Meredith bounced lightly from foot to foot, stretching her hamstrings while occasionally glancing at her watch. Cadee had paged her last night and they’d arranged to meet up at Central Park for lunch. Meredith had a free period before her next lecture and she’d planned a short run anyway, so it all worked out very well. Cadee hadn’t gone into detail about what info she had, but if she wanted to meet away from The Slainte, it had to be something pretty juicy. Right?
Her eyes scanned the various paths snaking off in all directions. At midday, Central Park was bustling with activity, cyclists and other joggers cut their own tracks over the green, while office workers enjoyed the sunshine and shared a sandwich on a park bench. Meredith’s nose twitched, catching the scent of fried onions from a hotdog vendor, though she couldn’t even see one. In New York there was always a hotdog vendor somewhere.
“Come on Cadee,” she muttered, her stomach growling in protest.
Cadee saw Meredith in the distance, near a fountain, as she stopped on a high spot of the park pathway. Smiling, she stood on the bike pedals, bent forward, and lunged easily and swiftly towards her, relishing in the warm May breeze while doing so. She had spent five years working as a bike courier, and she felt as comfortable on the bike as she did on foot. As she rode her Trek down the path, she promised herself to make some time for riding, just for fun.
She reached the other girl in a couple of minutes, and smiled brightly. Stepping down from her bike, she greeted Meredith with enthusiasm, trying to cover her nervousness.
“Hello, Meri! What a day, right?” Then she signaled her bike’s attachable basket. “I hope you’re hungry, ‘cause I brought enough for a battalion.”
“Great, ’cos I’m starving!” Meredith blurted without even thinking. She was glad to see the other woman, Cadee was always like a ray of sunshine on a rainy day, which probably accounted for why she was so popular at The Slainte. But Meredith’s attention was pretty much taken up with the contents of her basket, she really was hungry, she always seemed to be hungry lately.
“There’s a picnic area just over there,” she pointed behind a clump of trees. “And you can tell me all about this breaking story you have for me.”
She laughed, and nodded. “Lead the way, miss” she said, as she started to walk next to Meredith. “I’m sure you’ll be interested in what I have to tell you.”
Obviously more familiar with that area of the park than Cadee was, the brunette led her to a clearing between the trees, close to the pathway, but at the same time, isolated enough to have a nice, private picnic.
“This is perfect. How did you find this spot?” Se said, looking around. Incredibly, they were the only ones in the area. *Excellent for bizarre revelations, too* Cadee thought, as she extended a tablecloth on the ground. She had known she wouldn’t go wrong bringing food, Meredith was probably ravenous.
“The news is good, but the food is better. I made it myself, I take cooking lessons, you know? I want to have my own restaurant some day.” Then she started taking treats from the basket. “Tortilla de papas, club sandwiches, ham tapas appetizers, chicken salpicón, and good solid roast beef with potato salad… hope you like Spanish.”
“Wow,” Meredith’s eyes widened as Cadee lay a selection of cartons out on the blanket. The smell alone was amazing, a hundred times better than any hotdog, in fact her mouth was salivating. “The best I can rustle up is pasta, and whatever else is in the cupboard. Cupboard Pasta, it’s my speciality.” Meredith sat down and snagged a slice of the tortilla, devouring it in three easy bites. “Hmmm, this is amazing,” she mumbled appreciatively between mouthfuls, “you’ve got some talent, Cadee. What the hell are you still doing waitressing?”
Cadee watched Meri gobble down her lunch and laughed. She really loved to feed people, enjoyed their pleasure. “Money matters,” she answered, matter-of-factly, it was easier to answer that than explaining the real reasons, and it was true, anyway. She grabbed a club sandwich and took a bit. “I’m saving the tips, I’ll get there eventually.”
They ate in silence for a couple of minutes, time enough for Meri to deplete the contents of most boxes, and Cadee to think how to go on. Better start with the news. “I’m glad you got out safely on Sat, Meri. I was very relieved when you answered my page.” She said finally. “Actually, what I have to tell you is related to that.”
Meredith nodded, chewing a forkful of chicken salpicón slowly. “Now that was one psychotic night, you should hear some of the things I’ve heard. One guy swore to hell and back that zombies had attacked the club, kept rambling about guys with their faces rotting off,” Meredith shuddered, “obviously a big Lucinda Graves fan. I have my own theories of course, so tell me, whaddaya know?”
“No zombies, that’s for sure.” She said, happy to be able to deny that truthfully, whatever those things were, they weren’t zombies. “But strange enough for the SCU to poke its nose.”
