She'd been taken on a tour of the main business floors, allowed to photograph a few chosen areas, and had managed to not stammer and stutter through the interview. It had helped that the original cancellation had happened so suddenly that everyone assumed that she'd been brought in with little to no information.
Oh, how right they were.
The tour had been conducted with Owen at the helm, and she'd had the opportunity to speak with a few key members of the new cyber security and the newer residential security project leads. They had been informative, the cyber security guy had been surprisingly entertaining, and she figured she could pull together a story or two out of that.
Finally, it was time to sit with the big man, and she'd gained enough from the previous interviews to piece together some more in-depth questions for the head honcho. They spoke for some time in an empty conference room.
Because of the sensitive nature of the securities people and settings that she'd been in, she hadn't been able to take any pictures for the story.
When she asked for a photograph of him for the story, he had granted her request, posing in an obviously practiced way behind his desk.
"Hmm," she said, thoughtfully, snapping a photo or two for good measure. "I'm not sure about this setting. Do you have a more," she fished for the word, "personal office? One that shows your personality more than this one," she asked, glancing pointedly at the beige blank walls of the conference room.
He raised an eyebrow at her and gave her a small smiling kind of smirk that had her heart doing a little dance.
Married or not, this man was good looking and knew it.
"Maybe one in the castle," she asked, pointing upwards. "The castle is still something of a mystery to most of the inhabitants of Manhattan. Having a picture of you up there, perhaps," she suggested as inspiration struck, "one looking out over the city?"
Xanatos seemed to think of this for a moment, then nodded. "Very well," he said, gesturing for her to move towards the elevators. "Let me just go on the record saying that my family lives in the upper levels, and they are not to be included in any photographs or publications without my written consent."
"Agreed," Claudia said, mentally cursing. She'd been hoping to get a picture of the elusive Fox Xanatos, and maybe even one or both of their sons. Fox had been highly visible and much sought after in the early years of their marriage, even having their hours-old son's face on the news the night he'd been born.
After the Gargoyles had been seen in the now infamous St. Damien's Cathedral attack, the Xanatos family had quickly retreated from the limelight. When their second child had been born, it had been months before anyone had snagged a picture.
To get all four of them in a single picture was the gold ring that all of the reporters in Manhattan were reaching for.
That would be a career maker.
It was a silent elevator ride to the top, and once there, she swore that she'd felt her ears pop from the altitude.
Once the elevator opened, she was directed straight to the large office of David Xanatos. One wall was solid glass, showing a truly spectacular view of the city beyond it.
Yet another wall was solid computer monitors. Most were blank, but a few showed external shots of the building.
A third wall held a large fireplace, and the final wall held the doors through which they'd come through.
Xanatos leaned against the desk, in a deceptively casual pose that she could only guess how long he'd practiced it to appear so at ease.
She attempted to steer the direction to the gargoyles, but he had either refused to answer or had given such a bland answer that it could have applied to anything.
They had been at it for a good five minutes, when Owen had knocked on the office door and effectively called a halt to any conversation.
"Sir," Owen said, abruptly. "I am sorry to interrupt, but there is a matter of importance that needs your attention."
Xanatos nodded, taking the interruption in stride. "Please, excuse me for just a moment."
Claudia nodded and took a seat.
As soon as the doors closed behind him, Claudia was back on her feet. She hurried to the door, and listened as the sound of feet went down the hallway and fell silent after the sound of a door closing.
Claudia glanced around the office, finding every piece of technology turned off and the desktop surprisingly bare. That was probably why he hadn't hesitated letting her come up here. Nothing to snoop in.
Cautiously, she opened the door and peeked into the hallway. Looking both ways, she saw no one.
Taking a chance that the phone call would take a few minutes, she hurried back to that dining hall, thinking to snap a few photos to add to the story.
She had her camera out and had taken a few pictures of the room, moved farther in to take pictures of the outdoor courtyard area through the glass double doors there.
There was a voice, probably female, coming from farther down the hall, and the answering voice of a younger male.
Possibly two.
Thinking to play the "Oops, I got lost looking for a restroom, sorry," excuse, Claudia hurried out to the hallway, already hitting the button to take pictures.
A small group of young people, three teenage males and one teenage female, were in the hall. They seemed to be laughing and joking about something before spotting her, but came to an abrupt and silent halt as soon as she'd been spotted.
Before she could say or do anything, two of the boys moved to stand in front of the girl, while a third stormed up to Claudia.
"Who are you?" he demanded loudly. "And what do you think you're doing?"
