Breeding Season, continued

        "So much for Nightstone's chances," the New Wave rep said in a
tone of mean satisfaction.
        The TarrenTech rep, the new father, whirled on her. "She's
having a goddam miscarriage!"
        David Xanatos touched Owen's sleeve. "Call Dr. Masters."
        "Sir?"
        "Call him. I don't care if she's an enemy. I don't care who she
sleeps with. Nobody should have to go through that."
        Owen nodded and pulled out his phone. He punched in the direct
line to the med suite, then his whole body twitched. The phone jumped out
of his hand.
        Xanatos caught it before it could strike the tabletop. "Owen?"
        He had gone more pale than usual, and his lips moved
soundlessly as if answering some question that Xanatos couldn't hear.
Then his eyes focused. "I'm afraid I have to leave rather quickly, sir. The
lights, please."
        Xanatos opened his mouth, decided he could get answers later,
and flicked off the lights. The room, already escalated by excitement and
confusion, now boiled over into chaos. Which meant that nobody but
Xanatos saw as Owen was yanked backward out of reality, his form
changing, shrinking, as he vanished.

                *               *

        *pop!*
        Puck tumbled, regained his balance, and flung his long white hair
out of his eyes. He was hovering in the ladies' lounge, all tasteful decor in
dove grey, mauve, and turquoise accents, but one of the couches and a lot
of the carpet was drenched maroon, and a coiled comma-shape of a
woman was huddled on the floor.
        Dominique looked up at him, her face conveying a tremendous
diversity of emotion. Under the raw pain there was pleading, and anger,
and resentment, and fear, and a glint of hope.
        "Save my baby!"
        Sorrow filled his eyes. "I cannot. It's too late."
        "It's dying! My baby is dying!"
        "Your transformations were too much for it. Your human
body --"
        "Is your fault!" she said. "Your trick, your magic, that did this to
me! If not for you, I'd be a gargoyle and my baby would be fine!"
        He nodded soberly.
        Someone banged on the door. "Ms. Destine! Somebody get a
key!"
        Puck spun, fear of discovery making him sift through the
loopholes in Oberon's decree. If he were found out, he wouldn't be able to
protect the boy. Besides, the hair that Demona had stolen from him pre-
dated the Gathering, so he could argue that he was bound by that
commitment first.
        He made a sweeping circular gesture and a bubble of fey light
surrounded himself and the woman.
        When the door skidded open moments later, the rubber wedge
squeaking, they were both gone.

                *               *

        Dominique screamed and scrabbled on the cold, dusty boards as
the world crashed back in on her. The agony that had for a split second
utterly disappeared now ground into her like broken glass.
        When it abated enough for her to sit up, she realized she knew
this place. The window opposite her was the one through which she'd
witnessed her first morning, the old cracked mirror was the one in which
she'd discovered Puck's malicious humor. Her old house, the mansion
she'd had to sell to try and hang onto her corporation.
        Puck floated in front of her, without a trace of that malicious
humor now. "Demona, I'm sorry."
        "I don't want your apologies! I want my baby!"
        "It's too late. If I'd known sooner, there might have been
something ..."
        "I won't accept that!" She lunged for him, but fell short when
another belt of spike-studded pain cinched around her.
        Now, worst of all, a new sensation of something sliding, pushing,
emerging. She clamped her thighs together, willing it not to be so, but she
couldn't stop it. A river of blood washed her child onto the dirty floor.
        Its shell hadn't thickened yet, the translucent membrane like a
thin-shaved curve of milky quartz, splotched with faint spots that would
have eventually darkened to violet. Within, she could see the poor helpless
thing, wizened and frail, a fetus mummified in stone.
        It would have been a boy.
        Already, the shell was turning black, seeping fluid. Dominique
plunged her hands into the spoiling mess and lifted out the tiny figure. She
could cradle it in one palm.
        It crumbled to a soft, gritty mush while she held it and wept,
while Puck looked on with bright tears shining in his eyes.

                *               *

        Stephanie stood in the lounge, staring at the bloodstain and the
litter of items from Dominique's purse.
        "Hey, ma'am!" the custodian called. "Everything okay in there?"
        "Sure, fine just give us a minute," she called back, amazed at
how normal she sounded.
        People gabbled in the hall, making her think of turkeys. Then she
heard a woman's voice, one of the no-nonsense government people, and
knew that the rest of them were waiting out there uncertainly because this
was the _ladies'_ room and they didn't dare barge in, not in this age of
sexual harassment.
        Stephanie sprang back to the door and locked it again, thankful
that she held the key. "We'll be out soon!"
        "I have medical training!" the woman on the other side said.
        "That's okay, we've got everything under control." She caught
sight of herself in the mirror, and what was meant to be a wide reassuring
smile was a lunatic mask.
        Where _was_ she?
        Stephanie checked the stalls, but they were empty. There were no
other ways out, unless Ms. Destine had gone out one of the air vents. That
was impossible, because all the screws were firmly seated and there would
have been ... there would have been ...
        ... a trail of blood wide as a freeway, her mind insisted on
finishing, and Stephanie ran back to the stall in which Ms. Destine had
only a few hours ago offloaded her own breakfast, to do the same with
hers.

                *               *

        Puck made a circle of his forefinger and thumb, and looked
through it to see the place they'd left. To his surprise, the door was still
locked, and the room was empty.
        "I'll take you back now," he said, as gently as he could.
        A few years ago, what he'd just witnessed wouldn't have affected
him; he might have tossed off some flippant remark about how she could
have another one, as if she was a little girl who'd dropped her ice cream
cone. But now, after seeing first Alexander and then Patricia come into
the world, he had an inkling of what Demona might be feeling. It was all
too easy to imagine Cordelia there instead.
        She didn't argue and didn't agree, just carried on with soft,
wracking sobs as if her heart was crumbling away just as the baby had
done.
        He clapped, and once again the light bubble surrounded them,
depositing them in the lounge. From outside, human voices raised in
concern and confusion. Soon they'd break down the door. He couldn't be
here when it happened, but before he left ...
        "Do you want me to take back my spell? Make you as you were
before, as you were born to be? A gargoyle, not just by night, but
always?"
        "Oh, my God!" a very faint whisper replied.
        A human, Demona's assistant, came halfway out of one of the
stalls and clung to the side, as if that cool painted-steel wall was the only
thing keeping her upright.
        "No, just go," Dominique said. She tossed the strands of his hair
at him. "I release you from the oath-binding."
        "But she --"
        "She can keep a secret." Dominique raised her head and looked
evenly at the human. "Can't you, Stephanie?"
        Her mute, dazed nod was the best they could hope for under the
circumstances, as the door leaped and shuddered in its frame.
        "I really am sorry," Puck said to Dominique, pausing to give her
shoulder a compassionate squeeze.
        "Thank you." With that, she broke down again, burying her face
in her hands.
        He hesitated a moment longer, then, as one of the hinges tore
free and the door canted inward, Puck whirled like a top and took himself
away.

                *               *

        "This will help you rest," the paramedic said.
        Dominique did not resist as he injected something into her arm,
although, having spent several years in the company of the Brothers
Sevarius, she was much more wary than the average person about anybody
coming at her with a syringe.
        Right now, though, she didn't care. Didn't care what poisons the
humans might be shooting into her veins, didn't care what irregularities
might show up on the blood tests they drew. All that mattered was the
pain, the pain she was immersed in like a hot bath.
        Whatever the injection was, it worked quickly. By the time they'd
gotten her loaded onto the gurney, the flourescents had taken on a hazy
dreamlike quality, and the tense voices of the humans around her had
faded to a meaningless drone. The crushing throb wrapped around her
midsection dwindled to a lingering ache. Even the raw stab of her grief
went sepia-toned like an old photograph, although she knew it would be
back in Kodachrome the moment the drug wore off.
        They wheeled her into the hall, and she was dimly aware that she
was covered to the neck in a pristine white sheet so that no one could
gawk at the blood that soaked her legs.
        Stephanie trotted beside her, having somehow successfully shoved
aside everything she'd witnessed and taken refuge in her brisk, efficient,
executive-assistant demeanor. Dominique was absurdly touched at
Stephanie's evident concern, and in her drug-fog, kept calling her
'Angela.'
        Two faces swam out of the blur, faces she knew. David Xanatos,
leaning in to ask if she wanted to be taken to the castle, and behind him,
his dogsbody servant, Burnett. With bemused detachment, Dominique had
the silly thought that the expression in Burnett's eyes exactly mirrored the
last look she'd gotten from Puck.
        She mumbled something, not wanting to go to the castle, not
wanting to be beholden to Xanatos or have the clan see her like this.
Stephanie turned him down politely, and the next thing Dominique knew,
the cold wet kiss of snowflakes landed on her cheeks as the gurney passed
from the skyscraper's awning to the back of the waiting ambulance.
        The only part of that ride she recalled was a glimpse of a man on
a streetcorner, waving a sign proclaiming the end of the world. Then they
were at the hospital, more humans swarming around her, being lifted,
moved, bright lights shining down at her, merciless metal poking in sore
places, questions about the baby, Stephanie spinning some yarn about how
she'd found Dominique in the bathroom stall where she'd dragged herself,
where the fetus must have been flushed away into the sanitized blue.
Through it all, Dominique drifted in fields of grey.
        She surfaced briefly in a hospital bed with an IV taped to the back
of her wrist and a view of snow falling on Central Park. The television
mounted on the wall was tuned to a talk show, the volume down low.
        People came and went. More doctors. Stephanie, still holding up
remarkably well. A snoopy, intrusive brunette named Deanna who insisted
on trying to counsel Dominique.
        The clock -- something about the clock was nagging at her mind.
3:00, 3:15 ...
        Winter. Sunset by 5:00 at the latest.
        That brought her out of the fog. With the ruthlessness born of a
thousand years' suffering, she pushed this fresh loss to the back of her
mind and set about getting herself discharged over the doctors' objections.

