An individual who channels the magickal forces
will, after a period of years, begin developing sensitivities that outsiders
might call mind-reading, psychic powers, or second sight.
As an immortal, Jason Blood had channeled magicks for centuries longer
than any normal wizard. His
sensitivities were sharp and powerful—but that did not mean he could foresee
the future of any person, place or event. He
could perceive hidden links in people’s destinies.
He could meet a bore on an airplane and know that the man would die in
the city they were landing in. He
could sense it hovering around the man like lingering perfume of the woman, not
his wife, who had kissed him goodbye in the terminal.
He could know that it would be a car accident, the driver arguing with
her husband about a stuffed swordfish bought at a yard sale while he was out
parking the car. She liked it, and
she didn’t like the lawn furniture he had wanted, and they’d argue; they’d
swerve, the swordfish would go flying off the roof of the car and impale the
bore with the mistress in Seattle that wore too much Giorgio.
Jason could know all that but still have no
idea what the future held for Harvey Dent, with or without his face healed.
Etrigan knew.
Etrigan knew everything, Jason sometimes thought.
But Etrigan lied, and Etrigan was an agent of chaos even when he wasn’t
downright evil, and you could never tell when his advice was real, in their
common best interests, and when it was, well, Etrigan.
Etrigan had become, in Jason’s own words,
what he had in place of a conscience. The
demon was a moral compass based on opposition.
If Etrigan wanted something, it was most likely an evil to be opposed.
If Etrigan didn’t like an idea, Tally Ho!
(Although Jason himself rarely said ‘Tally Ho;’ it was undignified.)
And Etrigan had not liked the idea of healing
Dent. He railed against it.
From the first moment of empathy, the demon could see the thought forming
in Jason’s mind, and he was enraged. Cursing
and roaring, burning threats into Jason’s own blood that seemed to boil at the
obscenity.
Every
man’s will.
To choose good or ill.
So much hissing about free will. Jason argued—because that is what you have to do when an
EVIL THING is WRONG, you have to stand up and SAY so—that Dent didn’t have
free will. He based everything on
that coin.
And Etrigan said:
Still will. Thil.
Shill.
Stuff and nonsense, Jason thought
acidly.
Wrong you were
And wrong you be,
You heedless cur,
Hell’s detainee.
Another comes to hear your case
For sniveling, whining, yawping Face.
The knight of Nox is more like me,
For Anger, Rage and Hate make he.
Trapped within a fleshy box,
Yet raging endless ‘gainst the locks.
Tell him your pity for poor Dent,
How nobly you would circumvent
The Will your God grant every soul.
That Will, the price to keep him whole.
entr’acte…
Robin held his position on the roof of a small apartment building in
Chelsea.
“This bites, Bro,” he told his partner.
“I know, kid,” Nightwing answered.
“This bites hard.”
“It’s just for one night.”
Tim glared across the dark of the rooftop with
pure hatred.
“Just one night of sitting here looking like
Dieter in my basic black turtleneck doing surveillance on the Ha-Hacienda while
my girlfriend is running around out there in my costume!
Nightwing shrugged.
“My costume and a Harley Quinn wig,” Tim
resumed his rant when it failed to produce any response.
“It’s Steph, and she’s in my costume and she’s wearing a wig cut
like Harley Quinn’s hair, and she’s out there.
Dude, it’s a good thing Bruce is rich, ‘cause I’m gonna need therapy
after this.”
“She’s not out there yet.
That’s why we’re here.”
“Oh thanks, I feel so much better now.
She’s not out there yet. But
as soon as Harley goes out somewhere public so she has an alibi and won’t get
killed on accounta this, then Steph’s going to be out there.
My Stephie, Dick, going running out of that Batmobile like a freakin’
PowerPuff girl in my costume spouting some cutesy banter like ‘I’m
Robin and you’re screwed’—Not enough therapy in the world, Bro!”
“Quiet, there goes Harley.
Call it in.”
“I have nothing but hatred in my heart right
now.”
Nightwing turned with an Enough!-Do-it glare
that was pure Bat. Tim hit the
OraCom.
“Oracle.
I have nothing but hatred in my heart right now,” he said into the mic.
:: Heh. So I take it HQ is moving? ::
“Nothing but hatred in my heart.”
