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Puppet Strings - Chapter 2
By Kudara
Disclaimer: All
the characters appearing in Gargoyles are copyright Buena Vista
Television/The Walt Disney Company. No infringement of these
copyrights is intended, and is not authorized by the copyright
holder. All original characters are the property of the author.
Warning: None
Rating: PG-13
Feedback: Always welcome, feedback is what encourages me to keep
writing. Please let me know what you like and what you dislike
about the story.
Revision History: 9/5/04; 01/28/08
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Kendra paid her bill and wandered out of the restaurant,
glancing at a newspaper stand idly as she walked by. The
headline had her stopping abruptly in front of it, “Quarryman
rally”. She pulled out some change and bought the paper curious
to see what her cousin was up to now. He was going by the name
of John Castaway, she noted reading the article, and he would be
at the Quarrymen rally that was taking place in two hours at
Central Park. Kendra made a quick decision; she would go watch
the rally. Chances were she would be able to talk to Jon and
perhaps get some more information about the gargoyles from him.
She returned to her apartment and changed into her bike outfit,
which consisted of thick insulated and armored black leather
pants, a black turtleneck, black leather armored jacket, and
black leather boots. Braiding her hair so that it would fit
neatly into her helmet, she went down to the small garage area;
besides the Jaguar, she had two Aprilia motorbikes stored here.
They were the same models that she had at the estate because she
didn’t like riding motorbikes between her two residences in the
winter. She decided would ride the RSV Mille tonight; it was a
single seated sports bike, the other Aprilia, a Futura model,
was more of a touring bike and had two seats. She admired for a
moment the angular aggressive lines of both bikes; they looked
like something Batman would ride, with a triangular body design
that made for a very unique look.
She removed her helmet and after checking to make sure the radio
was working, started an Enigma CD. She started up the bike and
headed out the garage toward Central Park. It was not hard to
spot the rally when she got there. She found a spot to park her
bike under a street lamp and engaged the bike’s anti-theft
system then proceeded on foot to a spot that she could overlook
and overhear the rally.
Her cousin was there shouting out about how the gargoyles were
stealing children, how they were threats to decent humans
everywhere. Kendra’s eyes narrowed in anger, and she shook her
head at the old tired routine, witches, Jews, homosexuals and
now gargoyles. The same old lies were trotted out as
justification for every round of discrimination and violence
against each new target. It was sad that Jon couldn’t come up
with anything new and original. Then she caught the new twist
to the baby stealing, the gargoyles were going to turn human
babies into gargoyles. She was puzzled about why he would make
such a statement, but had to give him points for pseudo
originality though the same accusations had pretty much been
made against gays for years. Unless he was implying they would
be turned into were-gargoyles. That actually sounded rather
interesting to her, it would be cool to have wings and be able
to fly.
Jon finally wound down and she worked her way over toward him
and took off her bike helmet. He immediately recognized her and
with a shocked and hopeful look and shook off his admirers long
enough to come over and ask her what she was doing in
Manhattan.
“I came to see Jason, I read about this meeting and decided to
see what you were up to,” Kendra replied with studied
casualness. She wanted him to think she was only slightly
interested in what he had to say, in the past that had always
incited him to try and get her interested in what he was doing.
Just as she had hoped, Jon started talking excitedly about his
plans to exterminate the gargoyles once and for all, and about
how he thought that Xantos was protecting several of the
demons. She nodded focusing more on what he was saying and
letting more of her interest show, encouraging him to continue
talking.
When he finally seemed to be winding down she asked in a low
tone, “I want more information about this Demona that Jason
mentioned, could you send me an email with what you have?” she
asked Jon with a smile. He agreed readily and asked her if she
had changed her mind after hearing the Demons plans. Kendra
shrugged carelessly, “Let’s say I’m interested in finding out
more about these gargoyles, I’ll decide if I’m interested in
your hunt after getting more information about this Demona.”
Jon looked pleased, apparently certain that the information
would persuade her to join his cause.
After excusing herself, Kendra backed away, letting the
Quarrymen nearby regain her cousin’s attention. She walked
toward the park entrance noticing as she did so that Detective
Elisa Maza was standing there with a few other officers watching
the rally and watching her in particular. Kendra had already
decided that she had no chance with Elisa the woman was
definitely straight. Still, there was no reason she couldn’t
tease the woman some more since Detective Maza’s attention she
so obviously focused on her at the moment.