                *               *

        "Where's the gargoyle?" Jon Canmore said in a high, singsong
voice. "Wheeerrre's the gargoyle? Oh! There it is!"
        He brought the small plastic monster out from behind him, and
Bryce squealed and bashed it out of his father's hand with a toy hammer.
        "Good boy!" Jon cheered, kissing his seven-month-old son on the
top of his fuzzy red head. "You got him!"
        Margot Yale sniffed disdainfully. "Aren't you starting him a little
young?"
        "Never too young to know thy enemy," Jon replied, picking up
the toy again. "Any news?"
        "Everything is still on schedule for Operation Champagne," she
said. "I told you that my way would work better than your in-the-face
propaganda."
        "Yes, dear heart, you've been an absolute Godsend. I'm looking
forward to ringing in the new millennium."
        "Technically, this _isn't_ the new millennium," she said with the
weary resignation of someone who'd tried to explain this countless times
before. "_Next_ year is. The first year of the 21st century. Not the last
year of the 20th."
        "Margot, Margot, Margot. You know that and I know that, but
the common man on the street prefers to mark this milestone. We might as
well go along with them."
        "I don't think you should stay. What's the good of setting up
ironclad alibis for the rest of the high-ups if the main man is going to be
right in the thick of it?"
        "Don't you see that I can't miss this? This night of all nights? My
people need me to lead them. They can't go up against Xanatos alone."
        "You don't have a big enough army to storm that castle. Besides,
Xanatos is human. He's not the enemy."
        "I beg to differ. Bad enough that he snatched those creatures right
out from under me, but then he invaded my house, got into our
communications, damn near crippled our organization. Who knows what
he'll do next? He must be shown the error of his ways, forcibly."
        "You could bring legal action against him," Margot suggested.
"It's well-known that he's harboring those beasts. There are laws against
keeping vicious animals."
        "Once a lawyer, always a lawyer." Jon grinned. "I thought you
left City Hall behind!"
        "I still have my contacts there. They don't know I'm working
with you now; they think I'm taking time off to work through this nasty
divorce settlement."
        "Little do they know how accommodating and insultingly
generous your father-in-law's attorneys would be. I do believe that the
senior Mr. Vandermere was eager to shake you out of his family tree."
        "And I was happy to go!" she said bitterly. "Brendan used to be
the perfect husband. Rich, spoiled, vain, shallow. Now he's gone and
developed a _personality_, the jerk! His insufferable sister's rotting in the
boobyhatch --"
        "Nice clinical term, that," Jon said in an aside to Bryce. "Can't
you just see her before a judge, when a client is pleading insanity?"
        "The point is, all my friends think I'm trying to pick up the
pieces of my shattered life. They still keep me posted with what's going
on at City Hall, figuring I'll come back someday. But if you get yourself
arrested, everything might come out."
        "I hardly plan on that."
        "Does anyone?"
        "I thought you believed in this crusade," he said, leaving Bryce to
play with his blocks and going to Margot. "You've heard the reports. You
know what's going on in that castle. They're spawning, breeding! We
have to strike now, before they can raise up whole litters! Just one of
those things destroyed my entire family. Imagine what hundreds of them
could do."
        "I do believe in it! But I don't know if this is the right way to go
about it. People could get hurt. Not just our people, but innocent people.
You'll be setting the perfect stage for looting, rioting."
        "I'm aware of the risks. In fact, I'm counting on them! While
those winged menaces are out looking for excuses to deliver their
punishment, we'll be waiting for them. We'll single them out. And when
we've killed them, we'll descend on that castle and eradicate every last
trace of their nest. It's far too late to back out now, not when we've been
planning this for months."
        She sighed. "I suppose you're right. Stage fright. End game
jitters. I'd probably worry less if I knew I was going to be here with you.
Going away makes it feel like I'm running, like I'm losing control."
        "I would rather have you by my side too, but there's no one else I
trust to look after Bryce. You mean very much to us, Margot." He bent
and kissed her cheek. "Very much indeed."

                *               *

        "Last night the moon had a golden ring," Gustav Sevarius said.
        Instantly, Stephanie's tense, worried features relaxed into
calmness. "And tonight no moon we see," she finished, after which she
lapsed into an expectant silence.
        Dominique sighed. "I almost hate to do this."
        "You should be abed, my lamb."
        "Why? I'm completely healed by now, which would have caused
problems if I'd stayed at the hospital."
        "Physically, yes, you seem in perfect health. But your
immortality can't heal your heart as quickly."
        "Look who's waxing sentimental," she sneered.
        He failed to be fooled. "I know how much this child meant to
you."
        "I don't need sympathy from you, Sevarius. Are you going to
reprogram Stephanie, or stand there all day?"
        "Are you sure you want me to?" he asked. "After all, I'm not a
young man, and it could be useful to have another trusted ally, one who
knows your secret and can look out for your interests by night."
        Dominique regarded Stephanie thoughtfully. "She did do well
today. I think you're right. Very well. Do what you need to. I'm going
upstairs. It's almost dusk."
        As she left the sterile white dungeon of the doctor, she heard him
speaking to Stephanie in soothing tones, telling her that she would
remember nothing of the past few minutes, asserting that Ms. Destine
needed her loyalty more now than ever.
        Alone in the elevator, she studied her reflection hatefully in the
mirror on the back wall. What a difference since this morning! Her figure
had regained its former shapeliness, so that her clothes hung on her like
billowing sails. Her hair was vibrant again, her skin a healthy hue. Only
her eyes, her bleak, red-rimmed eyes, gave any indication that something
was wrong.
        She let herself into Jericho's sanctuary, the dark Avalon on the
top floor. With winter here, the two of them spent most of their time at
the Nightstone Building, since the weather was chancy to make the glides
back and forth to the house on the lake. The clones were left mostly to
their own devices, and it was a testament to both Jericho's diligent training
and Sevarius' behavior modification plan that they hadn't managed to
destroy the place.
        Her son and mate was perched atop one of the obsidian
sculptures, wings half-spread, claws raised in a fearsome pose. A heavy
melancholy settled over Dominique as she felt the telltale sparkles of heat
in her bones that heralded the change.
        Moments later, she had half-spread wings of her own, and the
pain of her transformation seemed shockingly less than she'd been used to
over the past several months. It was true, then. The magic that shifted her
from human to gargoyle had been more than her baby could withstand,
making her body fight against itself.
        Jericho cast off his stone skin, which pattered down the sides of
the sculpture and plinked into the pool. He saw her, and leaped down with
a welcoming smile. It faltered after his third step.
        "Demona? What ... ? Did you lay the egg already? But it wasn't
supposed to be for --"
        "No," she said softly, and that one word seemed to punch him in
the stomach. "It's gone, Jericho. I miscarried."
        "No!" He sprang to her, clutched her hands in his. "It can't be!"
        She bit her lip, nodded. "This morning, at the presentation. There
was nothing anyone could have done. It ... it would have been a boy."
        He searched her face, as if hoping that this was some cruel joke.
When he saw only the truth and the pain there, a terrible rage and grief
made him whirl away. He roared, brought his fists down on one of the
obsidian pillars with cracking force. His rage vented, he gave in to the
grief, and sank to the ground.
        Demona crumpled beside him, and they clung to each other in a
shared storm of tears.