:: Roger.
I’ll notify the Batmobile. Follow
her, we want to make sure she’s somewhere public. ::
Jason stood on his terrace overlooking the
park. Even without Etrigan’s
“prediction,” he sensed Batman was coming.
There was a curious temporal echo on this terrace.
Batman had come here before, often… Jason chuckled at the thought. It
was Selina’s place before he moved in, of course… He half-closed his eyes, seeming to listen, and tuned in
the echo like a radio signal… Batman came here often and always by the same
path: a batarang to the building
next door, which was taller, and then a swooping swing down to the northern side
of the terrace by that planter… annoyance
there. One of the cats.
Feline annoyance. At the planter being disturbed.
It was the only clear feeling Jason could perceive associated with those
visits. The rest of it was a
cyclone of furious conflicting emotion.
“Lord, what fools these mortals be,” Jason
quoted into the night.
Etrigan was curiously reticent. Jason would have thought these charged echoes of the bat and
cat would warrant a comment. But
since Jason walked out on the terrace, the demon had resumed his silence from
their immediate return to Gotham.
What was the harpy’s name again? Jason
asked, to show he was well aware of the reason for the sudden peace.
Have a care,
You hypocrite.
For I was there
When you said it.
The Paris air,
Would sense foreswear.
All so unfair
Enough, Blood muttered, growing sicker with each line ending in a
rhyme for “Claire.” The threat
was unmistakable. Etrigan knew
everything about Blood’s own past with women, and if Jason insisted on
pressing for what Etrigan did not want to reveal, he was prepared to fight
dirty.
Jason thought about going inside. Claire’s
picture and perhaps a scotch. But
the terrace echoes stiffened, like a breeze, furious conflicting emotion
associated with this terrace, and Jason turned to the direction from where he
knew Batman was coming. His
chuckle creased into a wry, silent smile of both wonder and scorn as the object
of his earlier musings swung unaware through the echoes to land on that same
spot now, in the present, where there was no cat to object to his cape’s
proximity to the planter.
“I’ve been expecting you,” Jason said
simply. “I expect you’re here
about—
“Two-Face,” Batman growled just as Jason
said “—Dent.”
entr’acte…
I finally knew what’s been missing on this job.
Batman, sure. There’s no substitute for that.
But besides the cat and flying mouse game, something had been missing.
When I slipped into the wetsuit, I knew what it was… Meow.
There had been no Meow on this job.
I hadn’t been sexy, I hadn’t been daring, and I hadn’t had any
fun.
Up until that point, it couldn’t be helped.
I’d had little time to plan this job and with two different women down
there in Sub Diego due this week—two women that could literally go into labor
at any minute—sexy, daring, and fun weren’t exactly priorities.
I’m a professional. A pro does
THE JOB; a pro does not compromise the job to show off some skill inappropriate
to the situation. Batman doesn’t
stop in the middle of a patrol to sing an aria, the President doesn’t stop in
the middle of the State of the Union to tap dance, and I don’t screw up a
simple but important grab and drop where I’m supposed to be invisible by a)
making it harder than it has to be or b) making a big Catwoman-was-here
production out of it.
That said, I was positively purring to get out of that Bax-Trav delivery gal
jumpsuit and into the sleek tightness of the wetsuit. I was purring even louder at the thought of this final phase,
which would require nerve, cunning, and charm.
I’d have to be daring, I’d have to be clever, I’d have to be
persuasive—in short, I could be a cat.
“You admit you did this,” Batman graveled
accusingly. “Jason, what were you thinking?
If ending Two-Face was as simple as repairing Harvey Dent’s face, I
would have paid for the plastic surgery myself, years ago. Two-Face won’t be—”
“There is no Two-Face, Batman. He doesn’t exist; you must know that. He’s a corner of Harvey’s mind that he’s come to
treat as a separate personality, but—”
“You’re going to explain my enemies to me
now.”
“If necessary.”
“Great.
Quinn writes a book, now you’re hosting a lecture series.
I KNOW what Two-Face is, Jason.”
“Batman, do you believe Harvey Dent was a
good man prior to the scarring that made him Two-Face?”
“Jason—I know the beginning of one of
those logic tree arguments when I hear one.
