After The Fall
By Luna and Phoebe
 
 
Elisa paced the hall like a tiger in a cage, with her fists and teeth clenched. It had taken all the willpower she had to not hit the D.A. A small tear trailed down her cheek and Elisa brushed it away angrily. Dead, they were all dead and Angela didn't even know it yet. The girl was going to wake up in a cage and hear it from this cold hearted bitch as Margot Yale took Angela to prison.
 
"This is just..." Her words trailed off into a growl. Anger was the only thing that was keeping her moving, if she let it go she knew she'd just collapse and she might never get back up. Angela needed her.
 
Her pacing took her past the window and she glared out at the protesters, the bigots... the bastards that killed the clan, killed Goliath, were out there as well. She couldn't see them, but she knew. She left her worn path and took long strides towards the stairs. Justice, she fought for justice and the law but she really didn't think she'd see any justice now. None for the dead and definitely none for Angela.
 
Sometimes you had to make your own justice. Elisa slipped into the women's restroom and pulled out her phone. She needed help. There was no way Elisa was going to let Goliath's daughter go through a mockery of a trial. If this cost her career, her freedom... it didn't matter. Nothing mattered more than Angela right now and how Elisa was the only one left to protect her.
 
The phone rang and Elisa's heart pound in her chest as she waited for her to answer. When a cop decided to break the law, it really helps to have some backup and she couldn't ask Matt.
 
 
 
********
 
The phone rang again. Clutching the receiver, her hands shook, almost imperceptibly, with rage.
 
She stared mutely at the wailing phone. She couldn't do this. How could she do this?
 
Angela's face swam into her mind, strong and beautiful and young. Where was she now? What was happening to her, what had already happened? Human eyes glittered blackly with fury and unshed tears. Elisa struck the bathroom wall suddenly, viciously, hard enough to crack the veneer and bruise her fist.
 
She had to do this.
 
The number had come to her fingers effortlessly; she'd dialed it as quickly as she could, trying not to consider all the implications of that action. She had never called this number, yet she was not surprised to find it burned indelibly into her mind.
 
The phone rang, rang again. Elisa stared out the small window at the weak sunlight of early morning and thought, Good, she's sleeping now, they can't be hurting her now. Not yet. The detective's heart hammered in her ribs like a wild thing panicked and caged. Caged. God, god, what were they going to do to Angela?
 
It rang again. Damn you, she wanted to scream, answer it. She had to be there, where else would she be? Elisa forced herself into calm. The one she pursued could in fact be anywhere in the world. There was nothing saying that she had to be here at all.
 
Answer, answer, answer. Please answer.
 
At the other end of the line, a small machine clicked to life. "Leave a message." The words were short, terse, just what she would have expected if she could have realistically expected anything. Elisa found herself speaking almost before the beep had stopped.
 
"Dominique." she swallowed. "Dominique. Demona? I know you're there." Briefly, she pressed her eyes closed, not believing that she was doing this, exposing herself like this. "Please be there. Dominique, they...you know what happened. They have Angela. She's still alive. We have to get her out."
 
And then, the galling thing: "I need your help."
 
Silence. As she gathered the courage to speak again, the barely audible click of the phone, and that voice: the cadence she would know anywhere but had never thought to welcome, the exotic hint of some unknown accent as intriguing as the speaker herself, but cold now. Calm, and deadly, deadly cold.
 
"Haven't you done enough, Detective?"
 
Elisa swallowed. You knew it would come to this, she reminded herself, knew exactly who and what you're getting yourself into here. Anything, absolutely anything at all, for Angela.
 
"We can't argue now, there isn't time. Look, I broke into my boss' computer and got some classified information.  The NYPD knew where the National Guard was keeping her. I think I know where they have her, but we need to move fast."
 
"And you expect me to help you."
 
"She's your daughter!"
 
"Do not presume to lecture me, detective." The voice went suddenly scalding, and Elisa almost flinched at the pure venom in her words. "I do not need your help or that of any cursed human!"
 
Elisa's eyes burned, her body quivering alert as though on the threshold of a fight. "Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure? Sure enough to risk Angela's life?"
 
Silence. For a moment, Elisa was afraid that the other had hung up.
 
When she spoke again, her words were very quiet, softer and less guarded than she had ever heard of the immortal gargoyle. "No. I am not. Damn you, human."
 
"Then we'd better meet."
 
Again, in that strangely quiet tone: "do you understand now, Elisa Maza?"
 
"What?"
 
This time, there came the familiar thread of anger, and Elisa was almost glad, almost relieved to hear it. "Do you understand? Why it is necessary to destroy you all? What your kind will always do to mine, /always/?"
 
"Demona, we can have this argument later..."
 
"No, Detective." Her voice went viciously calm. "We will not. We can end this here, Detective, and Angela be done with."
 
Elisa felt her belly go cold. "You don't mean that."
 