                *               *

        "You know, you're crazy," Matt Bluestone said, passing a
Starbucks cup over the back of the seat.
        "Why, because I wanted decaf?" Beth Maza replied.
        Elisa laughed as she tried to wedge herself more comfortably
behind the wheel. They were parked not far from Times Square, watching
people in party hats getting ready for the big event. The police-band radio
spat a constant but low-key string of bulletins.
        "No, because a sexy single girl like you ought to have better
things to do on New Year's Eve than tag along with her big sister on the
job."
        "I told you, it's research for my sociology paper. Besides, it's not
like I had a date or anything."
        "Yeah," Elisa said, as if the thought had just occurred to her,
when in fact their mother had been fretting about it for months. "You
haven't been dating much, not that you've told Mom about."
        Beth grinned wryly. "I don't tell Mom everything! But this time
she's right. I've gone out a few times, but I'm just not clicking with
anyone."
        "Hey, how about Rick?" Matt suggested. "He's between
girlfriends."
        "Oh, wouldn't that look good around the station," Elisa said.
"The guy everyone thinks is the father of my baby, dating my sister. Very
cool."
        "I guess Coyote just spoiled me for mortal men," Beth shrugged.
"You should know what that's like. Once with a non-human, and you can
never go back."
        "No wonder all us mortal men have such a hard time finding
women," Matt said.
        "Oh, please!" Elisa said. "You retrieved yours from the
Underworld, so don't come whining to me!"
        "Just for that, I might not give you your present." Matt produced
a large foil-wrapped box from beneath his seat.
        "Matt! I thought we agreed, no presents!"
        "That was for Christmas. This is your birthday. Different
occasion altogether. Go on, open it!"
        "If it's something stupid like a size 4x T-shirt that says 'Egg on
Board,' you're walking home," Elisa warned as she tore into the paper.
Inside, she found a bunch of scented bath oils from a ritzy boutique, a
large tin of toffee-chocolate almonds, and a new novel by one of her
favorite authors.
        While she was still gaping in delighted surprise, Matt said, "If
there's one thing I learned while Edie was carrying Orph, a pregnant
woman can get real sick of being treated like an incubator. You're still
you, but people sometimes forget that because they're so focused on the
baby. Happy Birthday, partner."
        "Thank you, Matt! I love it!" She gave him an impulsive, chaste
kiss on the cheek, feeling truly happy for the first time since the horrible
night two weeks ago when Xanatos had told them about Demona's
miscarriage.
        That news had fallen upon the clan like an avalanche, yet no one
had said another single word about it. They hadn't been able to. What was
there to say?
        Elisa knew that Xanatos had arranged for flowers to be sent, and
she suspected Angela might have written to her mother, but the rest of
them could not bring themselves to discuss it. Even she and Goliath,
alone, had never spoken of it. She had never been more conscious of the
delicate balance of biology and magic keeping her baby safe. She knew the
vivid awareness would haunt the rest of her own pregnancy, and possibly
reach into the next several years thereafter.
        Beth leaned into the front seat. "My birthday's June 11."
        Elisa gave her a look. "Shouldn't you have your belt on? Seen as
how you're riding in a cop's car with two cops?"
        "Oh, all right, all right." She buckled up. "'Egg on Board' ...
I've got to remember that."
        "You really want me to tell Dad about your tattoo, don't you?"
Elisa teased.
        "No good, sis, he saw it at Christmas when I was trying on the
slippers Maggie gave me. He thought it was neat. Hey, have you seen
Delilah lately? I thought Aiden was getting big, but _whoa_! Derrek says
she can barely glide."
        "Speaking of kids ..." Matt pulled a thick sheaf of photos out of
his trenchcoat.
        "Awww!" Beth crooned.
        "You should've seen him when he was born," Elisa said, giving
Matt a teasing wink. "Blotchiest, squashiest baby I've ever seen."
        "Well, he's adorable now," Beth said. "Look at those big dark
eyes! I just want to pick him up and hug him!"
        "Everyone falls for that look," Matt boasted. "Even people who
normally hate kids -- I mean, hate them like they'd just as soon see them
all mailed to Tibet -- go nuts over Orph."
        Beth admired all the photos, then passed them back to Matt.
        "Yo, partner," Matt said. "Check it out. Isn't that Harry the
Hammer, our favorite fanatic?"
        Elisa peered through the snow-speckled windshield toward a
group of sign-wielding people gathered on a corner. "Damn! When did he
get out of the hospital? And what's he doing with the anti-computer
fruitcakes?"
        "He always was a sucker for cults and con men," Matt said. "But
yeah, I wouldn't have expected him to be with this bunch. Unless they've
convinced him that Bill Gates is the Antichrist."
        "It's only half an hour until midnight," Beth said, checking her
watch. "They must be waiting to see if they're proved right or wrong."
        "I don't think so," Matt said slowly. "Call it a hunch, but ..."
        The crowd swelled as last-minute stragglers flooded into the
already jam-packed Square. It was pickpocket's paradise, Elisa knew from
previous years. Every available badge was out tonight, ready to keep the
peace and save the drunken revelers from themselves.
        As the moment drew nearer, Harry the Hammer and his friends
didn't budge from their spot on the streetcorner. Harry himself was
standing right beside a pay phone. When it rang, at 11:57 by the clock on
the dashboard, Harry picked it up.
        "I don't like this," Matt said, reaching for his door handle.
        "Wait," Elisa said. "Let's see what he's up to first."
        The babble of the crowd suddenly changed from meaningless
noise to thousands of voices counting down as one: "Ten ... nine ... eight
..."
        Harry raised two fingers like the barrel of a gun and tipped them
toward one of the other millooniums, who reached into his coat.
        "Huh-unh, no way." Matt opened his door.
        The milloonium pulled out something that looked like a controller
for a kid's radio-powered car, twiddled the knob.
        "Two ... one! Happy New --"
        Before the crowd could holler "Year," from around the city came
the sound of explosions. First one, then a pause. Then four, six, ten, a
dozen smaller ones.
        The great glittering apple with "2000" emblazoned across it
sputtered and went dark. The power went out, whole city blocks at once,
plunging Manhattan into ghostly snow-blackness.
        "Shit!" Elisa, Matt, and Beth cried together.
        "Blackout, the bastards staged a blackout!" Matt added.
        "Everyone'll blame it on the computers," Beth said.
        A startled hush lay over the city for about five seconds, and then
everything went to hell.
                *               *

        "Two ... one!" Angela ran her hand along Brooklyn's thigh,
letting him know she was thinking of their last New Year's Eve, hoping to
elicit a smile from her mate. Maybe this new year would close out the old
and give them all a chance to start fresh.
        "Happy New --" the rest began, and then the television went
dark. So did the room. So did the castle.
        "Damn it, that's not supposed to happen!" David Xanatos rushed
from the room, calling for Owen and demanding to know what the hell
had happened to the building's internal power supply.
        Hudson shot to his feet. "Come on, then, lads, we've work to
do!"
        "What about us?" Angela hauled herself off the couch on her
second try, then sank sheepishly back as she realized that was answer
enough.
        "Goliath and Broadway are over by Times Square," Elektra said.
        "We'll hook up there, then." Brooklyn brushed his knuckles
against Angela's brow, then patted her tummy. "Back soon, junior!"
        "Be careful!" Aiden told Lex, hugging him around the neck.
        "Hey, it's just looters and rioters. Nothing we can't handle," he
assured her.
        "Look after them, boy," Hudson ordered Bronx, indicating the
females. Bronx whined in disappointment, but trudged over and stood at
Angela's feet.
        The lights flickered, then came back on in a steady glow. But the
television only blared static, and from the windows they could see only a
well of frosted night scratched by automobile headlights.

                *               *

        "Want a pretzel?" Broadway offered.
        Goliath shook his head, his attention fixed on the sea of humans
below, popping champagne corks and confetti streamers all over each
other as the enormous golden apple began to lower and the countdown
started.
        It would have to be a golden apple, he thought with bitter
amusement.
        KRRR-ZZZZ-BAMMM!
        A few blocks away, a tall power transformer geysered sparks. A
string of smaller explosions went off at relay stations strategically situated
around the city, like dominoes in quick succession.
        The Square was still lit, but only with an insane Wonderland of
glow-in-the-dark necklaces and cheap flashlights adorned with sprays of
plastic filaments, all sold by vendors at ten bucks apiece.
        The crowd reacted as if a hoard of yellowjackets had settled onto
them, screaming and shoving in all directions. Glass shattered as people
threw wastebaskets through store windows. And in the midst of all the
lunacy, the Aerie Building suddenly came to life, a bright beacon.

                *               *

        Right around 11:30, T.J. Lawton suffered a premonition.
        "Oh, hell, what now?" he wondered unhappily to himself. This
sort of psychic crap was not part of his usual repertoire, and he didn't
much care for the thought that he might be developing new abilities that
would make him even more of a freak.
        Yet there was no denying it, this was a premonition. Goose
waddling over his grave, the shivers, the whole deal. Something was about
to go down, some serious bad shit.
        He looked around to see if any of the others felt it too, although it
would have surprised him. They were the normal people, after all. And
just as he'd expected, they all kept on with their conversations as if
nothing weird was happening.
        His roommate Birdie was bringing in a jug of punch and a fifth of
vodka to add to the punchbowl, resplendent for the occasion in a curve-
hugging velvet dress the exact shade T.J. and his pals back in Joshua Flats
had referred to as "hello, officer" red. Birdie was a whole lotta chick,
probably too much chick to be wearing a dress that tight, but she had the
right attitude to pull it off.
        Her brother Chas was sitting on the couch with his roommate
Eric, in a good-natured argument about each other's musical tastes as they
tried to decide on a new CD. T.J. momentarily almost forgot his