"My name is Claudia and I'm…"
"Not supposed to be here," a harsh voice came from behind her.
Claudia whirled around and came face to face with a group of individuals, all dressed in black with some kind of logo on their shirts that she didn't recognize.
"Definitely not," David Xanatos said, storming up from the rear of the group, a steely eyed Owen trailing after.
"But, I…" Claudia began.
"I just received a phone call," Xanatos said harshly, "From the original reporter who was to do the story. It seems that they were unable to find a replacement reporter and wanted to reschedule."
"Oh," Claudia said, her heart beginning to pound.
"I'm afraid that you will need to leave, Miss Mullen," Xanatos said firmly. "If that is, indeed, your name."
Claudia nodded, fiddling with the camera in her hands.
"We will need to confiscate that," Xanatos said, pointing to the camera. "As well as any notes or recordings."
He gave a pointed look over her shoulder, then, saying nothing, he gave her his full attention. "Miss Mullen," he said angrily, "It goes without saying that anything that was said, recorded or photographed here is not to be used by you for any reason. Anything published without my permission, and you can expect to hear from my lawyers."
He held out his hand for the camera, and she meekly turned it over. She turned to offer an apology to the kids, hoping that a show of goodwill would help to ease the tension. She found two boys there, a tall red-haired teen, and a younger dark-haired teen.
The girl and one of the boys had disappeared.
"Where did…" she began.
She felt a hand at her elbow. "It's time to go," one of the black-clad men said as they roughly turned her towards the elevators. She was suddenly surrounded on all sides by these people in black.
Must be a security team, she thought. She wanted to fight, argue to get her camera back, or she'd be paying for it out of her paychecks for a while, but she realized that there was no point in it. She'd been caught and was lucky that he wasn't trying to press charges for trespassing.
It was a long, silent ride down to the lobby. She was met there by Owen Burnett who handed her purse to her.
"I have been instructed to tell you that you are not welcome on Xanatos Enterprise's property," he said stiffly. "Our security teams have been given your information, and your employer has been contacted."
"You called my manager?" Claudia asked, infuriated.
"Of course," Owen said, pushing his glasses farther up on the bridge of his nose. "Your employer needed to know that one of his employees falsely represented themselves to get access into a privately owned residence as well as a business."
"Great," Claudia muttered.
"I thought so. Quite satisfying, actually," Owen smirked. "Good day, Miss Mullen."
Claudia was escorted the rest of the way out, and left alone on the sidewalk outside of the front doors.
She turned in the direction she left her car and began the long walk.
She hadn't planned on being gone so long, so she'd failed to feed the parking meter enough money. There was a bright orange envelope with a parking ticket waiting on her windshield.
Didn't that just cap off her day perfectly?
She snatched the ticket off of the windshield, and without looking at it, she tossed it onto the passenger seat. She'd deal with that later.
She turned on the engine, the ancient motor firing to life and the car shimmying with the effort to keep running, she pulled out into traffic.
She stopped at a small coffee shop, in no real hurry to get back to the office and what she was sure was going to be a long and drawn out lecture on ethical behavior for reporters from her boss. Armed with a latte, she took out her laptop and booted it up.
When she'd been younger, she'd had grand plans of being a magician. She'd practiced for hours and hours to perfect the most minute sleight of hand that would allow her to do close-up magic tricks. In the end, she'd played a few kids parties before realizing that becoming a stage magician paid little to nothing, and she'd given up that childhood dream.
Little had she known that those skills would one day come in handy.
Chuckling to herself at her cleverness, she reached into her shirt and felt for the small chip that she'd tucked inside. They had confiscated her camera, that was true, but she had the memory card that had the pictures backed up on it. The camera that they had taken from her had a blank memory card in it, should they think to check if one was inside of it.
Claudia took the memory card now, and put it in the adapter that would allow her to download and view the photographs.
She scrolled through the pictures, most were from covering the useless stories over the last day or two. Some from a homeless shelter that was begging for funds, some from a school where some kid had won an award, and finally she found the pictures from today.
Slowly, she moved from photo to photo, studying the quality of the images. A few were blurry, taken in haste as they had moved through first the offices, then the castle levels. The pictures of Xanatos had turned out decent, though she knew that using them would be tantamount to career suicide, considering his threats.
The pictures from the dining hall were good, really showing the age and historical value of the castle. The ones from the glass doors were fantastic, showing the open area and the profiles of a few gargoyles on the upper level.
Finally, she hit the quick three that she'd managed to take of the kids in the hall. She took a sip of her coffee, studying the first of the three.
