Killra's Story
Chicago, Illinois
March, 2001
Nathaniel Thompson turned up his collar and thrust his hands deep in the
pockets of his coat, squinting into the harsh wind that gave the city its best-known
nickname.
It was getting late. She wasn't coming.
After all, she'd only said she would try to meet him. Try. If she was able
to slip away. If the rest of her clan hadn't found out how she was spending her
nights. He imagined they would approve just as much as his own family would if
they knew he was in love with a gargoyle.
Theirs was a relationship doomed from the start. Oh, sure, in the years
since the gargoyles had 'come out' and revealed themselves to humanity, there were
the rumors. Rumors of people with a taste for the exotic.
People like him.
But this wasn't some tabloid kink! He loved Rayne, loved her all the more
because he knew it was hopeless. Knew it was doomed.
If she'd been human, he would have wasted no time asking her to marry
him. They were so perfectly suited to each other that it didn't seem to matter that
she had wings and he didn't, that he went around by day while she stood frozen in
stone. When they were together, they weren't a human and a gargoyle but just two
people, two people who cared deeply for each other.
He sighed and began to turn, ready to leave the windswept rooftop and
return to his warm and lighted office below. Even after hours, there was enough
work to do to keep one of Chicago's leading businessmen occupied far into the
night.
His main game was banking, with a side in antiquities, which was
probably what had contributed to his interest in gargoyles in the first place. His
books and scrapbooks on the subject covered one whole wall, ranging from photo
studies of architectural pieces to news clippings to fiction -- and in the past few
years there had been a glut of fiction on the subject, most of it highly improbable.
He liked to read some of the more outlandish stories and articles to
Rayne. Always made her laugh. She had a laugh that he could easily listen to for
the rest of his life.
Nate sighed and shook his head. No use. No use even thinking about it.
The closer he got to forty, the more frequent and blatant his parents' hints
on marriage became. They were eager to see grandchildren, terrified that he would
die without producing an heir to the Thompson name and fortune.
His mother would do backflips of joy if she knew the thought was finally
in his head ... right up until the moment she realized the object of his affections was
a six-foot Valkyrie with wings, and a tail.
What was he to do? Marry someone else, some daughter of a steel baron's
family with a pedigree and inheritance to match his own? He knew plenty of
eligible women, any of whom would admirably suit his mother's criteria. He'd been
attending the same functions and parties as most of them since he was a teenager.
And while there had been a few liaisons and romances, the prospect of spending
the rest of his life with one of them had been unbearable even before the night he'd
met Rayne.
Even if he could find one who would marry him for form's sake, dutifully
produce a couple of kids, and then live in cooperative indifference while each
pursued their own affairs, he doubted any of them would put up with his love for
Rayne. It wasn't like she was a country club tennis coach or music teacher.
Human and gargoyle. Star-crossed lovers. A Romeo and Juliet for the
modern era. If only it were that simple -- not that deception and suicide were
simple, nor an at-all-feasible solution to his problems. Something less drastic. Why
couldn't he be open about it? Why couldn't their love be proof that the two races
could live together, could join and find happiness together?
A shadow raced across the roof, passing just in front of his feet. He
stopped at once, his heart springing eagerly into his chest. The hand that had been
reaching for the control panel to the access door snapped back.
She landed a few yards from him, raising both hands to smooth her hair.
She wore it unbound, except for the narrow braids that began at each temple and
were pulled back to be joined in a thicker one that lay atop the loose fall of silvery-
white.
Her skin was a fine blue-grey, the color of the morning sky as the fog was
just beginning to lift, the color of faded denim. Her wings were batlike, with a
single hooked talon at their most upswept point. Her tail and her legs were long
and lithe, her body muscular yet shapely beneath modified close-fitting black jeans
and a sapphire-blue backless blouse.
"I'm sorry I'm late," she said breathlessly. "The wind off the lake is very
strong tonight, and I had to convince my rookery brother not to follow me."
"I'm just glad to see you." He touched the bony ridge over her eye, its
shape like a wide and blunted W. "You're not going to get in trouble with your
clan, I hope."
She shrugged and looked toward the lake, her expression troubled. "I
don't like lying to them. Why can't I just tell them?"
"You know what would happen. They'd forbid you from seeing me.
Humans and gargoyles can co-exist," he said bitterly, quoting from a propaganda
brochure, "but not co-habitate."
"We can't be the only ones!" Rayne said. "There have to be others who've
felt this way! What's so wrong about it?"
"Leaving all of humanity's quirks out of it, there aren't enough gargoyles
to risk your gene pool by carrying on non-productive arrangements."
"Why, Nate, is that a proposal?" Her voice cracked on the last word and
he saw that her emotions were as frayed as his own. The constant stress of trying to
hide their feelings, trying to keep their secret, was wearing them both down.
He took her hands in his, the touch of her three-fingered alien flesh
seeming more right and normal now than the hands of any human woman. "Rayne,
if I could, I would. I'd love to ask you to spend the rest of your life in a non-
productive arrangement with me."
"We could go away!" she said with the wildness of youth. "Far away,
where no one knows us."
She made it sound so easy. Just go away. For her, it might be possible.
Her clan would have no way of tracking her, and it wasn't as if she had a company
to worry about. For him, though ... even if he could leave everything that he'd
worked so hard to build, even if he could create a new life and identity for himself
... his father's lawyers were the best in the Midwest, and noplace on earth would be
beyond their reach.
Rayne saw all of this in his face, and her shoulders sagged beneath her
caped wings. "We can't be the only ones," she repeated, in both desperation and
stubbornness. "That woman in New York --"
"That's never been proven," Nate cut in.
"Well, what are we to do?" she demanded. "Nate ... I can't go on like this!
I can't keep lying to my clan. They're expecting me to choose a mate soon."
"Mine, too."
"If we just went to them, together, maybe ..."
"Maybe what? They'd see how happy we were together, and it would
soften their hearts?"
"You don't have to sound so mean about it!" Her eyes flickered for a
moment, that ember flash telling him how upset she truly was.
