A pensive silence lingered on the Wayne Manor
patio after Ra’s al Ghul’s humbled exit.
Bruce, Selina, and Alfred were all recalling the astonishing scene that
just played out, while Harvey, indignant but energized by the confrontation,
eyed the food.
Alfred quickly noticed and, holding the comfort
of the guest as the prime consideration, he made an effort to coerce Bruce and
Selina back into the “cookout” spirit with a theatrical return to the grill.
He began “plating” the steaks, arranging each artfully amidst a
garnish and sides, creating the effect of a gourmet restaurant rather than a
casual, afternoon cookout—and he thought he succeeded in baiting Bruce with
this maneuver when he felt that light tap on his elbow.
Bruce was indeed pulling him aside, but his purpose had nothing to do
with the barbecue.
“Got to admit, Alfred, I’m torn,” he
began. “’Of two minds,’ as
our friend Two-Face used to say. Dent’s
tirade against Ra’s, it was very… Face. But when it came down
to threats, it wasn’t about ripping out his entrails and dividing them into
two even piles. It was sending him
to jail; it was pure Harvey Dent. Anxious
as I am to go after Ra’s, I don’t know if I can leave right now—might be
more important to stay here, keep an eye on this.”
“Eh-yes, there is that consideration, of
course, Master Bruce, as well as…”
“I know, I know.
As D.A., Harvey had direct contact with Batman, and as Two-Face he saw even
more. I really need to be careful
where he’s concerned. To up and
disappear on a trumped up excuse right now would be dangerous.”
“Well, yes, and of course it would be rude,
sir.”
Bruce glared.
Ubu jostled, yet again, with the doorman
at the Gotham Imperial Hotel. The
man had opened the door as he would for any guest when Ra’s al Ghul approached
the front entrance to the grand hotel. But
Ubu recognized the high forehead and double chin cleft indicative of the
Bughinsae Clan of the lowlands. He would not let Ra’s pass through the door
while this man held it, for that would expose his master’s back to the cunning
mercenary. Ubu himself would hold
the door while Ra’s passed through, and then he himself would pass. Then and only then could the wily Bughinsae return to
his post.
The commotion had not died down when Ra’s
came back to the doors, displeased with his reception at the front desk, and the
Bughinsae doorman again tried to hold the door for him.
Ra’s stood at the entrance inside the plush lobby while Ubu resumed his
fracas with the doorman. Ra’s
fumed, he paced, and then, finally, just as Ubu had reestablished the procedure by
which the door would be opened for the Demon’s Head, Ra’s resigned himself
to the new disgrace and returned to the front desk, leaving Ubu holding the door
for nobody and the doorman smirking.
Ubu cared nothing for the Bughinsae’s
derision and followed Ra’s back to the front desk.
Bruce might have been “of two minds” after
witnessing Harvey Dent’s face-off with Ra’s al Ghul, but Harvey himself felt
less conflicted than he had in years. He
had one thought only: he was hungry. He
poked at the charred crust of his steak and declared it “a little singed, but
nothing to declare a hunger strike over.”
To prove the point, he cut a bite, popped it into his mouth, and chewed
happily.
“Come on,” he told Bruce and Selina, “not
going to let Mr. Dead and Loving It wreck a beautiful afternoon. Selina! Where’s the famous cat-curiosity? Open up Lurch’s
gift. Let’s see what the
calcified old coot thinks is a tempting inducement for the Queen of Cats?”
“Oh,” Selina hedged, looking warily at the
package, “I really don’t think... I mean, since I’m not going to take the
job, better to just send it back unopened, don’t you think?”
“Open it!” Harvey cajoled, “I insist.
Dying to see what’s in there, and it’s the least you can do when I
booted him off for you.”
Selina glanced sideways at Bruce. His casual Saturday-at-home posture hadn’t changed, but
Batman’s ferocious intensity burned in his eyes.
He met her gaze and his head shifted ever so slightly in a sideways
“no” motion. Selina’s lip
curled into the playful grin.
“I am curious,” she purred, dipping into
Catwoman’s sultriest tones. “If
he invited Two-Face to a one o’clock sitdown, I can only imagine he’s given
me a dog collar.”