"Detective, she may well already be dead, like the clan is dead, like all the clans are dead." Elisa thought she heard Demona swallowing on the other end of the line. "Of course I don't mean that. But understand, human, that I also have very little hope."
 
"I...I'm sorry."
 
"Spare me. Just tell me, do you understand now?"
 
Elisa bowed her proud head, and her hand, white-knuckled clutching the slim black phone, trembled once. Knowing what she was about to say, hating herself for the betrayal of saying it, she knew already that in her heart it was at least partly true. "OK, Demona. OK." Elisa took a deep breath, steadied herself with her policewoman's steely calm. "Believe me, I get where you're coming from. And I admit that there...there's a chance you could be right."
 
************
 
 

Elisa turned her Ford into the driveway and slid it into park as she stared at the gates. She sighed and leaned on the steering wheel as she studied the double D’s on the gate, signaling that she was in the right place. Demona’s mansion. It had been at least an hours drive, but she couldn’t remember any of it.

She moved the car forward again and stopped at the gate. Before she could press for Demona to open it she heard the buzz and the gate swung open. If she were in a better mood she might have thought of haunted mansions and old movies, but she didn’t care. Her eyes moved to her passenger seat, and the papers that sat there. There was no going back, not now. Not that she could. She couldn’t turn her back on Angela.

Elisa parked in front of the house and got out. Her eyes took in the secluded feel of the place and how the trees and walls kept the neighbors eyes away. It really was perfect for Demona. No humans would be able to get near her if she didn’t let them in. Elisa reached into the car again and pulled out the papers she’d brought with her.

The click she heard behind her was so very familiar and her body tensed out of instinct, but Elisa just sighed and released her battle readiness. “Hello Demona.” Her voice was weary as she turned to face the redhead. The gun was pointed at Elisa’s chest, which was poorly guarded by papers clutched to her chest.

“I should kill you human.” Demona’s words and the gun aimed so purposefully should have worried her but Elisa just didn’t have the energy to care. Her cop trained eyes still took in the slight trembling in Demona’s gun and the more pale than normal skin.

“Kill me later Demona, We have to save Angela now.”

The gun lowered, and Elisa just stepped out of the way of her car door and closed it. Part of her was alarmed by how little she cared that Demona still had that gun as Demona waved her into the house.

********
 
Hours later Elisa's eyes traveled to the blonde woman sitting at the desk in front of the cages. It was still daylight as the train started it's progress and Elisa was on her own for now. While her heart hammered she managed to just look irritated and cautious. Margot barely spared her a glance as Elisa went through normal motions of checking out the
train car.
 
A quick glance at the District Attorney caught Margot working diligently on her case to imprison an innocent gargoyle. Elisa shook her head in disgust and checked the time. Years with the clan taught her to pay attention to the time of sunset, and she had a few minutes at most.
 
Demona better be ready. Elisa thought with a bit of trepidation. With all the timing and planning they'd put into this it had better work, because they wouldn't get a second chance.
 
Sunset and the roar filled the train car as Angela and Bronx broke free of their stone skin. Elisa couldn't stand the way Margot got up from her desk and moved to stand in front of the confused girl. "You are hereby under arrest." Margot spoke coldly. "You will be tried for the crimes you and the other beasts did to our city. As the sole surviving…" Elisa's fists clenched as Margot told Angela her entire clan had died in their last attack. She stood by helplessly as the look of shock and pain crossed Angela's eyes, and she wished she could tell the girl it was a mistake, but it wasn't.
 
Once Margot was done outlining the gargoyle's crimes she moved to sit back down. It was then that Elisa moved closer to the cages. Angela hadn't seen her yet, and the girl should know she wasn't alone. Elisa ignored the accusing glare Margot shot her way as Elisa took in Angela's tears and moved to rest her hands on the bars separating them. Angela's eyes begged Elisa to tell her it wasn't true.
 
"I'm sorry." Elisa took a ragged breath and blinked away her own tears. No time for that now. Her lips moved but she didn't add her voice. "Be ready." Once Angela seemed to understand something was going on she moved away from the cells.
 
A thud drew Margot's eyes up, but it was so soft the District Attorney went back to her work without giving it a second thought. Elisa took a deep breath and moved away from the cages, she moved past Margot and stood behind the woman. The detective's hand reached into her pocket and wrapped around a small device, hitting the button to turn the tracking device on. "Did you have to be so cold?" Her own voice was quiet but dripping with anger. "Her entire Clan just died."
 
"Detective." The woman's haughty attitude and glare were focused on her now. Elisa hit the tracker again, shutting it off.
 
The loud thud was followed by screaming metal. Elisa looked up to the roof and saw the night sky being revealed. "Get down!" She yelled to Margot and moved to shove the woman on the ground just as something fell nearby them and started giving off smoke. With her head pressed into the ground, Margot didn't notice Elisa using her other arm to pull a canister out of her pocket. Elisa moved her face away from that arm as she pressed down on the button, releasing the real drug.
 