"I'm not trying to sound mean, Rayne! I'm trying to be realistic! If there
were some way, some ... some legitimate case precedent ... maybe we'd have a leg
to stand on."
"Someone's got to be first."
Nate closed his eyes, imagining he could feel the thrum and vibration of
the building beneath his feet. His building. His company. Someone had to be first,
she was right, but let it be someone else. Someone with less to lose.
He couldn't say those things to Rayne, but he didn't have to. Like before,
she read it in his face. Give up everything he had, become an outcast and the object
of snide ridicule in late-night talk show monologues? He couldn't do it, and she
understood as clearly as if he'd said it aloud.
"I'll go now."
"Rayne, don't go! I love you."
"I love you too, Nate ... but I can't live like this." A single tear rolled
down her cheek. "We'll both be better off."
"Rayne --"
"Good-bye, Nate." She took three running steps and leapt from the edge,
spreading her wings to catch the wind.
"Good-bye," he whispered.
He returned to his office, tried to lose himself in his work.
The next night, he waited on the roof in a cold and miserable downpour.
She didn't come. He tried to tell himself it was the weather, even though he knew
better. She loved the rain, had been named for it. That was how he'd first seen her,
gliding through the clouds like some sort of weather-spirit, reveling in it the way
someone else might revel in rolling on the grass of a springtime meadow.
She didn't come the next night, either. Or the night after that.
He thought about trying to seek her out. He knew where her clan lived,
but their reaction to his appearance would be less than welcoming.
Back to work. His business became his central focus. He threw himself
into it with a dedication he'd never shown before. Anything to keep his mind off
her. Anything to stop the way his heart skipped each time a shadow crossed the
moon.
One evening a week after their dismaying rooftop meeting, Nate was in
his office catching up on e-mail and correspondence regarding an upcoming
antiquities fair when one of his subordinates popped in.
"Found something for you, boss," Amelia said, grinning impishly.
"I thought you were at that estate auction."
"It's over and done. Barrows and Trent made a blanket offer on all the
furniture, which just left the odds and ends for the rest of us to quibble over."
"All the furniture? Even that twelfth-century chair --"
"Even that."
"Didn't you bid?"
"I wasn't going to bankrupt the company," she replied tartly. "But I did
find one thing I thought you might like." She held up a book, its leather cover split
and cracked, its pages yellowed and coming out.
"I hope you got a good deal," Nate said dryly. "What is it?"
"A diary, dating back to the late 1800s."
"What made you think of me?"
"Well," she said with a smug little smile, "it's supposedly written by a
gargoyle."
Nate sat up straighter. "What?"
"Oh, it gets better." Her eyes twinkled. "According to this diary, he not
only caused the Great Fire, but he had a human wife!"
"That does sound ... interesting," Nate said, trying to disguise the sudden
flare of excitement in his chest. "Thank you, Amelia."
"Anytime, boss." She dimpled at him and left the office.
Nate stared at the book.
Could it be true? A gargoyle's diary? A gargoyle who had loved a human?
If it was ... if it was ... it could be just what he needed to prove to himself that he
and Rayne weren't some freakish twist of fate. That they weren't spitting in the face
of Nature by falling in love.
He was probably getting his hopes up over nothing. It would turn out to
be a hoax. There would be no way to prove or disprove anything that might be
contained within those pages. And that bit about starting the Great Fire -- that had
to be made up. It was probably all fabricated. Fictional.
Still, it might make for a good read ...
* *
Farmlands outside of Chicago
July, 1814
"As the only male in your generation, my son, you have many things to
learn and many responsibilities to fulfill."
"Yes, Papa." Killra Lance was only fourteen years out of the egg, and
while that would have made him of adolescence if he were human, because of his
slower rate of growth he was only the size of a schoolchild.
He wasn't sure what his father meant about responsibilities. Surely Papa
didn't expect Killra to be responsible for his rookery sisters. There were fifteen of
them, and only one of him. How could he possibly tell them what to do? They
picked on him all the time anyway! If he tried to boss them, they'd first laugh and
then pinch him until he had no choice but to cry. Then Papa would scold him, and
Mama would shake her head and cluck her tongue and tell him not to be a sissy-
boy.
Still, he listened to his father with all seriousness, even when Papa began
talking about things that made no sense to him. Sure, he'd wondered where eggs
came from, but what Papa was describing sounded downright unnatural, not to
mention disgusting.
"Don't worry, Papa," Killra said reassuringly. "I'd never do that with
any of my sisters!"
Papa chuckled uneasily and scratched at the bony spurs down the side of
his cheek with one battle-scarred talon. "Now, son, that's not why I'm telling you
all of this. When you're older, you'll understand better. I wanted to tell you now,
though, because females tend to mature faster than males and I don't want your
sisters gliding rings around you."
"Oh."
"You'll lead this clan someday, so it's important that you be prepared."
"Me? Lead the clan? Channa won't like that!" He shuddered at the thought
of his biggest sister's wrath. Channa was even already a hunter, not just catching
rats and stray dogs like the rest of them. She bragged every night about how she
would be the best hunter and warrior in the clan.
"But you are my son," Papa said, ruffling Killra's unruly tuft of white
hair. "You'll follow in my tracks. It will be up to you to see to the continuance of
our clan. You'll need to choose a mate well and wisely. One who will lay many
eggs, many strong sons."
Killra stared at him. Choose a mate? From among his rookery sisters?
"Eew! But, Papa, I don't like them! Girls, yuck! And they don't like me, either.
They're always mean to me."
"None of that, now. You need to stand up for yourself, son. Show them
you won't take being pushed around. As for 'yuck,' I promise, that will change in a
few years. You'll see."
"Yes, Papa." But inwardly, he didn't believe it. His sisters were conceited
snotlings one and all, except maybe for Hailla.
"There are some other things I need to tell you. We live an outlaw life,
Killra, do you know what that means?"
"No, Papa."
"When I was a boy, it was easier. There weren't so many humans around.