At Meredith’s puzzled look, she asked “You don’t know about them?” The girl shook her head, her mouth full, and Cadee went on. “Ok, SCU stands for ‘Special Crimes Unit’. They are regulars at the Slàinte, their offices stayed in the old Police Headquarters on Center Street, just a couple of blocks away. They are like… the X-files of NYPD. If a crime is strange enough, who’s you gonna call?”
She waved her hands, dismissingly. She didn’t want to sound too strange herself, not just as yet. “Usually there’s a logical explanation for everything, of course. Some psycho that believes himself a vampire, enough to kill girls with a syringe, or a burglar that covers himself as a ‘ghost’ in an old building” Those two were true too, she had heard the cops laugh about them. Not all cases were true supernatural stuff.
“Or three strangely deformed guys rampaging into a nightclub…”
As Cadee talked, Meredith had taken out her notebook, scribbling down notes and circling SCU in bold. It kinda made sense and it was probably an excellent way of rounding up all the kooks and cranks - and there were a lot of both in New York.
“Thanks for the tip, so you recognised some of the cops at the Graveyard? I don’t suppose you could throw a name my way?”
Cadee reflected a little on that. It wouldn’t do any harm, would it? Meredith would probably do her own investigation on the police unit and Pablo Sandoval was in the payroll.
“Actually, I can. Detective Juan Pablo Sandoval, he’s top man in there, and a regular at the Slàinte. I think he was just attending the party, though. Talk about being in the right place at the right time.”
Cadee smiled, she was getting there with Meredith without disclosing any ‘private’ information still, but she had some news she could share, she had been busy snooping around.
“However, all that is public news, you wanted some juicy info.” She paused for drama, and went on. “The SCU believes one of the men was the leader of a small gang from Hell’s kitchen: the New West Berlins. They deal in drugs, girls, firearms, you name it. The guy’s name is Drago, but I couldn’t get his surname.”
Meredith’s pencil stopped scratching out her notes on the paper. Drago… that was the name of the guy Balthazar Romano had been talking to. So her suspicions had been right, he was a gang leader, the New West Berlins. She’d read a few articles about them and another gang operating out of Chinatown, The Blades, or something like that.
Without looking up, Meredith slowly jotted a few more notes down before casually asking: “You ever hear about a guy called Balthazar Romano?”
Cadee hand stilled midair to her mouth, the ham tapa she was eating forgotten in it. Bathazar Romano again? First Jasmin’s warning and now this. Besides, how the hell had Meredith got to know Balthazar Romano? That was no good news, one thing was to give her information to investigate the NWBs, washed-out as they were, and another a VIP of the supernatural world like Romano. She swallowed, before answering. Probably the truth –or as close to the truth as she could get– would be the best way to go.
“Romano is bad news, Meri. The man is dangerous, more so because he covers his smoky business under a layer of legitimacy. The cops have never been able to nail him.” She was worried and she didn’t mind showing it, besides, there was something in Meredith’s casual way that scared her. “Please promise me you won’t get into that…”
*Now that’s…. interesting.* Meredith looked up, surprise clear in her features. “You sure hear a lot at The Slainte,” she frowned slightly then shrugged, “I’m well aware of what kind of guy he is, you can add primo-sleaze-bag to his list of not-so redeeming features too. I have a lead on a story that might just give the cops something to nail him with, but it’s nothing solid, just theory. So don’t worry, I’ll keep my distance, if only to avoid him hitting on me again.”
“Good,” she said, relaxing. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to sound all mommy-like, but that man gives me the creeps. He hit on you? Disgusting.” she shuddered, the thought of that slimy old man and Meredith was really disturbing.
Meredith knocked the cap off a bottle of soda and took a gulp. “I think he tried to spike my drink or something, it was the weirdest thing, for a moment I actually considered leaving with him. You know, like it almost seemed like a good idea!? I swear I thought he’d slipped me a mickey but then all of a sudden, I was myself again, so I figure I had a momentary lapse of sanity, right?”
She shrugged, leaning back on her elbows and enjoying the midday sun for a moment. “Don’t worry about me, I’ve dealt with plenty of sleaze-balls in my time. Besides, if my hunch is right, he’ll get his soon enough.”
Cadee watched Meredith for a little while, thinking about her words. Some kind of drug in her drink was a possibility, but given Romano’s skill, a spell was more like it. It talked about Meredith’s strength that she had been able to fight it and not ended in the man’s bed. That was good, she’d need her strength if she was to survive the next full moon.
Then she frowned. “Do you have something on the guy? You mentioned a lead on a story.”
