Justice League of America - Batman: The Stone King (17 page)

The thought died stillborn as fierce pain radiated from his abdomen, jangling nerves all over his body. He couldn't even tell if he was screaming or not.

Next to Green Lantern–although she might have been a thousand miles away, for all he was aware of her existence–was Wonder Woman.

She'd wakened from unconsciousness to find her world in darkness. Her first thought was that she'd gone blind, that somehow in her battle atop the pyramid with her unseen foes, her sight had been affected.

She'd tried to stand up, but her legs refused to bear her weight, sending her sprawling on the rough rock.

The others need me,
her mind called over and over, with mounting urgency.
They might be in any kind of danger. I can't give up. I have to help them!

Again she'd tried to rise, swaying slightly as she struggled to find her balance without her eyesight to assist her. A massive blow landed on the back of her neck, its impetus sending her sprawling again. Groggily, she rolled onto her back, striving to bring her bracelets up so they could intercept any further assault.

But the attack came from all angles, slamming painfully into every part of her body, giving her no chance to protect herself.

Stone on skin, stone on bone!
Had she said that? If not her, then who? Did she just think it? Was her mind playing tricks now, her senses deceiving her?

Wonder Woman was almost relieved when the deeper darkness appeared again, expanding slowly to engulf her in its cool, unfeeling shadows.

Superman seemed to have been flying for hours. How could this be? At superspeed, he'd have long since been carried into outer space.

But I can still breathe,
he thought.
Not space, then. So where?

None of his extraordinary senses were of use to him. He strained with his X-ray vision, but couldn't pierce the eerie blue-green fog that surrounded him. He stilled his breath and listened intently, but his super-hearing picked up no sounds at all. He tried shouting, vaguely hoping that he'd get some sort of echo that he could home in on. But he couldn't even hear his own voice.

He tried to recall what he'd been fighting against, but his memory wouldn't function. Instead of his enemy, he pictured events from his past, but they rolled by so fast he could scarcely keep pace with them.

A flash from his childhood: a baby in a rocketship.

Krypton–the giant planet that was his home–exploding.

A middle-aged couple–he knew them well. What were their names? Ah yes, Ma and Pa. Martha . . . and Jonathan . . .

Superman tried to shake his head, to banish these unwanted thoughts. Though he could have sworn his head didn't move, the memory traces disappeared, winking out of existence like the embers of a dying fire.

But Superman's relief was short-lived. His mind immediately filled with images of Batman. Batman fighting, swinging, thinking, scoffing.

This is ridiculous! I can't even control my own thoughts!

Unable to think clearly enough to formulate a better plan, Superman flew on. And on. On a journey mat was taking him nowhere.

Speed is the answer.
The Flash kept saying the words over and over to himself.
It has to be!

He'd never found himself in any trap where his speed couldn't break him free.

Captive in a solid steel cell? His molecules could vibrate at exactly the same frequency as his prison walls, allowing him to slip through them like a ghost. Or his fist could act like a powerhammer, striking a thousand times in the breadth of a single second, rinding a weak spot and pummelling it until it shattered. Or, from a standing start, he could accelerate so quickly that by the time he crossed the cell he'd be traveling at thousands of miles an hour–enough to demolish any wall.

But this was different. He was surrounded by nothing but turquoise mist. No ground of any kind, solid or otherwise. For a long time the Flash thought he stood on the point of some eldritch needle of stone. Perhaps he could run down its side, using his speed to keep his balance. Might be a problem when he reached bottom–if he hit solid rock while vibrating at the wrong frequency, he'd have as much chance as a fly against a windshield at a hundred miles an hour.

The risk's worth it,
he assured himself.
The League might need me . . . they must, otherwise they'd have come to my rescue!

He squatted down, using first one hand and then the other to feel whatever was underneath the ground he stood on. No needle of rock. Nothing at all.

Frustrated and angry, the Flash settled back onto his haunches.

Speed is the answer,
he thought.
It has to be!