We had this land to ourselves, and the game was plentiful. But now the farms are
here, and the pastures. In order to survive, we have to take from the humans. The
milk we bring you is from their cows, and so is much of the meat you eat. Their
cows, their chickens. It is what we must do to survive. But they don't know about
us. Sometimes they see strange shapes in the sky and think they are ships from
other worlds. Or one of their hounds will chase us away from a kill, and the
humans find one of their cattle laid open, and blame it on these same mysterious
ships. If they did see us ... have you ever seen a human, son?"
"Not up close."
"They're different from us, small and fragile. They lack wings, tails, and
claws. Their hands have an extra finger --"
Killra stuck out his own small hands and waggled them, tried to imagine
another digit there. "Really?"
"They breed faster, grow faster, die younger. They do not turn to stone by
day. And they have a strange range of hues. Most are pale, at least in this part of
the world, and a few are dark, but they are all in shades of pink or tan or brown."
"Not like us.!" Killra's own skin was slate-grey, like Mama's, and Papa's,
and all the rest of his clan.
"Many humans don't even know we exist. Those that have seen us mistake
us for demons or monsters. They fear us and hate us because they do not
understand. It is ignorance that makes them fearful, Killra, always remember that.
We cannot hold that against them."
"I'll remember. But if they are afraid of us, why don't we go someplace
else?"
Papa gestured around. "The cave by the lake, these woods, even this old
barn, built and abandoned by humans long before you were born ... these places are
our home. Where else would we go? We stay here and protect our home and our
clan." He stood, tall and proud against the full light of the moon. His wings were
half-spread, his long white hair blowing back from his noble features. "Gargoyles
protect, Killra. Like we br--"
A great cannonlike roar shattered the nighttime stillness. Beneath them in
the barn, pigeons and swallows went into a frenzy, streaming out through the
cracks in the roof.
Killra cried out, then blushed in shame at what Mama would call his
'mouselike squeaking.' He turned to his father to apologize, but Papa was not there.
"Papa?"
A dark blotch marred the roof where Papa had been standing. Killra
touched it and found it warm, wet. Under the moon's glow, it was nearly black.
Young he might be, but he knew blood when he saw it. "Papa!"
A groan answered him. Papa lay behind him, sprawled on the sloped roof
and clutching at the shingles. Killra jumped up to run to him, then threw himself
flat in an instinct of terror. The roar came again. Hot and metallic things buzzed
over him like a swarm angry hornets.
He scrambled to Papa, whose claws were pulling loose the shingles to
which he clung. Papa was sliding, sliding toward the drop. Killra grabbed his wrist,
but Papa was a massive, fully-muscled adult and Killra was only a hatchling. The
weight towed him inexorably toward the edge.
Voices were approaching, and at first Killra felt a wild burst of hope. The
clan! Coming to help! Then he heard the quality to their speech, their accents.
Humans!
"Told you so," one said. "Told Old Man Hennessey, too. Now we'll have
some proof! These monsters won't have any more of my herd!"
"Are you sure you hit it? That new-fangled breech-loader of yours ..."
"Accourse I hit it! Big one, too!
"Missed the little one, though."
"Did not! Didn't you see it fall?"
"Fell before you fired."
"Ballocks."
"Ballocks yourself."
Killra dug in his feet but it was no good. "Papa! I'm slipping!"
"Let go, Killra. Let me go," Papa choked. Killra heard the odd whistling
undertone to his words and realized that air was being sucked in and out of a
ragged hole in Papa's chest.
He began to cry, not caring if Mama would think him a sissy-boy.
"Killra ..."
"Please, Papa! Please hold on!"
"Don't blame the humans," he gasped. "Don't hate the humans. Remember
... they don't understand. Remember ..."
A great patch of shingles gave way beneath them. Papa rolled to the edge
and off, Killra tumbling right after. But Killra's training took over and he unfurled
his wings, soaring in a circle. He automatically looked around for Papa, sure that
he would see the dark blue wings shadowing above him. But the heavy thump of a
large body landing on the earth told him the truth he didn't want to hear. He
swooped around, saw Papa in a motionless heap beside the barn.
The two humans came running around the corner, carrying long guns,
their voices raised in excitement when they saw Papa. Killra wailed in denial and
horror, and they looked up quickly, socking their guns to their shoulders.
Panicked, Killra whirled and fled. A third shot grazed the very tip of his
wing, making him veer in midair. Then the cover of the light woods concealed him.
"Papa!" he moaned, and the tears poured down his face.
He wanted to go back, to make those humans pay for what they had done.
But what could he do? One young gargoyle, not even old enough to hunt, against
two armed men? His father's last words rang in his mind.
Don't hate the humans.
His warrior inexperience and his desire to obey Papa's last command
combined to make him turn his back on the dreadful scene, and slowly make his
heartbroken way back to the cave where most of the clan preferred to live. It was
carved by water from a rearing bulk of granite, the land all around it rough with
boulders. No humans would ever try to claim this land for their farms, not when
there were so many flat and fertile fields to be had.
Killra returned home with a heavy soul, to deliver the news to Mama, his
sisters, and his clan.
* *
From Killra's Journal --
I will never forget how it went when I told them. Mama's scream of
anguish. Channa's scream of rage. Hailla's tears. The uproar and grief from the rest
of my sisters. Every loss hurt us, but to lose my father, our leader ... without him,
none of us knew what to do.
We all knew that there was nowhere to go that would be free of humans.
They ruled the world, spreading over it to every far corner. Even the deepest
jungles in far-off Brazil and the frozen Arctic would someday be explored.
In the end, we stayed. We had to. Mama and Papa had been the only
adults left to look after us, and with Papa gone, it was all Mama could do to keep
us fed. She soon fell into a black depression, became listless and lifeless. I had to
force her to eat, or else she would have wasted away to nothing.
My rookery sisters blamed the humans. Like me, they were young, but
unlike me, they hadn't had long hours of instruction and counsel from Papa. When
I tried to tell them how he'd insisted that I not hate the humans for what they did,
they got mad at me, called me a weakling, said I was making excuses for the very
ones who had murdered my father.
Channa was especially furious. She'd always had the worst temper, even
since she was a tiny hatchling. Papa's death gave her a focus for her anger, and her
hatred for the humans became an all-consuming fire.