Meredith eyed the other girl for a moment before shaking her head. It’s not that she figured Cadee would scoop her story, but trust was nothing something that came naturally to her. “Just theories and circumstance at the moment, the girlfriend and mom of an employee of his were brutally murdered about a week ago. Then he just happens to be at a party which is the target of a gang related attack?” Meredith shrugged again. She decided not to mention that she’d overheard Romano talking to Drago, or the red gem she’d taken from the girl’s bedroom that Romano seemed so eager to retrieve. She’d like to think she could trust Cadee, but the truth was you just never knew. Besides, if she did get into trouble, the last thing Meredith wanted was to drag the other girl into it by association. No, it was safer all round if she kept the majority of what she knew to herself until she had concrete evidence.
“It could be coincidence, but Romano is the common factor in both events, plus we’ve already established that he’s as slippery as an eel, not to mention a total sleaze and a potential date-rapist.”
Cadee nodded, not wanting to press Meri, but taking a mental note on what she had said. She would investigate about those related killings, hopefully she’ll get the names of the murdered women by herself.
“It makes sense,” she said finally. The gang part, the employee, the killings, not to mention magic –something that Meri ignored but she didn’t; those creeps in the party had to be powered by magic, and Romano was a sorcerer. “Too many coincidences.”
Then she laughed, “you probably believe I’m a little snoop myself, right?”
“Though in my case it works to my benefit,” at Cadee’s confused frown, Meredith smiled, continuing. “Well, you’d be a lousy source otherwise. Besides, I intend to make snooping my career, so, you’re in good company.”
“Fair enough,” Cadee replied, and leant back herself, closing her eyes, an arm resting on her face. The sun was warm and there was a nice breeze; the sounds of the people in the park sounded far away, so far it was almost as if they were alone in the world. She wanted to extend the easy moment as much as she could, forget about magic, zombies or werewolves; forget they weren’t just a couple of ordinary girls having a picnic in Central Park. Be normal for once in her life.
Too bad that wasn’t possible.
*Just how the hell do you tell somebody she’s been bitten by a werewolf?* Cadee asked herself for the thousandth time that week, after she had made up her mind about the matter.
“You show your colours first, girl. ‘Look, I’m not normal myself: I heal fast, I am strong!’” had been Anne’s answer, accompanied by a very silly performance of cutting veins and bending spoons. “And then you point out the changes she must be suffering.” If she could, she would have made an internet survey or a ballot!
Thing was, she was alone with Meredith, planning to tell the other woman some news she couldn’t possibly believe, so… what was the point?
*She needs to know,* she answered herself for the thousandth time too. *She won’t believe it, but if I can’t help her, at least she’ll know what happened… and she’ll know she can count on me afterwards.* It wasn’t much, but it was all she could do.
Cadee turned towards the other girl, who was enjoying the sunshine just like she had and grinned. “I see you don’t have the bandage on your arm anymore; you heal fast.”
Meredith looked down at her arm, fingering the light scar that curved around her forearm. “It still aches, actually I thought it’d scar more… thank-god it didn’t right? Last thing I need is some ugly ass scar…” *because sometimes I feel like this body is the only thing I have going for me* was the unspoken thought that would have finished that sentence. Meredith continued to touch the scar in silence for a moment before smiling as she returned her attention to Cadee.
“I’d not really noticed, to be honest, the healing thing. I guess that surgeon did a pretty good job, huh? Maybe I shouldn’t bitch about medical bills so much.”
“Well, it looked pretty nasty when I saw it, so I guess you shouldn’t. How did you get it?” Cadee asked, even if she already knew the answer.
“Oh, some huge dog bit me, I was jogging around here actually,” Meredith gestured around the park, “at night, I know, dumb idea, but it’s nice at night. Really… peaceful, and I’m careful, I always carry a knife- not that I’m some freaky knife wielding maniac, but a girl has to be careful, right? Anyway, this dog, I think it was wild, it just flew out of the bushes and-” she held up her arm. “I banged my head, in fact, I’m not really sure what happened next, except this young couple crouching over me asking if I was okay.”
“Hope you don’t believe I’m a knife wielding maniac myself…” Cadee said, grinning as she sat down and raised her well worn jeans to take her own knife from its ankle holster. “A girl has to be careful.” Then she frowned. “I remember something about a big dog in the park, the SCU was investigating it.”
“The SCU? Why would be they be interested in some dog… oh wait! Lemme guess…” Meredith laughed, thinking for a moment. Seeing that knife strapped around Cadee’s ankle made her feel strangely happy. If a pretty, popular girl like Cadee thought it was okay to take that sort of precaution, then maybe she wasn’t so odd herself.
