Batman Arkham Knight (3 page)

Living in Gotham City always meant living with fear. And soon, unless something was done, there would be nothing else left
but
fear.

Unless something is done
, he thought as he saw a policeman here and there break from crowd control and join the fleeing mob.
Unless I do something.

Batman fired a grapple line across the wide street to the Groiler building and leaped off the stone grotesque, his cape spreading as he glided over the panic below and landed on the golden building’s eighth-floor balcony.

Smoke and the glow of flames could be seen a scant dozen blocks away. Fire engines tried to make their way through the crowd, sirens blaring, but they were stuck in the stampede, unable to move.

Batman leaped, once again letting his cape spread wide, encouraging the air to rush under it and push him up, enabling him to glide over the crowd, past the fire engines, and then around the block. He felt the wind dying and he began to dip, so he fired his grapple again, up to the fourth story of the Kane Building, an old apartment house built in 1940 for Gotham City’s elite. Once used to house the wealthy, like so much of city, it was terribly deteriorated. Today it sheltered the poor.

The grapple lifted Batman’s arc and sent him soaring up again to where he caught a new gust that took him another two blocks, past Stagg Towers, before forcing him to repeat the process. Most of the people below were so intent on finding their way out of Gotham City that they didn’t waste time looking up, so he was able to glide several blocks before a runner noticed him. And even then, before the person could be certain, Batman sailed around another corner, disappearing from sight.

His gauntlet began to vibrate.
Cell call. Audio, not video.
Tim wouldn’t call—not now. And Dick barely spoke to him anymore. So it had to be James Gordon, Alfred Pennyworth, Oracle or Lucius Fox. With his hands being used to maneuver through the city, he sent the call to his ear comm.

Alfred was on the other end.

“Sir, to let you know, Mr. Fox is working on the new uniform, as per your request.”

“Good to know, Alfred,” Batman responded. “But that’s not the reason you’re calling. Fox would have sent a comm when he was ready.”

“Very perceptive, sir,”
the butler responded.
“The computer has picked up a fire alert in Old Gotham City. I recognized the address. GPS indicates you’re only two blocks away, and traveling in that direction.”

“So?”

There was a pause, then Alfred continued.

“With all the problems the city is undergoing,”
he said,
“I have to ask, sir—why would you be making a detour there? The building has long been abandoned. No lives are imperiled.”

“Fires can spread, Alfred.”

“But were that to happen, you know you’re not equipped to stop it. The Fire Department will put it down before it spreads to any other buildings.”
Another pause.
“You’re going there because of what it was, not what it is… sir.”

No answer.

“Sir? In the greater scheme of things, you know that building is not important.”

“It might be ready for demolition today,” Batman replied, “but fifty-seven years ago that building was a showcase. It was also where my father was born. He bought it before he turned twenty, and often brought me to it as he attempted to buy the entire block, planning its renovation. When he… when my parents were murdered, I… I didn’t follow through, and I should have, Alfred.”

“I understand that, sir. But why now?”

“Although it’s little more than a metaphor, I can’t stand by and watch the city my father tried to save be destroyed by fear.” His jaw tightened, and his voice became harder. “This fire wasn’t an accident.”

“Sir?”

“Are you picking up the five heat signatures directly below me? They’re torching this block—and God knows how many others—with Molotov cocktails. They appear to be doing it for fun.”

“Understood,”
the butler said.
“I’ll alert the commissioner to have several cells prepared.”

“Thank you, Alfred. We can’t protect our future by viciously razing the past.”

* * *

The leader of the five appeared to be no more than twenty-four, a smallish punk, thin, wearing jeans and a blue T-shirt with a design on it representing a popular TV cartoon character. He stuck the alcohol-soaked cloth into a glass bottle filled with gas mixed with motor oil, then lit the makeshift wick. When the bottle was smashed it would release a sudden, deadly fireball.

If Batman let him throw it.

