened and Tachi huddled motionless in unknown danger so that whatever enemy didn't see her and the big gargoyles above her could take out the threat. Nashville landed roughly on the ground behind her, rolling over immediately.

"Oh, Tachi! Damn, sorry! Did I hurt you? Let me see, little red. Lemme see." Nashville pulled his little sister towards him and the baby unfurled. He grabbed her hands one by one, her wings, looked at her knees and her beak where his claws on his feet would have hurt her first. As always, the child looked at no one, staring at Nashville's hands as they went through the loving and guilty motions.

Broadway had approached, smiling down at the scene. Out there, Nash was the superstar. Here, he was the clumsy overprotective brother.

"It's okay, no harm done. Phuuu, you scared me," Nashville huffed, still crouching on the ground. And stroking Tachi's beak so that she chirped. When he looked up, Broadway saw that he had a pretty nasty scratch on his own beak that was bleeding lazy from where he had hit the stone floor.

"I'm sorry Nash. You were pretty engrossed in here," Broadway said as he helped him up. Nashville grinned at the carrier sling around Broadway's middle that nearly doubled his girth and mockingly offended he put both hands over their egg.

"Hey, it's comfortable and you've been in one of these yourself for ten years, no sling shaming here, fashion prince."

Nashville chuckled in that sympathetic self-effacing way they'd all seen on TV. His laugh had been different as a child. Loud and boisterous. Broadway missed hearing children's laughter. At least the amusement reached Nashville's eyes - that wasn't so common either. But it disappeared when Broadway gestured into the room.

"Isn't Patricia or an assistant telling you what to wear? Where is she?"

Nashville awkwardly began his drawling. How was he supposed to explain this? He hadn't chosen his own clothes since he was ten. Not that it had often been necessary to change before then, because when a gargoyle shed its stoneskin, most of the clothes were clean and at least odorless.

"Jeah uhm, so I'm getting to an age where uhm- I'm going to have to-"

"I get it."

"And Pat's off and - it's not for today or tomorrow and I just wanted to see ... what might go well together."

"I see."

"But nothing too flashy."

"Uh-huh."

"It's to say; this isn't business but I don't want to look like one of those attention-hungry teenagers with too much money."

"You ... are a teenager."

"Yes! But urgh- it's supposed to be cool. But not too cool."

"Of course not."

"So it shouldn't look desperate. Not like I am trying to hard."

"Mhm."

"But not like I don't care either. Casual."

Nashville stared at Broadway and Broadway stared back. Tachi was still the most unruffled as she yanked clothes off the rattling hangers behind them. There was a reason she wasn't left alone in rooms with so many colorful "toys."

"I ... keep walking, egg bathing in moonlight - and all," Broadway said.

"Okay. Cool. I'll go check on Tachi."

Nashville sighed with relief when Broadway was gone and out of earshot.

He couldn't appear so obviously out of his element. Otherwise someone would be onto him before his first date. OH by the dragon, now he'd thought it and it would never get out of his head. This was his first DATE. No business dinner where he was just an accessory next to Goliath or Pat, who was doing the negotiating. No charity stuff where no one expected anything from him except to stare stupidly into cameras and say how nice he thought it was to be there. There was no script!

Oh god, it was a DATE. With the girl he had been in love with as a child. That now... oh no, he couldn't spiraling into something like this. He'd think himself into a panic attack if he fell into the non-existent romance hole. Graziella was A friend! Not HIS girlfriend. It was wonderful that she was back and wanted to be friends with him. With HIM - not Divergence Boy like everyone else. That was precious in itself and he couldn't mess it up with misguided feelings. He had to stay cool. Coolcoolcool.

Nash thought of his pack of cigarettes hidden in the cistern of one of the toilets on the training hall floor. Yeah, one of those would bring him down. Because he had what felt like 5 million clothes and NOTHING to wear for his - whatever he had on Friday. He would just tuck Tachi under his arm, the good thing about her muteness was that she wouldn't tell on him. He could say he was giving her some of his time off if anyone asked.

"Red, we're going," he said chipperly as he pulled the hatchling out of a pile of cloth. He plucked the tight-fitting black jeans with the brown ornate decorative buttons on the sides, the deep blue tank top and the black and white patterned jacket from her clutches, as well as the thick brown leather necklace with the silver feather pendant. He faltered, blinked and then exclaimed:

"Oh my God, that's perfect!"

Thanks for reading, Q.T. ^^