Before Bruce could suggest that Alfred take the
package inside to be opened with a mail knife, Selina had taken it into her lap
and ripped off the paper, revealing a flat ebony box carved with a five-clawed
talon in a central oval, the placement if not the image echoing the bat-emblem.
Selina arched an eyebrow but made no comment, remembering that whatever
this “gift” was, it was only Harvey’s misreading of the situation that
suggested it was meant for her. Ra’s
presumably brought it for Batman. She
undid the latch and impulsively lifted the lid.
“Swords,” she declared, amused but
bewildered. Then she looked up at
Bruce, “Look, Honey! He gave me swords,” she repeated.
The Dragon Blades.
The Detective’s feline concubine in possession of the Dragon Blades.
Of all the affronts he had suffered on this accursed day in this accursed
city, that was the worst. He had
been addressed as “Ghul.” He
had been called an overrated hairdo, an overhyped goatherd, and a horse’s ass.
His personal attendant had been referred to as his “man-bitch.”
And now he found himself, not in his accustomed quarters in the Gotham
Imperial Hotel, but in the Honeymoon Suite, sitting on a bed strewn with
rose petals, confetti, and small white pellets which turned out to be candied
mints. But of all these
mortifications, the thought of a woman—of that woman most especially—handling his brother’s sword, handling his own, it was grotesque.
Absently, he picked one of the small, white
buttermints off the bedspread and snapped it between his teeth.
On his previous visits to Gotham, he had always
made prior arrangements with the Imperial Hotel to reserve the Royal Suite for
himself and the top three floors for his entourage.
He hadn’t even brought an entourage this time, assuming he would
be invited to sleep at the manor, of which his daughter was so soon to be
mistress. He had not wanted to
inflict his usual train of eighty followers on Wayne Manor, feeling the Detective
might look on this copious honor as more of an invasion. So he had exercised restraint, assuming Gr’oriBr’di would
supply a suitable honor guard as soon as he was informed of the glad tidings.
But now—(What was the Feline doing in
Bruce Wayne’s home?)—Now he found he had to obtain lodging and the
impudent slave at the front desk informed him that the Royal Suite was
“currently occupied.” The
effrontery. Occupied! By one Count
Adam Gottlob Charles von Moltke-Huitfeld, no less.
“A descendent of Napoleon Bonaparte,” the miserable slave informed
him.
Descendent of Napoleon Bonaparte, indeed.
He was
no such thing, Ra’s al Ghul was certain of that.
He could be related to Napoleon’s brother Jerome, Ra’s
supposed. Jerome Bonaparte had married some American (Ra’s did not bother
noting her name as she was a woman, but he recalled that she was the
granddaughter of Daniel Webster). Not
that any of that mattered. What
mattered was that the slave refused to evict this powerless nobody to make way
for Ra’s al Ghul—Light of the
east, Terror of the west, Anointed of Anubis and Osiris, Chosen of Ra; Apex of
the age of Oneness through One Rule by the most worthy Demon’s Head—and an
inbred cousin of Napoleon had his room!
Still, as much as it chafed his Imperial Pride,
Ra’s quickly realized he could not waste time scouring the city for
accommodations befitting his rank. He
had fallen victim to faulty intelligence, or else he had fallen victim to a dire
plot, and he could not find out too soon what was really going on.
“What an idiot,” Harvey exclaimed, munching
the last piece of cornbread. “Swords?!
He gave you two swords—TWO swords, mind you.
Two-Face, he asks for a one o’clock meeting; you, he gives a pair of swords.
I shouldn’t have sent him to the Iceberg, I should have taken him there
myself by way of 57th Street. Show
him what kind of trinkets you buy a lady before you ask for something.
Bruce knows what I’m getting at, don’t you, Buddy?”
It was Bruce’s turn to raise an eyebrow.
He remembered “Apollo” Dent’s routine too well from their playboy
days: a silk scarf at the beginning
of the affair, a wrist watch at the end.
“They’re very nice swords,” Selina
pointed out. “Look at that,
little dragons carved into the hilt, beautiful work there, that leather tied
around the sheath, look at the patina on that… Light, too.