I know you have a nice little sequence of questions planned leading to a
neat inescapable conclusion that you were right to do what you did. The world is
a better place because you used magic to heal Harvey’s face.
It’s all sophistry, Jason. No
clever logic-proofs will change what is true and what isn’t.
And for all that, I will tell you that, yes, Harvey Dent was once a
good man.”
Jason rose and walked to the bar, poured
himself a drink, then returned to his chair.
“So how do you explain Two-Face, hm?
After the trauma of the scarring, he split himself in two, creating the
personality of Two-Face. But where did he get the raw materials for such a vile beast
inside a man who was basically a good, decent, educated, hardworking public
servant?”
Jason stopped and sipped his drink.
Batman waited through the pause, then when Jason didn’t seem inclined
to continue, he spoke.
“Aren’t you going to tell me?”
“You know your enemies.
I would prefer that you tell me.”
Batman sighed, exasperated.
“Most people assume that Two-Face is Harvey’s
dark side: ‘Everybody has a dark side and Harvey just gave his a name.’ It’s not that simple.
His dark side would simply be all the thoughts and impulses to do wrong
that Harvey had suppressed as a law-abiding citizen.
That’s not it at all. Two-Face
is Harvey’s own idea of his exact opposite.
Two-Face is the antithesis of all Harvey believes himself to be. Two-Face actually had a… an identity crisis, for lack of a
better word, when he—when they realized that pre-acid Harvey wasn’t as
perfectly good as they’d both remembered.”
Jason smiled and made a vague “tada”
gesture with his hand.
“There you have it.
Two-Face is not Harvey’s dark side.
He was an invention, nothing more, based on the scarring, and with the
scarring gone—with Harvey convinced that he’s gone—he is.”
“And what’s the price?” Batman growled.
“Price?”
“With magic, there’s always a price,
Jason.”
Jason winced as Etrigan began roaring with
laughter in his mind.
Let me tell him, let me say!
Jason, please, you had your way.
Asclepius you did entreat
That Dent’s whore Fate your magicks cheat.
Restore his face? Restore his WILL!
From THAT you claimed would good distill.
Restore his will and take his coin.
From two-faced Fate is he enjoined.
Tell him, Jason, if you dare:
Not once may Harvey Fullface err.
If e’er Dent flips that coin again
To make a choice or feed a yen,
The deal is off, his scars returned.
Will twice bestowed, won’t be twice spurned.
entr’acte…
Harley was frantic by the time she reached the Ha-Harlienda.
She’d run home in a state of mind that an objective psychiatric
professional might call blind panic. She
triple-locked the door, then ran to the kitchen and burst into tears at the
sight of the back door’s single deadbolt.
What kind of lock was that anyway! She
pushed a chair in front of it, then a table.
Then she took another chair and brought it to the front door.
Then she went to the closet and took out the shotgun and sat with it on
her lap.
This wasn’t funny. Not haha funny and not Puddin’ funny either.
Batman was crazy! He must be stark
raving Looney Tunes.
Harley had heard the Iceberg crowd gassing about that photograph in the window
of some art gallery. It was a
blonde in a green mask and some of them thought it looked like a Robin mask. Big
deal. Didn’t mean there was any female Robin running around Gotham.
Only the Post could come up with dumb shit like that, right? There WAS NO BLONDE ROBIN! But
now one those nutjobs was saying they’d seen it themselves and it looked like HER?
COME ON! That was crazy talk. And then Nightwing leaves some kind of note
for her with the doorman! “Ha, ha.” What does that mean? Ha,
ha, huh? Did they think this was
funny! Was this Bat’s idea of a
practical joke? Ha, ha, yeah, right, ha, ha.
Didn’t he realize what Puddin’ and Red and all the rest of them would
think? What they would do?
They’d kill her, that’s what they’d do!
They were a bunch of HOMICIDAL LUNATICS!!!
As much as Jason Blood respected Batman, he
could never completely get past the fact that Etrigan liked him.
Etrigan, the evil one, liked Batman.
He said Batman had a dark demon stirring his
bile. The way he would fight and
fight, when there was no hope—meaning the way Batman would put his body
between Etrigan and his lunch, even though lunch was a worthless drug dealer.
He would physically fight Etrigan, if necessary, when it was the time for
the demon to retreat, even though it would be like punching solid rock.