“Um… okay, so they would be looking for dog sized aliens or.. Oh wait, wait! A werewolf! That’s what it was!” Meredith grinned, laughing and taking another swig from her soda. “It was a full moon too!. Oooooh, I guess that makes me a werewolf too! Damn, I‘d better stock up on those home waxing kits! Extreme body hair coming my way!”
Cadee grinned again, but got serious before jumping for the window Meredith had opened. “I don’t know. Have you been ravenously hungry lately? What about mood changes, sudden anger? Are you stronger than usual? We’ve already stated you heal faster…”
“Yeah, well…” Meredith laughed, brushing her hair out of her eyes. It took her a moment to realise that Cadee had stopped smiling, that in fact her face was intently serious and watching her every move closely. Meredith sat up suddenly, her back stiff and that last mouthful of tortilla sitting heavy in her stomach. Was she joking? She certainly looked serious enough… though she could just be trying it on, pretending to be a kook to freak her out. A prank, but not a nice one. “Come on, Cadee…” she said after a minute, “don’t take the piss.”
Cadee noticed Meredith’s agitation and forced a smile. “Look, Meri. Just listen to me for a second before biting my head off, okay? I wasn’t completely honest with you earlier. The SCU investigate scams, yes, but sometimes they investigate the real thing too. And there is a werewolf running wild in Central Park. I know I can’t prove it to you, and you’re probably thinking I’m a nut job right now, but…”
Okay, she was getting there, but Meredith was reacting exactly as she’d expected. Maybe Anne’s approach could soften things a little… *or scare the crap out of her, but, what the hell.*
She took her knife from out of its holster again, and opened a gash in her forearm, long, but not very deep, enough to soak the picnic blanket in blood though. Quickly, before the other girl would start shouting or tried to stop the haemorrhage, she extended her arm to her and said. “Shhhh, Meri, please don’t shout. Look!”
As the horrified girl watched it, mesmerized, the bleeding stopped and her flesh started to restore itself. A couple of minutes later, her arm looked perfectly fit, bloody, but fit.
Meredith scrambled up, rolling back onto the balls of her sneakers in a crouched position. “What the fu-” she looked around but no one was within earshot to be able to hear them. “Cadee…” Meredith hesitantly ran a finger over the other girl’s bloody arm, but there was no cut, not even a scratch. She continued to frown in puzzlement until realisation finally dawned. “Oh, good one,” she said with a grin, “but I think they showed that one on Fox, Breaking the Magician’s Code. It’s a dummy knife with a channel for fake blood, right?”
It was Cadee’s time to stare, of all the reactions, all the things that Meri could say, that was… just incredible.
“It’s no dummy… Be careful, it’s sharp,” she said, when she managed to speak, as she presented the knife to the other girl, handle first, but Meredith didn’t move from her spot. Frustrated, Cadee moved a little forward, but the girl just drew back. “Please, Meri, I’m not joking and this is not an act. I just wanted to show you that I’m not an ordinary girl either... there’s not a rational explanation for me, or the cut.”
She wasn’t going to take the knife, Meredith wasn’t even sure why, but everything inside was screaming at her not to. “Maybe you’re not ordinary…” *No, you’re a fucking weirdo, that’s what you are!* she thought, a slight edge of panic making her breathing just a little more heavy. Cadee had seemed so normal, but she was obviously seriously mental. “But I am, just an ordinary girl and nothing more. What? You do some stupid trick with a knife and I’m suppose to believe that I’m a- a… what? A werewolf? Because I got bitten by some stray dog? You‘re disturbed,” she tapped a finger against her forehead, “in the head.”
*Well, this is more like it, * Cadee thought as she watched Meredith rant about her mental health. She wasn’t really hearing what she said, it all seemed a slow motion scene in a movie. *Were you really expecting something different?* She wasn’t but it hurt every time it happened. She liked Meredith; it wasn’t nice to have her believe she was crazy.
She thought frantically, trying to find a way for the other to believe her, even if she knew it wasn’t possible. Meredith was protecting herself using the ‘logical explanation’ approach; she’d seen it happen often enough. Vampire victims who insisted they had been attacked by scarred crooks or ghost sightings that were explained away as ‘holograms’. If she followed Anne’s advice and bent a spoon, she’ll probably say it was made of Plasticine.
She let the woman blow off a little steam, and then spoke again, trying to sound calm, have her actions, at least, not be those of a lunatic. She was going for plan B –which had been the only viable one all along.