When Margot's body went limp she stood up and turned around to find Demona standing behind her. "The camera feed was cut." She announced the success of her own mission as she moved towards Angela and Bronx with Demona. "Can you rip it open or do we want to risk the keys." Using the keys were a risk, because only Elisa and Margot knew where they were and it would make Elisa's involvement in this obvious. Still Elisa would do it if she had to.
 
"Mother?" Angela sounded surprised.
 
"Daughter, I'll have you out of there faster if you help." Demona moved to the cage door and started to pull. It was giving slowly, but when Angela moved to push as well the groan of more twisting metal echoed in the train car.
 
"Come, we must go quickly." Demona moved to grab Angela's hand as soon as the young female was able to maneuver around the twisted and broken cage door.
 
"Not without Bronx." Angela's eyes were firm and Elisa felt a bit of relief when Demona just nodded and moved to free Bronx as well. The deal was to save both of them, but Elisa had expected a bigger fight before she actually helped save him. With both female's pulling they managed to get him out more quickly than Angela had been freed.
 
"Elisa?" Angela moved closer to her and Elisa could see her intent.
 
"I have to stay." She spoke quietly, her eyes trying to convey all her sympathy to Angela. "Take this." The bag she handed the girl had all the things Elisa couldn't risk being caught with. The wire cutters, the aerosol can of the drug, the tracking device all sat in it. "I'll see you later."
 
As the three gargoyles climbed back out the hole Demona had made in the roof Elisa moved back to Margot's side.
 
"Mother, what are you doing?" Angela's voice rose in accusation.
 
"It's okay." Elisa glanced up to reassure Angela before the gargoyle dove back in after the canister that Demona had tossed in after them. This one had the real drug, the same one used to put Margot out. It would look like Elisa had been knocked unconscious from the beginning. They would have done this to begin with, but Angela would never have left Elisa behind unless she heard it from the detective herself. Elisa had to convince Demona it wasn't a waste of time, but eventually the gargoyle had accepted that Elisa was right about how Angela would react.
 
She didn't fight off the drowsiness, but she still heard someone banging on the train door. Must have figure out the camera went down. She let blackness overcome her.
 
********
 
They glided as quickly as they could, but Demona would have willed it faster.
 
Angela's long wings wavered in the air, not quite catching the best thermal.  Bronx whined and shifted in her arms, looking in vain for the others.
 
We should kill him, the immortal thought distantly, dispassionately. He is a liability we cannot afford. "Hurry," she hissed, curving her wings expertly for a thread of added lift. "They will be looking for us."
 
Angela flinched as if struck. "Mother," she swallowed, her voice tiny. "Is it true? That woman...the District Attorney...she said..."
 
"Do not think of it," Demona snapped. "Thinking of it will do you no good. Glide! They have helicopters."
 
The rhythmic threat of the rotor blades cut ominously in the distance behind them. There was a little sound, a pop, and then lights that startled Angela’s keen nocturnal eyes.  A small, cruel smile played at Demona's sharp mouth.
 
"What...?"
 
"Xanatos' hidden men," she growled. "They may buy us time enough to escape."
 
"How?" Angela's voice was tiny, shocked.
 
Demona glanced over her shoulder and the tight sail of her wing, suddenly angry, unwilling. "The Maza woman," she growled reluctantly, "gave them the codes."
 
"You and Elisa...were together?  You planned this together, got me out..."
 
"I will do anything to protect you, even work with that," the immortal hissed.  "Drop now, close to the ground. It will confuse their radar. You are too slow; do not think of anything but gliding and your survival!"
 
It seemed to take all night, and Demona was veteran of many, many chases. When at last she saw the forbidding gates of her home, she breathed a terse sigh of relief and dropped with swift efficiency onto the balcony.
 
Angela nearly collapsed. The ends of her wings were trembling with exhaustion, and she went to her spiked knees. It had been a very long glide and dawn was almost upon them.
 
"Get in the house," Demona snapped, "quickly."
 
Bronx licked Angela's cheek, whining with concern. For a moment the girl did not stir, and Demona took a step towards her, menacing and sleek. The great beast raised his blunt head and warned her with a soft growl.
 
"Bronx, no," whispered Angela.
 
"You will have to get used to me, my pet, or you will have to die." The immortal's voice was remote, and Angela, holding Bronx's great neck, looked up, wide-eyed. 
 
Demona stared down at her daughter, clinging to her pet and looking younger than she was, in that moment weak and utterly helpless. All of the faces of all the Hunters, the neverending stream of human murderers and their victims flashed before her mind, and Demona felt something inside her harden, become distant. She felt her shoulders and wingstruts stiffen, but remotely, as if she was watching another gargoyle, or perhaps remembering one who had died long ago. She felt the glow kindle in her eyes, but there was no anger, and she thought of what she had said to Maza about hope.
 
"I am leader of this clan now." Her words were quiet, even to her ear, cold. "Get in the house."
 
