February 2004
The
masked men were gathered in a semicircle circle around the bandstand. Their
screams were loud as the procession of figures climbed the stand. There were
raised fists, angry cries, swinging hammers, and the scents of sweat and death.
This was not a rally - it was chaos. Jon Castaway was the man on the bandstand.
Elisa's
eyes were ready to shoot bullets. If Elisa were a gargoyle, her eyes would have
been on fire. She was leaning against her red Ford Fairlane, watching the
rally. Her expression was like stone. She was here on very specific orders - to
make sure this rally did not become a riot. She intended to do just that.
"Get
in the car, Elisa." Bluestone encouraged her.
"I'm
staying right here." Elisa stated with a very hard edge.
The
passenger door to the Ford Fairlane opened next to Elisa. "Fine."
Bluestone replied. "Then we'll do it together."
"If
they so much as hurt someone..." she started to rant.
"Then
all you'll accomplish is showing the Cap just how jaded you are about the
Quarreymen, and she might even put you in a position where you won't be any
help to Goliath and the others anymore."
Elisa
sighed, took a few deep breaths, relaxing.
"Look,
I know how much you love the guys, but we're in hiding right now just like they
are. Goliath wouldn't tolerate one of the guys giving us away right now, and I
won't either." Bluestone's voice took on a very determined tone.
"Besides, you and I can't take them all on."
"THAT
is where you're wrong, Matt. I can take them, but not like this. Not right now.
But I will."
The
cheering began to die down as the men on the podium made like they were about
to speak.
"MY
FRIENDS!" Exclaimed the speaker, none other than Castaway himself. These
Quarreymen were getting sure of themselves. "Fellow citizens! Concerned
people of New York! Do you know what is happening in our city? People are
finally starting to take action! To fight back against the terrible demons that
haunt their waking moments! But! Would you believe that our own kind has forged
together a group to stand against us? We have enemies! Enemies of the human
race, bent to destroy our kind!"
Elisa
spat. "Oh Puhlease. And they call PIT the enemies of the human race."
"I've
been working on him." Matt observed, referring to Castaway. "Doesn't
this guy seem familiar, Elisa?"
"Yeah,
he's the guy that's inciting violence, fear, bigotry, paranoia, and hysteria in
my city."
"Your
sounding more and more like the guys all the time." Matt gave her a
sidelong glance. "No I mean his voice, the way he talks, the name John,
the blonde hair, and well educated. This 'Castaway' name - as in cast away from
his brother and sister maybe? The tendency towards violence and hatred of
gargoyles? Take away the mustache, redo the hairdo, add a little Scottish
accent, and who do you see?"
Elisa
looked at him, scowling. She paused for a moment while the wheels in her mind
worked. She looked back at Matt. "You don't mean...?"
Looking
at one another they both whispered the same name. "Jon Canmore!"
The
cloaked figure drew some attention as the post-swing shift people started
filing home in the growing darkness of the night. People would turn and look,
but the person moved on without drawing much attention, so people ignored her.
The cloak covered her body from the neck down, and her arms to her wrists. She
wore work gloves on her hands. Her hair was done up rather large, so that it
hid her ears and much of her forehead, but it didn't look bad. The foundation
on her makeup was a bit thick, but it served.
The
address on the slip of paper was vague - as most addresses in the Big Apple
usually were, but fortunately Robbie's directions were more specific. Lanara
followed them carefully - she didn't want to screw this up or make a bad
impression. She had an appointment to keep - and she didn't want to be late.
The
name of the place was "The Last Mug". Unsure of what to expect, she
was surprised to discover that it was a coffee shop in the middle of the
business district near the north end of Central Park, on a particularly dark
corner where the street lights just didn't seem to reach. Seeing it, she felt
the hairs on the back of her neck start to stand on end - but in a good way. It
felt like a safe place. But then, Lanara reasoned, it should be if Robbie and
Kanthara suggested it.