In the face of all of this, it was hard for me to obey Papa's final wish. I
kept reminding myself that he had not only said it before they shot him but
after. Even knowing his own death was upon him, he still said it. Don't hate
them. They don't understand.
I held on to that, but it wasn't easy. I took to going off alone to spy on the
humans. I watched through their windows as they ate and read and talked and
fought. I perched in shadowed rafters when they held parties and barn dances.
I eventually came to see that they weren't all alike. Just as there were kind
gargoyles and mean gargoyles, in my very own clan, there were kind humans and
mean humans. They had the same needs wishes and hopes as we did. Food.
Comfort. Security. Family. Love. Mothers sang to their infants just as Mama had
once sung to me. Lovers embraced in the dark, just as I'd seen mates do in our clan.
Grown children cared for their elderly parents, just as we did. Not so different, not
so different at all.
Mama died in the bitterly cold winter of the year before I came of age.
That would have been in 1833. An illness had settled into her lungs that not even
stone sleep could cure, and she had never gotten over her mate's death so she had
lost the will to fight, the will to live.
Before dying, she named Channa to be her successor. I didn't mind,
though I knew Papa would have been disappointed. My only worry was that
Channa, for all of her warrior skills, was ruled by her emotions instead of her
wisdom. I was afraid she would lead the clan into danger.
Our clan was in danger enough from within. Papa used to tell me how it
was when he was a boy, when the clan had been strong and thriving. But it had
dwindled. Mine was the first rookery in fifty years, hatched with the turn of the
century.
We'd gotten too inbred. We needed fresh blood to strengthen the clan, or
we would die out. Sometimes, my sisters would discuss moving, trying to find
other gargoyles. But it had been so long since the last time we'd seen any others
that we didn't know where to look. I couldn't even remember the last time we'd had
another gargoyle come to visit.
This was my future. A dying clan, which would be hastened along by
Channa's temper. All of my rookery sisters knowing that I was their only eligible
male, their only chance at a mate. Some might have found it flattering to have the
attention of so many females, but they annoyed me. Channa especially, who
seemed to have gotten it into her head that because she would be leader, I would be
hers by right.
Papa had told me that someday I would view females in a different light
than when I was a child. That was true. They weren't yucky anymore. Each was
beautiful in her own way. I suspected that I would eventually choose Hailla, who
was the most gentle of the lot. I found her gentleness the most appealing. That is, if
Channa would let me choose Hailla or any of the others.
My prospects looked bleak.
Then I met Abigail ...
The first time I saw her was at one of those barn dances. She was new to
the area, her father having just bought a farm on the other side of the river. She
stood by the wall, not knowing anyone, feeling like an outsider. Watching, just like
I did.
I still remember the way she looked, wearing a new blue calico dress just
for the occasion. Her hair was the color of wheat, shining under the lanterns. By
human standards, her looks were only average and she wasn't half so buxom as the
more popular girls. But there was something about her that reached out to me.
I felt like I had something in common with Abigail. The rest of my clan
was impatient with me, because I didn't have much to say, didn't get into shouting
matches with my sisters. Abigail's shyness put her in much the same place. Neither
of us were outgoing, able to easily make friends. So it seemed right to me that I
should feel a rapport with her.
I started watching over her, and a good thing, too. One night, when she
was going home after taking soup to a sick neighbor, a bunch of drunken village
boys decided to have sport with her. Following her, jeering and leering at her,
asking for kisses, making other and ruder suggestions. I scared them off, and
scared Abigail too. She fainted, but revived in my arms as I was carrying her back
toward her family's farm.
That was the beginning. At first, she was afraid of me, but we soon
became friends. I would glide after sundown to perch in a tree outside of her
window, and she would open it and lean out so that we could talk for hours. When
she could make excuses to go out after dark, we would meet.
Eventually, I realized that I was finding in Abigail what I was missing in
my rookery sisters. She never scolded me, never belittled me, never teased me.
Never chased after me or made demands. We were content just to be in each
other's company. The best of friends, but falling in love too.
I kept my visits a secret from the clan. I lied when they asked where I
went every night. But I wasn't as careful as I should have been. I stopped checking
to see if anyone was following me. I should have checked.
They found out. My sisters found out that I was in love with a human.
* *
Farmlands outside of Chicago
May, 1837
"... Lance is my last name, because it's the name of our clan," Killra
explained. "Clan Lance."
"Oh, I see!"
Abigail was sitting on a quilt beneath a tree, and he was reclining with his
head in her lap while she brushed and braided his long white hair. She'd told her
parents she was going to a meeting of her Young Ladies' Sewing Circle, and
hopefully her mother would be too busy with her new baby to think to ask any of
the other members.
Her father was off at a meeting of his own, discussing worriedly with
other farmers whether President Van Buren would be able to pull the country out
of something called a 'depression,' which Killra gathered was quite unlike the bleak
despair that had fallen over his mother in the last years of her life.
"Have I told you how much I enjoy your cooking?" he said, eyeing the
apple dumplings and trying to decide if he could fit another one into his well-filled
belly. The remains of their picnic supper were spread around them, and he'd tried
his best to make it so that she didn't have to carry much back to the farmhouse.
"I'm not that good at it," she said, blushing. "Mother made the fried
chicken. I'm sorry it was cold. I made the bread myself, though."
"It was wonderful. Everything was wonderful. I wish someone in my clan
could cook like you!"
"But then you wouldn't have as much reason to come and see me."
He rolled onto his elbow. "It's not just that, Abigail. It's not even mostly
that. You know I'd like you no matter what."
Her blush deepened and she looked down at her hands, flustered. "So
your clan doesn't cook much?"
"Not hardly. My sisters ... it's all any of them can do to hack a piece
of meat off a cow and toast it on a stick over the fire."
Channa's voice shook with barely-contained fury. "And what else have
you told her about us, Killra? What else have you told this human wretch, decrying
your own sisters?"
Abigail gasped, and Killra sat up to see shadows of female gargoyles
detaching themselves from the night and coming closer. Five, eight, a dozen,
fifteen. All of them, in a glaring circle around him and Abigail.
