Dominique strode into the Xanatos Enterprises building as if she owned the place.
Maybe she would someday, she mused.
For now, it was enough that people hurried out of her way. She was dressed in a dark green power suit, with a knee-length pencil skirt, matching suit jacket, and a cream colored blouse underneath. With her head held high, a look of disdain on her face, and people automatically found her intimidating.
Normally, she loved the thrill, the feeling of power that she got, all from knowing that people were afraid of her. Today, however, it only served to annoy her.
Everything annoyed her today.
She had seen Goliath and Angela just last night, and with that… thing…
She waited impatiently as the elevator climbed upwards into that god-forsaken castle monstrosity that housed David Xanatos himself. Once the elevator slid to a stop, the doors opened to reveal Owen Burnett.
Dominique fought the urge to roll her eyes. There was just something about Owen that grated on her nerves.
"Ms. Destine," Owen greeted her in that irritating monotone of his. "Mr. Xanatos is waiting in his office. This way," He said, leading her down the hall.
As if she didn't know where his office was. She had been there quite a few times already.
Owen opened the heavy dark wood door, and motioned for her to enter.
Dominique swept in, and immediately dismissed Owen from her mind.
David Xanatos, probably the luckiest bastard on the face of the planet, was sitting behind his massive mahogany desk looking at a stack of paperwork.
She had last been in this office two weeks ago, and at that time everything seemed to be going well.
Now, however…
Dominique strolled forward, and placed her hands on his desk. Leaning forward, she asked in a sugary sweet tone, "Hello David. Did you lose something?"
Xanatos looked up at her and scowled. "Not that I am aware of," He said. Efficiently, he moved the paper stack to the side and looked at her over tented fingers. "Why do you ask?"
"Funny thing," She said, moving to one of the ridiculously huge high-backed leather chairs that faced the desk. "I was out last night, and ran into your gargoyle."
Xanatos' eyebrow lifted a little. "You don't say," He smirked. "I assume that you don't mean that literally."
Dominique lifted a shoulder in a small shrug, "I accidently hit her with my car in a parking lot."
Xanatos frowned. "You hit her. With your car."
"Oops," She replied.
"I know that you're new to the genetics business," Xanatos said, leaning back in his chair, "But it is generally frowned upon to damage the subjects."
"She will heal," Dominique said, waving her hand in dismissal.
"That's not really the point, my dear," David said with a sigh. "Being that you're here, I can only guess that you didn't actually kill her."
"No," Dominique said. "I did not kill her. However," She snarled, "After investing this much money into the research your two mad scientists down in that basement are doing, finding the actual subject of said testing out on the streets does not inspire confidence."
"Quite the contrary," Xanatos said, sitting up to cross his arms on his desk. "We can only get so much information about the gargoyle's abilities while it is kept indoors and under lock and key. For Example," He said, getting to his feet. He came around the front of the desk and leaned against the edge in an arms crossed imitation of nonchalance that Dominique wasn't buying for a moment. "She can't actually fly. Only glide using the wind currents. We can't test that indoors."
Dominique raised an eyebrow. "And you couldn't let her go out and monitor her here?"
Xanatos sighed and pushed off of his perch with a sigh. "We could have, yes, but we couldn't be sure that the flight was the only thing that we were missing."
"How did she get out?" Dominique demanded.
"We gave her a pointless series of tasks to do outside. One of which was to infiltrate one of my airships and to steal a specific item." Xanatos sat behind his desk again. "She refused the first time, and the second time she "escaped" out of an unattended hatch in the ship." Xanatos smirked. "We also made sure to leave some items out for her to take with her."
"And what purpose did that serve?" Dominique asked, rubbing at her temples where she felt a headache building.
"To give her something to steal, so it would give the appearance that we weren't watching her as closely and give her the courage to go." Xanatos shrugged. "It also gave us a way to give her something with a backup tracker that she would keep with her and not find. It proved useful, as she found the first one and disposed of it in Central Park."
"What items?" Dominique couldn't resist asking.
"A handful of small dictaphone tapes," Xanatos said. "Something that she would believe to be important, but have no idea what to do with. I left instructions that whatever notes had been put on the tapes were to be carefully erased, so even if she did find something to play them on, they would be blank."
"So you are keeping track of her?" Dominique asked again.
"Of course," Xanatos said. "We have spent too much in time, money and resources to lose her now. I have a team of people following her at night, observing and recording their findings. Knowing that she is injured… badly, I assume from being hit by your car… we will be able to record her rapid healing and the extent it works, which is one of the last things we were hoping to observe. I will make the arrangements for the retrieval team to move in just before sunset tomorrow so that they can catch her by surprise. That will give us one more night to observe the healing processes that the gargoyle has. We have known where she spends her days, but retrieving her during the day would be… difficult. She has somehow managed to make her daytime home in the clock tower above the police station, and people would notice a team of people removing a several thousand pound statue from a police station. Night time retrieval would be best, and we know where she is spending her nights, or, rather, with whom."
"Do tell," Dominique snarled. She had a bad feeling that she knew what was coming.
Xanatos reached out and grabbed a thick file and handed it to her.
She opened the file, and found herself staring at two pictures and profiles inside the flap. Goliath and Angela.
"It seems," Xanatos said, "That the gargoyle has attached herself to your ex and daughter."