There
were only a few patrons - one or two with abnormally long ears - floating in
and out, several tables with four chairs each spread out across the patron
floor, and a pleasant, natural décor with bright colors and moderate but
pleasant lighting. Lanara felt a small smile creep across her face. Yes, she
felt she was going to like it here. It was one of those places you walk into
and immediately feel at home at, because you're positive you've been here
before a thousand times, but just can't remember it.
She
looked at what was on pastries and beverages display case, and decided to
indulge her cravings a little. She hadn't smoked a joint, smoked a cigarette,
shot up anything, or sniffed anything for a week or two. For some reason she no
longer felt the desire to. However... a shot of caffeine sounded like it would
just about hit the spot.
The
man working the espresso bar at the moment was a young slim, fairly handsome
looking man in his early twenties who, while not beefy or stout, looked like he
had the strength and the wit to hold his own in a fight, named Benjamin.
"Could I get a Coke, please?" she asked, trying not to say a whole
lot, knowing the first thing they would see were those large fangs in her mouth
and start asking questions she didn't want to answer. He did not smile, but
turned to a cooler under the counter, and produced the soda.
Lanara
took the soda, found an empty table, and sat herself down. Another young man -
also in his early twenties, sat down across from her. Lanara felt herself tense
a little inside, but she put on her best poker face. She opened her soda, took
out the paper with the directions on it, to study the rest of her notes. She
needed to lose her disguise next - the appointment was looking for a gargoyle,
not a human girl...
"Ever
feel like you're the devil?" asked the young man at her table. He was also
drinking a coke - caffeine free.
Lanara
looked up, a puzzled look on her features. "Excuse me?"
"Nothing,
nevermind." He shook his head.
This
only perpetuated Lanara's bafflement. Was this some kind of pickup line? Her
companion smiled.
"Sorry,
I'm Jeffrey Warman. I just needed someone to talk to, and you looked like you
did too." He held out his hand to her.
Lanara
took it. "Lanara." She replied. His hands felt warm through the
gloves.
"Pleased
to meet you." He replied. "I suppose someone like you wouldn't know
what it's like to be trapped in a world that doesn't understand you..."
Lanara
couldn't help but smile back. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a
small alcohol wipe, and ran it over her face. She had made it to her
destination unmolested - the time for masks was over, especially if she were to
meet the person she had come to see. She looked like a gargoyle again.
"Maybe
you do know what it's like after all." He took a sip of his drink, and
regarded her blue colored complexion with a thoughtful look. "Why not take
the rest of your disguise off?"'
Lanara
stood, pulled her gloves off, and let the cloak fall to the floor. She placed
the articles of clothing together on the floor by her chair. A few of the
patrons looked, one even made a startled noise, but no one did or said
anything. Most minded their own business, and hardly gave her more than a
second glance. She released her wings from around her shoulders, and let them
hang relaxed on her shoulders in their natural position. Returning to her
chair, she wrapped her tail around one leg of the chair and fiddled with
removing the makeup from her face and neck for a few more moments before adding
the alcohol prep cloth to the pile beside her chair. She then proceeded to pull
a few clips and pins out of her hair, letting it fall around her shoulders,
revealing her wicked looking horns and long, pointed ears.
"Hello
again, Lanara." Jeffrey put in coyly. "You look much better
now."
"Thank
you, Mister Warman." She responded. "Why doesn't anyone react?"
"Jeffrey.
Most have seen gargoyles and such before, or have their own secret... that's
why they come here. Others, well...they just don't notice..." He answered.
"Okay...
Jeffrey." Lanara felt less stressful now, and was beginning to relax. She
and Jeffrey took another sip of their drinks. "I like it. I feel almost
like I was never changed."
Jeffrey
spat out his last sip of Coke. "Oh no, don't tell me - transformed?"
Lanara
was startled. "Y... yes, about a week ago."