Beautifully balanced.” She
pulled one out, which caused Bruce to step back in alarm—entirely for Fop
considerations he told himself, although his Bat-half was none too thrilled at
the sight of Catwoman wielding Ra’s al Ghul’s sword that way.
“Oh, don’t tell me you can fence too,”
Harvey wailed, helping himself to a watermelon ice.
“Not fencing.” Selina said, executing a
slow graceful move then sheathing the sword.
“Just a few kata. My
sensei was very big on the fundamentals.”
Bruce placed a mental checkmark next to that
kernel of information about Catwoman’s training.
His inner Bat grunted at the confirmation of a long-suspected theory.
The rest of him continued to look alarmed at the sight of his girlfriend wielding
Ra’s al Ghul’s sword.
Ra’s al Ghul marshaled the facts, as they
were known.
The German composer Richard Wagner took all the
glorious dragon lore with which Ra’s had primed him and produced Fafner, a Westerner’s
idea of a dragon: he did nothing
more than guard a hoard of treasure he had no use for, until the hero lured
him from his home, hid like a coward under a rock, and stabbed him in the belly.
Ra’s had been thinking of the story in the course of his pre-dip
meditations. That was how
Westerners viewed the dragon, a stupid beast to be lured away from its home by a
hero’s cunning, lured away from his power base, into ambush and death.
He had been lured away—he, Ra’s al
Ghul, the living dragon, had been lured from his home into Gotham City, into the
very heart of his enemy’s power, lured by the most tempting bait of
all… It was surely the most
fiendishly brilliant plan the Detective had ever devised.
Never in their long battle had the man so distinguished himself as one
most fit to sire the next DEMON—and indeed most suited to lead the
organization if Ra’s himself were to expire before his grandson was of age
to…
Oh dear.
Oh dear.
That possibility had not occurred to him
before: the very qualities that
made the Detective so suitable to sit at his right hand made it quite unlikely
he would be content to do so. The
Detective was, after all—GOOD LORD, WHY HAD HE NOT CONSIDERED THIS BEFORE—the Detective was his enemy! If
Ra’s were to welcome him into the bosom of his family, how long would it be
before he welcomed that Dragon Blade to his bosom as well!
Perhaps it was fortunate that the relationship
with Talia was not quite so far along as Gr’oriBr’di had led Ra’s to
believe, it gave Ra’s time to…
Gr’oriBr’di.
It was Gr’oriBr’di who led Ra’s to
believe The Detective had finally accepted his destiny with Talia.
It was Gr’oriBr’di who was the source of that false intelligence.
What if he had not been deceived by an elaborate ruse of the
Detective’s but was himself the originator of the plot?
What if it was Gr’oriBr’di who lured Ra’s
from his home into the heart of his enemy’s power!
The Detective had seemed downright astonished
at Ra’s arrival. He was
performing, of course, for the benefit of the infidel Harvey Dent, but as Ra’s
thought back, he did seem to glean marks of true surprise in the
Detective’s bearing. What if he
knew nothing of it? What if…
What if… What if…
“Ubu,” Ra’s called thoughtfully, “We
are in need of new intelligence, reliable new intelligence.
Make inquiries, and learn the location of this ‘Iceberg’ of which the
infidel Harvey Dent spoke.”
Oswald emerged from his office with a crazed
gleam in his eye. He had not yet
determined why the women of the Iceberg were fawning over him with such
featherbrained devotion, but he would! Oh
yes, he would. And in the meantime,
he would demonstrate to all the world that Oswald The Penguin Cobblepot was a
figure to be feared, not cooed after.
He said as much to Sly when he checked the
bartender’s receipts just now, and what Jonathan Crane found so amusing about
that Oswald meant to find out as well. The
looks back and forth between Crane and Sly, if Scarecrow had any thoughts of
stealing his bartender, then he too would soon learn what it was to cross Oswald Cobblepot.
He had already secured a quantity of venom and
the penguins would be arriving soon. Then they would see who was “an adorable Ozzy-Wozzy,” then they would learn what a theme criminal really was.
These pleasant musings had been interrupted by
Sparrow’s timid knock. Sly needed
him, she said. A new customer wanted to run a tab.