Shakily, but with grace, Angela stood. Her great, dark eyes were haunted, full of pain, and the spurs of her wings shook. But slowly, her chin raised in a gesture eerily familiar, and with effort the tremor in her struts...stopped.  Scarlet backlit the haunted eyes, hid the pain in them behind hot fury.
 
"You will not hurt him or I will leave you, Mother." Angela's voice was hollow, too tired and shocked for real emotion. "Nor will you ever threaten Elisa. I'll protect her if I have to." 
 
Angela did not know it, but the tears had come, running a silent silver track down her soft young cheeks without impediment.  Catching the light from her eyes, they looked abruptly sinister to her mother's fancy, like rivulets of blood.
 
Demona actually shifted weight onto her long hocks, took the most minute of steps back. "Surely you understand now!" She did not at all like the timbre in her own voice, too high, too much emotion, almost panic...but she did not feel panic, surely she did not. "The humans will always betray us!"
 
"Humans raised me!" Angela's voice rose to a sudden, unbearable scream, the warrior's yell like a lioness' roar in her throat, but so desperate, so anguished. "Don't turn this into another attempt to manipulate me, don't try and reduce it to fit into your sick view of the world!" Angela's chest rose in a ragged pant, and Demona could almost hear her heartbeat, could almost be afraid that that young heart would burst. "Katherine did not betray us. Elisa did not betray us! How could you say that, she just helped you save me, she...she..." Angela's voice trailed off as she stared at her mother, and slowly the fire began to dim in her eyes. Demona's were already deepest black.
 
And against her will, the welcome fury chill and dead in her, the immortal thought of That Human. How she had come to Demona's mansion...she had known its location all along, and for that alone her demise was warranted. Goliath's little human whore had come fearless to her gate...more than fearless. Cold. Her hair tangled, her eyes dark. Vicious. How she planned with her enemy like an old lieutenant, veteran of so many battles that they did not need to speak more than the utter necessities. Demona remembered, or the first time in so many centuries, her brown Second of the clan she had lost to Moray.
 
Human. How Demona had wanted to kill, to feel warm human blood on her talons. To kill and kill and kill, for anger, for revenge. But the human came to her with her plans, worked oblivious to the death that stood close enough to touch.  So Demona had not killed. 
 
Angela still lived, however briefly that would be, and Demona had to fight for her.
 
Demona did not want to fight for her. Staring into her daughter's angry eyes as Angela mantled wings that could in no wise carry her longer this night, Demona realized how tired she was. The beast who the gesture protected glanced between the two of them and whined, confused. Innocent.
 
Meeting her mother's gaze with cold hostility, Angela's weakness was palpable, her bravery touching, full of a lithe, doomed beauty. Demona felt despair settle in her heart, that heart hardened to anything but vengeance for all these long centuries.
 
The memory came of Elisa's tortured eyes, black as Demona's own. In her hand, the betrayal: the human authority's plans, the itinerary of the train, the location of the helicopters, and the knowledge that her fellow police could die tonight for her actions. The proof of her treachery, for all faith in humans was ultimately misplaced, and the gargoyle wanted even more to hurt her, to punish her for that. Elisa Maza betrayed her own, as Demona always knew she would. She should die for it.
 
But this human had given up the trust of her career, of what she was, for Demona's own cause. For Angela. So Demona had stayed her hand, that trembled on her firearm for the want of killing her, had invited her into the house to plan for nightfall. Had brought her in, even when she wore the hated, weaker human form, knowing Elisa was a stronger fighter than her human guise, and never thought to look for another betrayal. 
 
And planned together like two old warriors who had battled at one another's side for years,
terse and of one mind.
 
The two gargoyles, young and ancient, stared at each other across the balcony. In the far distance, a dog barked, likely panicked by Angela's scream. Slowly, the light faded altogether in Angela's eyes, leaving them dark, shocked.
 
"They...the clan. They are really gone?"
 
Demona realized, suddenly, truly, that they were. That there was no Goliath, locked in his stone sleep or alive to vex and thwart her with his damnable idealism. For the first time in her long life. No clan.
 
"They are gone, Angela." And what should she feel? Joy? Anger? Surely she should not regret; how many times had she tried to kill Goliath herself?  She should be happy that the humans had saved her the trouble.
 
Demona felt nothing. "Get in the house, Angela." Her words were soft, and still the immortal gargoyle felt detached from them. "The dawn is coming, and we need to hide you. This night is all wasted if some human sees you and tells the others."
 
Angela looked down, nodding. She did not speak or try and meet Demona's hard, black eyes; the fight was gone in her. The young one walked into the darkened mansion. The gaurdbeast stared a Demona mistrustfully, then followed softly on his mistress' heels.
 
They said nothing else. Demona brought a cold joint of meat from the kitchen; famished, they ate it in silence. Sensing the sun, Angela crept into one corner of the cold and finely decorated room, crouched beneath an old boar's head that hung on the far wall. She took position earlier than she needed to, wrapped her wings around Bronx and herself. Demona did not look at them.
 