premonition as he kicked himself again for not having figured it out
sooner, but then, _all_ those preppy guys had sort of a faggy air about
them, so how was he supposed to have known?
        Cindy, a stone-gorgeous babe who had gone right from the
Sterling Academy drama program into a plush movie deal opposite the one
and only Leo, was the only one looking toward T.J. Smiling, too, which a
year ago might have sent his pulse rate into overdrive. However, he'd had
some bad experiences with stone-gorgeous babes recently, so he wasn't all
that moved.
        The rest of the gang -- Tina, Jeff, Patsy, and some other of
Birdie's former school chums whose names he'd forgotten -- were hanging
out doing the party thing. None of them gave any sign of noticing anything
out of the ordinary. But for T.J., the feeling was only getting stronger.
        He went into the tiny kitchen, where it was a little quieter, and
tried to get a handle on his whacked-out senses. Puck and Alex kept telling
him he had to pay attention to the weird shit, even if he'd just as soon
ignore it. Because, they'd said and he'd grudgingly had to admit they were
right, the more you ignore it, the more likely it is to blow up in your face.
        Hot in here. When Birdie entertained, she went a little berserk,
so stuff was simmering on all four burners and there was a clunky old
fondue pot that looked ready to detonate at any minute, showering the
room with melted chocolate.
        T.J. opened the window that gave onto the fire escape, and all at
once the feeling got stronger. Way stronger. He could even center on it
now -- the bigass old antenna tower that stuck out of the top of the
building next door.
        That was part of why he'd lobbied for this particular apartment.
One of the other things Puck had explained to him was that there were
lines of power in the earth and air that magic-freaks could sometimes tap
into. He didn't know squat about the earth and air, but he understood the
concept of power lines just fine, and being near that thing made him feel
strangely at home.
        He wasn't even sure what it was called. An electric transformer,
a power relay station, something like that. He understood, though,
intuitively (more of that psychic crap), that it was a central point, a
juncture, a hub. Being near it, he felt connected.
        Now, though, he felt troubled.
        "Hey, studmuffin," Birdie said, tapping him on the shoulder.
"Enjoying our spectacular view or something? You've been standing there
twenty minutes. It's almost midnight! And it's freezing in here; you're
getting snow on the floor."
        "Yeah, okay, be right there," he mumbled absently.
        Something wrong at the power tower. It pulled at his brain.
Something wrong.
        He crawled out the window onto the icy fire escape. A thick
cable ran just over his head. He reached up and closed his fist around it.
Juicing up. Energy surged and crackled into him.
        From inside, he heard a cork pop, heard Birdie filling glasses.
The countdown began.
        Another premonition smacked him, and he let go of the cable two
seconds before the explosion. He screamed without knowing he screamed,
sensing the current short out, sensing the sudden blind idiot blare of
machines seeking, seeking, their lifeblood cut off.
        Dead darkness slammed down like a coffin lid.
        
                *               *

        "Stay in the car!" Elisa shouted at Beth.
        "You, too!" Beth shouted back.
        "No can do. It's my job." She slammed the door behind her and
looked across the roof of the car at Matt, both of them sharing the same
wry thought: so much for the coffee break.
        Her partner jumped into the glare of the headlights and flashed
his badge. "Police!" he bellowed through the bullhorn he'd retrieved from
the trunk. "Everybody remain calm! Return to your homes in an orderly
fashion --"
        "Shut up, pig!" Someone bounced a can of beer off his shoulder,
and an ugly rippling murmur of approval greeted this show of defiance.
        "Do people still call cops pigs?" Matt wondered at Elisa, then
turned and grabbed the offender and wrestled him up against a wall.
        She didn't answer, because just then she saw Harry the Hammer
and his group start moving. Many  of them were carrying flashlights, the
long-handled kind the police themselves favored because it was good as a
baton in a pinch.
        More people materialized out of the chaos to join them. She
recognized several faces from want-sheets and photos from various
Quarryman activities, but none of them were wearing their bodysuits or
toting their hammers. That failed to reassure her; in fact, only made her
more wary. Whatever they were up to, they didn't even want it traced to
the Quarrymen, who had never before been shy about taking credit for
their mayhem.
        She grabbed the bullhorn that Matt had dropped, and began doing
her best to restore order. Some people listened to her and fled indoors, but
the Quarry-mob didn't disperse. Their attention seemed to be fixed on
something behind her, and when she risked a quick glance, she saw the
Aerie Building shining in the night.
        "Behold the Tower of Satan! His minions fly among us!"
        Elisa whirled. "Harry! You're under arrest!"
        He looked her way, and his face was transformed by loathing,
dread, and an eerie revelation. She took a step forward, and only then
realized that he was staring at her stomach.
        "Devil-lover!" he yelled. "Bride of demons! She's carrying the
inhuman spawn of one of those monsters!"
        His flunkies were willing to be convinced, and surged toward
her. Many of them recognized her from other rallies and events she'd
broken up, and hated her even if they didn't believe Harry's impassioned
claim.
        Elisa stumbled back against the car, for the first time in her law
enforcement career utterly terrified for her life. And moreso for the life of
the child within her.
        Matt, having cuffed his heckler to a mailbox, waved urgently at
her. "Get inside!"
        The rush of wings and the crumple of metal as a very large
gargoyle landed on the roof of Elisa's car was music to her ears.
        The advancing Quarrymen fell back, horrified, very few of them
having ever seen an actual gargoyle in the flesh. Harry managed to look at
once scared to death and exalted.
        "Good timing!" Matt turned to wink at Elisa's personal guardian
angel, then his eyes widened in surprise just before a taloned foot caught
him under the chin. The kick sent him flying back, denting the mailbox
and landing on top of the cuffed man.
        Elisa froze in shock. That foot had been twilight-blue. "Jericho!"
        He leapt from the car, seized her under the arms, and whipped
the legs out from under Harry the Hammer with one swipe of his muscular
tail. Still carrying Elisa, he jumped back onto the Fairlane -- the two front
tires blew and the hood caved in when he landed on it -- and from there to
the roof, then to a van, then to a ledge.
        And then into the air.

                *               *

        "See how the devil snatches his own from the wrath of the
righteous!" Harry ranted. "But we are stronger! We are not afraid to face
the devil on his own turf!" He leveled his flashlight at the distant glow of
the Aerie Building.
        His mob, its numbers swelled by hangers-on caught up in the
crazed fever of the moment, cheered and followed as he led them toward
the Aerie Building, which drew him like a moth to a flame.
        There, he would root out and destroy every last trace of the
devils. Including the Maza woman, whom he should have known all along
was the Dark Madonna. If he survived, the Chosen One would honor him
greatly on earth, and if not, he would reap his reward in the glory of
Heaven.

                *               *

        "I thought you didn't go in for this superhero stuff!" Birdie
shouted, slipping and sliding after T.J. as he ran across the roof.
        He didn't slow, didn't answer, just kept on busting his buns
toward the source of that dark, dead emptiness. He'd never been up here
before but he followed his instincts and knew just where to go.
        Birdie's brother was close behind her, having shown sense long
enough to grab his coat -- an act that put him a couple rungs above Birdie,
who was courting pneumonia in her sleeveless dress, and T.J. himself,
who was wearing a joke T-shirt with a tuxedo design printed on the front.
The rest of the party-goers were still inside, having a higher weirdness
threshold than the three of them.
        Shapes in the slowmo static of the falling snow -- man-shapes like
cutouts of black construction paper. Now T.J. slowed, startled by the
possibility that this was some sort of crazy commando-terrorist thing
instead of just an overload or something nice and ordinary like that.
        The man-shapes didn't even look his way, but went off the far
side of the roof so fast they either jumped or repelled. Once they were
gone, T.J. hurried past a big cup-and-prong that looked like a satellite
dish, and stopped at the foot of the tall silvery spire.
        The sense of weirdness increased tenfold as he picked up on a
flicker, like letters burned into his head, letters in white fire that spelled
out "Puck was here."
        "Do you see that?" he asked Birdie.
        "What?"
        "Never mind." He filed it under M for "More weird shit" and
turned his attention to the tower. A large metal box built against the side
of it was burst open and smoking, the lid hanging warped and askew. The
hum that he should have detected was gone, utterly gone, flat, dead,
never-gonna-eat-barbecue-again.
        All around him, the city was a wailing horrorshow. Not just the
people; to T.J., who had grown up in a town whose population had never
exceeded two hundred, there were just too many people to seem real. Like
the stars. You just had to accept it without thinking about it, or it would
drive you out of your mind. It wasn't the people that got at him now, it
was the machines, the electricity. The starving, flayed sizzle of exposed
and seeking nerve endings.
        "Mind telling me what you're doing?" Birdie sounded exasperated
but not terribly surprised.
        "Stay back," he told her. "This might get ... pyrotechnic."
        "Oh, yes, very nice," Chas said as if they were discussing the
weather, and pulled his sister in the other direction.
        T.J. threw his arms wide, embracing as much of the base of the
tower as he could reach. He thought insanely of those people who chained
themselves to redwoods to spare the axes, knowing he must look a lot like
that. A save-the-power-lines techno-druid. He wasn't normally much of a
reader, but for one of his last school assignments he'd done a book report
on Lucifer's Hammer, plodding through it with moderate interest. Now a
line from it popped into his head in bright neon.
        "For the lightning!" he shouted.
        Birdie, who would probably be a wiseass on her deathbed,
shouted back, "Spoon!"
        T.J. gave it everything he had. Once, when he'd been a little kid,
he'd zapped himself a good one on a frayed lamp cord. He remembered
his frantic adoptive mother swearing up and down that he shouldn't have
survived -- and now he knew why he had -- but there hadn't even been any
pain. A ticklish tingle, a weird pre-sexual jolt.
        This was just like it. He tripped something in the guts of the
transformer, bringing it to sudden, sparking life, and the current fed into
him, then he poured it back in, creating a loop with himself as a living
conduit.
        St. Elmo's fire made a blue and white Spirograph in the sky. It
dimmed, laboring, as T.J. struggled to cope with the heavy draining
demand of lights and televisions and appliances all glomming onto the
trickle of energy like millions of mosquitos on one pathetic vein.
        He reached deeper, reached outward from this central hub, and
found the others. Dominos falling in reverse. A mental image -- series of
switches, the big ones with perforated rubber handles, getting thrown into
the 'on' position one by one.
        His back arched and his hair stood on end. He saw his hands
gloved in white, saw sparks leaping from his skin. Just when he thought
he couldn't take it anymore, that he was going to explode like a mouse in
the microwave, something seemed to _catch_ and took over.
        T.J. reeled back a few steps, smoking, his thoughts an electric,
senseless hurricane.
        "Tropical island in the sun," he warbled with a passable Jamaican
accent. He flopped over bonelessly and soft blackness like warm felt
enveloped him.