So he emerged from his office, eyes glistening with dreams of the terror
his name would instill once more in hero and rogue alike—when his eye fell on
this “new customer.” Oswald
marched right up to the man, who was entirely too tall, and when Oswald got
close enough for the effect he wished, he had to tilt his head upward. He did it
belligerently, but the move brought more of that damnable cooing from half the
women in the bar.
“KWAK-kwakka-quakka-kwa,” he yelled at
them, which silenced the coos but brought more tender smiles.
“Your name?” Oswald asked, though he knew full well, it pleased him
to question a new applicant.
“Ra’s al Ghul,” the man announced
pointedly.
“That how you pronounce it?” Oswald
grumbled. “Okay, Sly, he looks
good for it. Open a new account
under Brady.”
Ra’s eyes bulged.
“Gr’oriBr’di?” he asked, incredulous.
“Gregory Brady,” Oswald corrected. “Which reminds me, when you see him, tell him his men
aren’t nearly so prompt paying their tabs as those Ghost Dragons.
He really might want to have that talk with them about the honor of
settling their debts.”
“Gr’oriBr’di’s men frequent this
establishment?” Ra’s asked, stunned.
“Hey, Sly, gimme a Demon’s Head and a bowl
of peanuts,” someone called down the bar. Ra’s
head snapped in that direction. To
his horror, he saw a bowl of peanuts passed to an unseemly looking individual
along with a tall glass full of a syrupy red liquid topped with an inch of pink
froth and a strawberry.
Ra’s pointed in amazement as he turned back
to Oswald, but he couldn’t think how to even phrase the question, so he merely
repeated: “Gr’oriBr’di’s men frequent this establishment?”
“‘Course
they do, where else would they go?
Best bar in Gotham,” a new voice sang out.
Ra’s was horrified to note it was a woman’s voice.
Women permitted in the tavern to socialize with the men.
There was no end to Western depravity. “The usual, Sly,” the creature
ordered.
“Sure thing, Gorgeous,” the bartender
winked.
“Your serving man takes orders from women?”
Ra’s asked Oswald.
The only answer was a vicious snapping kwak,
and Oswald waddled back to his office—evoking another round of delighted
cooing from the waitresses.
“Don’t mind him,” a strange little fellow
said, taking his drink from the bar and pushing between Ra’s and Ubu to make
his way to his table. “Ozzy will
never accept that Sly and Roxy Rocket are meant to be together and he just
doesn’t figure into the equation.”
Ra’s and Ubu looked at each other sharply.
“My Lord,” Ubu said, his voice hoarse with
shock. “‘Roxy Rocket,’
‘Iceberg,’ You don’t
think…”
Ra’s glared hatefully back at his minion.
No one knew the mechanisms by which Gr’oriBr’di broke the wills of men,
they knew only that minions who returned from Gotham kept to themselves,
whispering of “the rocket” and “ice burrows.”
It seemed incredible but— but—
“We need reliable intelligence, Ubu,”
Ra’s repeated his words from the hotel as he stared, spellbound, at the
strange little man retreating into the crowd.
Ra’s followed after him like a man in a trance, and Ubu followed, as
always, after his master.
Although Selina was Harvey’s closest friend
in the Wayne household, he edged closer to Bruce as the couple walked him to the
door. Selina took the hint, and let
Bruce escort Harvey the rest of the way to his car.
“It’s good to see you two together,”
Harvey said once they were alone. “You
seem to fit each other really well. I
think it’s great that you two found each other and have stayed together for so
long. Selina’s a good catch, and it looks like it’s going swimmingly for you
both. I’m really glad of
that.”
Bruce smiled and waited, sensing there was more
to come and thinking it might be a threat along the lines of: Hurt her and
I’ll break both your arms in two places.
Harvey did have more to say, but it came from a completely different
direction than Bruce expected:
“Look, Buddy, I know making a relationship
like this work is no easy feat, and I want you to know that I’m with you on this
one. If you ever have any problems
with, ahem, anyone in a cape, you just let me know.
‘We’ know how to handle that jackass.”
Bruce tried to look grateful.
Mindful of his dignity, Ra’s al Ghul had
appropriated a table in the rear corner of the Iceberg dining room and had Ubu
bring the strange little man to him rather than demeaning himself by going to a
Gotham “rogue” for information.
