GARGOYLES: Re-Awakening

Remembrances: 1

The Cyberbiotics Flying Fortress was a marvel of engineering. It was the size of a football field, rectangular in shape but with rounded edges. Helicopter blades were positioned at the four corners, at the midway point between the corners, and at the center of the structure. It hovered over a small lake at the north end of the Bronx. Goliath would have found it unfathomable if not for the fact that the castle was also now aloft in the sky. After experiencing that, he was beginning to find nothing a surprise. Demona had not spoken since the mugging in the alley, and he had not pressed for conversation. He waited, observed.

Suddenly, Demona, who had been gliding out in front, slowed and dropped back beside him. Pointing ahead she said, "That is our target. They monitor for other flying machines, but not for something small like us. We will land at the far corner. From there, we will climb to the underside and enter through an access hatch—it will not be locked. Once inside, follow my lead. We will be quick." With that, she angled herself in a descent path toward the fortress and Goliath followed. From a distance, one could have seen two shadows sweeping with speed and grace just above the structure and then disappearing out of eyeline. As it was, no one was there to observe them. There were no people below, and those inside the fortress did not imagine anyone would ever approach from the air without being detected by radar.

Demona landed with a metallic clang, followed immediately by Goliath who landed with a somewhat louder one. The whir of the propellors was loud and the air they pushed sent Demona's red hair flying back over her shoulders. She dropped onto all fours and headed to the edge. Once there, she dug her talons into the metal and crawled straight over the side, her hands and feet making a fresh clang with each step. Goliath followed, and soon both found themselves hanging upside down beneath the structure. It was quieter and calmer underneath.

Demona headed directly to the access hatch. Holding steady with her feet and one hand, she reached with the other, turned the wheel that opened the hatch, and yanked it open. Once done, she released her feet, swung back while continuing to hold with her hands and then, whipped herself feet first through the opening and was gone. Goliath raised an eyebrow, impressed with her gymnastics. He, though, opted to let go entirely and drop off the belly of the mechanical beast. He then opened his wings, caught an updraft, and flew straight up and head first through the hatch. Once inside he quickly tucked his wings, spread his feet, and landed in a wide straddle over the hole. For an instant he looked like a statue. A stream of water would have made him a fountain.

Demona was standing with his back to him. Her red hair was slightly puffed from the wind. It looked magnificent, and Goliath felt a longing. Just as he was ready to move toward her and place a hand on her shoulder, Demona turned and took a step to the side. Goliath's face quickly shifted from warm to concerned. On the ground was a guard, face down and motionless. He must have come around the corner just as Demona was coming through the hatch, Goliath realized. The guard was breathing, he noted, then felt a pang of guilt for having checked. His guilt at assuming she had killed him soon ended. Before he could speak, Demona reached down, grabbed the guard by the collar and lifted his limp body in the air, like a puppy being hoisted by the scruff of the neck.

"Step back," Demona said.

Reflexively, Goliath did as she said. Once he had, Demona reached out and dangled the guard over the hatch. If one more second had passed before Goliath acted, she would have let go and the guard would have disappeared, falling to almost certain death in the lake below. As it was though, Goliath reached out and grabbed the front of the Guard's shirt. It was an almost comical scene. Demona with an outstretched arm, holding the guard from the back of the neck, Goliath with outstretched arm holding the collar from the front. It looked as though the two gargoyles would push their hands together and pop the guard's head right off. "What are you doing?" Goliath asked quickly, sharply.

"If he wakes," Demona replied, "he will alert the crew and our mission will fail."

"And so you wish to toss him away like a piece of garbage?" Goliath asked, accusingly. His tone stabbed at Demona, like a sharp knife. On a subconscious level, a dark corner of her brain was aware of the three scars across her shoulder.

"That's what he is!" she blurted out, hotly, venomously. Goliath did not respond. He looked at her, deeply and penetratingly. Demona immediately felt afraid. Inside, she shrunk a little, like a child who'd just been roughly scolded by her father. She knew that, even after all these years, Goliath could peer almost directly into her soul when he fixed his eyes on her. She hated that about him.

"What has happened, Demona?" Goliath asked. "What happened to you?"

Goliath's question was so deeply sincere, so emotionally urgent, that Demona wanted badly to open up everything within her to him. If she could have flooded his head with all her memories of the last thousand years, she would have. But she couldn't. And to tell him was also impossible. There was too much. In this moment it began to dawn on her that she may have made a miscalculation. As she had worked with Xanatos to convince him of her story, to set in motion the relocation of the castle, to effect the awakening of the clan, and to work step by step towards the fruition of her true plan—the one she was not telling Xanatos—she had been driven, at least in part, by her love for Goliath. What she had not realized, and therefore not calculated into the scheme, was the rift that would exist between herself and him. Goliath was still the mate of the Demona that had lived with him a century ago. But that Demona was gone. She had slowly disappeared as year after year, decade after decade, and century after century had passed and that change had made them, in effect, a very unusual sort of strangers. To her, Goliath was a walking memory—a love from her past that she had moved far beyond. For Goliath, Demona was an imposter. She looked like her, but was not her; not on the inside. She was different now, and he did not know her. In that five seconds, with a human being dangling unconscious between them, Demona knew she would have to modify her behavior. She would have to temper herself if she wanted to get him to do what she planned, and it was imperative that he did. "You're right," she said, and she withdrew her hand. "He will not awaken anytime soon. I simply...wish to protect the castle. Come."

She turned and headed carefully down the corridor. Goliath gently set the guard against the wall. He looked at him slumped there, then looked up toward Demona, who was already turning the corner. With one more look at the guard, he folded his wings around his body, like a trench coat, and followed his mate.