"So this is Killra's little human friend," sneered Marra, flipping her wings
haughtily.
"Skinny thing," Tesha observed.
"Leave us alone!" Killra said, getting to his feet. "We're not bothering
you."
"If you think that, Killra, you're a bigger fool than I thought," Channa
said. "How could it not bother us? Our own dear brother, frittering his nights away
in the company of a human?"
"What can she do for you that we can't?" Penra asked. "Besides cooking,
that is!"
"I said leave us alone!"
"What about you, dearie? Cat got your tongue?" Marra snaked out her tail
to poke Abigail with the pointed tip.
"Go away!" Abigail squeaked.
"Such a mouse, listen to her!" Tesha laughed. "Give her some cheese!"
Killra pulled Abigail up beside him. "She's my friend!"
"I just bet she is," Marra said. "Your special friend. Has she let you under
her skirts yet?"
"Shut up!"
Channa stalked up to him and began thumping him in the chest lightly,
using the heel of her hand. "What is it, Killra? What is it about her? Are you such a
weakling, such a coward, that you can't handle a real female?" With each thump,
she pushed him back a step.
"Not so fast, mousie," Tesha said, catching Abigail by the arm. "I want to
hear all about what you've been doing with our brother. What does he see in you?
What's your secret?"
"Let go of me," Abigail said, trying to pull free.
"She does have nice hair," Glora said, tugging at a blond lock.
"But look at these scrawny arms!" Marra gave her a pinch.
Killra tried to get around Channa. "Leave her alone!"
"Aww, she can't take it!" Penra chortled. "She's going to cry."
The rest ringed Abigail, taunting.
"Cry, little human!"
"Look at her, no wings, no tail --"
"That stupid smooth forehead --"
"She must be the runt of the litter!"
"Throw her back, she's too small!"
Killra tried to shove Channa out of his way, but his sister was bigger and
stronger and before he knew what had happened, she knocked him down and
braced her taloned foot on his neck.
"You stay put, little brother."
He looked around desperately. Abigail was weeping now, stumbling in a
circle trying to find an escape, while his sisters laughed and pushed her from one to
the other, plucking at her clothes and hair. The only one besides Channa not taking
part was Hailla, who stood nearby.
"Hailla! Make them stop! They'll hurt her!"
"Be still, Killra," she said, and there was a coldness in her tone he'd never
heard before. "You brought this on yourself."
"You should have chosen me," Channa said, pressing down with her
talons until they drew three pinpricks of blood from his throat. "But if you'd chosen
another of our sisters, I would have accepted that. Even Hailla. I wouldn't have
liked it, but I would have accepted it. But to throw us all over for a human --!"
"None of us would have you now," Hailla said.
"Then let me go! Let us both go!"
"Not until you and your human have learned your lesson," Channa
declared.
"Channa, they'll hurt her!"
"A few scratches, don't be such a sissy-boy!"
Abigail, nearly blinded by her tears, tripped over a branch and went full-
length in the grass. Killra's sisters danced around her, their grace making even
more of a mockery of her fall. They swatted her with their tails, tried to flip up her
torn skirt.
Abigail seized the branch and jumped up, brandishing it. "I'll hit you! I
swear I will!"
Derisive hoots from his sisters greeted her threat.
"Ooh, look out for the big bad human warrior!" Marra called. She lunged
at Abigail, who yelped.
As Abigail drew back the branch to swing, Tesha was coming up to grab
her from behind. The branch slammed into Tesha's face, sending her reeling with blood
spurting from her brow ridges.
"Look what you've done!" Marra shrieked, lashing out. Her claws sliced
across Abigail's hand, making the girl drop the branch.
Abigail screamed. Killra echoed her, his shout frightened and furious. He
tried to get Channa off of him, but she only grinned savagely and kept him pinned.
The mood of the circle of she-gargoyles changed in a thunderstroke, from
mocking cruelty to bloodlust. Tesha, maddened by her wound, fell on Abigail in a
frenzy. The others joined her, tearing at the girl.
Killra heaved his body, throwing Channa to the earth. She cursed and
tried to snatch his ankle, but he bounded out of reach and into the midst of the
fight. He ripped his sisters off of Abigail, striking and pummeling them without
caring who he hit or hurt. His eyes blazed with the odd yellowish cast that his
mother said he'd inherited from his grandsire.
He found Abigail crumpled on the ground, and knew just by looking at
her that he was too late. He couldn't even tell which had been the killing blow.
His sisters had fallen silent, their eyes shining like rubies, their fangs
bared. He turned and looked at them one by one.
"You killed her."
"Good riddance," Channa said, brushing the dust from her tail. "I only
wish I could have done it myself."
"I will never forgive you! How can you expect me to mate with any of
you, now?"
"How can you think we'd have you?" Marra shot back. "Human lover!
She ruined you!"
"She loved me!"
"You're tainted, Killra," Hailla said, with just a touch of sorrow.
"Tainted."
"We always knew you were odd," Glora said, "but this, this was
perverse!"
"You're cast out of this clan, Killra," Channa said, her tail twitching as if
she hoped he would protest and give her a reason to attack him. "Get away from
here, and never come back!"
He stared at her, stunned. "Are you insane?"
"Channa ..." Penra said, "Channa, he's the only male! We can't lose him!"
"Would you mate with him?" Marra demanded. "After he's been with a
human? Would you want his corrupt seed making you heavy with egg?"
"I want nothing to do with any of you!" Killra said. "Fine! Cast me out!
I'll go gladly! You'll all die out, and the world will be a better place!"
"Go now, Killra," Hailla said, seeing the rage flare in Channa's eyes. "Go
now, while you still can."
With one last look at Abigail, at poor Abigail dead on the earth just like
Papa had been, Killra left.
* *
From Killra's Journal --
So I left my clan, my home. I didn't know where I would go, and I didn't
care. I wandered for a long time, living on what I could scrounge.