"But...
how old are you?!!!"
"Fifteen."
With
a sad and frustrated look, Jeffrey considered his soda for a moment more.
"What happened?" he finally asked.
Lanara
looked around uncomfortably. "Is it safe to talk?"
"It's
part of the magic in this place. I think the owner set it up that way. If we
had someone who wanted to hurt you in here, they wouldn't remember when they
left." Jeffrey explained.
Lanara
paused for a moment, thinking. "About a week ago I was offered a new job.
They offered me a place to stay, better pay, benefits... who wouldn't have
taken it?" Lanara shook her head. "I should have known it was too
good to be true. I went willingly with these people to a building not far from
here. Instead of putting me to work as I expected, they strapped me to a table
so I couldn't move, injected me with chemicals, and I slowly turned into...
THIS." Lanara made a motion referring to her body. "And the pain -
they didn't give me a single anesthetic or even a goddamn Tylenol. It was like
having a lion rip his claws through your skin over and over again for
hours..." she stopped, closing her eyes, forcing the memory out of her
mind. "I finally found the strength to break my restraints. I was lucky I
escaped - they were pulling out all the stops to cut me into sushi after I
broke free."
Jeffrey
listened with a very hardened expression on his face - clearly unhappy by this
news. "Who told you about this place?"
"I
somehow got away, and when the sun came up in the morning I turned to stone.
That evening, I woke up, and there was Detective Maza waiting for me. She and I
know each other from a case she is working on, but I've never liked or trusted
her. I've never trusted cops. She took me to see some friends of hers - and a
girl named Kanthara. She used to be human like me, before they turned her into
a monster too. She's been helping me. The businessman Xanatos helped me get
into a house with some friends - he even put a security system in it, and gave
me a phone and a computer."
Jeffrey
was visibly relieved. "Good to hear you're in good hands now. Not everyone
out there is as nice."
Lanara
sighed, a depressed look on her face.
"What's
the matter?" he asked, concerned.
"They
found out they can't fix me." Lanara replied. "My... friends
discovered they can't right what these... people... did to my body. The process
is irreversible. My old DNA is totally overwritten. I'm trapped. "
"If
they wrote over your old DNA with new DNA, couldn't they write over your new
DNA with human DNA? That is, if you want to be human again?" Jeffrey
explained.
"How
would they get a copy of my old DNA? They would need a live cell from a hair
follicle or something. I don't even own a hairbrush! One day in stone sleep,
and by morning there wasn't a trace of my old DNA even in dead surface cells.
Xanatos's people checked." Lanara said in desperation.
"They
could use someone else's DNA."
"And
become someone else? Take someone else's life? At least like THIS I have half
my original DNA blended in with the new code. I'm still at least HALF me."
Lanara sighed again.
"Your
body isn't what counts." Jeffrey replied in a very low tone.
This
took Lanara aback. She looked down at her paws in a thoughtful manner.
"I'm still me, at least on the inside." Lanara thought aloud.
"Huh... a human trapped the body of a gargoyle?" she laughed.
"What
is the difference between a human and a gargoyle? Is there something so
different that you have to say you are a trapped human? Being a gargoyle doesn't
make you a different person. It just makes you look different."
"Does
a soul have a species...?" Lanara asked herself introspectively.
"Exactly.
No it doesn't." Jeffrey replied with certainty.
"I
guess I've been making myself out to be a monster in my mind." Lanara
concluded.
"Are
you a monster? What makes you a monster?"
"I
do." Lanara explained. "I look in the mirror and see myself, and I
see a monster. If I could only learn to look in the mirror and see... me...
again."
"Do
you know what I see? I see a person - my new friend. The first one I've had in
a long time. Are you going to insult my friend and call her a monster? I hope
that when you finish, you realize that you are being ridiculous and you aren't
a monster." Jeffrey chastised her. "Isn't it better to be able to
look in the mirror and say that you like the person you see there? If I
suddenly turned into a gargoyle, would you be afraid of me?"
