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Dead men are everywhere. In this city alone, Goliath estimates, there’s an average of 2,000 murders per year. There must be four other corpses waiting to be found right now – but none of them were killed by Goliath. This one was.
He licks the blood from his claws. Consciously, he’s not yet thinking about how to hide the body; this little act of clean-up is instinctive. It’s been with him since the Middle Ages. The tang of blood on his tongue jolts his brain awake: for a moment the streets are shuddering, dirt roads and stained stone walls, and then it all falls back into place – the grey-tinged snowfall that comes with a polluted city, the reek of piss in the alleyway, the body of a thug eviscerated on the ground. And worse, the sound of a crowd just blocks away, of revelers gathering together to celebrate 1996. Goliath tenses, his ears perked. He listens to the distant footsteps, the barely-audible snatch of a song, and tries to figure out how far away they are, how close they might come to him – to this–
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” says a voice above his head. There’s a roar of exhaust and a puff of smoke that swirls up loose trash in the alleyway. Goliath takes a step backward, shielding his face. He knows the voice too well to be surprised, and a flash of red armor through the smoke confirms what he already knows.
“Xanatos,” he growls. “You were following me.”
“Always,” says Xanatos cheerfully. His helmet is tucked beneath his arm, and as the cloud clears, he nudges the corpse with his boot. “I saw it all. He and his friends came at you first; you fought back; you showed enough restraint to let the others go when they stopped fighting. That’s a classic case of self-defense.” He studies Goliath’s face, his eyes sharp. “So why do you look so worried?”
“I’ve no time for your games, Xanatos,” Goliath says. He moves a little further into the alley, circling Xanatos until that red-armored body blocks him from view. Anyone walking by now will see Xanatos first, and hopefully be so confused by his cybernetic get-up that they won’t notice a mythic creature lurking just behind.
“You seem tense,” says Xanatos teasingly. “Don’t tell me – I can guess.”
Goliath kneels down – pointlessly – to take the dead man’s pulse.
“You’re worried that a ‘reasonable force’ defense won’t apply to a gargoyle,” says Xanatos. “True, it’s an uphill battle in the legal system. First we’ll have to reveal that gargoyles exist, then prove that they’re intelligent enough to be tried – but once that hurdle’s cleared, I’ve got a wonderful speech from Shylock memorized that should do you in a pinch.”
Goliath closes his claws around the dead man’s wrist and drags him a little deeper into the alley. The bisected chest splits a little further, and the hips cant sideways, stringy tendons straining fit to burst.
“Of course, before we get you to the courtroom, there’s going to be a police investigation,” says Xanatos lightly. “The investigators will be oh-so-puzzled – probably they’ll dismiss it as an animal attack–” He uses his foot to trace the claw marks on the dead man’s chest. “--but eventually someone will mention this curiosity in the breakroom, and someone else will overhear it…”
Goliath’s eyes flash.
“But by then,” says Xanatos, “you’ll have nobly turned yourself in. And it won’t matter that Detective Maza knows.”
Goliath lets the corpse’s limp wrist fall back to the ground. He looks up, and a light wind is blowing snowflakes into Xanatos’ hair, white flashes against deep brown.
“What do you want, Xanatos?” he asks.
Xanatos cocks an eyebrow.
“You’ve been following me for a reason,” Goliath says. “Now you have the blackmail material you no doubt long for. So what do you want?”
“I’ve been following you for a reason, true.” Xanatos says. “The reason is I like to watch. And today, you gave me a treat." He gestures grandly at the dead man. "Like a late Christmas present, or an early New Year’s kiss. Don’t growl at me, Goliath - of you, I have no fear. As for blackmail material, why on earth would this count as blackmail?” He gives Goliath an innocent look. “Who would I tattle to? Surely Detective Maza would understand.”
The snow is falling on the dead man’s open eyes now. He’s cooled enough that only the first few flakes actually melt. Goliath’s gaze gets stuck there. Distantly, he can sense Xanatos moving – a slow predator’s stride as he inches closer, brings himself down to Goliath’s level. His voice is quiet when he speaks.
“You guarded a medieval castle for decades, Goliath,” he says. “Surely she knows what that means. She doesn’t imagine you bought the invaders coffee and sat them down for a conflict-resolution workshop.”
“No,” Goliath hears himself agree. “But that was then.”