                *               *

        The city groaned and brayed as the power came back on. The
Year 2000 Blackout (as the papers would snidely call it the next day) had
lasted all of fifteen minutes.
        All over Manhattan, emotions that had been rising to a fever pitch
were cast into confusion. Those who seized on any excuse to loot had only
started into motion when the lights came on again, leaving them awkward
and embarrassed as burglar alarms howled.
        Goliath only nodded in satisfaction -- less work for his clan -- and
kept gliding determinedly.
        A streetlight cast a pool of radiance over Elisa's car, showing the
mangled metal to good advantage. At the periphery of the light was Matt
Bluestone, out cold on top of a struggling, indignant man handcuffed to a
mailbox.
        Goliath swooped down, his heart in his throat. "Elisa! Where are
you?"
        Someone banged on the car door from the inside. Goliath bent
down and saw Beth trying to force it open, but the roof had been bent
inward and the doors were jammed. He yanked one off, and Beth
practically fell into his arms.
        "Where is Elisa?"
        "Another gargoyle flew away with her," Beth said breathlessly.
"She called him Jericho."

                *               *

        "I suppose there's a perfectly good explanation for what we just
saw," Chas Yale said, gallantly removing his coat and draping it over his
sister's bare shoulders.
        "Yeah, but it's a long one," Birdie replied, gingerly approaching
T.J. He had melted the snow around him into a smeary guy-shaped
puddle, and he wasn't sparking or smoking anymore, but she still wasn't
too eager to touch him.
        "Please, take your time and tell us," a voice invited, a crisp,
classy, British-sounding voice.
        A man in a black outfit that looked like a Kevlar ninja-suit
stepped into view. He had a neat blond moustache and was wearing a
mask/headscarf, and Birdie would have had a major 'Princess Bride'
moment if not for the gun the newcomer held cradled in his arms.
        Chas was wearing a don't-I-know-him? look, and Birdie grabbed
his hand, squeezed it tight, trying to warn him to keep quiet. If Jon
Canmore, Aunt Margot's new main honeybunch, knew that they
recognized him, he'd blow them away. And if they thought their mother
had a hefty Valium prescription _now_ ...
        "Please, mister, we didn't do anything," Birdie said, letting her
voice shake. It wasn't hard; she didn't have to act. She'd been in some
scrapes before, faced down killer unicorns and Quarryman hammers and
thugs with switchblades, but this was the first time anyone had actually
pulled a gun on her.
        "You might not have, but whoever that little bastard is, he's
ruined _months_ of planning and hard work, and I'd like to know just how
he did it."
        She wanted to say it, wanted to quote at him _so_ bad. But now it
was Chas applying crushing force to her hand, picking up her thoughts
with the stress-telepathy close friends and siblings sometimes shared.
        So, instead of suggesting that Canmore 'get used to
disappointment,' she gulped and stammered, "I don't suppose you'd
believe it was magic?"
        "Ha, ha, I think not." He was peering at the two of them now,
his mouth curled down as if trying to figure out where he'd seen them
before.
        Birdie didn't know if that would be a good thing or a bad one.
Surely Aunt Margot hadn't told him anything friendly about her niece.
Chas, though ... she'd never had anything against Chas ... oh, except for
that yacht incident. Her spirits sank. She was not seeing a way out of this
for the Yale kids that didn't end up with at least one of them shot.
        Unless maybe T.J. ...? She threw a quick hopeful look his way,
but he was still totally out to lunch.
        "Well, Roberta?" Canmore asked, dashing her hopes that he
hadn't recognized her.
        She had no idea what she was going to say, just that it would be
some wildly inventive lie, and since it would be her last performance, she
might as well make it a good one.
        "I --" she said.
        A snowball the size of a pumpkin plummeted from the sky,
knocking Canmore flat on his face. The gun went off, searing a clear
streak in the snow.
        Brooklyn landed and planted one talon on the barrel of the gun,
brushing snow from his palms. "Happy New Year."
        "You have the best goddam timing, red, I could kiss you," Birdie
said in a relieved rush.
        He winked. "Later. Who's the jerk?"
        "The man called Castaway," Chas said, and Brooklyn jumped
like he'd been shot.
        "What?!"
        Canmore lunged up, shedding his coating of snow as if it were a
stone skin. He tried to bring up the gun but Brooklyn's tail lashed it away,
sending it sliding through the slush and over the edge of the building.
        "I'll kill at least one gargoyle tonight!" Canmore vowed
vehemently.
        "I don't think so." Brooklyn landed a perfect punch, a textbook
roundhouse that sent Canmore flying backward.
        With nearly balletic grace, he managed to keep his footing. He
flicked a small sphere at the gargoyle, the savage grin on his face clearly
stating that he expected it to have painful consequences. But as the sphere
flew, electricity arced from it to the unconscious T.J., making him spasm
like he just got hit with a defibrillator. The sphere, harmless now,
bounced off Brooklyn's chest.
        T.J. bolted upright, but the dazed look on his face proclaimed
that he had no idea where he was or what was happening. Birdie had seen
that happen before. When he tried a major stunt, it sometimes blanked out
his short-term memory, and this was the most major stunt to date.
        Brooklyn went after Canmore. "Got any other ideas?"
        Canmore backed up steadily. He looked torn between genocidal
hatred and the discretion that was the better part of valor. When two other
figures, Lex and Hudson, swooped low and landed, Canmore decided.
        He flung down another sphere, not taking his chances by tossing
it near T.J. this time. A miniature sun bloomed, baking with heat. The
gargoyles cried out and covered their eyes. While they were blinded,
Canmore fled through the roof access stairwell door.

                *               *

        It had been a long time since she knew fear in the arms of a
gargoyle, Elisa Maza thought as her feet dangled far above the streets of
Manhattan.
        A long time. Probably not since the first time, when she'd fallen
and Goliath had come after her. At the time, she hadn't been sure which
was the worse fate -- pavement pizza, or being torn apart and devoured
alive by the fierce-looking creature that grabbed her.
        She still wasn't sure which was the worse fate.
        Elisa didn't struggle, didn't fight, didn't reach for the gun. Not
that she could have gotten at her gun anyway; Jericho's hands were seated
firmly under her arms, pressing the gun in its shoulder holster painfully
into her side. Which meant that he knew it was there. Even through her
bulky winter coat, he was bound to notice.
        She didn't try to talk to him either, partly because she would have
to shout to make herself heard above the rushing wind, and partly because
she had no idea what to say. All those classes, those cop psychology
classes on dealing with the reality-challenged, didn't offer much that
would be helpful in this case.
        He veered left, soared high, and descended toward the wide
stone-railed balcony that marked the refurbished clocktower of the 23rd
Precinct station house. The hands of the clock -- funded by a private
donation from the Xanatos Foundation -- stood at 12:18.
        Jericho landed, released her, stepped back. He caped his wings
and studied her with an unreadable expression.
        She could have gone for her gun then, but something made her
wait.
        The silence between them became unbearable. His gaze shifted to
her stomach, and his jaw tightened with pain and anger.
        "Why?" she asked when she couldn't stand the suspense a
moment longer.
        "They didn't deserve the honor of killing you," he replied flatly.
        She swallowed. Tried to think of what she could say that
wouldn't enrage him.
        "You're afraid, Elisa Maza," he said, apparently pleased by it.
"Did you fear I would drop you?"
        Elisa nodded. "But you didn't."
        "And now you're wondering if it was so I could kill you at my
leisure."
        "The thought crossed my mind." She willed herself to stay calm.
"There's nothing I can say that will change your opinion, Jericho, so I
won't try."
        "No appeal to the legendary nobility I supposedly inherited from
my father?"
        She shook her head.
        "Good. You'd be wrong."
        "I know. Tell me what you want. If you want me to beg for my
life, I will. For mine and my baby's."
        "Why should your child be allowed to live when ours wasn't?"
His soft, intense whisper conveyed more anguish than any thundering
roar.
        She shrank back, suddenly terrified that he would rip the amber
pendant from her, strip her of the magic, make her body reject the
pregnancy just as Demona's had done. Somehow, she kept her voice
steady.
        "I can't answer that. There isn't an answer to that. But killing
mine isn't going to bring yours back. All it would do is make me feel the
way Demona must be feeling right now. Do you hate me that much?"
        "If you felt as she did, you'd be dead. There's no immortality to
make suicide a futile thought for you. Since the day she lost the baby,
nothing brings her joy."
        Elisa felt colder, not just from the chill seeping into her body
from the snow-covered stone she leaned against, but spreading from
within. "And you think my death would accomplish that?"
        Jericho's smile was sharp ice. "You misjudge me, detective. I've
never intended to harm you."
        "What game are you playing?" She knew it was unwise, likely to
provoke him, but she couldn't stop the irritation from tingeing her tone.
        "Simple." He moved forward, and she had nowhere to flee, so
she pressed herself against the wall. Jericho stopped in front of her, lightly
pinched her chin between his thumb and the knuckle of his forefinger. He
regarded her with mixed fascination and revulsion. "I don't understand
what he sees in you. But I know that you mean everything to him. As long
as Goliath has you, there is no way he'd ever go back to Demona."
        "Even if he didn't, he wouldn't!" she protested.
        "I think you're wrong. I think if he lost you, he would be
devastated. His best and strongest tie with humankind would be torn away.
He would eventually come to see the truth, come around to Demona's
way. There's a chance she might take him back. I can't permit that."
        "I don't know what you're talking about."
        "As long as you are his, she is mine. Is that clear enough?"
        She recoiled, staring at him. "So that's it. You think he could win
her away from you."
        "He couldn't," Jericho said through gritted teeth. "He cannot
offer her what I do -- the dedication, the obedience that she desires. But I
won't share her. I won't. She is mine, and I am hers. We are one. Now
and forever. That is how it is meant to be, and I will not let Goliath ruin
it. Which means that I must not only spare you, but protect you."
        The words fell between them like stones. Elisa gaped.
        "Yes," he said. "Protect you. Ironic, I know. And if Demona
learned of it, I can't imagine her fury. She hates you with a fever that
would burn cinderblock. But I see, as she does not, that your death would
only bring her temporary happiness. While I can bring her a lifetime of it.
As long as I keep you alive."
        