"No,
not since this happened. But I scare myself!" she protested.
"You
scare yourself because you aren't used to your new form. It isn't as if you
suddenly became a different person. Do you think that our conversation could be
very different if you had walked in here human? Just say to yourself, I'm still
the same person I was when I was human." Jeffrey gently encouraged her.
Lanara
realized he was right. Her eyes began to sting. Lanara covered her face with
her hands and began to cry. After a moment, she felt Jeffrey's arm on her shoulder.
She let the tears come then, crying herself out for a while. She wasn't a monster. She was Lanara. She
may look different, but she was still the same person. Lanara told herself this
over and over in her mind. It caused her to cry a little less each time, like
ointment rubbing over a scraped knee.
After
several minutes she pulled herself together, and looked up at her new friend.
"I'm sorry... I haven't... really felt comfortable talking to anyone about
all this until now. I'm so used to being alone."
"I'm
glad I could be there for you." Jeffrey smiled.
"I've
gotten off of drugs, I've stopped smoking, I still have an apartment, and I
still have friends although now they are better friends." Lanara replied,
mostly talking to herself. "I'm better off than I was. Appearances mean
nothing."
"That's
right. Tell yourself that every day. You have a new life. Live that life for
everything it's worth. Do all the things you always wanted to but couldn't do
before."
"I
need a job first." Lanara pointed out, remember the reason she had
originally come here.
"Why
not talk to Abram?" he pointed out.
"Abram?"
"Abram
Wintersmith - he owns this place."
Lanara
smiled. "He's the one I'm here to see - Robbie said to ask him about a
job."
"Hope
you don't mind coffee shops."
"Oh
no. My uncle worked in one in LA when I was little." She sipped her coke,
and found it was getting flat. "Is he here?"
"Not
tonight, but come back tomorrow night. You'll catch him sooner or later."
"Sounds
like a plan." Lanara smiled, polishing off the last of her flat Coke.
Without even denting the can first, she took the can between her paws, and
crushed it flat. "There's a plus - I could never do that before."
He
laughed a little. "Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"Is
there anything you need right now? If there anything you need help with?"
Lanara thought for
a minute. Her eyes strayed to the corner of the room, where there was a
payphone mounted on the wall. Lanara thought about her mother and her aunt.
They didn't know about her change yet. She didn't like her aunt, but she knew
her mother had a right to know. She also had a phone card from when Mr. Xanatos
had set up the phone in her house. Her mother would NOT want to talk to her
though... "Help me talk to my mother?"
That
had not been what Jeffrey had been expecting, but he nodded.
"Alright."
Fishing
the card out of a little pouch on her belt, she padded on her large three-toed
feet over to the phone, and dialed the card number, waited for the tone, and
then dialed her old house from memory. She waited for a moment, before a voice
picked up on the other end. Lanara asked for a "Helena Myers, please. Tell
her it's Lacy calling."
"Hi
mom." She began when the voice picked up. Jeffrey did not follow what was
being said, but it soon became obvious that Mrs. Myers and her daughter did not
get along well. "No, I'm not in trouble!
... I'm fine mom. ...
I didn't steal anything from work!
... Mom, I don't need any money
from you - I need YOU! I want to see YOU!
... Because you're my
mother! ..." Lanara held the
phone away from her ear, and a noise could be heard from the other end of the
line, very loud - like a person was shouting.
"Mind
if I try?" Jeffrey asked, reaching for the phone. Lanara handed it to him
without saying another word to her mother.
"Mrs.
Myers? I'm a friend of... Lacy's.
... No, nothing bad has
happened to her, she just needs to see you. Is there someway you could arrange
to come to New York? ... Great, I'll leave instructions on your
voicemail to get here, and to reach me.
... Yes, this is very
important. ... Thanks, Mrs. Myers." With that,
Jeffrey hung up the phone.