Jonathan Crane couldn’t hear the
conversation, but he noted the giant Ubu hovering over Jervis’s table, clearly
trying to intimidate the smaller, weaker man… Just like a bully, just like all
of that sort: all muscle and no brains, they thought they could get away with
anything… Look at that, Jervis
going along with the big brute because what else could he do?
Crane inhaled sharply, an almost sexual excitement seizing him… Bullies
dealt in Fear. And Fear turned back
on them was the most satisfying revenge of all!
“I am Ra’s al Ghul,” Ra’s said simply
when Jervis Tetch reached his table.
“Be what you would seem to be,” Jervis
twittered in reply. “Or, if you’d
like it put more simply—never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what
it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not
otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.”
Ra’s blinked.
“I have spoken your language for many
centuries,” he said slowly, “and I believe I am most fluent in vocabulary,
syntax, and idiom. Nevertheless,
your words befuddle me. Speak more
plainly, or I shall have Ubu thrash you.”
“I think I could, if I only knew how to
begin,” Jervis answered. “For,
you see, so many out-of-the-way things have happened lately.
What’s an Ubu?”
“Ubu is my bodyguard and manservant.
You may ignore him, for he is a serf of no importance, unless you
displease me, in which case he shall act merely as an instrument of my will and
thrash you.”
Jervis squinted.
“What size hat does he wear?”
Talia arrived home—to her new “home,”
anyway—at least it was only one roommate this time.
She didn’t care for the idea of sharing lodging, but the city was so
expensive. It seemed to be the way all the peasants lived here.
The waitress Mia, from that diner, was good enough to take her in at
first when she learned of Talia’s plight:
Yes, she could pay for her meal,
technically; she had a credit card with literally no spending limit whatsoever.
She could buy her meal, buy the diner, buy the entire city block with it.
But if she used that card, Talia explained tearfully, her father would
know at once. He would know that
she needed him. He would know where
to find her. She couldn’t face
that, she couldn’t!!!!
She had a six thousand dollar watch, she
told Mia. Here, she could have it. Just
let her eat without paying. Mia
had nodded and sat down next to her. “What’s
his name?” she asked shrewdly.
“M- my father?” Talia had sobbed.
“No, fathers are all alike.
Come in a diner at one in the morning, sobbing, no cash, order a big
hunka pie, there’s always a ‘he’ behind it all, and it’s not Daddy.”
Talia burst into tears, and six soggy napkins
later it was settled: Mia would
take the watch and Talia could come home with her and “crash” at her place
as long as she wanted. Mia already
had two roommates; rent was $2,000 a month, that meant the watch covered her share
for a year. Mia would even speak to
the manager about giving Talia a job…
That part didn’t work out; Talia hadn’t
lasted a week. But she had a
nametag reading “Tee” which she kept for reasons she didn’t really
understand. It’s not like those four endless days in awful, cheap
shoes, bringing troglodytes coffee and hamburgers, was a rewarding experience
that she wished to remember. But
she kept that nametag. It was
in her pocket even now, like a good luck charm.
“Tee”… Greg’s name for her.
The woman she should have been, wanted to be, glimpsed for a few brief
seconds before it all went to pieces.
She felt hungry and went to the kitchen.
Unlike Mia, her new roommate didn’t have a refrigerator full of
leftovers from a diner. There was
fried chicken, cold Thai pad noodles, an apple, and half a box of Krispy Kremes.
She decided on the latter.
It was not going well.
Ra’s had given up trying to question Jervis Tetch and sent Ubu to
obtain a better source of information. He
did not trouble himself to learn the particulars of the entire Gothamite rabble,
but he certainly remembered the reports about the plant-woman Poison Ivy, who
wanted to exterminate mankind so vegetation could rule.
It was a noble goal, not incompatible with much of DEMON’s philosophy
and mission. If she were not a
woman, Ra’s would have considered calling her to his service.
Being a woman, she was certainly not suitable for such an honor, but she
was at least memorable where so much of this criminal scum was not.
So when he saw the booth cordoned off by a curtain of plant life, Ra’s
felt sure that must be she. Poison
Ivy would not do as an ally, but she would do for an informant.