                *               *

        "This is unbelievable," David Xanatos said, shaking his head.
"Shouldn't they have torches and pitchforks?"
        "Flashlights and sledgehammers aren't good enough for you?"
Angela retorted, peering down from the battlements at the encroaching
mob.
        "It is rather a sorry showing," Elektra said. "I thought there were
more."
        "There were, until the power came back on," Aiden said. "I
guess the others didn't think it was fun anymore, once there was a chance
they'd get caught."
        "Is there aught we should do?" Elektra wondered.
        "The building's defenses should prove more than adequate,"
Owen replied.
        "But they mean to break the glass!"
        "Let them try." Xanatos smirked. "They'd need a tank."
        True enough, the first attempt with a hurled trash barrel
rebounded off the lobby doors and rolled through the front line of the
mob.
        "I've always wanted to drop a water balloon off of here," Aiden
mused. "But I always worried I might hit somebody."
        "The way they're packed down there, you could hardly miss,"
Angela said, grinning.
        "But I don't have any balloons. Guess I'll have to improvise."
The small grey gargoyle conjured a sphere of water that hung wavery and
ripply in midair. "Bombs away!"
        From far below came a startled outcry.
        "More," Elektra urged. "'Tis that, or start throwing rotten fruit
and dumping chamber pots."
        Xanatos drew himself up, pretending to be offended. "Chamber
pots? In _my_ castle?"
        "More?" Aiden looked at Owen, who tilted his head indifferently.
"Well ... it is to protect the castle ... okay." She conjured again, this time
bringing forth enough water to fill a swimming pool, and let it fall.
        KA-PHAAAASH!
        "Owen, make a note; we'll need the window-washers in
tomorrow," Xanatos said as the drenched, freezing mob scattered like
quail.
        
                *               *

        Jon Canmore, unable to believe that it had all gone wrong so
suddenly, flew his hoverbike around a skyscraper just in time to see his
army dispersed under a torrent. He caught a brief glimpse of Harry the
Hammer, one of his most loyal underlings, bounding in the opposite
direction from the castle in panicked gazelle-like leaps.
        Disgusted and hurting from the red gargoyle's punch -- he was
lucky his jaw hadn't been dislocated -- Canmore turned around and left the
Aerie Building behind him.
        Hopelessness snuggled up to him, whispering its seductive tune.
Give up, it wheedled. You'll never win. Forget about the gargoyles.
        "Never!" he shouted into the driving sleet, instantly regretting it
because it caused a blossom of fresh pain in his wounded mouth.
        Badly in need of some inspiration, he headed for the police
station. The sight of it would remind him how it used to be, how it was
when he wasn't alone. When Jason had been in charge, so confident.
When Robyn had been the constant comfort and support, making herself
Wendy to her Lost Boys brothers. When they had been a family, joined by
their common cause.
        He could not have asked for a better reward than the sight that
met his eyes.
        A gargoyle of impressive wingspan, and a woman. In the
shadows and snow, he couldn't be one hundred percent certain it was
Goliath, but that didn't matter.
        He swooped to the attack.

                *               *

        "Broadway, take Matt and Beth to the castle. Have Aiden seek
for Elisa. I will begin here." Without waiting to see that his order was
obeyed, Goliath clawed up the side of a building and took to the air.
        His desperate terror and rage at the thought of Elisa in the hands
of his insane son were too much to deal with, so Goliath shoved his
emotions aside and concentrated on his search. He went first to the
Nightstone Building, and while he was busy finding nothing, heard a
hoverbike motor.
        Although the rider was all in plain black, he knew one of the
Hunters' vehicles when he saw it. He followed.

                *               *

        "And so, good night." Jericho made a slight bow and prepared to
leave.
        Elisa reached into her pocket, hoping one of her station keys
would work on this door, or else she'd have to pick the lock.
        A high buzzing whine filled her ears, sending her memory
spinning back to the day she had entered this very same building. Then,
she'd heard it in the hallway, turned, been scooped up by Jason Canmore
moments before the clocktower turned into a fireball.
        Now, it was coming from above.
        A harsh white beam stabbed down, pinning Jericho in a circle of
light. He flung his forearm over his eyes and leapt to the side as a machine
gun chattered.

                *               *

        It wasn't Goliath. It wasn't the demon.
        But it looked like them both, and Jon didn't have to be shown a
family tree to understand that it was their son. Both his worst enemies,
rolled into one big package.
        "Die, monster, die," he breathed, and fired.
        The beast dodged, then whirled and plucked up the woman --
Elisa Maza, of course, the woman who had poisoned Jason's mind and
turned him against his family and his cause -- and dove over the rail.

                *               *
        "There!" Lex shouted, pointing, as the hoverbike they'd been
chasing zipped between two buildings.
        "Head him off!" Brooklyn called.
        They dipped low as they came around a corner, which saved
them from a nasty midair collision as a huge gargoyle swept by right
overhead with Elisa in his arms.
        "Goliath!" Lex hailed, but it went unheard as he kept on going.
        And here came Canmore, his spotlight slicing the night.
        And behind Canmore ...
        "Goliath?" Brooklyn gasped.

                *               *

        Goliath would have thought he couldn't imagine a worse situation
than Elisa captured by Jericho. But this was worse. Elisa captured by
Jericho, with the Hunter in pursuit. If he went after one, the other would
either get away or have the opportunity to kill.
        Two figures soared to meet him. He braced for an attack, then
recognized Brooklyn and Lexington.
        "What's going on?" Lex yelled.
        "Stop Canmore! I'll take Jericho!"
        "Oh, shit!" Brooklyn exclaimed succinctly as he jerked his head
around to stare after the departing gargoyle. "It _is_ Jericho!"
        "Where is Hudson?"
        "With T.J. and Birdie. T.J.'s messed up," Lex hastily explained
as he and Brooklyn came about in tight formation and went after the
hoverbike.
        Goliath nodded curtly and spoke a word he'd never said out loud
before, which brought wide-eyed shock to the faces of his younger
clansmembers. He spread his wings and let the updrafts carry him high.
        If only Hudson had been here ... of all the clan, he alone had
something approaching a rapport with Jericho. But Hudson wasn't here,
which meant they couldn't bother with diplomacy.
        Goliath clenched his fists and flew onward.

                *               *

        As if things weren't crazy enough! Elisa thought, cringing against
the shelter of Jericho's broad chest as bullets whizzed past them. This was
pretty much the last way she'd expected to spend the first hour of the New
Year. The only way things could get worse would be --
        She made herself shy away from that line of thinking, because
with her luck, it would happen.

                *               *

        Gargoyles to the left of him, gargoyles to the right of him.
        Jon Canmore cursed and snarled as they closed in, the red one
who had punched him, and his smaller companion. He took evasive
action, but the red one passed under him and ripped with his talons at the
underside of the hoverbike.
        Smoke belched from the steering column, and all at once the bike
went where it had a mind to, like a crazed bronco. Canmore fought with
it, to no avail. The throttle jammed, the bike screamed as it accelerated,
and the plate-glass window of a pricey Park Avenue apartment complex
towered dead ahead.
        The gargoyles split off from the doomed bike as it crashed
straight into the window and kept on going.
        Canmore shrieked and ducked, covering his face. The bike tipped
wildly back and forth, nearly throwing him, as the furnishings of a ritzy
living room passed in a blur.
        A closed door.
        The bike went through; Canmore didn't, peeled off on the top of
the door frame.
        A hall, then another door. Again the bike went through. On the
other side was another apartment, this one full of partygoers who jumped
out of the way as the hoverbike sped by.

                *               *

        "Where did he --?" Brooklyn began, and then the hoverbike came
smashing out a window on the other side of the building, slammed into a
brick wall, exploded, and began to rain down on Park Avenue in a shower
of burning metal.
        "Wow, just like in a movie!" Lex said. "He wasn't on it, so let's
go!"
        Faces beneath party hats had appeared at the jagged hole that used
to be a window, but they scrambled back as the gargoyles appeared.
        "Hi, Happy New Year," Brooklyn said as they crunched over
broken glass and mangled furniture as hastily as they could. "Don't mind
us; just passing through."
        Although they could easily trace the bike's path, Canmore was
gone like smoke.
        