She smirked and made her way over toward the Elisa, “Fancy
meeting you here Detective, checking up on my cousin as well I
see.”
Elisa stared at her with searching intentness, “Is that what you
are doing? Checking up on him?” she asked.
Kendra smiled at the woman smugly, “Jon likes talk, what he
talks about I find interesting.” She turned and looked over her
shoulder at the remaining Quarrymen for a few moments before
looking back to the Detective. She added as if it were an
afterthought, “I suspect you know more about these gargoyles
than you let on as well.” Kendra paused for a moment to let the
other woman’s tension increase before continuing to tease her,
“You tense up just slightly whenever they are mentioned. You
need to work on concealing your emotions better if you are
trying to hide something.” With that, she smirked at the now
glaring Elisa Maza and sauntered off towards the lake.
Baiting the Detective was going to be lots of fun, the woman
actually had very good control over her emotions, if it weren’t
for Kendra’s jaguar senses she would never have noticed the
slight reactions. Elisa was probably nervous now about how much
Kendra knew, and what exactly she was up to. Kendra found it
amusing to think of how focused the detective was on her, even
if there wasn’t a chance of Elisa being interested in her in the
way Kendra would appreciate.
Kendra waited patiently listening to Elisa and her partner who
Elisa called Matt discussed the difficulties the Quarrymen were
causing concerning gargoyle – human relations. The two had no
idea they were being overheard, Kendra’s hearing was very acute
even as a human and she was crouched flat along the ground
behind a log at least 100 feet away from where they were
standing talking together.
Elisa paused and looked around and said in a low voice, “Goliath
is really getting depressed about it not being safe for them to
patrol, you know how they need to help people. It’s been months
now and they still can’t go out and without fear of being
attacked. I know they go out a patrol occasionally anyway, but
it’s really dangerous for them.”
She stopped talking and looked saddened; her partner put a
reassuring hand on her arm, “I’m sure the truth about the
Quarrymen will be revealed somehow, I don’t understand why
people believe all these lies.”
Bitterly Elisa growled, “Maybe if Demona would stop trying to
kill of the human race they would. I can’t believe she claims
to be trying to save gargoyles when she’s single-handily done
more to ensure their extinction than anyone else, if it weren’t
for her these Quarrymen would have never existed.”
Matt sighed, “Don’t be so bitter around Angela, she’s has enough
trouble listening to everyone else especially Brooklyn blaming
her mother for everything that’s wrong.”
Elisa nodded, “I try not to, I see how it hurts her, but I wish
she would just realize that her mother is truly evil before
Demona hurts her even more.”
Obviously changing the subject Matt asked, “What’s up with
Kendra Canmore and the comment she made?”
Elisa sighed, “I think she’s just baiting me to get me to react,
Jason said something about her enjoying rattling people, and
from the way she acted right now and when I saw her earlier in
the day it certainly fits.” Elisa continued, “He seems pretty
certain that she’s not interested in the feud at all. She does
however; seem to be interested in Demona.” Elisa turned toward
her partner and dropped her voice further, “She really got
interested when Jason told her that Demona was Dominique
Destine, seems as if they have had business dealings in the past
so Kendra knows of Dominique. What she intends on doing with
the information though,” the detective shrugged. She glanced at
the watch on her wrist, “It’s time for our shift to end, let’s
get back to the station house.” With that statement, Elisa and
her partner got in their unmarked car and drove off.
Kendra was not that curious about where they were going, she had
heard quite enough to make her to want to go to her apartment to
see if Jon had sent the information she requested. She wondered
if he had any idea that Demona had a daughter, she certainly
would not tell him if he didn’t, but it certainly was an
interesting piece of information.
She scanned the area intently; watching and listening carefully
for any indication there was anyone about, then when she was
certain she was alone, she rose and walked to her motorcycle.
When she arrived at her apartment, the first thing she did was
check her email. She smiled in satisfaction at seeing the
waiting file in her inbox. Jon had already sent the information
she desired, including several pictures of both Demona and
Dominique Destine. Dominique Destine she was familiar with,
looking at the same face in blue on a gargoyle was intriguing to
say the least.