“Listen to me. I understand you not believing me, but just listen to me.” She said, looking intently into the agitated woman’s eye. “You want to be an investigative journalist, so investigate . Research, gather data and then reach a conclusion. One: you were bitten by a big dog. On a full moon. Two: you’ve been ravenous lately. Third: your healing rates have risen. I don’t know about the mood changes, but I’m sure they are there, along with some heightened senses and reflexes too, if I’m not wrong.” She sighed, “can you honestly tell me none of this is true?”
“It’s insane, is what it is…” Meredith tried to calm herself, starting with her breathing which was heavy and ragged. She didn’t know what was upsetting her the most, the things that Cadee was saying, or the fact that she was obviously a very sick girl. So what if some of what she’d said was true? So she seemed to be more hungry than usual… that could mean anything, diabetes, hyperthyroidism… even pregnancy. Not that the last seemed likely considering…
And what if her bite wound had healed quickly? Some people did heal faster than others that wasn’t so strange. She was healthy and young, why shouldn’t she heal fast? And the stuff about mood swings… well that was just a lucky guess and a symptom of being a pre-menstrual woman. As for heightened senses and reflexes… well, sure she had noticed that she could hear better, and her sense of smell did seem more acute… but did that automatically mean she was a werewolf? The mere thought was absurd!
“Cadee,” she couldn’t help but feel angry. Meredith had spent her whole life feeling like an outsider. First she was the orphan girl without any parents, the girl who screamed and wet the bed at night, the girl who’d had three failed adoptions. Then she was the frustrated foster child, passed from one family to another, never at any school long enough to make friends so what was the point in trying? Then she was the attention-seeking teen, making up stories about her foster father who touched her in places that felt wrong, that made her feel dirty, then called her a liar and a troublemaker.
She’d spent the past ten years trying desperately to fit in, to be normal. It was all she ever wanted - the kind of ordinary, boring life that most people took for granted. What Cadee was saying was mad, it was ludicrous, but it did make Meredith feel that the gulf between herself and that ordinary life she longed for grow even wider.
“Cadee,” she said again, barely able to keep herself calm, “I really think you need some professional help. I mean, you obviously really believe all this, for whatever reason… Do you have any medication you should be taking? Or is there someone I can call for you?”
Cadee closed her eyes, it shouldn’t bother her so much to be treated this way, but it did; she had anticipated it, predicted every word, but yet, it hurt. She could hear the fear in Meredith’s words, disguised as anger, and the anger too, and hated herself for being the cause. She felt fortunate for knowing the real word, being part of it; even if she had had to hide herself for most of her life, wander around half the nation, fleeing some not-so-imaginary danger in her mother’s mind. She liked being who she was, what she was… most of the time. At that moment, she hated it.
Finally, she opened her eyes and watched Meredith for a second before answering her. “I’m sorry, I really am.” She stood up, and raised her bike from the ground, then she smiled weakly to the other girl. “I understand if you don’t want to speak to me again, but please remember: I’ll be here for you when the time comes… just call me, ok? I can help, even if it’s just to hear you out.”
“No, Cadee… look, this is wrong,” Meredith got to her feet quickly, glancing around. She’d believe this whole thing to be some dumb joke, a cruel trick designed to humiliate her… except there was no one around to witness it. The lack of an audience left her with the sad truth - that Cadee was indeed mentally disturbed. What other explanation was there for a girl that believed in werewolves? Not only that but seemed obsessed with making her believe that she was one!
Meredith sighed. She’d never met a truly crazy person, even in New York. Sure she’d crossed paths with the odd kook, but never someone who had absolutely no idea they were a few sandwiches short of a picnic. What was she supposed to do? Alert the authorities? Walk her into the nearest hospital? Aside from the werewolf thing and the knife trick she appeared okay…
“Look… you seem like a really nice girl, but obviously you‘re… So thanks for the lunch… and, you know… maybe think about calling someone, a professional. There are drugs you can take nowadays that can help.” Hesitantly, Meredith patted Cadee on the shoulder before gathering her backpack and heading off towards one of the jogging tracks. She gave Cadee a last glance - to make sure she hadn’t decided to follow her, then resumed a steady pace.
Cadee just watched her go, her hands gripping the handle of her bike as if it were a piece of driftwood in the middle of the sea. Again, Meredith words stung like hell, probably because prior to that day, she hadn’t really cared what people thought… it was the first time she’d tried to convince somebody of the ‘real world’.
The whole conversation had been a fiasco and she was clueless about how to go on, hopefully she’d contact that wizard, and with any luck he’d had some answers, but she wasn’t very optimistic about it.
“I’ll figure it out,” she spoke to Meredith’s retreating figure, even though she wasn’t out of earshot. “I don’t care if I have to chase you myself and lock you in a cage. I promise.”