It was a cold morning and gray, but a gargoyle always knew, always felt the rising in her bones a moment before it came. Still, there was never any real preparing for Puck's gift. The sun took her, and the familiar agony ripped through her body as her wings shrunk like knives into her back, her tail whipped like a burning brand into her vitals, her very bones howled as they were twisted into the hated, alien shape. It was mercifully quick. Always, for a few seconds, her body spasmed, the heart not quite catching, her breath coming in tiny pants.
 
And then she was fine. Dominique stretched a little and stared out into the gray fog. It was cold; clad only in her halter and loincloth, she shivered, watched disgustedly as the tiny bumps rose on her pale arms. The damn humans were so fragile. Frail, worthless.
 
Almost unwillingly, she looked upon her daughter's stone form. Her heart contracted, the pang deep, fierce as the changing, and unexpected. Deeper than the Puck's infernal spell, deeper even than the laying-pain that had brought her into the world: ah, Angela. The world is this way, my daughter. Would that I could have spared you this, that I had made the world safe for us long ago. Angela.
 
Dominique caressed her daughter's cheek with her small, pale hand. The stone was moist, like a groundwater seep from the sea-cliffs of her youth. Crouched low, her tailtip curled miserably about her ankles, head bowed so 
that her mother could barely see her face leaned against Bronx's great shoulder, Angela was a frozen testimony to loss. The pose was too similar to that Goliath had worn in his long sleep.
 
Demona had never felt so helpless, trapped in this weak human form, caught in a world that sought her blood.
 
Her blood, it could have: and had claimed in gallons, over and over through the long centuries. But not this blood, this tender creature who had just taken her first draught of the hurt Demona knew too well. This, the world could not have.
 
The mother's fury, the clan-leader's, the warrior's, the gargoyle's white-hot vicious ferocity, rose in her then. Her green eyes flashed scarlet, belying the human veneer. And, unbidden, another image came to her, one that she had not wished: other eyes, jet with anger, glittering sharp. Human eyes that wore the same expression as her own.
 
***********
 
The murmurs started to sound like voices and Elisa groaned as consciousness started to visit her again. The blackness was receding to sound. Did it work? Her heart started to beat faster, but she struggled to wake up more before letting anyone know she had. Everything was riding on her now. If she didn't want to go to jail she had to be convincing.
 
"Uhh… What hit me?" She whispered out as she struggled to open her eyes. The bright lights of the train car were what she expected, so the even brighter lights of a hospital room surprised her.
 
Matt moved into her line of vision and looked down at her concerned, and something in his eyes knowing. Elisa gave him a brief look, begging him to play along and for his forgiveness for not telling him. He had to know Elisa wouldn't let them take Angela too. "Well partner." His voice held tension, "there was a break out."
 
"She got away?" Elisa glanced around and noticed her boss in the room as well. "How?" Her ignorance had to be believed.
 
Captain Chavez moved to the side of the bed, looking serious and more than a bit angry. "She had help. Reports confirmed the presence of another gargoyle taking the suspects." Elisa just waited for more. "Someone also shot down one of our helicopters. We have people out looking for her. This has become a serious matter, we have officers in the hospital now. Someone shot down a helicopter and two of our people are injured."
 
Elisa felt a pang of guilt that she didn't show. Good men had died the other night, but no one recognized that because of the tail and wings. Angela was free, and she'd done everything she could to keep the death toll down. On her own Demona would have just killed them, Elisa really believed that. This plan worked and no one died.
 
"You rest now." The hard voice of her Captain softened for a bit. "Tomorrow you'll have to talk to internal affairs. We all will. This jail break is big news and they'll want answers."
 
Elisa nodded weakly, grateful for some rest. She hadn't slept since they died and she'd need it if she was going to survive the inquisition she was about to be subjected to.
 
Once the Captain was out the door her partner moved to stand beside the bed again and just stared down at her. Elisa had to look away, because the sympathy would make her cry and she couldn't let herself cry. Not yet. Not when there was still so much left to do. "I'll call your parents and tell them you're awake."
 
"Thanks." Elisa whispered, but they both knew it wasn't that she was thanking him for. She risked staring at him and letting him see the pain in her eyes. This place was hardly the safest one to say anything in, so neither of them did.
 
"Okay, you get some rest partner. We only have a few hours before the fun begins."
 
Once she was alone her eyes traveled to the window and she noticed the dawn. Part of her almost expected it to be night, and for her to see a concerned lavender male staring at her from the ledge. With a heavy sigh she turned away from the window and tried to sleep.
 
It was a few hours later that she stood in front of a mirror and stared at her bloodshot, tired eyes. Every time she'd tried to close them and sleep she'd seen that building collapsing, heard the cracking of metal and stone… saw the pieces of her friends being pulled from under the rubble. She stopped trying to sleep.
 