Kendra had been interested in the sleek, haughty and
hot-tempered business executive ever since the buy out skirmish;
the woman was powerful, beautiful and mysterious. Now she had
another reason to be interested in the woman, but how was she
going to get close enough to understand Demona? The file
contained some historical information, mostly tales of how they
had destroyed any gargoyles in stone form they had come across
and tales of how the gargoyle named Demona had escaped them time
and time again. A lot of the information was already familiar
to her, her father had told her about the Canmore families past.
There was not much more information about Demona until Jason,
Jon and Robyn had witnessed their father being thrown off the
Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France. The file then repeated
what Jason had already told her about Demona being Dominique
Destine. A copy of the file Robyn had found was included, and
Kendra watched intently as Demona described her plans for
destroying the human race and using the Praying Gargoyle to
protect herself, her daughter and the surviving gargoyles. The
statistical specs at the end were a perfect touch, leaving the
one fact that hung glaring in front of her. Demona had
certainly not needed to make any such disk for herself, and she
certainly should not have brought the company’s newest hire down
to the lab and opened the safe and displayed everything within
it with Robyn there. It just didn’t make any sense at all.
However, it now looked like there had been a chance that the
virus would have been much deadlier Kendra initially thought.
She didn’t know whether or not sorcery could have magically
spread the virus as Demona had claimed, she didn’t even know
whether the mix of the carrier agent and cleanser would have
actually worked. Scientifically speaking it shouldn’t have done
anything, but mixed with sorcery? She really didn’t know.
Demona’s reasoning seemed to have been that humanity was a germ
that needed to be disinfected from the earth.
Kendra sat back in her chair frowning; there were several things
wrong with the entire scenario. Her gaze went to the
apartment’s kitchen, and she stared at the cabinet doors below
the sink. If the gargoyle had just needed a disinfectant why go
through the trouble of getting an experimental one? Why not
just use a common disinfectant like Lysol or bleach, certainly
bleach should have sufficed, it was after all the most commonly
used laboratory disinfectant and would kill or denature almost
all bacteria and viruses. For that matter why use a
disinfectant at all? That part had her completely confused; if
the second agent had been a pathogen instead of a disinfectant
everything would make so much more sense.
Finally, Kendra shook her head in annoyance. She simply didn’t
have enough information to judge whether the Demona’s plan had
any hope of succeeding. Nor was there any information in Jon’s
file to indicate whether the canister had actually carried an
infectious agent or just an uncommonly strong disinfectant bound
to a carrier virus that presented little danger to humanity.
The last attached file contained pictures of the other gargoyles
in Manhattan. She memorized each and noted what they were
doing, a truly huge pale lavender male held and older grizzled
male in his arms prepared to leap to safety from the ruins of
the clock tower above the police station. From Jason’s story,
she knew that Robyn had been the one to fire the missiles at an
occupied building. Robyn was damn lucky she wasn’t up for
second-degree murder for that idiocy. A reddish male with a
beaked mouth held a smaller greenish male in his arms ready to
leap to safety. Next to the reddish male was an overweight blue
male that held what looked like some type of gargoyle dog in his
arms. Standing behind the two males was a delicate feminine
form.
She used her graphical software to enhance the image and stared
at the female gargoyle. She was darker shade of lavender than
Goliath, and Kendra suspected she must be looking at Demona’s
daughter, the one the detective had called Angela. Jason had
almost killed her, for which at least he had looked properly
ashamed at his apartment when he told her earlier. Goliath
seemed to fit the huge light lavender male.
Finally, she shrugged and decided to get some sleep; she had a
few weeks until she needed to go back to her estate. She needed
to figure out the best way to find out more about the gargoyles
and Demona in particular. The files had made it obvious that
she needed to be careful, Demona certainly didn’t like humans,
and to top it off Kendra was a Canmore. Still, the gargoyle had
never killed a Canmore that wasn’t actively hunting her, that at
least was something in Kendra’s favor.