                *               *

        Goliath was aware of the hoverbike's spectacular crash, but it
stirred nothing in his heart except the mildest relief. All that mattered to
him was Elisa.
        Ahead of him, below him, Jericho wove a course among the
skyscrapers. He landed atop a department store, in the shelter of a
weatherbeaten light-festooned aluminum Christmas tree that had yet to be
taken down.
        Jericho released Elisa and moved a few paces from her. Just the
opening Goliath had been hoping for. He thrust his fists out in front of him
and dove, letting gravity and momentum turn him into one gigantic
projectile.
        The force of the collision reverberated down Goliath's spine.
Jericho cartwheeled backward, head over tail, into the base of the
Christmas tree. It tolled like a gong. The mass of the tree tilted over with
a slow squeal.
        Goliath glanced quickly at Elisa, she all wide dark eyes and
streaming dark hair. How close he had come to never seeing that beloved
face again! How close he had come to losing her, their child, everything!
Just as Aiden had foretold!
        He would not let that future come to be. He stalked toward the
groaning, moving pile of limbs that was Jericho, claws eager to rend and
ruin.
        "Goliath, no!" Elisa cried. "He saved my life!"
        He stopped, incredulity washing over him. "What?"
        "He saved my life," Elisa repeated.
        Jericho sat up, wiping blood from his lip with the back of his
hand, and met Goliath's eyes with a challenging glare. "Do you have a
problem with that?"
        He looked back and forth between them, uncertain. "But ..."
        Jericho laboriously got to his feet, wincing. "Don't think you
know everything, Goliath. Don't think you know _me_! Your ... mate has
nothing to fear from me."
        Incredibly, unbelievably, he almost thought that Jericho spoke the
truth.
        Elisa came to Goliath's side, took his arm. "He means it. If he
wanted me dead, I would be by now."
        "I ... he ..." Goliath floundered, then shook his head and faced
Jericho. "Thank you."
        "I didn't do it for you, so keep your thanks." Jericho limped to
the edge of the roof, unfurling his wings with a hiss of pain as the bruised
flesh moved and stretched.
        Goliath drew Elisa close against his side, feeling her tremble
from reaction and from the cold as the snow began falling more heavily.
"Jericho ..."
        The younger male stepped off without pausing, reappearing
moments later on an updraft, a dwindling shadow against the winter's
backdrop.
        Elisa rested her head against his chest. "What a night, huh?"
        He sank his fingers into her snow-speckled hair and ran his palm
over the bulge of weight that cradled their child. "When Beth told me ..."
        "I know. I thought so too."
        "But we were wrong about Jericho," Goliath said, feeling a
strange warmth of hope. "He is not beyond redemption."
        Elisa sighed. "Actually, he's even crazier than we suspected. But
right now, I'm glad."

                *               *

        "They're waiting for you," Margot Yale said impatiently.
        "Let them wait," Jon Canmore slurred. He reached for the bottle
of scotch and knocked it over. The liquid ran across his prepared speech
and dribbled onto the floor.
        Margot snatched up the papers. "You can't go on like this, Jon.
They're depending on you."
        "Why? Haven't I failed them enough yet?" His gaze weaved its
way up to her as if unable to decide which of two Margots to focus on.
"After that New Year's debacle, I'm amazed any of them ever showed up
again! We make our plans, and we fail. Every time, we fail!"
        "So you're going to let them win?"
        He finally noticed the spilled bottle, and stood it upright again.
"Haven't they?"
        "I guess they have." Margot took a folded piece of construction
paper from her purse. "Look at what my niece sent me."
        He opened it and stared at the newsprint headline about the
blackout, pasted above a photograph of himself from last year's VIP
magazine. Someone had added a magic-marker moustache, long and stiff
and curled up at the ends, and a word-balloon with "Curses! Foiled
again!" scrawled inside.
        "I really hate that girl," he said.

                *               *

        "I don't care if it _is_ tradition!" Angela said, waddling toward
Hudson with one finger poking at him threateningly. "I want my mate
right here in the rookery with me!"
        "But lass ..." He gave up. "Aye, verra well."
        Aiden and Elektra giggled and went on patting and rearranging
straw until it was piled to their liking. Over the past couple of weeks, each
female had insisted on bringing various items to make the place more
homey. Aiden's stuffed toy Gizmo, a watercolor Elektra had done of
Avalon, photographs of the clan and their friends -- in Hudson's opinion,
it was all far too cluttered and they'd have scant room for all the eggs, but
he had to keep reminding himself that there weren't going to be three
dozen eggs this time. He couldn't even really hope for more than five or
six.
        Outside the castle, February doldrums held Manhattan in a dreary
grip. The snow that had blanketed the city white in January had now
become heaps of brown mush. But inside, as the females grew near their
term, all was happiness and excitement. The moodiness was behind them
now, though they were getting weary of being landbound.
        Angela could still glide short distances, but was acutely conscious
of how funny she looked when she did. Aiden looked like a top view of an
opened umbrella, the poor lass barely able to get her arms to her sides on
account of how round her middle had gotten. Elektra was still much too
thin for Hudson's liking, but at last her nervous stomach had settled and
she'd put on a few pounds.
        "Look who's here!" Elisa called from the top of the rookery
stairs.
        "Delilah!" Angela waved in welcome, then goggled as Delilah
made her way carefully down.
        Hudson's jaw dropped. He'd not seen her much over the winter,
and while he'd heard she was getting big, he wasn't prepared for the sight
of her. She was almost shaped like an egg herself, a smooth curve belling
out her flesh. And beautiful! If there was anything more lovely to behold
than a female at the height of her breeding season, it was one who
brimmed with new life.
        Her eyes touched his briefly and warmly, then flicked away. She
joined her sisters in arranging straw, and he moved to the rear wall to
watch them with what he hoped seemed grandfatherly indulgence.
        Elisa laughingly declined to join them. "I'll use a crib, thanks
anyway!"
        As they worked, Elektra and Angela began to sing an old Scottish
cradle-song that they must have learned at Katherine's knee. Halfway
through the third chorus, Elektra broke off with a startled exclamation and
pressed her hands to her belly.
        "Elektra?" Aiden reached for her.
        "Would someone be so kind as to fetch my mate?" she asked.
"Methinks 'tis time!"
        "I'll get him," Elisa said, hurrying for the door.
        Hudson felt acutely out of place. A male in the rookery, when the
eggs were being lain? It just wasn't done that way!
        But, evidently, now it was.
        Broadway came in all anxious and jittery, holding Elektra's hand
while she smiled and reassured him. Dr. Masters, who had endeared
himself to all the females over the past six months, checked each of them
and announced that he wouldn't be surprised if they all clutched tonight.
Had something to do with those pheromone things again. He launched into
a complicated lecture, but Hudson told him to save it for later.
        The news sent the castle into a tizzy. Owen was hastily
dispatched to retrieve Samson from the Labyrinth. By midnight, the upper
hall was crowded with friends and well-wishers. Aiden's family in
California waited by the phone to hear how many grandchildren they could
be expecting in ten more years.
        Below, in the rookery, the only ones in attendance were the
mated pairs, Hudson, and the doctor. That was for the best, given the
modesty of some of the females.
        At five past twelve, Elektra birthed one small egg, its shell soft
and pale, mottled with large purplish spots.
        "A lad, most likely," Hudson said.
        Dr. Masters looked up with interest. "How can you tell?"
        "The pattern o' the markings," he explained absently, keeping a
close watch on Delilah. Samson was doing well, supporting her as she
strained.
        "A boy!" Elektra fell back into the straw, gasping from her
exertions, and caressed the shell with one slim hand. She gazed
rapturously up at Broadway, who wasn't ashamed to have all his brothers
see him cry. "Malcolm."
        "Malcolm," Broadway agreed, touching the egg.
        Hudson smiled, remembering his friend the prince, Elektra's
father. It seemed right and fitting that her child should be named for him.
        Nothing more happened until after one in the morning, and then
several things happened at once. Four hours passed in a blur, with Birdie
and T.J. running back and forth carrying news of each new development
to the others waiting upstairs.
        Finally, at five-thirty, Dr. Masters exhaled wearily. "I do believe
we're done."
        Hudson sat against the wall, stunned.
        Nine eggs rested in the rookery.
        One for Elektra. Two for Aiden, a male and a female. Two for
Angela, also a male and a female. And for Delilah ... an amazing total of
four! Three males and a female, their shells sturdy, their markings clear.
Fine, strong eggs.
        _His_ eggs! He wanted to go to Delilah, hold her and
congratulate her and thank her, but Samson was doing that already, and if
he did the same, their carefully-kept secret of the past several months
would be out and undone.
        But, as he watched her, exhausted and magnificent, curling her
body amid the shells to give them her warmth, he almost did it anyway.