Demona did her a favor knocking her out with that drug, it was the only rest Elisa had in over a day. With a conscious effort she stood taller and tugged her jacket on. Time to check out and go face the music.
********
 
 
I should have slept, Elisa thought with irony a few hours later. I wish I could have slept.
 
Internal affairs wasn't buying it. Damn them. Or was that only Elisa's own guilty conscience reading something into this questioning that wasn't there?
 
Two men, poker-faced, suited and professional, oh so polite and oh so cold. Elisa resisted the urge to get up and pace. That would make her look guilty. 
 
Guilty? Guilty of what? The clan had been murdered, and if she hadn't intervened, who knew what would have happened to Angela?
 
"Were you, Detective?"
 
Elisa blinked. "What?"
 
"Were you aware that there was unauthorized access to the NYPD helicopter assignments approximately five hours before the prisoner escaped?"
 
Elisa stared at him, feeling the color drain from her face even as she willed herself calm. She should have slept, she realized too late, should have made herself sleep. She hadn't been listening to her interrogators for the last few minutes---or had it been longer? She'd been thinking of their faces. His face.
 
His gentle face, which she would never see again.
 
Not now, Maza, not now.
 
Elisa rubbed her eyes, aching from the room's bright lights and simple exhaustion. "I'm sorry," she sighed truthfully, "I haven't slept much since it happened. I think some of those drugs are still in my system."
 
"Or you have a lot on your mind, Detective?"
 
Elisa's head shot up, eyes widening fractionally, as she met the cool brown eyes of the other man. He hadn't spoken much; his partner had done most of the questioning. Suddenly, she realized what was happening, what was on the line. Her belly went cold.
 
She hadn't thought about this in Demona's house, when they had been planning, just as she wasn't letting herself think about Goliath's face now. Freeing Angela was the only, the last important thing. She had just assumed she would get away with it, had not let herself wonder how.
 
Yet even Demona had known. She had once looked up to meet those burning green eyes, set in porcelain skin that looked in that moment so human, so deceptively human, but was not.
 
"Why, Maza," she'd asked, "Do you do this?"
 
"Because they were my clan," she had said hollowly. "Because they still are.  Kill me later, Demona."
 
The human agent's calm stare did far more to unnerve her. "It's been a very long couple of days," she stated. "I don't lose prisoners often."
 
"No," said the blond man, "You don't." There was something in his voice then, just a trace, that revealed something, a thin tendril of disbelief, of dislike.
 
"The helicopter that crashed was sabotaged," said the first, brown-hair.
 
"You told me that. I still don't believe it."
 
"Believe it, Detective. And we think there was an insider."
 
"That," she said flatly, "is impossible." They don't suspect you, a little voice was chattering in the back of her skull, they wouldn't play their hand so quickly if they did, they can't suspect you...
 
"Do you have any idea, any idea at all, if there are gargoyle sympathizers in this precinct?"
 
Elisa's dark eyes went wide with unfeigned disbelief, flashed anger before she crushed it. "Gargoyle sympathizers?"
 
"The pilot of the second helicopter," he said quietly, "was badly burned. He's in intensive care right now. The doctors give him a 30% chance of survival, and if he makes it, he may never walk again."
 
Coldness, then heat, lanced through her vitals. What had she done?
 
They'd murdered the clan. They could have killed Angela.
 
She was a cop. The pilot...God help her...he was a cop, too. It could have been her brother. What had she done?
 
"Your partner, Matt Bluestone," said the blond. "He has a reputation for...erratic behavior. He's been sighted with one of the beasts."
 
"They aren't beasts," she snapped without thinking, then realized her mistake. Something flashed in the blond's eyes, but he let it go.
 
She tried not to think of the man whose life she might have stolen.
 
Elisa spent the next two hours trying to convince them that Matt had nothing to do with this. Matt...she hadn't even thought how this could effect him, that she could have hurt him with this. A new guilt lanced through her. He was her partner, and she hadn't brought him into this, not even to protect him. There hadn't been time.
 
But they weren't after Matt, not really. Elisa was wakeful now, seeing with crystal clarity, glass with a chipped and fragile edge. Matt wasn't out of the line of fire, but she wasn't that naive.
 
Then they started asking about her mysterious disappearance, the time she'd spent in Avalon. Most of her colleagues thought she'd been undercover, but these two knew better.
 
Finally, telling her that there would be more questions later, they let her go.
 
The Captain was there, a family friend, a good boss, if a hard one. Her hands were on her hips, her eyes a wash of anger, anxiety, compassion.
 
"That didn't go well, Maza," she clipped.
 
Elisa swallowed and stared at her, able to glean nothing from Chavez's sharp hazel eyes, wondering how much she had guessed, how much she suspected or knew.
 
Matt stepped between them, took Elisa's elbow, shielding her with his body language. She looked up at him gratefully. His face was lined with concern and his own sorrow.
 
"I need to get her home," he told the Captain.
 
