Madam Serenity tried to call Gill to tell him about how they'd have enough of the cure
ready by next week to perform the ritual over the entire town, cutting out the root. They'd
have to have access to the water works, and their best bet was to have the mayor's
cooperation for that, (Madam Serenity hoping he wasn't one of the closet users of the game
like some of those who held public office in the past like Jesse Smith, though none of her
investigations had ever lead to him or his office).
However she got Gill's answering machine, which sounded odd. All the same, Madame
Serenity left a message on the cell phone's answering machine. Gillie at that moment
unknown to Madame Serenity was going through the same problems Serenity had decades
before still getting used to going to the bathroom sitting down.
Madam Serenity also got the sick feeling that reality wasn't doing fudging with these poor
souls yet... hopefully the video tape would show where the path of least resistance had led
reality.
+++++++
"Want some candy?" Asked one of Joy's heads handing them out to the mending police
leomans.
"No thanks..." Mal'akh turned down, waving one hand weakly, "I've had some bad
experiences with candy."
"Really? What? Want to talk about it?" One of Joy's other heads asked.
"It's a long story, back when I was a child, and I was scared I was going to wake up and not
be me anymore..."
+++++++
1689
Mal'akh shivered when the oldest witch glanced at her off handedly out of one of the
windows, but didn't even give her a second look. Mal'akh was too young to know the
stereotype humans had of all female leomans looking alike. 'Are they toying with me? Or do
they want me to ASK to become crazy like Aimiliona?!'
Without many other options, Mal'akh visited her sister and Joella (the only child there who
seemed to be completely and utterly sane). 'She's gotta be a witch too,' Mal'akh thought,
'It's the only explanation, she HAS to be a witch, these ladies who look after her are
witches, so she's gotta be a witch too! But why doesn't she just wave her fingers and make
me mad or have all the mad children hold me down and force feed me some of the demon
candy?'
"I'm so happy you came back," Joella smiled, "Aimiliona is happy too."
A spark of recognition was in Aimiliona's eyes at those words before she went back to look
at everything and nothing.
"I had to, I can't just abandon my sister."
Mal'akh didn't like being here, the dance was alluring like sweet honey, and the cub, pups,
and children all went about with no discipline or self control. If born two hundred years
later, Mal'akh would have compared it to a scene from Pleasure Island.
Joella was, like it or not, a flame shedding in this dark storm, 'But I remember the story of
what happens to the moth who gets too close to the flame...'
"Tell me more about these 'hunters' out to hurt everyone." Joella said, figuring if the
witches were bad, that maybe the hunters could help her... she didn't know about Joella's
story of them wanting to kill all the children... but... she couldn't just do nothing! She had
taken her first kill! That menat she was a big girl now right? A lioness!
"Not everyone, just everyone related to my friends." Joella corrected, "They're not like the
curs who came wanting to kill everyone." Joella said from the point of view of a child.
"I see," Mal'akh, "Please tell me more." She didn't know if she could trust these hunters
Joella mentioned anymore than she could trust the witches, but, she was a big girl, a
lioness, she had to do something.
+++++++
"You knew Loving Lady Joella?" Said all three of the nurse's heads together.
Mal'akh started at the exclaimed. "Uh, I guess... "
"What was she like as a child? What did she look like?"
Mal'akh felt kinda awkward. Since it wasn't until later Mal'akh and Joella (as far as Joella
could recall) came from Jewish families and began to become actual friends, but that... was
long ways off from where Mal'akh had talked about and hadn't been the point of the story.
++++++++
1689
"Vatican," Marie Cruz asked, "I have a question."
"Yes?" The damage gargoyle asked.
"What is the point of male gargoyles? You don't reproduce the normal way. You can
transfer into male and female shaped vessels with ease with the help of a female. You seem
about equal in strength. I'e been taught everything has a purpose. So what purpose are the
male gargoyles?"
"You're a trained assassin, you don't know these things?"
"I was taught how to end any type of life or unlife, but I wasn't taught the finer details of
how gargoyles reproduce... I had plenty to learn as it was without going mad."
"... Gargoyles can not place their spirits or spirit of others into just any rock... our insides
are like lines. This is why we can't simply transfer our spirits into rock we are touching or
rock that is cemented back into place. We can not heal naturally... "
"I remember that."
"Gargoyles in female vessels can only transfer the power, only those in 'male' vessels can
forge a worthy vessel, otherwise it would be like trying to transfer our essence into a
brick..."
Marie Cruz nodded, "I see... I'm sorry there are no female gargoyles in the new world to
help you."
"So be it. It is my duty to protect you. And I will to the end."
"Don't go throwing your life away Vatican, you're .... " She was about to say 'only friend
from her early days left, but looked at Kathrine, Draco, and realized that was a lie. "You're
my friend."
"I know."