“And this is now!” says Xanatos cheerfully, spreading his palms. His gloves whir a little, and he crooks a finger to disarm a weapon he’d apparently forgotten about. “Oops, ignore that. I promise it wasn’t meant for you.”
“Then who were you targeting?” Goliath asks, hardly comforted.
“No one special,” Xanatos says. He eyes the dead man for a minute. His shoulders relax, and Goliath is struck with a mix of disgust and begrudging respect – Xanatos is, in New York City, psychopathically unfazed; in medieval Scotland, admirably calm in battle. Xanatos’ hand creeps toward the dead man’s face, and Goliath thinks he’s about to close those eyes and shut the snowflakes out. Instead, Xanatos tugs on the dead man’s lower lip and studies his gums. “Oh, he would’ve died soon anyway,” says Xanatos, his voice chipper. “Look at those teeth.”
Goliath grabs Xanatos by the wrist and firmly moves his hand aside. To his infuriation, Xanatos twists in his grasp and clutches affectionately at Goliath’s fingers – at least until Goliath shakes him off. Unoffended, Xanatos plants his hands on his armored knees.
“So here’s our narrative,” he says. “You’re patrolling the streets, as Detective Maza wishes you to do. You see a group of thugs assaulting an innocent woman–”
“They weren’t,” says Goliath numbly. He stares down at the corpse, a growl rumbling in his chest. “They were breaking and entering. That’s all.”
“Lovely,” says Xanatos. “Capital offense in the year 994, I’m sure. But let’s tell Detective Maza it was an assault – adds a little flavor to the narrative, you know.”
Goliath doesn’t argue. He doesn’t agree, either – and Xanatos goes on.
“Valiantly,” he says, “you rushed down from your post to intervene. The thugs turned on you; undoubtedly they had guns. I can always procure one and plant it on him, if you like. This one–” He gestures at the dead man with the same casual flick of the wrist he might use to point out an ugly lamp at Tiffany’s. “--turned the gun on the woman. Let’s say his arm was outstretched – the gun itself was out of your reach. But with a swipe of your claws, you could sever his pectoralis major and disable his arm entirely.” Xanatos taps a ragged muscle flapping free from the dead man’s clavicle. “That’s this one, by the way. If anyone asks. And if some bright-eyed detective points out that he’s not merely disabled but in fact rent in two – well, maybe you got caught in the heat of the moment.” He shrugs. “Maybe you don’t know your own strength.”
Goliath winces.
“Then again, I guess that’s not the best defense. Not when you’d like to see your interrogator between the sheets sometime,” Xanatos allows.
Goliath doesn’t bother to protest. The way he sees it, he has two options: kill Xanatos too, and end his tiresome conniving; or ask him for help. The former has been tempting him since the day Xanatos first turned on his clan, and now with the smell of death in the air and the taste of blood on his tongue, it’s more appealing than ever. Goliath knows he’ll never do it. He studies Xanatos instead, watches his breath puffing out in the cold air.
“What do you suggest I do?” Goliath asks.
Xanatos’ eyes glitter. “Well, if it were me – and if for some reason I thought Fox would disapprove of murder – I’d get rid of the body. Make sure it can’t be traced to me.”
The dead man stands (or stood) about 6’3”, taller than Xanatos, heavier by at least thirty pounds. His hips sag a good inch or two below his waist, hanging on by scraps of flesh. It makes for an unwieldy corpse.
“How?” Goliath asks.
Xanatos shrugs. “How’d you do it in 994?” he asks. “Or did you leave the enemy dead to rot in the open fields?”
He looks almost like he enjoys that image. Goliath shakes his head. “There was no need to hide the bodies then,” he says. “This was … expected of me. My duty.”
“Well, gee, I didn’t realize,” says Xanatos. “I’m talking about disposal, Goliath. What did you do? Make the peasants bury them? Feed them to your young?”
Nausea swells in Goliath’s throat. He stands slowly, forcing his eyes away from the dead man. “What we did then,” he says heavily, “is not an option now. You are the expert here, Xanatos. You lead the way.”
“‘Expert’ implies experience,” Xanatos says, “which, in case anyone’s listening, I’d like to stipulate that I don’t have any. Not when it comes to hiding bodies.”
Goliath just watches him wearily, ready for the theatrics to end. Xanatos catches his look and softens a little, smiling lightly – relaxed, casual, snow caught in his hair.
“I’ve got an idea,” he says. “First of all, grab that tarp from the dumpster – that one over there, the one stained with body fluids and spoiled milk. Second … you ever see the sea in winter?”