"Thanks, Matt, but I can do that myself," she sighed, rubbing her eyes. What to do? God, but this was a mess. Finally, she just met Chavez' eyes, let her own bleed some of her grief. "No, Maria," she sighed, "it didn't."
 
In the end, Matt won the argument about the car, which finally told her how tired she was, how bad this was.  Matt drove silently, threading through traffic, while Elisa curled against the immaculate tan vinyl of her Fairlane's passenger seat, staring bleakly out at the world. The sun was sinking by increments, shadows cast by steel and concrete deepening, sunlight flashing yellow on windshields, then orange.
 
The night would come, but it would be different. She could not believe, could still not believe, that he would not be there with the comforting embrace of his wings and arms, the stone and leather scent of him, the intelligent compassion in his deep eyes. That he was really gone, that she had really lost him.
 
There was so much she hadn't told him. She had been such a coward.
 
Don't do this, don't think this, not now. Elisa pulled her knees against her chest, choked back tears.
 
Matt pulled the Fairlane into her building’s garage, parked it, gave her the keys. Silently, she took them, slipped them into the pocket of her red jacket.
 
Matt caught her slim, tawny hand and held it.
 
Bluestone's eyes were full of compassion and sorrow. "You got her out, partner. I won't ask. I'm glad you did it."
 
"I'm so sorry, Matt. There wasn't time."
 
"I know. But...that was Demona, wasn't it?"
 
"It was the only way."
 
"I would have helped you. You know that."
 
Elisa swallowed back tears and a sudden irrational anger. She didn't want to fall apart, not here, not yet. "It's just as well. I'm in enough trouble. Better not to have two of us in it."
 
"Elisa..."
 
"Matt, don't. I'm barely holding it together."
 
Matt brushed a tangled raven strand from her eyes. "OK, partner. Do you want me to come up to your apartment with you?"
 
"I...I just think I need to be alone. But thanks." What she wanted to do was to run, to hide, to scream with pain, and as much as she cared for Matt she couldn't let him see this, not now. What she wanted was to sink into the warm embrace, inhumanly strong, that would never be there to catch her again.
 
Matt let himself out and caught a cab. Elisa made her way up the stairs, feeling like she was floating, detached.
 
Cagney raced up to her, meowing. She picked the gray cat up, scratched her ears, pet her.
 
A red light blinked desperately on her answering machine. Too many messages. Woodenly, Elisa hit the button.
 
Beth's voice was full of the tears Elisa herself was not shedding. "Oh my God, sis, I just heard, I'm so sorry..."
 
Click. Not now. She didn't want to hear it.
 
"Elisa?" Peter's voice. "We just saw it on the news. I know this is...hard for you, but..."
 
Click.
 
"Elisa honey? Please call us. We heard..."
 
Click. And stop the machine. Not now.
 
Elisa sat down on her couch and listened to the silence of her empty loft. Cagney meowed cheerfully, pattered up with her tail high, climbed into her mistress' lap. The sun sank towards the horizon.
 
She stared at her empty balcony, and remembered all those times she had heard it filled with the rush of mighty wings. Not tonight, not now, not ever.
 
Cry, she thought, grieve. Go ahead. They are gone.
 
She couldn't.
 
Sleep, then, why don't you. You're so exhausted you let Matt drive.
 
But Elisa knew that she wouldn't. Not yet.
 
She stood again, unthinking, traded her black t-shirt with an identical clean one, pulled on her jacket and left. Moments later, the Fairlane was pulling smooth and aggressive as a shark out into traffic, its direction sure and determined.  As if there had never been any doubt.
 
************
 
Dominique Destine skipped work that day.
 
Alone, clothed in the despised and alien human flesh, she prowled restlessly through empty halls. An ancient and tarnished silver mirror caught her reflection as she paced past it, noticed skin a shade paler even than its typically fine porcelan hue, fever-roses blotching the delicate angle of her cheeks, acid green eyes that burned. Dominique did not see these things, would have refused to acknowledge them had any been insolent enough to dare bring them to her attention.
 
But no one did, for she was alone.
 
At last, she came again to the high room with its statues and its wide balcony. The golden light of late afternoon streamed in through wide bay windows, and in a sudden, almost overwhelming surge of yearning, she threw them open, stepped out on the deck. The sun was so warm, so full of pleasure, of beauty. Dominique threw back her head, arched her back, let the warmth caress thin human skin still clad only in the gargoyle's halter and loincloth. Sunlight found blue shadows beneath eyes that, when closed, seemed tired and peaceful.
 
After a moment, Dominique moved to the side of her balcony and stared out across her property to the street below. A few humans were present; a letter carrier and a child on a bicycle. A tail that she did not at the moment posses registered a phantom twitch in mild annoyance.
 
So. They were gone.
 
A thousand years safely frozen in stone, and less than three in the modern era saw them dead. The irony did not escape her. Goliath's fault, that damnable myopic naiveté which had doomed them back then and doomed them now.
 
