Volume #33: "You're Not Cleared For That"

"Really? I think that qualifies as the understatement of the ages. 'Completely out of control' would be a more accurate description."

=Why should you worry? Your safety is assured, thanks to my government.=

"'Your government?!' You ally yourself with a gargoyle neo-Hitler, and claim that your government can ensure our safety? Well, please excuse me if your assurances seem hollow, my friend."

"Gentlemen ..."

SNARL!

"Oh sure, posture all you like. When the time comes, you'll be facing defeat, believe me."

"SILENCE! ...

"Now, as civilized beings, let us return to the point of this exercise. It is time to evaluate our interestes and reorganize our support structures. And that, firstly, means coming into contact with the hybrid."

"Are you sure? She shouldn't know too much about us, it could become dangerous."

"We're already in danger, gentlemen. This will not compound our peril any, as I feel that there is no reason why she shouldn't know of our presence in her life."

"Fine, then. Somehow, we must lure her to us."

=Leave that to me.=

He pulled out a handheld radio he carried with him all the time, keying it on. "General Chavez, come in."

"Chavez here. What's happening, Bluestone?"

"I've arrived at the Aerie Building. What now?"

"Wait for Rosanna to meet you. She'll let you know where we go from here."

"Following her lead, General?"

A stony silence greeted that question, followed by the quiet voice of Maria Chavez. "I really am out of my league here, Steve. I'm used to street crime, not fighting for my life against aliens."

"What makes you think this is Rosanna's league, either?"

"Just wait for her and stow the questions. Out."

A nasty expression crossed Bluestone's face as he shoved the radio back in his pocket. Allowing his hands to follow suit, he leaned against the car, awaiting the gargoyle leader's arrival.

He wasn't waiting long.

The assembled beings in the Great Hall of high Castle Wyvern looked to Rosanna. Many of them looked at her with sadness in their eyes.

"Nothing yet, Rosanna."

She approached the group, who had assembled around the seeming-last survivors of the world's gargoyle clans. Anxiously, Vinnie, Brianna, Griff and Lili sat around a table, quiet and nervous.

"We're going to keep trying, folks. We've got to find more reinforcements somehow."

Graeme, arm-in-arm with Liberty, interjected a comment into the conversation. "We know that the Rokkans have been moving around the world, though. What more can we do? We're just one clan, and not very much of one, at that."

Rosanna scanned the faces in the crowd, humn gargoyle and fae, the weight of Graeme's words falling upon her full force. Back in the day of gargoyle clans, they would have numbered in the hundreds. Now they were but a shadow of what a true Clan should have been.

Rosanna nodded. "Very well, then." She turned to Alexander Xanatos, one of her closest human friends. "Make any and all preparations you have to, Alex. Just bring us some backup. We need it desperately."

Alex's eyes became frightful. He turned to Owen Burnett at his side, the stiff, unmoved majordomo who held within him the fae trickster Puck. "What must I do to prepare?"

"Follow me, sir. We must purify the vessel of the magic before allowing more magic through it." Alex, along with his parents, solemnly followed Owen down a corridor. Rosanna at that moment chose to look at her watch.

"Oh no, I'm late. Graeme, send the parties out. I need to coordinate with General Chavez' human attack parties."

Graeme nodded curtly. "You heard her folks, move out!"

The room quickly emptied, leaving Rosanna alone with her Avalonian lover, Rain. He looked at her with fear building in his eyes.

"Be careful, Rosanna. This night does not bode well, I have this weird feeling that something very bad is going to happen."

Rosanna sighed, looking down. Her eye was suddenly caught by a glint of light from the pendant that he had given her at Solstice. She smiled, looking back up at him.

"I'm not worried, Rain. I've got a piece of you here, I'll be safe."

This made Rain smile, at last. He embraced her before turning to leave with his defense party. She in turn headed toward the top battlement.

She didn't make it to the top, however.

"What the hell ..." She looked down to see Steve Bluestone with her, in similar straits. "Steve, what's going on?"

"Dunno ... but something tells me my dad's work is about to catch up with us."

The lights suddenly came up ... revealing them to be in a room with nine men, all obscured in shadow somehow, despite the lights in the room. The leader of the group, or so he seemed to be the leader, sat at the head of the table, at the opposite end from where Rosanna and Bluestone were rousing.

"Evaluation?"

Rosanna narrowed her eyes, letting them shimmer with a red glow for a moment.

"She is too unpredictable. We cannot count on her allegiance."

"Who ever asked me for an alleigance?!" She snarled at the group. One of them, a giant by his appearance, stood up and approached her.

Then his eyes could be seen to glow. Blue. And he unfurled his wings.

"Rokkans ... and humans ... together?!"

=You are right, she cannot be trusted.=

"Trusted by who? Just who exactly do you people think you are?!"

The man at the head of the table stood up quickly. "You're not cleared for that ... Rosanna."

Now she growled louder, and would have lashed out at the leader had the Rokkan not been standing there. "How do you know my name, traitor?!"