He sent Ubu to summon her… that was half an hour ago.
Ra’s had seen the curtain of foliage part, he
had seen Ubu withdraw inside as into the flap of a tent, and he waited…
waited… waited… but no Ubu emerged. Nor
did Poison Ivy. And twice the
serving wench had come around telling Ra’s he must “order another round”
or vacate his table.
“It’s the oldest story in the world,” Mad
Hatter prattled on, oblivious to his listener’s plight.
“1) Mutant bird/plant/whatever killed/destroyed by would-be victim.
2) Oswald/Pammy/whoever blames would-be victim.
3) Denial ensues. 4) More
SmileX threatened. 5) Bigger mutant
bird/plants threatened. A pool of
tears, a pool of tears, Alice drowning in a pool of tears.
More tea?”
“I am not drinking tea,” Ra’s hissed
through clenched teeth.
“More for me then!” Jervis twittered
happily. “He’s never coming
back, don’t you know. Your large
friend with the pointy stick. Once
they disappear in the greenery, they’re gone for the week.
Pammy doesn’t like you demon-guys very much. Ooh look, they’ve brought us gooseberry jam with our bread
and butter.”
Ra’s pressed his fingers to his brow,
squeezing the flesh just above his nose, while Jervis proceeded to slather
invisible jam on an imaginary slice of bread.
“Cally-oo, cally-yay, I was about to say,
Pammy, Poison Ivy, that is, she does have a grudge against you demon fellows
always hanging around the ‘Berg. Once
they’ve had a few, the sabers come out, don’t you know, and then it’s all
‘who can slash a leaf off the climbing clematis from here, double or nothing
if you hit it without nipping the peony blossom.’”
He sighed dramatically. “Men, don’t you know, they don’t need to give
her a reason to loathe them, but they do anyway.”
“You are a madman,” Ra’s declared
finally. “Take yourself from my
presence and, I pray you, present yourself at the nearest institution for the
care of the mentally disturbed. They
will feed you and look after you until such time as the world is united under
DEMON rule, when you will be humanely exterminated for the good of the
species.”
“You’re a Capricorn, aren’t you?”
Jervis asked.
Selina watched from the bedroom window while
Harvey Dent’s car disappeared out the front gate.
She was already changed into costume but figured Bruce would still beat
her to the cave. Starting on the
ground floor, he was probably at the clock already.
If she didn’t hustle, he’d be gone and she’d miss her chance to get
in on Demon Hunt ’05.
So she ran to the grandfather clock, ran to the
cave, and was headed straight for the Batmobile when she saw there was no need
to rush: he hadn’t suited up
completely. Omitting the mask,
cape, and gloves meant he wasn’t leaving any time soon. He had the tapes from the security cameras
playing on all the computer screens but one.
The largest monitor displayed Oracle’s hologram, along with several
radar screens and satellite photos.
“Sorry, Boss,” the Oracle head intoned in
Barbara’s voice. “Now that we’ve tagged the plane, we’ll spot it next
time.”
“There won’t be a next time,” Batman
growled. “He won’t use that
plane again. He won’t use that
flight path; he probably won’t use the same departure point. You’ll have to expand the methodology. Get the satellite photos for the base in Nepal, go two to
twelve
hours prior to departure. Then
check the records for the castle in Romania last year, and wherever he left from
that other time. There has to be
some SOP for his minions before he leaves to—” he broke off and turned to
Selina. “Third time, can you believe it?
He’s in Gotham again.”
“I know, I was upstairs, remember?” she
said with a smile. “He gave me
swords.”
Batman grunted.
“I know I’m tempting fate asking,” she
added, “But why haven’t you gone supernova about his getting past my
security on the grounds?”
“My doing,” he noted.
“With Dent coming over, I had turned off the advanced defenses.
I figured if we walked down to the tennis court, I didn’t want to
explain why we have crystalline radiation sensors, K-metal lasers, and a gravity
displacement detector.”
Selina glanced up at the monitor where Oracle,
chafing at Batman’s earlier criticism and having overheard the conversation,
was providing the explanation through a series of images.