Of course, it had been her idea to convince the Xanatos human to raise them and break the spell. Shaking her head irritably, she banished the thought in haste.
 
They were gone. No more to bedevil her, ruin her careful plans, insist upon their maddening fondness for humanity in the face of an obvious truth that should have been as crystal-clear back then as it was now. Either the humans had to die---all of them---or the gargoyles would. All of them. Besides herself.  No, the old clan would disturb her world no longer.
 
Dominique told herself that she was glad they were gone. It had been damnably frustrating, far more than she had thought it would be, to know that they lived and still could not see.
 
Of course, they weren't alive anymore. Save for Angela.
 
She felt strangely empty.
 
Dominique Destine stared moodily out into the middle distance. Shadows lengthened from the old trees, and the high, warm sun went shining low and mellow. Cool air raised gooseflesh on her bare arms, tightened her nipples beneath the wool halter. She growled a little in irritation with the beastly human form, then started unpleasantly to realize that the time had grown so late.
 
A car's engine growled on the street below, louder than most of the modern, luxury automobiles favored by her neighbors. Then again, Elisa's car was, in it's own way, as much of a vanity. Dominique knew who it was without having to look.
 
The human. That human. That damned human.
 
She padded, lightly as the predator she was, around the edge of the terrace so that she could see Elisa, knowing that from that human's vantage on the ground, she could not see her.
 
What to do about Elisa Maza. Who was to blame for all this ruin.
 
Who had bowed to her insistence of her people's fault in this easily enough. Demona had been surprised, even in her fury at the clan's death and Angela's capture, how good that small admission had felt.
 
There would be a certain aesthetic pleasure, Dominique mused as she watched the detective park her antique car, in killing Elisa. Beyond the emotional satisfaction, of course. The angle of her long, caramel hued neck if it was snapped just so, or perhaps the pretty vivid red of far, far too much blood spilled. The transformed gargoyle smiled, just a little, and her eyes narrowed.
 
Elisa opened her door and stepped out of the Fairlane. For a moment, she seemed to lean on its hood, almost unsteadily. Her shining black hair was no longer immaculately brushed; the near-blue highlights in it were dulled.
 
Motionless, Dominique watched her move slowly up the walk to stand before the wrought-iron gate. Even from here, her exhaustion was evident. Such easy prey. Dominique thought of her daughter's stricken face.
 
Sunset was coming. The immortal sorceress cursed softly and turned on the balcony, stomping back into the house. She did not even want to look at Angela.
 
Dominique stabbed the security keyboard, and Elisa's face flickered onto the screen. The human really did look awful, she thought with satisfaction. Why wasn't she buzzing to be let in? Dominique fingered the activation button of the tiny but deadly laser canons that were set into the gate's brickwork.
 
Thinking of Angela, she did not. It was better by far to get this human out of their lives, and she had every intention of doing it, but Dominique knew that, thanks to Goliath's foolishness, the young gargoyle did not entirely trust her. And she was bonded to that human.
 
If she meted upon Elisa any of the vastly creative deaths she had so fervently imagined, Angela could be...difficult.
 
And then there was no time left to ponder it, because night had fallen.
 
Dominique shrieked with rage and frustration as the pain coursed through her with the sickening immediacy of crushed bone, as the spell gave back her wings, her tail, herself, her body.
 
Angela broke free of stone with a strangled, despairing roar. She stood wildly, her eyes white-rimmed, still clutching a silent Bronx. Her gaze met Demona and she stopped, flinching, and then lifted her chin in hopeless defiance.
 
"Your human is outside the gate," snapped the immortal. "I suppose that you want to see it."
 
"Elisa?" The sudden surge of hope in Angela's eyes was sharp as a knife in her belly.
 
Demona smacked the gate intercom with the back of her talon. Watching the human startle afforded a certain limited satisfaction.
 
"We know you're here, Maza," she spat reluctantly. "Come up."
 
The woman must have sprinted, she arrived so quickly, though she had looked in no condition to run. Demona had a moment to consider that she did not like that this human had become familiar with the floor plan of her home before the door opened and Elisa staggered in.
 
Angela lunged for her with a truly beautiful predatory swiftness, and swept the human up into her arms. Maza let out a startled squeak as leather wings enclosed her and the superior gargoyle strength lifted her off the ground. A shame that the move did not end in evisceration, Demona mused as Angela clung fiercely to the detective.
 
"God, Angela, I am so glad to see you safe," Elisa was choking, and there were tears upon the golden cheekbones, and the lavender. Angela touched her brow to the human's forehead, briefly stroked Elisa's long hair.
 
Bronx whined and rubbed his head against Elisa's side, then trotted up to Demona and looked up to her with his confused animal eyes. Sighing heavily, the immortal reached down and scratched his webbed ears, and wondered what on Earth she was going to do.
 

croak. “You can’t glide, not now.” It sounded like not ever was left unsaid. “It’s not safe. It’s just not safe.”

“It never was detective.” Demona’s cold voice interrupted the private moment.