The next morning she started calling certain business partners
of hers to let them know she wanted information about investment
opportunities at Nightstone Unlimited. She had always kept up
with what Dominique was doing, both out of personal curiosity
and out of a desire to protect her business investments. She
had done so quietly in the past, not wanting Dominique to be
aware of her interest. Kendra grinned to herself after the last
phone call, this information gathering was anything but quiet,
and it would probably only be a few hours before Dominique
Destine was aware that Kendra Canmore was inquiring about
investment opportunities at Nightstone.
It did not take long for the information to start arriving in
her email, and Kendra spent most of the morning perusing the
various investment opportunities available to her at
Nightstone. Dominique Destine had a shrewd sense of business
and there were several areas that Kendra felt comfortable that
she would make a tidy profit by investing some of her money in
Nightstone. She sat back and decided to wait a day before
seeing if she could arrange a meeting with Dominique Destine,
she wanted to make sure that the news got around to her that a
Canmore was interested in investing in her company.
In the meantime, she needed something to do this morning. She
decided to go practice at the dojo she visited when in
Manhattan. They had a Kendo teacher at there and she always
took advantage of the chance to improve her sword techniques
while he was teaching. She picked up her skates and chose
clothing that she could skate in later, and then went to visit
her cousin Jason. He had heard she had gone to see Jon and she
readily acknowledged it, “He was very helpful in sending me some
information I wanted.”
Jason looked at her suspiciously, “I don’t know what you’re up
to Kendra but be careful, Jon’s dangerous these days and Demona
will kill you if she finds out your searching for information on
her.”
“I know just as much Canmore history as you do Jason, so I
rather doubt that,” Kendra commented coolly. “Even with all the
reasons our family has given her over the years to hate us she’s
never went after any Canmore that wasn’t actively hunting her at
the time, providing of course that your right about her having
lived for the past thousand years.”
Jason opened his mouth and she could tell by the look on his
face he was getting ready to disagree with her rather loudly,
then a strange expression ghosted across his features and he
fell silent.
Kendra nodded, “Can’t think of one can you. That’s because
there never has been one case of her coming after us. It’s
always been us that initiated the violence Jason, and I’m
planning on being very open and peaceful about my intentions.”
He tried to persuade her for the next thirty minutes that Demona
was much too dangerous for her to attract even the least bit of
the gargoyle's attention. Kendra finally managed to leave after
reassuring him she would seriously consider what he had said,
but she really wanted to go figure skating at the Rockefeller
Center tonight. She never mentioned that after her morning
phone calls she was certain that Demona was already quite aware
of her interest.
It was night by the time she arrived at the Rockefeller Center;
she looked at the few skaters on the ice and frowned. She hated
trying to skate when it was crowded. Hopefully the ice would
free up and she would be able to do a few jumps and flying
spins. She started out doing a few basic turns and glides to
loosen up then began working on her spins, she was used to
ignoring the stares of the other skaters, so it took her a
moment to realize that someone not in the rink was watching
her. She surveyed the area trying to determine whose gaze
disturbed her and was unsurprised to see Detective Maza watching
her with a narrow-eyed, suspicious gaze. The woman’s partner
stood beside her, watching in a much friendlier manner. Jason
had most likely told the detective where she would be tonight
and the woman was probably making sure she wasn’t stalking any
gargoyles. She smirked at the thought, she didn’t need to go
searching for them as she was certain she had seen one flying
above the rink earlier.
After about an hour, the rink was beginning to clear out and
Kendra took the opportunity to do some of the sit and camel
spins that took more room to safely perform. By nine’ clock
there were only a few skaters remaining upon the ice and Kendra
felt she had enough room to practice some jumps. She loved
jumping, her inner jaguar gave her an edge in maintaining her
balance and she knew that she was very graceful on the ice.
When she started doing single and double practice jumps, several
of the skaters moved over to the side and watched. She wished
she had the rink to herself so that she could really show off
but there were still ten or so people skating and she didn’t
want to risk hurting anyone.
Fifteen minutes before the ice rink was due to close, the few
skaters left came over and asked if she would like the ice to
herself for the rest of the time. She smiled and thanked them
for their courtesy, then waited while they cleared off the ice
to the edge. Having plenty of room she decided to show off and
go through one of the routines she did at home on the frozen
lake on the estate.
Elisa and Matt had been surprised to see that Kendra was still
on the ice when they patrolled past that way again. They
stopped to watch as the other skaters cleared the ice leaving
Kendra on it alone. Then when she began skating using the
entire surface of the ice, they both watched awed as she went
through what was obviously a practiced routine.