Selina decided to ignore the diagrams of kryptonite isotopes and solar
radiation flickering behind his head, and returned the conversation to a more
pertinent topic:
“Speaking of the swords, any idea what that
was about?”
“They looked ceremonial,” he said casually,
not turning his attention from his calculations, “Most of DEMON is steeped in
rites and rituals.”
“Yeah,” Selina put in, “the kind of
ritual I get from Whiskers every autumn: I
have the honor to present you with this mostly-dead chipmunk.
No thanks.”
He paused and looked up.
His eyes flickered over the catsuit, then he turned back to the computer
screen. Selina had often seen the
‘density shift’ when Bruce, in costume or not, segued into Bat-mode.
What she saw now was the opposite: despite the costume, Batman
suddenly… shifted… all that intensity dropped away like the wind from
a sail. “I take it Catwoman
is going out to prowl?” he asked in Bruce’s voice.
“I assumed I was in on this,” she said
uncomfortably. “Is that a problem? I
mean, I thought we’d be out there looking for him tonight.
To tell the truth, I figured you’d be halfway out the door by the time
I got down here. Why aren’t you,
anyway?”
He paused.
When he resumed, although the density never shifted back, he spoke in
Batman’s voice again.
“Where would I look?
The only way to find him is to find out what he’s doing here, and it is
a problem if you’re ‘in’ on that. I
have to contact Brady and—”
“And the spawn is going to be mentioned.
I get it,” she sighed. “I’ll
be in the way… Guess it will be a
boring old prowl after all.” She
paused and offered a naughty pout. “Poor
kitty,” she said, pausing again before the pout morphed into a naughty grin. “Guess I’ll have to find a way to amuse myself,” she
purred, eyes dancing, before adding, “…in
the new lair you haven’t been able to find.”
As so often happened with Jervis Tetch, once
his crazy had run its course, he became perfectly lucid.
Having concluded his mad tea party with Ra’s al Ghul, he began looking
around the room like an experienced gossipmonger. He pointed out the arrival of a large crate.
“Emperor penguins,” he confided, as the delivery was maneuvered
through the dining room and into Oswald’s office.
“That won’t end well.”
“Because the owner of this establishment
calls himself Penguin?” Ra’s guessed, trying to adapt to the logic of the
place.
Jervis shook his head.
“The owner of this establishment is unaware of the surprise hit movie
of the summer called March of the Penguins. Lots of cute, fuzzy, baby birds waddling on the ice and who
knows what all. Every henchwench in town has seen it. They come back all girly
about the adorable little beaks, and what good fathers the males are.
It’s revolting!”
“And Cobblepot is unaware?” Ra’s asked.
“Hasn’t a clue.
And all the fuss spooked him, and that’s when Scarecrow went to work.
He can smell fear can our boy Jonathan, and there’s nothing he enjoys
more than feeding it once it gets going.”
“I don’t understand; why would he do
this?”
“Oh, it’s just a little payback for nine
hundred dollars in
alibi surcharges. You’re new
here, you’ll find out about those.
Rogues go over their bar tabs like other people do the phone bill: three and a half hours to Peru?”
“I see.”
“Grapevine has it it’s working, Ozzy is
ready to snap. One of those grand
gestures that make life a living hell around here.
That’s why I’m betting it’s live penguins in that crate.”
“A gesture?”
“Right.
Like the time he tried to take us all hostage because Sly and that Greg
Brady took over his operation.”
Ra’s felt a curious palpitation in his chest,
as if his heart had skipped a beat.
“G- G- Brady?”
he managed weakly.
“Thing with venom penguins, though, that’s
a pretty ungainly bird to start with. With
muscles, I imagine they’ll fall over.”
“Greg Brady tried to take over Cobblepot’s
empire?” Ra’s gasped.
“Well, maybe some of them can jump. Get you
with a vicious flying peck.”
“Greg Brady tried to take over the
Iceberg,” Ra’s stated again.
“Little ones can jump small crevasses to get
where they’re going.”
“Gr’oriBr’di usurped his previous
boss’s empire before coming to DEMON.”
“But mostly, I think they’re just going to
fall down.”