Lanara
blinked at him. "What happened?"
"She
has a business trip already scheduled to come down here in two days, but wasn't
planning to see you. She said she'd try and make time for you."
"How
accommodating of her." Lanara sighed, a slight animal snarl creeping into
her voice.
"We'll
see how it goes." He said, encouragingly.
"What
about me? I'm not exactly the same girl she gave birth to."
"So?"
"What
if she flips out?"
"I'll
have her come here and talk to her. You can come in when you feel you're
ready."
Lanara
sighed, folding her arms. "Okay..."
The
villagers on east town were restless with the talk of gargoyles and their
supposed evils. The detectives were on
riot duty. Elisa Maza and Matt Bluestone had their hands full trying to keep
things from getting out of control, but already they were starting to make talk
about calling in riot police. A crowd of people, mostly middle aged males, were
shouting at the tops of their lungs at the police, chanting and holding signs -
half of which couldn't even spell "Gargoyles" correctly.
"These
guys really don't like us." Captain Morgan was saying.
"Yeah."
Elisa replied with a hard edge. "Grow a pair of wings and they'll like you
even less."
"Personally
I signed up to be a cop, not a politician." Matt sounded anything but
complacent too. "What now, partner?"
Ropes
appeared from the crowd, thrown around the ordinary statues lining the streets
of a fairly old neighborhood. They were thrown around the statues, and the
crowds pulled on them, and statues started coming down.
"Is
vandalism reason enough to call in the national guard?" Captain Morgan put
in.
"There
are wounded people in there!" Matt observed with haste. "They're
dropping the statues right on top of themselves! We gotta get 'em outta
there!"
Elisa
sneered. "THAT is reason enough for me. Call 'em."
Two days later.
Helena
Myers was tired. She'd been through three long meetings with her company and
was ready to go home. However, she loved her daughter despite all the stupid
things that girl had done, and was willing to make one last trip into Manhattan
to find the coffee shop "The Last Mug". The directions she had
writing down from the voicemail on her cellular phone were clear enough. She
still had no idea what this Jeffrey person even looked like, but she imagined
she would find out soon enough. The sun was down now, and so she was a little
rushed to get done with this and get back to her hotel and sleep.
She
finally found the shop, but before she could go in, a noise made her stop. She
paused and looked around - and saw nothing. Strange, she thought, she could
have sworn she had heard a bird or something rustle its wings nearby. The
coffee shop was a nice little hole-in-the-wall place, and she immediately felt
comfortable. Looking around, she saw a young man in his early twenties seated
at a table, looking up at her. He stood, and extended a hand to her. "You
must be Helena Myers."
"Yes,
and you're Jeffrey Warman."
"Jeffrey
is fine." He motioned for her to sit down by him. "Can I get you
something to drink?"
"Oh
no thank you - I just ate, and I'm a bit light headed. Where's Lacy?"
Jeffrey
held his hand out on the table, indicating she should wait a moment.
"She'll show up when she's ready. Tell me about yourself, Ms. Myers."
She
sat. "Oh, just call me Helena. Lacy and I are descended from old Scottish
royalty. If history had gone different, she might have been a princess in
Scotland right now."
"Really?
Interesting. Her father?"
"He
was a bum - walked out on us when Lacy was seven, and we were never formally
married. He started up a chop shop for some LA big crime organization, got
arrested, wound up in jail, got AIDS, and died there."
"I...
see. What do you do?"
"I'm
an interior design consultant for a few big companies over in West Hollywood.
If Lacy would clean herself up, she might be a part of the Western Hollywood
nightlife."
Jeffrey
nodded. "Pretty impressive."
"Mister
Warman... Jeffrey. What is this all about, really?" Helena inquired,
reading through the deception.
Jeffrey
took a sip of his latest can of coke, and began. "Helena, Lacy has changed
since you last saw her."