Between the years 1838 and 1858, I traveled around the country. I was
dimly aware of great changes and events going on in America. The telegraph, the
annexation of Texas, the Gold Rush in California, and the growing dissension
between the northern and southern states kept the humans much too busy to worry
about one lone and wandering gargoyle.
Eventually, homesick for the sight of familiar places, I returned to
Chicago. It was 1860, and Southern Carolina had just had the temerity to secede
from the clan that was the Union.
Chicago. Huge, teeming, sprawling, crowded. All of the railroads came
together there, or at least so it seemed. The stock yards were enormous, unlike
anything I'd ever seen. The buildings were crammed together in a hodgepodge, all
built of wood, streets and alleys making a labyrinth of utter chaos. The city was
such a madhouse that one gargoyle roosting on the rooftops could go unnoticed.
One night, I heard something above the usual clamor of city noises. It was
singing, a singing so sweet and pure that it pierced the gloom around me.
Wondering at the source of such a beautiful sound, I followed it to a rooming-
house. The shutters were open in the attic room, warm light spilling forth. I landed
on a narrow ledge outside and peeked in, and that was when I saw Juli.
She was singing while she sewed, her hands moving deftly over rich
fabric. I would later learn that she was a seamstress whose skills were greatly
sought-after by the well-to-do ladies of the city. I could understand that, but I
always thought she could have made a good life for herself on the stage. Her voice
was beautiful, unearthly.
And so was she.
Juli. Small and slim, with a pert little nose and large green eyes, delicate
features surrounded by a cloud of auburn hair. She swished around the room in a
crinoline of emerald green, which she was making for a client but couldn't resist
trying on herself.
After Abigail, I didn't dare show myself to any more humans. I didn't want
to be hated and hunted, but I also didn't want to be responsible for any more
suffering. Yet night after night I was drawn back to Juli's room, to sit outside and
listen to her sing as she worked. Sometimes she would have friends over, though
she was often a loner like myself.
Through eavesdropping on her conversations, I learned that her full name
was Julianna Bernadette Farren. Her mother had been either unwed (shocking in
that day and age) or widowed very early on. She'd given Juli into the care of some
friends when she wasn't able to provide for a child. Juli had grown up in a small
town, and I gathered that her life there had been difficult. She'd run away to seek
work in Chicago.
She seemed a very nice young woman, friendly but reserved, as if there
was something about her that set her apart from the rest of her kind. Although we
hadn't met, I considered her a friend, the only one I had in this strange noisy town.
I thought my comings and goings were discreet, until one night when she
broke off her song and came to the window. She'd been aware of an observer for
some time, but sensed no danger from me, and had finally decided it was time we
introduced ourselves.
Unlike Abigail, Juli wasn't the least bit afraid when she saw me. She knew
her own mind and wasn't worried about what other people thought, even when her
quick tongue and determination made them look at her with puzzled concern.
Over the next year or so, I fell in love with Juli. Remembering what had
happened before, I tried to be careful. But not Juli. She was tired of being careful.
The entire population of the town where she'd grown up had ended up
thinking she was a witch, she told me, because she had a knack with lucky guesses
and could often tell things about people simply by shaking a hand or touching a
garment. Faced with that, what was it to her to be linked with a gargoyle? She
wanted to seize life in both hands, not worry about what anyone else thought. I
made her happy, she made me happy, so we should be together.
There was no way I could refuse.
We couldn't have a church wedding, but Juli didn't mind. Nor did she
mind being the breadwinner. With her inheritance that she'd been saving since the
sudden and odd death of her mother, combined with her earnings as a seamstress,
we were able to buy a small house on the outskirts of town, our yard butting up
against a large cow-shed belonging to the O'Leary family.
Our happiness filled our nights. I barely noticed that the country was torn
apart by war, brother against brother. The events themselves never reached
Chicago, but the news did. It would end with victory for the North and the
assassination of the human President, but by then I had even more things to
distract and occupy me.
In 1865, much to my surprise, Bethany came along. Bethany Faith, our
daughter. Born shell-less, like any human infant, but I could see the marks of
myself in her wings and claws. Thanks to Juli's skill with needle and thread, she
was able to make clothes that concealed Beth's heritage.
If only the rest of our problems could have been handled so easily! Juli
and I were of two worlds, but we'd made our own bridges between them. Beth, a
child of both and fully belonging to neither, seemed to know even before she was
old enough to talk that she was different from other babies. As she got older, it
only got worse ...
* *
Chicago
October, 1871
Killra came home to the sounds of arguing. In the small front room,
Duncan was standing in his crib, and extended his arms appealingly toward his
father as Killra came in.
"There's my boy," he murmured, lifting the chubby little duplicate of
himself. Outwardly, he was nearly all gargoyle, but his temperament seemed to
match those of a human baby.
"Eeeahha!" Duncan announced, honking Killra's nose.
"I bet you are," Killra said. Tucking his son into the crook of his arm, he
headed for the raised voices in the kitchen.
"--don't want to!" Bethie emphasized her words with a stamp of her
foot, her talons clicking on the wooden floor. Fists on her hips, she glared up
defiantly at Juli. "I want to play outside!"
Unlike Duncan, Bethie could pass for human in the proper clothes. Her
skin was fair, like her mother's, and her hair was a darker shade. Six years old,
she was small for her age.
Her hands were small but three-fingered, and whenever anyone
commented on it, Juli spun her usual yarn about how Bethie's father (who hardly
any of the neighbors had ever seen, except as the occasional mannish shadow
against the drapes) worked in a factory where he had to handle quicksilver, known
for its maddening or deforming effects. This earned instant pity, which made Juli
feel guilty. But better guilt than having to explain the real story.
"Child ..." Juli said, pressing her fingers to her forehead, "It's much too
late to be outside. Why not play with your dolly?"
"I been playing with dolly all night! Want to go outside!"
"It's much too late for that. Children shouldn't be running about at all
hours of the night."
"Then why can't I play in the daytime? I want to go to school, and to the
swimming hole, and go fishing, --"
"You know that's not possible, Bethany. Daytime is when you sleep."
"Everyone else sleeps at night! I'm tired of sleeping all day when all
my friends are having fun! And Margie, Margie has a job! She gets two dollars a
week, and all for her!"