Peter Glaston wondered why he had lit a fire amid the remains on the altar stone. Animal fat hissed loudly as it burst into flame.

Greasy black smoke rose in rolling tendrils, quickly filling the chamber. Peter felt it rasping at his lungs, and coughed harshly. Whoever was controlling him might be used to breathing smoke, but Peter wasn't.

His arms were suddenly thrown wide, his head tilted back, his open mouth already beginning a singsong chant. Peter didn't understand a word his lips were saying–a curious mixture of grunts and semi-words that bore more resemblance to the rants of acute schizophrenics than to any language he knew.

But the meaning of the words resounded through his consciousness, their ageless wisdom in sharp contrast to the doom-laden way they resonated.
The Universe is an endless cycle of endless cycles. The world spins around the sun spins around the galactic center spins around in a supercluster that spins around . . .

What is now will not be always. What is gone will return.

Blasphemers rise, blasphemers die. The world spins around. Flame cleanses, and the seed grows. The sun spins around. After the flame, the foul will be sweet. The galaxy spins.

The fire grows.

The sun will cross the sky once more in its eternal dance of life and death. Then the world will be cleansed. What is gone will return.

Trapped deep within his own mind, Peter Glaston was suffused with fear. There was going to be a cleansing. Planet Earth was to be purged.

On Halloween.

Gotham City, October 29

"Are you sure you want to go through with this, Cassandra?" Batman asked. "It might be dangerous. There's still time to back out."

Cassandra sat in the passenger seat of the Batmobile, cocooned in the mesh of a safety harness, as Batman drove them at speed through the deserted back streets of downtown Gotham. Climate control kept the vehicle's interior at a pleasant temperature, and Cassandra found that staring at the soft glow of the myriad lights on the dashboard was strangely soothing.

They'd left Gordon at Police HQ, his skepticism tempered by the knowledge that Batman took Cassandra's vision seriously. Now, worried himself at what the future had in store for his city, Gordon was redoubling his officers' search for the missing Peter Glaston. Batman had assured him that when they found Peter Glaston they would also find the bull-headed monster who was the key to this mystery.

An idea had occurred to Cassandra while she'd been telling Batman and the commissioner her story. She hadn't said anything at the time, but the thought continued to gnaw at her as Batman guided his futuristic vehicle through a maze of roads and alleyways.

Central Gotham had never been built on a city grid, and its tangled traffic system was a stiff test for even the best of drivers.

Finally, as a green light saw them streaking through an intersection, Cassandra turned to Batman.

"I've been thinking," she began slowly, as if still unsure that the decision she'd reached was the right one. "According to the newspapers, the archaeology expedition retrieved some artifacts from the pyramid. Perhaps if I could touch one of them . . ."

"You think you might have another vision?" Batman finished for her.

Cassandra nodded. "I can't guarantee it, of course. And I have to admit, I'm a little afraid. But if all this is really as serious as it seems, I'm willing to do anything to help you get to the bottom of it." She paused, then added, "After all, Gotham's my city, too."

Batman immediately switched direction, the Batmobile's four-wheel steering spinning its oversized body through 180 degrees in less space than a sub-compact automobile would take.

The university campus was a couple of miles straight out on Fox Boulevard. Scant minutes later they were pulling up in the shadows of a tree-lined residential street, a few moments' walk from the archaeology building.

"You're absolutely sure now?" Batman asked again. He would never willingly endanger any innocent bystander. But how could a vision imperil anyone? It might spook Cassandra, maybe even terrify her, but it would have no power to physically harm her. And who could say what they might learn?

Cassandra's only reply was a slight smile and furtive nod, and Batman hit the button that opened the car's gull-wing doors with a slight hiss of compressed air. They slid out. A touch on a tiny remote control, and the sleek vehicle's chameleon-like light-sensitive paint began to change, blending it in with the tree-dappled shadows.

Hugging the darkness, Batman led her toward the unfenced campus. Security lights shone here and there on the pathways, pools of bright light accentuating the darkness beyond their glow. Batman pulled up short under an old, overhanging linden tree, its dry leaves rustling in the night breeze. Every now and then, one of them fell fluttering to the ground.