Matt gasped once when she completed a particularly difficult set
of jumps and Elisa stared at him as he whispered “She’s doing
stuff that only the men usually do, good grief she must have
some strong legs to manage to do triple axles.” Elisa turned to
stare at Jason’s cousin only seeing that the woman made figure
skating look elegant and easy. She shook her head wryly at her
partner, not blaming him for his open interest in the woman
skating. Not only was Kendra Canmore beautiful, but she was
strong and graceful as well, she made Elisa feel almost plain in
comparison, not something the detective was not used to at all.
Knowing that the rink was about to close, Kendra thanked those
watching for their applause as soon as she finished. She
changed back into her bike boots and rode her bike back toward
her apartment, before pulling into the garage she paused for a
moment and examined the building and the buildings around it
carefully. Considering it was nighttime she wasn’t taking any
chances of and angry gargoyle or anyone else surprising her.
She had spotted a man following her earlier and after cutting
off the lights in her apartment, she crept out on the balcony to
see if he was still about. It wasn’t hard for her to spot him;
he was smoking and talking into a cell phone. Idly she wondered
whether he was with Jon or with Demona, before going back inside
to reviewing her investment plans for her meeting tomorrow at
Nightstone.
Demona had indeed heard of the introduction of a new Canmore
onto the scene, and of her interest in her company. Kendra
Canmore had certainly not attempted to hide her information
gathering; rather she seemed to be trying to make sure Dominique
would be aware of it. The surveillance tail that she had put on
the woman shortly after noon followed her from a dojo to Jason
Canmore’s apartment and then to Rockefeller Plaza where the
woman had figure skated several hours before finally returning
home.
It was midnight before Demona’s surveillance operative had his
initial report ready for delivery. He dropped off the photo’s
and information he had gathered with the comment that Kendra
Canmore was “one fine looking woman” to which she had just
snarled through the intercom at him that she was not interested
in how attractive he found Canmore. She was curious though
after that to see what she looked like; he had never made a
comment like that before about anyone else that she had sent him
to follow.
The photo on top of the report when she opened it was a close up
of Kendra Canmore. Demona was surprised at how different in
appearance the woman was from what she had expected. She looked
for the information on the human’s parents and noted the
Brazilian mother. That accounted for the unusually dark skin
tone. The sapphire blue eyes were unusual as well, as the
Canmore’s usually ran to grey or grey-blue eyes from what she
remembered. She stared at the picture once again; Kendra
Canmore was definitely exotic looking with her dusky olive skin
and handsome face.
She flipped through the other pictures and paused to admire a
few of Kendra practicing at the dojo. It was difficult to tell
from pictures how skilled the human was at martial arts, but she
suspected this Canmore was just as skilled at fighting as her
other clan members. Next came photo’s of Kendra figure skating
and though Demona did not know much about the sport she was able
to tell from the pictures that this was yet another thing that
this Canmore excelled in doing. She picked up the report on
Kendra Canmore’s history and noted that she had been approached
in high school about becoming a member of the U.S. Olympic team
for not only figure skating but gymnastics as well, but had
turned them down saying that she wanted to enjoy her sports, not
have them become work.
The report also included pictures of various women. Demona was
puzzled by the inclusion of these pictures until she read the
report with them. Rumor had it these women had been
romantically involved with Kendra Canmore. Demona glanced,
startled, at the pictures of the women again. They were
strikingly alike in one way; almost all of the women had
variations of red hair. Surely the human wasn’t… She picked up
the close up of Kendra Canmore and scowled at it, “What are you
playing at human?” she asked it.
After a moment, she threw down the picture and picked up a
completely different report. This one was on the man known as
the Assassin. She had sent her acceptance of his price for the
job that she wanted him to do earlier in the evening. She was
paying this human well for his silence and his skill; hopefully
he would live up to his reputation.
In the still silence of the mansion, its lone occupant smiled
imagining herself as the leader of the Manhattan clan once that
fool that used to be her mate was finally out of the way. With
him gone, she would be able to ensure that her daughter was
safe, that her daughter didn’t risk herself trying to save
humans that would only betray them in the end.
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