"Margie works sixteen hours a day in the shoe mill!" Juli said, aghast.
"And that money goes to help her family! You can't think she spends it on penny
candy!"
"I never get to do anything!" Bethie shouted.
"Killra, talk to her," Juli pleaded. "She's making me crazy."
"Come here, sweets." Killra passed Duncan to Juli, and looped an arm
around Bethie's shoulders. He sat down and hoisted her onto his lap.
Bethie crossed her arms and stuck out her lower lip at him. "Want to play
outside. Want to go to school."
"Do you know why you can't go out in the day?"
"Because Momma's mean."
"No, that's not it," Killra said patiently, seeing Juli's lips twitch in
annoyance. "It's because you turn to stone every morning, same as me. That's how
we sleep. We only wake up when it gets dark out."
"Why?"
"We're gargoyles. That's what we do."
"I don't want to." Sullen, pouting.
"It's not something you can change, Bethie. You're not like other
children --"
"Because of you!" She swatted at him, and he caught her wrist in his large
hand.
"No hitting," he scolded sternly. "You must never hit your clan."
"Not even booger?"
Duncan squalled, maybe not old enough to understand the words but
knowing that his big sister was insulting him. Ever since he'd been born, the willful
streak in Bethie had become more pronounced. Most of the time, she was a playful
and happy-go-lucky child, but when she got in a mood, she could be a perfect little
hellion.
"Don't call your brother that," Juli and Killra said in unison.
"But why?" She swung her feet at the table leg. "I never get to do
anything."
"Maybe it's time you learned to glide," Killra suggested, glancing
warningly at Juli to forestall her objection.
If it had been up to him, he would have been tossing Bethie off of
rooftops once she was grown enough to walk, just as Papa had done to him. But the
very idea had alarmed Juli so much that he'd been forced to promise he would wait
until Bethie was older.
Bethie's eyes gleamed with excitement. "Can I? Really? Now?"
"I don't see why not."
"Killra --" Juli began, then shrugged, though she still looked worried. "Be
careful."
"We will," he said. "Come along, sweets."
"Yay!" Bethie raced to the door. "Hurry, hurry, hurry!"
Killra leaned over and kissed Juli's cheek, then the top of Duncan's head.
"We'll be back before dawn."
"Blugh!" Duncan said.
"That's right," Killra said, ruffling Duncan's fuzz of white hair.
"Hurry-hurry-hurry!" Bethie demanded, dancing from one foot to the
other.
Killra laughed. "All right, all right, I'm ready."
"Wear your coat!" Juli called, too late as the door closed behind them.
Killra chuckled and shook his head. Wear a coat? How would the child glide with
her bulky coat on? It was a strange world when a gargoyle thought someone was
being overprotective.
He knew, though, that family was just as important to Juli as it was to him.
During the early years of their marriage, she would often suddenly turn and cling to
him, make him swear that he would not go off and abandon her. That increased
after the children were born. She didn't want Bethie and Duncan to grow up not
knowing their father, the way Juli herself had.
She'd told him how her father had snuck home one night from his work on
the railroad for a passionate liaison with her mother. Two days later, Mrs. Farren
had gotten word that her husband was dead, killed in a tragic accident when a pile
of railroad ties had tumbled from a flatcar and crushed him. He'd died without ever
knowing that his last visit to his wife had borne fruit, for Juli herself came along
later that year.
It was a strange story, and bits of it nagged at Killra though he didn't
know why. But he put it out of his mind now as he motioned for Bethie to be quiet.
They crept across the field that separated their house from the O'Leary place. The
dry grass, left brown and stiff by the long drought, rustled harshly as they pushed
through it.
"Where are we going?" Bethie hissed.
"To the shed," Killra said. "The winds are too strong to try this outside,
and for your first few tries, it'll be better if you have a nice soft pile of straw to land
on. Wouldn't do for me to take you back to your mother with a broken arm, now,
would it?"
The shed was large and spacious, almost large enough to be called a barn.
The loft was filled with bales of hay. A single lantern stood on a bench. Killra lit it
and turned the wick low, knowing that the light wouldn't carry to the main house.
In the corner stall, a cow blinked sleepily at them. Killra had been a
frequent enough visitor, 'borrowing' pails of milk. The O'Learys knew about it, or
at least suspected, and had gotten in the habit of leaving some out for him. In
return, he watched over their farm.
Bethie went right to the cow, finding the end of a carrot in a bin and
urging her to eat. While she was occupied with that, Killra broke open a bale of
hay and spread it on the floor beneath the loft. When he was confident that it
should be enough to cushion a bad landing -- unless his mischievous daughter tried
to dive head-first -- he called Bethie over.
She scaled the ladder and edged out above the drop, giggling nervously. It
was only twenty feet; she'd climbed higher trees than that, but never with the intent
of leaping out.
"Wings out," Killra instructed. "We'll work on catching updrafts later.
First, I want you to get the hang of gliding down, of slowing your fall. You know
how it feels, because I've carried you. Just try not to be afraid."
"I'm not," she said, and giggled again.
"Good girl. Now then, deep breath, count three, and jump to me."
"Whee!" She didn't count, just leapt, flapping her wings like a chicken.
She went at a funny angle, too, so Killra had to scramble to catch her.
"Oof! Not quite what I had in mind," he said as he set her on her feet.
"But it was fun!" She darted back up the ladder, and this time she listened
and did as he said.
They practiced for an hour, and by the end of it she was getting the knack.
He could tell her wings were starting to ache.
"I think that's enough, Bethie."
"One more time? All by myself?"
"You want to try landing all by yourself?"
She nodded vigorously.
"Go on, then." Killra backed off and stood by the wall, trying not to let on
that he was a little uneasy. She was doing fine, true, but he sometimes swore he
could still feel the bruises from his first unassisted landing.
Bethie screwed up her little face in concentration and took a deep breath.
He saw her lips move, counting out one-two-three, and then she jumped with great
enthusiasm that carried her past the pile of hay.
"Bethie, look out!"