“I’m from Scotland,” Goliath says blandly.
“You ever see a polluted sea in winter?” Xanatos amends. He tucks his helmet over his head and gestures for Goliath to grab the body. “C’mon. The sheen of moonlight on half-frozen oil spills is pure poetry.”
The wind whips past them. This far out over the harbor, the city lights are fuzzed; fog obscures them, but their glow touches the snow and turns each flake a little cooler, a bit more artificial. Xanatos zips ahead of him, disappearing first onto the deck of an anchored ship and then, skybound, into the fog. Whatever he stole from the ship, it clanks against his suit as he flies, an aural signal that keeps Goliath on track.
Ahead, through the fog, Goliath sees a flash of fire. He slows his glide and circles Xanatos, who’s gone stationary above black water. The waves shift silently beneath them; the wind plucks at the skin of Goliath’s wings and drags him higher, the corpse cold in his arms. With a burst of power, Xanatos’ rockets lift him up to Goliath’s height, and he hefts the chain he pilfered from one of the ships and wraps tight.
“First around the ankles,” he says, his voice artificially amplified. “Then the neck, and whatever remains around this pesky midsection. Don’t want the top half surfacing.”
Goliath shifts the body in his arms. Xanatos’ gloves brush against his chest as he lifts the corpse’s head and twists the chain around his neck, a metal noose.
“The bottom half can surface if it wants to,” says Xanatos, and Goliath can hear the smile in his voice. “That’s not the part with claw marks. All they’ll be able to figure out is whether this guy would’ve snuffed it from syphilis or hepatitis first.”
The wind catches Goliath again, swinging him to the side. Xanatos moves with him effortlessly, the roar of his rockets mixing with the sound of the waves. He pushes closer, hooks his hands beneath the corpse’s mangled torso. The tarp crinkles and pinches, and for just a second Goliath can see the outline of the dead man’s face, obscured by plastic. Just a lump of a nose, a cave of a mouth.
Then Xanatos takes the body from him and lets it drop. The splash is silent; they see it rather than hear it. The wind takes everything away. With a thumbs-up, Xanatos wheels back toward the city, and Goliath watches the water, wishing he could see the body sink. But it’s dark, even for a gargoyle's night-time sight, and he’d be suicidal if he wished for more light. He follows Xanatos instead – back to the city, to the snowplows and Christmas lights, the music and hot air of a crowd pressed close together for the ball drop. Xanatos drops to a rooftop where the tile is covered in just as much confetti as snow. His helmet releases with a pneumatic hiss; he sits on the ledge, one leg swinging over, party lights lending his face a warm glow.
Goliath touches down too, but he can’t join Xanatos there. He hangs back, still in the shadows, unseen.
“Say what you will about the twentieth century,” says Xanatos, “but at least we know how to party. I don’t imagine your castle had shindigs like this.”
“No,” says Goliath quietly. He inches closer, keeping out of the light. “But we had celebrations. The best came when a battle had been won.”
Xanatos makes an impressed noise. He squints down at the crowd. “Did you bury the bodies first?” He glances over his shoulder at Goliath and smiles. “I’m positive you made the peasants bury them. You didn’t eat them.”
“Only in a pinch,” says Goliath gravely, and Xanatos throws back his head and laughs. The night feels warmer now; it’s their proximity to the crowd, the buzz of electricity and the scent of alcohol in the air. Goliath doesn’t sit, but he can feel his knees softening, like he wants to. There’s a band playing – they look like children, but Goliath knows enough now to understand that these are the heroes of the modern world, that every human in the audience knows their names. That Elisa knows, and Xanatos too.
They are men who will never wield a sword and never drag an enemy corpse to the mouth of a mass grave. Men who know of blood from paper cuts, and euphoria from the raw edges of their nostrils, and pain from the calluses on their fingers where they stroke the strings of their guitars. There was a time when Goliath could look on a party through the firelight and know that every man, woman, and child there had seen death, and knew how to clean the corpse’s weapons and fold what was left of it into the earth. There were people once who could watch him kill and thank him afterward; there were children who followed him to the battlements and peered over the edge, eager to watch.
I like to watch, Xanatos said. Goliath’s skin prickled; the crowd was shouting a countdown, and he turned to go.
“Happy New Year,” said Xanatos casually, not looking back. “To you and yours.”