The caped figure fired a grapple cable, snagged the punk, then yanked him halfway up the building, locking the grapple into position and leaving him hanging twenty-seven feet off the ground. As the would-be arsonist jerked to a stop Batman dove, cape wings spread, and caught the falling bottle bomb. Then he hurled it over the street toward Gotham River where it safely sunk out of sight.

He landed in the midst of the other four, taking down the largest one with a crushing kick to his jaw. Blood shooting from his mouth, the creep buckled and fell.

The other three were gangbangers who expected their victims to surrender to their combined and overwhelming strength, with only a frightened mewling indicating any complaint. The store owners they terrorized rarely fought back as the punks aimed their weapons at them, threatening to blow them to hell if they didn’t fork over the contents of a cash register.

But Batman wasn’t planning to mewl
or
surrender. He was going to teach them a lesson they’d remember, no matter how long they were jailed.

He thrust a hard fist into the gut of the closest punk, then used an elbow to smash him on the back of his neck. The punk gasped and crumpled, but—fool that he was—he tried to reach to his waist to grab his gun. Batman’s boot smashed the gangbanger’s hand and he could hear the bones crack and snap. The thug howled with pain. In six or eight months, when he recuperated, he’d be able to use his hands to feed himself, and perhaps even cut his food, but little else.

His criminal days were over. Batman stared at the downed hoods and chuckled. They wouldn’t be causing further mischief any time soon, he thought. He laughed again, and then suddenly stopped as he saw punk four try to run. A minute ago he might have tried to cripple him, but that blood-spawned anger was now gone. He removed a collapsible Batarang from his belt pouch and threw it. Fifteen seconds later he saw the thug fall, and stay down.

Punk five was smarter, or at least he had learned from his friends. He fell to his knees and snapped his hands behind his head, interlocking his fingers as he’d undoubtedly been ordered to do many times before. Maybe this one would learn his lesson when he got out of jail. Batman hoped so, but sincerely doubted it. He activated his comm and keyed it to Gordon’s frequency.

“Commissioner, I’ve got five punks trussed up on Robbins south of Moldoff. Fire-bombers. Someone should pick them up.”

“I don’t have anyone to spare, Batman,”
Gordon said, sounding tired and frustrated but trying to hold it together.
“We need to vacate a city of six point three million frantic and frightened people with fewer than a thousand cops. They’re trying their best to keep some semblance to order, but there’re simply not enough busses and trains to help even a quarter of them. So thieves, arsonists and all the other goddam gutter rats that’re out there, they’re not on our priority list today. I’m sorry, Batman. It kills me. I’m really sorry.”

“Where are you now, Jim?”

“Most of those left on the streets are the sort that enjoy the chaos,”
Gordon continued.
“Scum. Criminals and worse, and there’s not enough of the good people left to stop them. So I’m heading back to the G.C.P.D. I think my time’s better spent planning the evac of the good people who want to get out. Speaking of which, you and I should coordinate—there are some things we need to go over.”

Batman turned back to the five captured punks, all secured with black plastic zip ties.

“I’m not letting them free, so I’ll be there with them in fifteen. Twenty max. The usual place?”

“I can use a friendly face right about now. So sure—see you then.”

Batman stared into the dark skies and shook his head. Before the Joker died, he had injected his blood into Batman. Now it was trying to take him over. It almost made him take a life. He had to stay in control, but that wasn’t going to be an easy task.

Still, he had no choice.

Batman didn’t kill… and he never would.

“Penguin? It’s Louie. I’m on Seventeenth and Grant. I met with the Newton boys like you said, only they had a change of mind. They don’t want to sign with us against Scarerow. Newton, he said these days it’s every one for himself.”

“And how do we respond to treachery, Mr. Ross?”

“But they confiscated my weapons before I met with them, and they didn’t give ’em back when I left. I mean, hell, boss, I was happy to get out of there in one piece. Maybe you can get me some backup?”

“Mr. Ross, I sent you to deal with a situation. I expect it to be dealt with. Solve your own problem, or perhaps Mr. Newton will allow you to become a member of his entourage. You know how much he values… loyalty.”

“Yeah. Uh, right, sir. I understand, sir. I’ll deal with it. Don’t you worry none, boss.”