Batman would fight on endlessly, spurred on by something inside that
Etrigan could relate to.
Yes, Etrigan liked Batman, and that was not
something Jason found it easy to dismiss. And
now Batman and Etrigan agreed—the vigilante and the demon were in full
agreement that Jason’s intervention was a blunder.
“Magic is a cheat,” Batman declared.
“You can’t cheat Two-Face, I’ve tried.
Replaced the coin with a rigged one.
When he figured it out, he went on a crime spree.
There had been seven coin flips that weren’t fair, so he did what he
wanted the next seven times without flipping. He is obsessed with Fate, obsessed with using chance to make
decisions. And you’re telling me
he can never do it again or the spell is broken and he reverts to the way he
was?”
“Yes. An
unforeseen catch. A bit of
metaphysic sleight of hand, courtesy of Etrigan.
Free Will. Because I argued that Dent had no free will and healing
him would restore it, he must make good on that.”
“Does he know?”
“No. I didn’t realize at the time what the conditions would
be.”
“But you knew there would be a price.”
“A counterbalance, of course.
But Asclepius, the god of healing, isn’t really in the ironic twist
business. It’s usually a simple
supplication to channel his energies in order to restore whatever is corrupted,
the tissues damaged by a wound or illness, into the state they are supposed to
be in. It was Etrigan that—”
“It wasn’t Etrigan, Jason.
Etrigan couldn’t have done anything unless you opened the door,
letting magical forces in that can’t be controlled to—”
“It was Etrigan.
The healing spell is to restore what was corrupted into the state it
should be in. Etrigan is the one
who brought Harvey Dent’s Will into that equation.
He maneuvered me into arguing… the tissue on half his face was
damaged and is now restored because… Oh hell.”
This last was sighed in defeat. “You’re
right, Bruce. I… botched it. Road to hell and all that.
I felt… compassion for the man.”
“That’s not a bad thing, Jason.”
“Unless you have a millennia old chaos demon
clamouring in your head.”
“What’s he saying now?”
“’Wit,
an ’t be thy will, put me into good fooling! Those wits, that think they
have
thee, do very oft prove fools’”
“Shakespeare.”
“Yes, I know.
Shakespeare wrote entirely too much about fools.
All of it in verse. I’ve
been hearing it nonstop.”
“Someone has to tell him, Jason.”
“By someone, you mean me.”
“Yes. He
won’t be inclined to believe me.”
“Not your place anyway.
This is my responsibility. I’ll
talk to Fortune’s Fool.”
“That was Romeo.”
“Romeo, Lear, and, I believe, Timon of Athens
all used the phrase. But it applies
best to Dent, don’t you think?”
“Selina calls him Fate’s bitch,” Batman
noted.
Jason paused and then grimaced.
“We really must prevent Selina and Etrigan
from ever meeting face to face.”
entr’acte…
The only way to get a large shipment that included heavy, bulky equipment
down to Sub Diego was to use the FEMA station set up for the purpose.
The station, unlike the Bax-Trav warehouse, was manned 24/7.
The difference was that these guys weren’t security guards. They were
professionals with a job to do, yes, but they went into this work out of
compassion. They could be reasoned
with. You can’t exactly talk a
museum guard into letting you waltz off with a Degas.
But I wasn’t here to take their employer’s property.
I was here to help the same people they were here to help.
They just needed a reason to cooperate.
Didn’t even have to be a good reason, just a CYA reason.
I had Jean Paul fax them the top two inches of some official-looking letterhead.
Then it stopped and he faxed it again.
And again. When I showed up,
they were trying to figure out if the problem was their fax machine or the
sender’s. Pete, the older one,
was ready to assume the incomplete fax was the authorization for my delivery to
Sub Diego. It wasn’t entirely the
way I look in a wetsuit, either.
“About time, that’s all I can say,” he spat, “It’s about time.
Those poor people. Ought to
be a special hell for politicians.”
Pete’s partner, Harold, was more of a tightass.
He scrutinized those bits of letterhead on the fax for a phone number.
“If we could just get some kind of confirmation,” he kept muttering.
I focused my efforts on Pete. I
asked if he knew anyone down there. He
did, a buddy from High School. I
invented a cousin. We bonded.
And then we both looked at Harold.