She'd closed her eyes, something they were going to have to work on, but
now they flew open and she saw that she was about to bump into the support beam
at the edge of the cow's stall. She veered in midair, graceful when she didn't have
to think about it, and swung around.
She touched down a little too hard, her forward momentum banging her
shins into the bench. She tumbled over it and landed in the vegetable bin. The
lantern teetered, then smashed on the floor and burst into flame. Blazing tendrils of
lamp-oil ran every which way, igniting the pile of hay.
Killra swore and grabbed a musty old horse-blanket from a shelf. He beat
at the fire, but the downdraft scattered the burning pieces. Some flew upward,
landing in the loft and catching the bales. In her stall, the cow began to low in
alarm.
"Owww!" Bethie complained, rolling over and sitting up with both hands
clapped over her shins. She saw the fire and her eyes widened.
He slapped at the hay some more, then realized there was no way he could
put it out by himself. Already, smoke was filling the shed, stinging his eyes and
coating his mouth and lungs with its charred flavor.
"Bethie!" he shouted, then went into a coughing fit.
"I'm here!" she called back. He felt her small hand clasp his and tug him
toward the door, then stop and change direction. "The cow!"
He reached out blindly and tore the latch. The three of them reached the
door at the same time. Killra yanked it open and a gust of fresh air whirled in,
making the fire surge with new life.
By the time they were out in the open field, the shed was engulfed and
bright flickerings were racing across the dry grass. Toward the main farmhouse,
and toward their own smaller home.
Bethie was yelling at the cow to come back, and started to go after it.
Killra picked her up and swung her onto his back like he was giving her a horsy-
ride.
"Hold on!"
She did, clinging to the edges of his folded wings as he loped ahead of the
flames, his shadow stretched long and preceding him.
Juli was on the porch, baby Duncan in her arms, staring in horror and awe
at the fire.
"Grab what you can," Killra ordered. "We have to get out of here!"
"But the house!"
"We can't save it!"
Duncan began to wail, and then to howl in protest as Juli plunked him into
his crib and started frantically gathering belongings. Juli looked about to join her
booger-brother in crying, but got ahold of herself and ran into her small room
to fetch her favorite rag doll.
Killra thought of the O'Learys, and the other neighbors. He should be out
there, warning them, helping them. Protecting them. But he wasn't about to leave
his family. Their safety came before anything else.
"No more time!" he said, hearing the greedy rush and crackle as the fire
sped toward them.
Carrying what they could, they fled their house forever, and watched from
a hilltop as it was consumed in the fire that continued spreading until it had
devoured most of the city.
* *
From Killra's Journal --
Things were never the same for us after the fire. Sometimes better,
sometimes worse, but never the same. The humans rebuilt, clearing away the ashes
and raising new buildings of brick, like the legendary phoenix emerging from the
soot of its own blazing death.
No one ever knew the truth about what had happened. In time, they came
to blame it on the poor innocent cow, saying that the beast had kicked over a
lantern carelessly left lit. History will remember the cow, and I'm glad. Gargoyles
are hated enough without having this disaster laid on us too.
With the new city came new gargoyles. Another clan settled in the area,
but I wasn't at all sure how they'd react to me, a gargoyle with a human wife and
half-breed children. Maybe we should have joined them. Bethie would have finally
had some friends who stayed up all night. If they'd let her be their friend, that is.
In the end, Juli and I decided that we didn't want to put ourselves through
the pain and struggle. We moved to the other end of the city and lived a quiet life.
Eventually, Bethie did find some children to play with, though they were orphans,
urchins, and ruffians of a type that made Julie raise her hands in helpless
exasperation.
Finding acceptance with them helped her find it with herself. When she
was of age and ready to strike out on her own, as determined as her mother was to
make her own way in the world whether the world liked it or not, she hugged me
and thanked me for being the best father she could hope to have. The very words
I'd never had a chance to say to my own Papa.
So I gave her his words back, and added something to them. Don't hate
the humans, I told her. They don't understand ... but maybe you can help them.
* *
Chicago
March, 2001
Nate Thompson finished reading and set the book aside. His eyes felt hot
and grainy from struggling over the cramped, old-fashioned script.
At first, it had only depressed him. Here was the proof he'd been looking
for, proof that gargoyles and humans could have successful relationships.
Marriages. Children. But their children would be bitter and angry, neither one nor
the other, freaks, outcasts. Their marriages would be secret and shameful. It only
seemed to prove that what he and Rayne felt for each other was wrong.
But then ... somehow ... as he'd reached the end of the book, it had
changed. Love was never wrong. The question was -- was he strong enough to
love, and face the consequences of it?
Sighing, he closed the book and put it in his briefcase.
The building was mostly empty now, the swing shift having gone home
hours ago. Nate greeted the night watchmen and janitors, who were used to his
comings and goings at odd times. He took the elevator down to the parking garage.
She was waiting for him, sitting cross-legged on the roof of his car. Her
jaw was set in a stubborn fashion.
"Rayne!"
"I told my clan," she said.
"And?"
"And what?" She hopped down and began to pace. "They were shocked,
appalled. My brothers were ready to pull you to pieces. The leader was ready to
drive me out."
"But they didn't," he said. "Why not?"
"One of the elders changed their minds," she said. "She told them that
something similar had happened in her clan a long time ago, and her mother had
never forgiven herself for her part in it. Her mother told her to see that it never
happened again. The rest of the clan listened to her, and finally said that I was free
to choose my own mate. Whoever, or whatever, he was." Rayne tossed her hair
back and looked at Nate steadily. "I choose you, if you'll have me."
"Oh, Rayne."
"And if you won't --"
"I will."
Her expression had been of one braced for a blow that never came. "You
... you will?"
"I'm old enough to live my own life," he said. "Yes, we'll be facing hard
times, but who hasn't? It'll be worth it, Rayne. It'll all be worth it, if I'm with you."
She came to him and put her arms and wings around him, and they stood
there in the shadows with his briefcase at their feet.
* *
The End.
Copyright 1999 by Christine Morgan; Killra and clan based on characters created by Adam.