"We know everything that goes on anywhere in the world, Rosanna. You think you have your secrets, but we know them all!"

She turned to face Steve Bluestone again. "Steve, what's going on? You said something about your father's work ..."

"And now the son of Bluestone comes to take his father's place. Come forth, boy."

Steve looked fit to be tied. "You Illuminati punks ... you can take my father's seat and SHOVE IT!"

A heated discussion started around the table after Steve's insult. He smiled, knowing he'd riled the old boys up.

"That's right, you murdering scum, I'm not going to be your little monkey. I will have blood for blood!"

Steve at that point pulled his service pistol out of his coat. Just as quickly, the Rokkan had pulled a weapon of his own, firing at Steve and knocking the pistol clear of his hand.

"Take them away. They're not ready to know their place in the grand scheme."

Another guard came behind them, stabbing them quickly with handheld sedative darts. Just as quickly as they had started their respective furious tirades, they were knocked into unconsciousness.

"Where are we now?"

"Some kind of holding cell. Looks like we're waiting for our fates."

Steve scoffed. "Typical. Of course, I shouldn't be too surprised, after all, they didn't even give my father the benefit of a trial before they blew him to smithereens."

"We didn't kill your father, Steve."

A third man's voice suddenly pierced through the darkness, as he came into view, just on the other side of the bars from the captives. He wore a robe and an obscuring hood.

"Then who did?"

"Certain interests within the Society felt that Bluestone was a threat, and pushed to have him eliminated. Others felt he was beyond use. I voted to keep him alive. We voted to let him live by only one vote ... but someone decided to overrule us."

"Gee, there's an understatement. Somebody overruled you by blowing a midtown Manhattan nursing home nearly to hell!"

"But you have to know it wasn't me." The hooded figure finally allowed his hood to be pulled back, revealing a balding man in his 70s, wearing square-framed glasses. A man who Steve instantly recognized.

"Uncle Martin?"

This made Rosanna jump. "UNCLE?!"

Steve sighed. "Rosanna, allow me to introduce Martin Hacker, my dad's best friend from his FBI days. I always thought you two were too close ... guess I know why."

Hacker nodded. "Listen to me, I know already how they're going to rule. They're preparing to kill you both."

Rosanna's eyes flew open, horrified. "But why?! Don't they know about the invasion?!"

"Yes, we do. Because we allowed the Rokkans to come. Remember the big guy who approached you in the boardroom? He's our Number 3 man, has been for nearly eleven years. We've been preparing for the Rokkans' arrival for that long.

"But at the same time, some of us have been preparing resistance to the invasion. Like me."

Before either of the captives could react, Hacker had opened up the cell. "Now hurry, you don't want them to catch you. There's an elevator at the end of this corridor. Take this key and don't look back!"

Hacker hurriedly pressed a small key into Rosanna's palm. She looked the small piece of metal over carefully, then looked back up at Hacker.

"Thank you."

"No time, just go!"

Rosanna pulled Steve Bluestone behind her, running down the corridor. As promised, at the end was an elevator waiting for them. They quickly made their way into the car, turning to the control panel.

There were no buttons. Just a keyhole.

Rosanna and Steve looked at each other questioningly. Shrugging, Rosanna plugged the key into the hole, turning it to the right. The doors of the elevator closed with a soft "whoosh," and the car started a slow trip down the shaft.

The Illuminati's top men came back into the meeting room, their hoods drawn tightly over their heads. This included Martin Hacker, hurriedly coming into the room, looking behind him, then pulling the hood of his robe over his head once more ... the hood of a robe which signified him as the leader of the Illuminati.

"What is it?!"

Steve could only point, shocked speechless. Crumpled up in a back corner of the elevator was a mummified body, dressed in a dapper pinstriped suit. The remnants of a full, snow-white head of hair and a mustache could be seen on the head of the corpse. Rosanna crouched down, taking a closer look at the body.

"Hm ... wondered what had happened to him. Now I know for sure where we are."

Steve had now regained the use of language. "Where?"

"We're in the Hotel Cabal. We never left New York!" Rosanna motioned toward the body. "My father told me of the incident with him and your father at the Hotel Cabal, including their leaving Mace Malone to aimlessly wander the halls, trying to find the exit. If I'm not mistaken, that's Mace right there."

Steve's eyes widened. "What are we going to do?!"

"Your dad never told you about this? I'm surprised." Rosanna approached the front of the elevator, just as the doors opened to the street. "The only escape from this torture house is to have a key. That's what Hacker gave us."

Rosanna pulled the key out of the elevator panel, handing it to Steve and heading back out into the street. Steve looked at her, shocked.

"What now?!"

The elevator doors began to close again. Rosanna quickly pulled Bluestone out of the elevator, before he could be closed into it again.

"Well ... where were we? Ah yes ... let's get together with General Chavez, like we were supposed to do this evening."

Steve smiled, finally, jumping up on Rosanna's back and allowing her to carry him up the side wall of the mysterious hotel to find an updraft.