Helena
was fairly quiet. "How much?"
"She
was offered a job someplace under false pretenses. The people who hired her
really wanted to use her because she wouldn't be missed, for medical
experimentation... stuff the government wouldn't let them do." Helena's
mouth fell open slightly. She said nothing. "You must remember - no matter
how much she has changed on the outside, she's still the same person on the
inside."
Helena
was baffled. "Is she... sick?"
"No,
she's fine actually. She just looks different than when you last saw her. She's
very afraid that you aren't going to like what you see."
"Have
they caught the person who did it?"
"No,
but I'm told they are trying."
"Can
I see her?"
Jeffrey
turned to the outer door where a figure was standing in the shadows. "Come
on in, Lanara."
"Lanara...?"
Helena was puzzled, turning in the direction Jeffrey indicated.
In
the doorway the blue gargoyle was hanging it's wings around her shoulders, and
slowly padding her way in the door. Her tail twitched back and forth a couple
of times from anxiety. She watched her mother's eyes go from her feet all the
way up her new body, her jaw hanging slack. Helena stepped quickly up out her
chair, and began to scream in terror.
"STAY
AWAY, MONSTER!!!" she shouted. "What kind of FREAK are you?!!!"
"It's
me, momma!" Lanara replied in a loud voice, holding her paws out to
attempt to calm the frightened woman. Lanara paused, a pained look in her eyes,
and backed away, hanging her head.
"She's
your daughter." Jeffrey said, slowly.
Helena's
eyes widened a little when the recognition finally hit her what Jeffrey had
said. "Lacy?"
Lanara
lifted her head. "Momma?"
"What..."
she turned to Jeffrey. "What IS she?"
"I'm
a gargoyle." Lanara answered instead.
"A
gargoyle? You mean one of those creatures who attacks people and turns to
stone?"
"I
don't attack people! I've been given a
nice life! I'm not addicted to drugs anymore, I'm not drinking, I have my own
place, and I've got opportunities - things to do with my life!"
"Remember,
she's still the same person, Mrs. Myers." Jeffrey reminded her.
Recomposing
herself, Helena slowly walked up to Lanara. Afraid to move, Lanara waited.
Helena placed a hand on her shoulder, touching her new skin. Lanara unfolded
her wings so that her mother could see them. She was a little startled at
first, but she touched their leathery interior, looking at the blended colors.
"How are we going to cure you?" she muttered, shaking her head.
"What?"
Lanara asked, startled.
"It's
going to take all the money I have in savings and maybe more, but I've got
insurance. We'll get you fixed, don't worry."
"Fixed?"
"I'll
find you the best plastic surgeons. They'll have to amputate these..."
"No!"
Lanara protested.
"But...
don't you want to be normal again?" Helena pressured.
"Mom...
I like this body!" Lanara blurted out.
There
was a sudden silence in the room. Jeffrey was smiling - surprised but pleased
to finally hear her saying it. Helena was flabbergasted. "My girl was
going to come back with me to LA! I was getting an injunction filed to have her
live with me! She can't be a... demonspawn freak..."
Lanara's
wings flew open, and she snarled. "I'm NOT a freak! I'm NOT
demonspawn!"
"Gargoyles
are just like anyone else, they just look different.." Jeffrey corrected.
"Lacy,
be reasonable..."
"My
name isn't Lacy - or Lana - it's Lanara now. I'm a gargoyle, and I like what I
am!" she shouted with finality.
Helena's
face turned red. "Lanara? Fine, if that's the way you want it..."
Helena Reached into her briefcase and pulled out a few sheets of paper and tore
them down the middle. "You aren't my child anymore."
With
that, Helena Myers marched straight out the door.
Lanara's
paws came up to her face, and she collapsed on the floor in a heap of wings,
tail, and teenage girl - bawling. Jeffrey shook his head in frustration, knelt
beside Lanara, and put his arms around her, trying to comfort her.