Batman waited for Greg Brady at the rendezvous
point, while Psychobat railed against the presumption of villains who had learned
his identity. Ra’s al Ghul
trotting right up to his front door with a pair of ceremonial swords like a
covered dish for the barbecue. Ra’s al Ghul walking right up—it was
worse than Nigma sending that cat to the house. And then the final insult,
Catwoman gets to come right down to the cave, shoot a naughty grin at him, and
announce she’s got a new lair.
Sure, it was ridiculous grouping her with the
others. She was no Riddler or Hugo Strange or Ra’s al Ghul… but she wasn’t
exactly the girl next door, either. She was a criminal once. It’s how they came
together in the first place, and it was that history at the heart of their
new… games. Riddler at
least sent his clues and taunts to the Bat-Signal.
Catwoman could now march right down to the cave, tap him on the shoulder
and say—
“Hey, Bats. What’s shakin’?” Greg Brady
announced.
“You’re late,” Psychobat growled, then
Batman softened the harshness of the greeting by asking “Any difficulty
getting away, with Ra’s al Ghul being in Gotham?”
Greg stared.
“The old man’s in town?” he asked.
“You didn’t know?”
“First I’ve heard of it,” Greg shrugged.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes,” Greg said firmly.
“I’m sure that I didn’t know he was coming into Gotham.
Would’ve mentioned a bulletin like that.”
Batman grunted.
Greg grunted.
Batman glared at him.
Greg shrugged again.
Then, after a tense pause, he asked “You wouldn’t happen to know
where Talia’s at, would you, Dude? I
mean, not that I care or anything, just that she’s kind of a mess with
the life skills, and I’d kinda like to know she landed on her feet.”
Batman shook his head no.
“No idea,” he said.
“Thing is, Bats, for the life of me I can’t
figure out how she’s gonna live. I
mean, you gotta admit it’s not much of a resume:
Father’s chattel, washed out of assassin training camp, appointed head
of the assassins’ league anyway thanks to nepotism, obsesses on loser
crimefighter (no offense, Dude), stalks loser crimefighter, wrecks un-wreckable
supercorp. What is she
going to do to eat and pay rent now, teach aerobics at the Y?”
“I don’t know where she is,” Batman said
firmly. He noted that, whatever
Brady might say, he seemed to care very much what happened to Talia. He noted too that Ra’s presence in Gotham was still
unexplained—and that Ra’s had not told this particular minion, who headed
the Gotham City operations, that he was coming.
“Your stint as a mole inside DEMON is
over,” Batman said brusquely. “You have to disappear, and I mean now,
tonight—”
“No way, Dude,” Greg interrupted before
Batman could add “—if you want to stay alive.”
Greg Brady glared defiantly at Batman.
Batman glared insistently back at Greg Brady.
Greg’s knuckles tightened subconsciously as
he considered making a fist.
Batman noticed the subtle clenching of muscles
above the elbow and echoed it.
Their eyes locked in malevolent agreement for a
silent beat, and then…
A silly electronic trill broke the silence.
Batman’s withering glare faltered, but only
for a split second. Greg’s
collapsed into an embarrassed frown as the trill sounded again.
“’Scuse me,” he murmured, unclipping a
phone from his belt and turning away.
Batman retreated to the Batmobile and opened
the OraCom. He instructed Oracle to
initiate “the GB Protocol” to equip Brady with a new identity far from
Gotham.
Then he hesitated, watching the man as he
talked on the phone. The protocol
was established when Brady first agreed to remain in DEMON as an undercover
agent of the Bat. He’d been a
Joker henchman and a bouncer at the Iceberg, and Batman had, perhaps, been a bit
stingy with the seed money. But
now… now Greg Brady might very well be the man who got Talia al Ghul out of
his life for good. He told
Oracle to add an additional $50,000 to the bank account.
“Bats!” Greg blurted, running after him,
waving his arms as if he was afraid Batman was driving away.
Batman waited while Brady caught up to him.
“I found the old man,” he panted. “That was Oswald… down at the ‘Berg… wants me to send
someone… to pick up Ubu! It’s closing time, and he’s passed out
in booth six, and… well, from the sound of it… three ‘Demon’s Heads’
(that’s, like, twelve ounces of rum), Ivy pheromones, fear toxin, and wearing a
Donald Duck hat.”
To be continued…
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