“If it’s legit, they’ll resend the fax,” he insisted.
Then he looked at Pete—and then at me, and then at Pete again. “Meantime, I guess it would be okay if you got the stuff loaded.”
Jason found Harvey Dent exactly where Batman
said he would be, in a downtown theatre called The Flick with huge stone
comedy-tragedy masks hung on its façade like gargoyles.
This is going to be harder than I thought,
he considered.
‘An ordinary fool that has no more
brain
Than a stone’—What a sorry refrain,
Now that Face is alone.
Jason tuned out the rest and entered the
theatre. He found Dent in the
lobby, atop a stepladder, dismantling some kind of laser.
“Why Mr. Blood,” Harvey called
happily, like the codename was the best joke he’d heard in weeks. “What an unexpected surprise.”
“I told you, Harvey, you can call me
Jason.”
Harvey winked theatrically.
“Jason it is.
I’m just removing some pesky old ‘perimeter defenses’ that I
won’t be needing any more. This
really is a fine old building, isn’t it; wasted as a criminal hideout. I wonder if I should develop it myself or sell it.
What do you think?”
Jason thought Dent’s obvious joy in his new
circumstances was the lowest blow yet. This
was going to be like kicking a puppy in the stomach and then telling it there
was no Santa Claus.
“Harvey, I—I have some news. Some very bad news. You
might want to prepare yourself—for some very bad news.”
Harvey climbed down from the ladder and looked
Blood in the eye.
“There’s a catch,” he said coldly.
“Yes. How
did you—”
Harvey gave a wry, bitter laugh. “Free lunch.”
Etrigan began laughing hysterically.
The former district attorney continued, oblivious to the demon’s
presence…
“I was offered a bribe once from a guy like
you. From the Odessa mob.
None too subtle. Heh. No such
thing as a free lunch. So here it
comes, right, the shakedown, and maybe a threat or two.
I don’t think you know who you’re dealing with, Jason.
Harvey Dent is nobody’s fool. And
nobody double-crosses Two-Face.”
“Two-Face is gone, Harvey.
He’ll stay gone, as long as—”
“As long as what, as long as I toe the line
and do what you say, right?”
“No, nothing like that.
This isn’t what you think, Harvey.
It’s not a betrayal or a shakedown or a threat.
It is merely a, a condition—”
“Same thing.”
“NO! Because it was a condition I was not
aware of when I did this thing for you.
I was—in error. I did
not foresee a consequence of calling on the magicks in the precise way I did in
your particular case. The fact is,
Harvey, that you can remain this way for as long as you choose, with your face
fully healed, totally free of Two-Face and his influence.
You must simply… abide… by a, a bargain of sorts with the
universe.”
“A bargain I never agreed to,” Harvey said,
arching a brow. “I was a lawyer, Jason, I understand contracts. I understand small print.
I know that I can’t be held to a bargain that I was never a
party to.”
“You received the benefits of the healing
spell, Harvey, your face is whole again.
You are bound to the conditions…”
The eyes danced wildly. Harvey Dent’s
brilliant legal mind, at last unfettered by Two-Face, attacked the problem as it
was set before him. He attacked it from every conceivable angle, looking for the
loophole, the ambiguity, the… missed comma, something, there must be
something. After a half-hour’s
probing, he admitted defeat.
“So we’re stuck with it,” he said
finally. Jason noted the ‘we’
and tensed. Harvey continued,
“Yes, we’re stuck. You made a
bad deal, Jase. Don’t blame
yourself, it happens. Get ‘em next
time, right? In the meantime, well,
I’ll just have to live with it, won’t I.
So what is this condition anyway?”
“You can never use your coin again to make a
decision.”
Harvey laughed.
“Is that all?
Why would I! With no more
Two-Face, why would I need to—Haha! Oh
Jason, Jesus, you really had me going there!
THAT’s all it’s going to take to keep from turning back to half a
pumpkin! Come on!
I am going to buy you lunch! There’s
this great Vietnamese place down the street.”
entr’acte…
Pete helped me load the incubators onto this sea-winch they had to lower big
shipments down to Sub Diego. The
rest of the stuff was compact enough to ride with me in one of the submersibles. They used these to shuttle Press, VIPs and relief workers back and forth.