A finger to his lips told Cassandra to remain silent. They waited motionless for several minutes until they heard footsteps growing louder. A uniformed security guard came around the corner of the building, his gun snug in its hip holster, a powerful flashlight in his hand. Periodically he shone its beam into the darkness, checking for intruders.

At last, satisfied there was nothing amiss, the guard headed away from them to continue his patrol.

"He'll be back in twenty-three minutes exactly," Batman whispered gruffly. "Plenty of time for us to get inside."

Cassandra wondered how he knew, but didn't ask. It wouldn't have surprised her to find that Batman had memorized the patrol movements around every major building in town–as well as their internal layouts and escape routes. Which, of course, he had. Long experience had taught the Dark Knight never to leave anything to chance.

Cassandra started forward, but Batman grasped her wrist, shaking his head. He pointed up to a corner of the building, where a matt-black closed-circuit TV camera swiveled slowly on its bracket.

"Wait till the lens swings away from us," Batman ordered, "then stay close to me."

Seconds later, they were standing in a recessed staff entrance at the side of the building. Batman had taken a small metal tool from his belt, and Cassandra watched him insert it and twist it carefully in the lock.

With a slight click, the lockpick settled into the tumblers, and Batman pushed open the door.

Cassandra wondered if there was no end to this enigmatic man's talents. She raised her eyebrows and shot him a quizzical look.

"Any good lockpick can pick any good lock," he told her as they made their way inside and he quietly pulled the door closed behind them.

"It'll be ironic," Cassandra pointed out, "if, next time Commissioner Gordon sees us, we're under arrest for breaking and entering."

Cassandra fancied she saw the slightest of smiles cross Batman's lips. But when he spoke, there was no humor in his voice.

"There's no point alerting the commissioner about this until we have a result. Or not." Fleetingly, Batman wondered if he should say any more. But Cassandra was willing to risk herself–she deserved to know. "Besides," he continued, "I haven't told Gordon quite how serious the situation is."

"What do you mean? Surely things couldn't be much worse."

"Yes. They are." Batman nodded curtly. "The bull-headed beast that you saw has already captured four members of the Justice League."

He chose the word "captured" with care. For all he knew, Superman and the others were already dead. But he couldn't allow himself to think that way. He had to believe they were alive until events proved otherwise.

"It's only fair that you should know," he added pointedly. "We're dealing with real evil here, and it has a lot of power to back it up."

Cassandra shivered at his words, but didn't respond.

A narrow corridor led them to the main hallway, their progress illuminated by the powerful beam from Batman's penlight. They made their way across the checkered floor of black-and-white marble and passed the hall's only exhibit, the glass-encased skull of a flesh-eating dinosaur. It had been discovered in the mud of Gotham Docks by one of Robert Mills's predecessors during a routine dredging operation.

Six-inch-long teeth glinted in the flash beam as they passed it.

Gotham City has a long, long history,
Batman thought.
It's at least sixty-five million years since beasts like that roamed our hills.

Set against that, the seven or eight generations of the Wayne dynasty were mere pimples on the skin of time.

Batman stopped suddenly, spinning around in a blur of movement, dropping into a defensive martial-arts pose. He froze for several seconds, every sense at full alert, striving to penetrate the darkness. Then he relaxed.

"Thought I heard something," he said by way of explanation.

They passed a glass door with the word library etched in it, and Batman stopped again. He turned the door handle and pushed. It was open.

"Now might not be the best time," he told Cassandra, thinking of the books Jenny Ayles had recommended to him earlier that day, "but I want to check something out."

Cassandra followed him into the lighter, airy library. There were a dozen skylights set into the ceiling, and moonlight poured in to illuminate the interior. Batman scanned the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves with his flash, quickly pulling out a half-dozen titles from different sections. He carried them to a reading desk, sat down, and handed the flashlight to Cassandra.