“I never worry, Louie,” the Penguin said. “I pay others to do that for me.”

Louie Ross heard the phone go dead, and felt his throat go tight. He had no choice. There were seven of them inside the office building, including Newton. The question was, could one man take them all down… one man without a gun?

Sadly, he knew the answer.

Hell no.

When he’d turned nineteen, Louie W. Ross was without many job prospects. He barely graduated junior high and flunked out of high school in the eleventh grade. One of the few jobs he could do back then was be a runner for the Maroni mob.

But he hadn’t been very good at it. Just shy of a year later he moved over to Falcone’s mob, then to the Ventriloquist’s gang, which led him to the specials—the gangs whose primary objective was the extinction of Batman. He tooled between gangs, sticking with each one until they threw him out. Then four months earlier, he’d finally joined up with the Penguin. His problem was, if he failed again he knew he couldn’t just join yet another gang.

The Penguin didn’t respond well to failure.

Louie looked down the block and saw several cop cars parked there. The cops weren’t in them—they were probably clearing the block just like they’d been doing since Scarecrow made his announcement. The street was littered with debris, including a crowbar half lost in the bushes. Louie knew he wasn’t the brightest bulb working for the Penguin, but given the opportunity and the incentive of staying alive, he was fully capable of putting together two plus two.

He grabbed the crowbar, looked around to make certain he wasn’t being watched, then smashed in a window on one of the police cars. Glancing around again he reached inside, unlocked the door then scrambled inside. There had to be a weapon here somewhere.

As he rooted through the back seat, he didn’t see the taxi pull up beside the car. His fingers closed around a shotgun, and he pulled it free from under a blanket.

Bingo!

He stared at it—not the best weapon, he knew. He would have preferred an automatic. But this was better than nothing.

“Hey, creepo. What do you think you’re doing?” The voice came from the cab.

“Who the hell are you?” he responded, not really caring. He tightened his grip on the rifle and raised it so his annoyer could see it. “Or maybe you should just get the hell out of here.”

The figure in the taxi leaned to the window and Louie gasped. He knew the face… or maybe it would be better to say he knew
both
of them.

“Two-Face?” Louie could barely spit out the killer’s name. Everyone knew Harvey Dent, formerly Gotham City’s crusading district attorney—the once great hope of the city. But that was before acid was thrown at him by one of the mobsters he was trying to put behind bars. Half of his face was burned to the bone. Strips of flesh dangled from the few patches that were still in place. From one side he looked like the worst monster from the most disgusting movie ever filmed. From the other side—the side not hit with the acid—he still looked like whatever handsome actor they had cast in the hero’s role.

“You were saying, creep?” Two-Face grinned a sickly smile.

Louie didn’t know how to respond. The mob boss had a special dollar coin he loved to flip. Both sides had a face on them, but he’d taken a knife and gouged one of the faces. Now his coin looked like him.

“Please, Mr. Two-Face… Mr. Dent… I didn’t mean anything. I thought you were a cop. I was just mouthing off.”

“Shhh.” Two-Face put a finger to his lips. Then he held up the coin, and flipped it into the air. As of that moment, all that mattered was which side of his coin would come up once it landed. Perfect head, you were allowed to live. Scarred head, you died. All the pleading, all the prayers, they all meant nothing. Your life, your future, was left to a coin toss.

The coin flipped six times up, six times down, then landed in Two-Face’s hand. He looked at it and smiled. Instinctively, Louie smiled back.

Before it could register, the former Harvey Dent squeezed the gun’s trigger, and fired.

Blam!

Louie flinched, and thought he might have pissed himself. He was waiting for it to register that the bullet had gone through his brain, and that he was dead.

That moment never came.

He was still alive.

Yet there was no way Dent could have missed him, not from less than five feet away. He looked up incredulously, and Two-Face nodded past Louie, making the thug turn.

Behind the police car he saw a freshly dead cop, probably the cop in whose car Louie was sitting. He had been coming back to reclaim it.

Two-Face had saved him.

“Thank you, sir,” he choked. “Thank you.”