                *               *

        "We were down. We were beaten. But now ..." Jon Canmore
paused, letting the tension build. "We live again!"
        Full-throated roars answered him. Not as many as there once
might have been, true. Membership had dropped off a bit. But what these
remaining Quarrymen lacked in numbers, they made up for in sheer
bloody-minded fanaticism.
        Oddly, he could thank Harry the Hammer for it all. Following
the blackout, Harry had been found by the cops and detained in the psych
ward, raving with what they thought were standard end-of-the-millennium
religious delusions.
        But Jon, once he deciphered the man's babbling, was stricken
with a cold, dark certainty. His thoughts flashed back to the brief glimpse
of Elisa Maza, realizing that it hadn't been just a coat and sweater
thickening her normally trim figure. Once he'd gotten over the repulsed
shock, he had quickly seen ways to turn her blessed event to his
advantage.
        It would have been an easy matter to abduct her from the police
station. Well, perhaps not an easy matter, but possible. He had even gone
so far as to begin planning the assault.
        And then the answer had come to him, clear and perfect. There
was no way she would be able to keep a half-gargoyle monstrosity
concealed. The world would know. He would see to that. Perhaps the
gargoyles themselves were no longer sufficient to strike fear in the hearts
of men, but the news that they were tainting humanity with their evil seed
... that would bring about a whole new wave of terror.
        Terror was good for business.
        The people would cry out for the Quarrymen to protect them.
The Quarrymen, who had known this threat for what it was all along.
Who had tried to stop it and been mocked, jeered, treated like criminals.
Now the world would see that everything the brotherhood of the hammer
had done was in humanity's best interest!
        So he would keep an eye on the degenerate Ms. Maza and her
horrific mutant child. Sooner or later, she would slip, and he would be
there.
        There was nothing like a renewed sense of purpose to make a
man feel like himself again.

                *               *

        "Are you getting enough sleep?" Goliath fretted.
        "As much as you are," Elisa said, yawning. "All day long, like a
stone." She grimaced.
        "What is it?"
        "Another of those Braxton-Hicks contractions, feel."
        He touched her stomach, which was hard as a drum, the flesh
drawn taut. It remained that way for the better part of a minute, then
relaxed. An immediate kick was felt by both of them.
        "Someone is protesting," he rumbled, smiling.
        "Someone's probably bored and ready to come out," Elisa said.
"God knows _I'm_ ready!"
        "It is still a week until the due date," he reminded her.
        "I'm counting the hours," she assured him, shifting to try and
find a more comfortable position that didn't put pressure on her back or
her bladder. There weren't any. Finally she rolled onto her side, cradling
her stomach in one arm.
        Kick, kick, kick.
        "Okay, all right, okay already!" Elisa said, rolling onto her back.
"Strong little thing! Takes after Daddy. Would you get the tape?
Sometimes the music helps."
        He obliged, fitting the headphones onto her abdomen. Elisa still
couldn't believe she was doing this, but Maggie swore by it, and she had
to admit, it did settle the baby down. The soothing music of Mozart began
playing.
        For about thirty seconds, and then the music turned into a garbled
mess. Goliath popped the cassette out, trailing intestinal coils of tape.
        "Oh, great," Elisa laughed and groaned at the same time. "Now
what?"
        Goliath rested his head on her like a pillow, and began to hum.
The deep, low tones seemed to sink into her like heat. The pulsing glow of
the amber pendant around Elisa's neck slowed. The baby calmed.
        So did Elisa, lulled into sleep. She surfaced briefly, aware of
Goliath's tender kiss brushing her lips, and then he departed to take his
place on the battlements before dawn.
        She let sleep claim her.
        Wakefulness came completely and suddenly. She saw the last red-
gold rays of the sun beaming through breaks in the rain-heavy April
clouds.
        She struggled to sit up, her bones aching from several hours in
the same position. A cramp dug into her side and she paused until it went
away. But it didn't go away -- it intensified into a vise that made her fist
her hands in the sheets and gasp.
        "Uh-oh," she muttered to herself. "That was a real one."
        She picked up the phone at the bedside. "Doc? It's showtime."

                *               *

        Goliath woke with a roar, breathing the rainwashed air. All
around him, his clan did the same.
        "Let's patrol the park!" Angela said. "I love the park after a good
rain!" The females had regained their former sleek shapes, and now that
the weather was being cooperative, they relished every chance to get out
and glide.
        "Good evening," Xanatos said, emerging onto the battlements.
He popped a cigar into Goliath's mouth.
        "What is this for?" Goliath spat it into his hand and regarded it
with distaste.
        "It used to be the custom for the expectant father to pace the
waiting room handing out cigars. Just thought I'd help you get the custom
out of the way." He proffered a box.
        Aiden squealed. "You mean, now?"
        "Now," Xanatos said.
        Goliath drew his brow ridges together. "What are you talking
about?"
        Xanatos clapped him on the shoulder. "They just wheeled Elisa
into the delivery room."
        "What?!" He flung down the cigar. "And you waste my time with
this nonsense?" Without waiting for an answer, he shoved past the
smirking Xanatos and loped for the stairs.
        Dr. Johnson, who still had not said a word to any of the clan, or
indeed spoken at all in their hearing, was just coming out with a clipboard.
She ducked out of the way as Goliath charged past. He caught the door
before it could close.
        Elisa smiled at him, though her face was tense with pain.
"Someone's decided to come early."
        "Only a week," Dr. Masters said. "I feel that's comfortably
within the margin for error."
        "Are you all right?" He took one of Elisa's hands in both of his.
"What can I do?"
        "Just -- ooch!" She clamped down hard on his fingers. "Just be
here."
        Now he understood why males both human and gargoyle
traditionally had avoided the rookery and the delivery room. It was
terrible to see his mate in pain, to know he was partly responsible, and to
have there be nothing he could do.
        The murmur of voices in the hall told him the entire clan was
gathered outside, eagerly awaiting the birth of their newest member.
        "Can ... can you have someone ..." Elisa panted, "... get my
folks? I'd like ... to have Mom here."
        Goliath passed that duty along to Angela, then asked the doctor
how long it would be.
        "She's already five centimeters," Masters said. "Moving along
pretty quick. Before midnight, I'd think. So far, she and the baby are both
doing fine."
        Rather than call, Angela drafted Brooklyn and Broadway to come
with her and literally pick up the Mazas, while Lex contacted the
Labyrinth to inform Talon he was going to be an uncle.
        Goliath still felt helpless, even as he was sponging Elisa's
forehead with cool water and helping her walk between contractions. The
rest of the females had made it look easy, thanks to the design of their
pelvises. None of their labors had been this severe, yet Masters swore this
was a quick and simple labor. Goliath's estimation of humans went up a
notch.
        Diane Maza brought an air of take-charge competency with her,
which eased Goliath's nerves quite a bit. Together, they helped Elisa into
the birthing-chair, which supported her in a more or less upright position
and let her body work more efficiently to deliver the baby.
        "You didn't give her any painkillers?" Diane asked.
        "We weren't sure what effect it would have on the baby,"
Masters replied.
        "I'm okay, Mom, really," Elisa said, breathing steadily and in
sync with Goliath as they'd practiced from the Lamaze videos.
        The digital clock proclaimed it to be 11:53 when Masters
announced that the baby was crowning. Elisa bore down hard, shaking
from the effort. Her sweat-slick back was pressed against Goliath's chest,
his arms around her as he looked down over her shoulders.
        "Again," Masters urged.
        "Come on, honey, you can do it," Diane said.
        She pushed again, every muscle rigid. The baby's head emerged,
and then the shoulders, and then the entire body sliding loose into the
doctor's capable hands.
        11:58.
        "It's a girl," Masters announced jubilantly.
        Elisa sobbed and laughed, clinging to Goliath, who was
awestruck and amazed by what he'd just witnessed. "Let me see her!"
        "Let me clean her up a little first," Diane said, whisking the baby
to a waiting plastic tub of warm water. As she immersed her
granddaughter, a wail rose to the ceiling.
        "Okay, let's get rid of the placenta," Masters instructed.
"Another good push ought to do it."
        Moments later, Goliath carried Elisa to the waiting hospital bed
and smoothed back her hair. Diane approached, carrying an infant
swaddled in a clean towel.
        "Elisa, honey, she's beautiful," Diane said, placing the baby on
Elisa's lap.
        Goliath peeled back the folds of the towel, and they looked upon
their daughter.
        Wings that shaded to deep lavender were wrapped tightly around
her tiny body. Her skin was a touch darker than Elisa's, her head covered
with fine silky/downy sable hair. At the outer edge of each eyebrow was a
single bump, barely more than a nub, hardly noticeable. Her feet were
delicate and clawed, three-toed and high-arched as they'd seen on the
ultrasound, but small, no bigger than the feet of a normal human baby.
        She wailed again, waving little five-fingered fists.
        "Hey, there," Elisa said, tears of happiness running down her
face.
        "Hello, my daughter," Goliath said.     
        At once, the baby stopped wailing and opened eyes that were so
dark they were almost black. Her lips quivered as she searched the faces
above her.
        Goliath extended one finger, and gently caressed the soft cheek.
The baby's mouth turned toward him, seeking.
        "She's hungry," Diane said, and helped Elisa put the baby to her
breast.
        "Yowch!"
        "Good nursing reflex," Masters observed. He was standing back,
making rapid notes.
        The door inched open and Angela peeked in. "Can we see?
Please, Father?"
        "Come and meet your sister," Goliath said.
        The clan crowded around, startling the baby into flaring her
wings, but she quieted and returned to the business of feeding while the
others oohed and aahed. Elektra burst into an alarming fit of joyful tears,
Broadway patting her on the back.
        "Ye've done well," Hudson told Goliath and Elisa.
        "What are you going to name her?" Aiden asked.
        Goliath and Elisa exchanged a glance. "We hadn't discussed it,"
Elisa said. "But I know what I'd like to call her." She clasped the pendant
Elektra had given her.
        "Yes," Goliath said. "Her name will be Amber."

                *               *

The End