April 11, 1995
Broadway skulks in the shadows of the buildings as he walks the streets of Stamford, Connecticut. He figured he is not that far from Manhattan. If only he can find an air current.
He then finds himself near some windows showing a really bright room. He would have to make a dash for it. On the other side of the street is a building which looks tall enough that he might be able to catch an air current that would take the gargoyle to a higher elevation.
He glances and sees a man inside holding his hands up. He looks around, noticing the absence of any film or TV production vehicles; he recalls a few weeks ago when he saw, looking down from the roof of a building, some sort of film production with various white vehicles.
A man is being robbed.
But this is Stamford, not Manhattan. Manhattan is the castle that he and his clan swore to protect. A robbery, here in Stamford, is the business of those who had pledged themselves to protect Stamford.
And yet...
"Ah, what the hell!" exclaims the gargoyle.
He busts into the convenience store. The two men inside are startled. Broadway immediately tackles the robber and crushes the pistol with his bare first.
The shopkeeper, standing behind the counter, aims a Remington M1100 shotgun at the gargoyle.
Broadway holds up his hands. "Don't shoot," he says. "I'm on your side."
"So you can talk," says the shopkeeper, keeping the shotgun ready and his index finger close to the trigger.
"And I can leave."
Broadway walks backwards, until he is at the main entrance to the convenience store.
He turns around and leaves.
Seeing a green light at the intersection, he runs across the street and climbs up this seven-story building. Soon he is on the rooftop.
He can feel it, the currents.
Spreading his wings, Broadway leaps off the edge.
He is riding a current.
He can feel an updraft.
The gargoyle rises higher and higher above the streets of Stamford. He looks around.
In the distance, he can see some skyscrapers.
He now knows where to glide.
And so he glides southwest, using the Manhattan skyline as a landmark.
About thirty minutes later, he finally sets his taloned feet on the balcony of the clock tower above the 23rd NYPD precinct.
"Anyone here?" he asks.
"there you are!: exclaims Lexington, looking at the greenish blue gargoyle. "We were so worried."
He looks around the room inside the clock tower, recognizing the recliner and couch and television and refrigerator. "the others are on patrol, right?" asks Broadway.
"Yeah," replies the olive-green web-winged gargoyle. "we really need hand-held radios. If you're going out on patrol, I can write a note."
"There's something else, Lex." Broadway pulls out the bullet from his loincloth. "the bullet from that club shooting; I've managed to dig it out from the wall of that church before I turned to stone. Maybe if Elisa can tell the rest of the police to look for additional bullets."
"The church was demolished earlier today," says Lexington. "What I can do is call the squad room."
"then do it."
Lexington picks up a phone mounted on the wall and dials a number.
"Flores here," says a rookie detective in the squad room.
"Oh, it;'s you," replies Lexington. "It's me, Mr. Lexington."
"Maza's CI," says Detective Flores. "Please hold. I'll get her on the phone for you."
Minutes later, Detective Elisa Maza climbs up a ladder to the clock tower.
"Elisa!" exclaims Broadway.
"Great to see you," she says.
The two of them embrace.
"the bullet's here," says Lexington, holding a Ziploc bag containing the deformed bullet.
"We can run a test," says the NYPD detective.
She goes down the stairs.
Ooooooo
April 12, 1995
Elisa sits on a desk in her loft in SoHo. She keeps thinking,
She had managed to recover the weapon from the sewers under Sacrilege, and she had just turned over the bullet for the lab boys.
The complication of course is how to demonstrate chain of custody. Broadway had been in possession of the bullet since yesterday morning until sunset. They might be able to hold Crenshaw for a while, but if he challenges them...
Her thoughts are interrupted by knocking.
"Beth?" she asks.
"If you'll only give me a spare key," answers her younger sister, at the other side of the loft's door.
"Shhhh, you'll wake the dead," says Elisa, opening the door. "Not to mention the neighborhood."
Beth comes in, wearing a jacket over a pink blouse. "I've met your neighbors, sis," she says. "They are the dead."
"So if you didn't go out to soak up the local color.."
"Please, no grilling about where I've been, 'lisa, okay?"
"Fine, you're a big girl. Now anyway, nothing personal, but I've got some real problems to worry about."
Elisa sits at her desk, continuing to ponder how to make the case against Drew Crenshaw stick.
Ooooooooo
Deep underneath Gen-U-Tech's mansion in Westchester County, Dr. Edwin Phobos looks at his patient.
There are no life signs.
"I am sorry to say we lost our patient," says the geneticist.
"Failure is a part of science, Edwin," replies Dr. Anton Sevarius. "In fact, it gives us the best source of information. It's such a strict, harsh, painful teacher, yet the most effective."
"We know that, Anton. But Mr. Xanatos might feel differently. He wants results. Our patient was supposed to be able to collect gargoyle blood samples. A pattern of failure means that Mr. Xanatos will redirect funding to other departments.
"Still, we will see what we can recover from this. My staff can perform an autopsy and collect samples, before we dispose of the corpse."
Phobos looks down at his patient, still feeling disappointment.
Ooooooo
"You can't win," says the man in an expensive-looking suit. He stands up, looking at Captain Maria Chavez and Assistant District Attorney Margot Yale. "Not with your kind of witness."
"She's right," replies the assistant district attorney. "The witness is on record as having seen flying monsters. A jury won't buy that, regardless of how true we believe her statement to be."
The lawyer glances at Drew Crenshaw before looking at the two women. "My client could use a little compensation for the trouble."
Chavez sighs. "Very well, we will..."
"Stop right there!" exclaims a female voice.
Crenshaw looks and sees the very same cop who had busted him in that bar in Brooklyn!
"Don't say anything," his client warns him.
"Crenshaw won't have to," says Elisa. "This bullet will do the talking." she holds a Ziploc bag with a bullet. "Our CSU teams searched the rubble of the church that was demolished. This bullet was embedded in a piece of brick wall. There were traces of human tissue on it.
"And it matches the Beretta we recovered from the sewers, the same pistol that has Mr. Crenshaw's fingerprints."
"I have nothing to say," says Crenshaw.
"If the guards at Rikers are in a good mood, you could ask for a pillow," says the police captain. "That's something you can say."
Oooooooooo
The Honda motor spins a propeller, propelling a motorboat out through Mamaroneck Harbor. The sailor aboard looks ahead at the waters of Long Island Sound, the boats an d vessels sailing on it, and Long Island in the distance. A wake emerges from the rear of the motorboat. Above, the sky is orange, as the sun is setting.
The man had been paid a few thousand dollars by two people to make a disposal. He had done this before, supplementing his income.
He looks behind him. The shoreline looks far enough.
He takes the sack and throws it into the water. It makes a splash, and then ripples radiate away.
"time to head back to land," he says.
But then something emerges from the water and jumps on the boat.
He sees an inhuman face, orange in color.
He can see wings underneath the creature's arms.
She opens her mouth, baring fangs.
The fangs sink through the skin of the man's neck, piercing the jugular veins that return blood to his heart.
The blood goes right into the fangs.
And then the mouth containing those fangs shrieks loudly.
Lavonne has a new existence.