The tall, older red-headed boy had to be Alexander Xanatos, the eldest. There was a slightly shorter and younger looking boy with dark hair that looked like a younger David Xanatos, so that must be the elusive Christopher Xanatos.
The youngest looking boy, the one walking slightly behind the girl, looked familiar, but she couldn't put a name to the face just yet. She'd have to do some digging.
Then there was the girl. Again, she looked familiar…
She moved on to the second picture. This one was a little blurry, as they had been in motion when she'd taken it. Alexander and the unknown boy had shoved the girl back, as if trying to hide her from view, while it looked like Christopher was grabbing the girl by the arm.
What was so important about this girl? She wondered.
She studied the girl. Dark complexion, dark hair, dark exotically shaped eyes.
Did the Xanatos family have another kid or two, and no one knew about it? Neither the girl or the unknown boy looked like either David or Fox.
Maybe they adopted? Those two looked a little like each other, with the darker skin tones and dark hair.
She turned to the third picture, and all four kids had been in motion, so it was blurry. She was about to write that picture off as being useless, but something stopped her. Leaning closer to the screen, she studied it, trying to figure out what was bothering her.
She flipped back to the first picture. The girl was looking up at one of the boys and smiling at something he was saying. She was wearing a long sundress, light blue in color with what looked like pale pink cherry blossoms on it. Her hair was in a braid and over one shoulder, her face was bright and shiny without a trace of makeup on it.
That in itself was odd, since she didn't know a girl over the age of ten that didn't go around with half a cosmetics counter's worth of stuff on their faces.
Claudia clicked to the next one. The girl's eyes were wide in surprise, her face turned up to the boy Claudia had guessed to be Christopher as he took her arm, and the others pushed her back and away.
Nothing there either, Claudia thought.
She clicked to the last one. There was something here, she thought irritated. Something was bothering her about the girl. She just couldn't put her finger on it…
Then she saw it.
The girl was turning, not a full side profile but enough that Claudia could catch a hint of something on the girl's back.
Was that…
A wing?
Claudia blinked. Now that she'd identified it, she couldn't un-see it. There was what appeared to be a wing attached to the girl's back!
Claudia stared at the picture in disbelief. She clicked on the file, looked at the time stamp, and felt her heart jump.
It was a well known fact… or thought to be a fact… that gargoyles "slept" during the day. They went into some kind of science fiction worthy "stone sleep" or something.
So, how was this female gargoyle up and walking around at… she checked the time stamp again… four thirty in the afternoon?
She went back to the courtyard pictures and verified that there were stone gargoyles on the castle walls.
How was this even possible?
If this was a gargoyle, she'd be stone during the day.
So, if this was a gargoyle, how was she awake? Had they found a way to stay awake? Had they been lying to the humans, lulling them into a sense of security during the day for some reason?
And what of the stone gargoyle statues? Were they decoys to throw them all off, while they were actually all awake during the day?
She couldn't go back to the Xanatos building asking questions, or they'd know she still had the pictures.
That is if they hadn't figured it out already.
She sat back in her seat, taking a long drink of her latte and thinking furiously.
She couldn't take this to her current employer.
If she were still employed after Xanatos called the paper.
Not only that, it had been the newspaper's camera, so she'd have to pay them back for that as well. Just an additional embarrassment that she was sure had been Xanatos's plan when he had done it and not just confiscated the memory card.
She sighed.
No. Going to her boss with nothing concrete, there's no way that he'd let her print anything without evidence and a story.
But she knew someone who would…
She closed her laptop in case someone were to look over her shoulder. Reporting was a cut throat business. If someone could scoop this out from under her, they would.
Going with the feeling that she'd be looking for a new reporting job soon anyway, she called her former NYU roommate who had managed to snag a job on City Watch Nightly, a local news program.
City Watch Nightly had a habit of reporting stories as they were breaking, inviting "experts" on to talk about it, then "updating" the stories as facts came out. Often, they were contradictory to how they'd originally broken the story, but in the "interest of live breaking news", they'd report on almost anything. They'd been all over the Gargoyles stories when they'd first started appearing around Manhattan, the stories getting more and more inflammatory as the population of Manhattan demanded information and explanations.
They'd jump all over this.
Or, at least, that was her hope.
"This is Dallas," the voice on the other end of the phone answered.
"Hey Sylvia," Claudia greeted her. "This is Claudia Mullen. Do you have a minute?"
"That depends," Sylvia said slowly. "What's going on?"
"I happened to grab an interesting picture," Claudia said slowly, "And I think you'll want to see it…"