Even Pete wasn’t going to let me take one out for a joy ride without
some kind of authorization—but now that the gear was loaded, I was past
needing their full cooperation.
Pete apologized again for Harold, who continued poring over the partial
faxes, looking for somebody to call for confirmation.
I sent Pete out to the van to look for my cel phone.
I was sure I had a number in the address book, I said.
As soon as he was gone, I went to talk to Harold.
“Pete says you’re not usually this pissy,” I told him sweetly.
And his cheeks started to pink. “He
says you just didn’t want to help us with the heavy lifting.”
The pink started to redden. “Bad
back? My brother’s got one from
weight lifting.”
He reacted as expected. Painted as
a discourteous wimp by his treacherous partner Pete, and then offered a manly
out by the bouncy gal in the wet suit, Harold latched onto the excuse that made
him neither pissy nor wimpy. He had
a bad back. He stretched and turned
and showed me where it pulled if he lifted too much weight.
When he sat back down:
“Hey, where’s my faxes?”
“Now, Harold,” I explained, slipping the neatly folded paper into place and
zipping up my suit, “You’re a smart guy.
You know what’s going on here. I’m
taking the sub. And without that
fax, there is no evidence to support your story. It would be so much better for
you and Petey to pretend this never happened. I’ll have them refill the gas and
air tanks down below, so no one will even know it’s been used… except you, of
course. It’ll be our secret.
Tell Petey I’ll be back in two hours.”
I winked, blew a kiss, and, just for fun, got myself back to the submersible by
way of a simple backwards somersault. A
minute later, I was on my way down to Sub Diego.
“I want you to punch me in the mouth,”
Jason said directly.
Harvey set down his menu and looked curiously
across the table at his guest.
“Try the steamed shrimp, they’re our—my
favorite.”
“I really think you should punch me in the
mouth instead of buying me lunch, Harvey.”
“Tom hap nuoc dua, ‘steamed
in coconut milk,’ how can you turn that down?”
“I would feel more secure that you understood
how difficult this will be if you’d only—”
“Jason, please.
You’re like this junior associate we had at the DA’s one year, Mick
Darcy, he accidentally stapled an internal memo into some documents sent to
Defense Council. I had to go in
next day knowing they were going to get half my evidence tossed out.”
“What did you do?” Jason asked.
“Offered a plea.
Simple assault, dropped the gun charge.
Less than the scum deserved, but what can you do?
Know what happened to Mick Darcy?”
“You bought him lunch?”
Harvey laughed.
“I set him to researching repeat offenders
after an assault-plea. He thought
he was fired. He was so charged up
to get a ‘working penance’ instead, he wound up creating this whole
spreadsheet, statistical analysis of career paths after plea bargains for
various offences… Made Law
Review… Darcy—even had my job
for a while—after.”
Harvey’s face darkened.
“The Bao Tu Jambon is also very good.”
entr’acte…
Had to happen. There just
had to be a snag sooner or later, and 190 feet below sea level, the snag
wasn’t going to be dangerously sexy crimefighter in a cape.
I was headed for the Hotel del Coronado, formerly a luxurious waterfront hotel,
now the entrance to Sub Diego. I
was trying to work out just how that final chat with Harold had shifted on me.
It was meant to be checkmate, grabbing the fax, leaving the pair of them
without any option but to shut up and play along.
But somehow, once I started talking, I wound up reassuring Harold that he
wouldn’t be culpable if he cooperated. That
wasn’t a challenge. It wasn’t a
dare. It was—hell, I don’t know what it was!
But it wasn’t me. It wasn’t feline. It’s not like I was afraid of returning to a FEMA warehouse full of cops,
after all. Risks go with the
territory, it’s why these jobs pay so well—and it’s half the fun. What could they possibly throw at me that I couldn’t
handle?
So why did I pat Harold’s head instead of tweaking his nose?
Maybe these FEMA guys weren’t quite as puffed up as cops or crimefighters, but still, obnoxious authority figures, when you got
‘em on the
mat… it was checkmate and I just…
Anyway, I was trying to work it out the whole way down.
I was just nearing the Hotel del Coronado, just sighted the cupola, when
I saw another submersible rising from behind it—the markings of a TV Network
on its nose.
Shit. How do I hide a two ton submersible in the
middle of the damn ocean?
To be continued…
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