[[Disclaimer: Everybody but Monahan, the cloaked figure, and the girl in white belong to DC Comics. No copyright infringement intended. No money made. Monahan, the cloaked figure, and the girl in white are mine. No touchy! Also, some of the things the cloaked figure sings about belong to Squaresoft-Enix USA. No copyright infringement intended, no money made.]]
Paths of Desire
Chapter One
1
Gotham City. Day One, 02:32 AM, EST
The figure wore a cloak and cowl of a deep burgundy, almost blood-like in color. Her feet made no sound as she moved through the streets of Gotham, though that might have been the soft leathern boots of the same color. She did not seem to walk, but to glide over the ancient cobblestones of the square.
And as she glided through the darkened streets, she sang. Her voice seemed to wash over the ears of the living creatures that heard it, chasing the weary thoughts of mortality away.
"Tristram Galerya'an Talia, Marlene... Orlan'du Cid Palolo, Lau Fei Lea Monde... Agalayes, Marduk Kadesh Lau Fei Lea Monde..."
The figure reached a fountain and sat upon the marble rim, continuing to sing.
Eventually, a figure in the shadows approached. He wore all black, with midnight blue swatches of color, and an oddly bat-like mask. "Ma'am... I'm sorry, but you're disturbing the residents here. I must ask you to be quiet."
"Diadra Nimje, Tamulis; Rinomy Mullenkamp Lau Fei Lea Monde..."
"Ma'am, you are disturbing the peace. Please stop singing."
But at that, the figure only began to trill louder. "Ha'eralus Talos Balvus, Lau Fei Lea Monde... Diadra Nimje, Tamulis; Rinomy Mullenkamp Lau Fei Lea Monde... Sigguld Altema, Lau Fei Lea Monde... Lau Fei Lea Monde..."
The figure's head began to droop, and Nightwing fell to his knees.
Warm, soft hands with incredibly long fingernails drew his head into her lap. From within the folds of her cloak, she produced a tiny golden cross.
He recognized the letters carved on the back. He'd seen his father draw his idea for the goldsmith.
"Where did you get that?" He demanded sleepily. "It was my mother's!"
"Tristram Galerya'an Talia, Marlene..."
His eyes glazed over as he observed the shine of the golden cross.
The figure ran her hands through his hair, her nails scratching his scalp upon occasion. In response, he drew himself closer to her, eventually seating himself on the fountain's rim and laying his head once more in the figure's lap.
The figure hummed her strange, ancient song as she fastened the tiny cross necklace around Nightwing's neck. She then ever so gently rolled him face down into the fountain, crooning to him. He fell in, smiling blissfully.
Somewhere outside Gotham City, a little girl dressed in white walked through the snow, smiling blissfully, humming.
Her milk-white wavy hair reached her waist, complimenting her pale, pale skin, light gray eyes, and white dress. She went unshod, and not a single color marred the white dress. Even the brocade was white
She smiled happily, still humming, as she wandered down the highway the only remaining gothic structures.
JLA HQ. 05:34 AM EST
"NOOO!"
The deafening shout broke the tense silence of the Justice League HQ.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Oracle closed her eyes in pain as she listened to Nightwing scream.
"MAKE IT GO AWAY! MAKE IT GO AWAY! OH GOD, PLEASE! GET IF OFF OF ME!"
They had done a full cavity search on him, to find what had caused him to scream so.
Three hours earlier.
Their search had yielded nothing. They had stripped Nightwing nude, removed necklace made of wood, bone and hair, and he still screamed.
Batman looked like a nervous wreck, Robin jumped every time Nightwing screamed, and Oracle wanted to rush in and hold him.
Not that she could any more. But she still wanted to.
Abruptly, the screaming stopped.
"Batman!" Superman's voice suddenly cried out. "Batman, Nightwing is trying to strangle himself!"
Outside Gotham. 05:34 AM EST.
A young girl, no older than twelve years old, walked into the gas station.
"May I help you?" Kelly Jo asked, barely looking up from her magazine to register the girl's presence.
But the girl said nothing, only continued to walk. Eventually, the girl reached the swinging doors that led to the area behind the counter.
As she brushed through the doors, the girl pivoted and looked straight at Kelly Jo.
Kelly Jo felt herself ensnared as she gazed into those eyes so light a gray as to be almost white, with a gray rim. She tried to tell the girl that she wasn't supposed to come behind the counter, but something bright shifted within those nigh-colorless depths.
The girl moved closer, and Kelly Jo, trapped, stared into those strange, strange eyes.
Desires moved within Kelly Jo that she had never felt before, desires to hunt and kill. She felt as though she had some enormous task, but could not discern its nature.
The girl's lips pressed against her own, and Kelly Jo shuddered with lust.
The last thing Kelly Jo saw was a white dress, with flowing milk white hair swirling around the slashes in elbow areas of the sleeves.
JLA HQ. 05:35 AMEST
Batman heaved himself from his chair. "He's what?"
"Trying to strangle himself— come quickly!"
So Batman went. Superman had been correct: Nightwing was indeed trying to strangle himself.
"Dick!" Batman shouted, taking off the cowl. "Dick, you have to stop!" He took the young man's hands away from his own throat. "You have to stop! Whatever you're trying to take off isn't on anymore! Trust me, Dick!"
But Dick didn't calm down, and Wayne grappled with the sobbing vigilante. Wayne at last managed to get Dick to stop struggling, and, exhausted, both mentor and student, father and son, fell to the ground.
Bruce pulled Dick close to him, rocking the former acrobat.
"It's all right," Bruce whispered into the other man's ears. "It's all right..."
Outside Gotham. 07:02 AM EST
Officer Rachel Monahan stared down at the body, sickened. She hadn't felt this sick to her stomach in... she didn't know how long.
"What could do such a thing?" Monahan asked, staring in sick fascination at the ferocious bites and scratches on the corpse— no, one what was left of the corpse. The bite marks had obviously come from something with a snout... a long snout, a large snout, with large teeth.
"With so many injuries, it's hard to even say what killed her..." Somebody muttered.
By 'so many injuries,' everyone knew that he meant 'so much missing'.
"In most cases, I'd say it was the nearly-severed neck," a deep voice said from behind the crew.
The crew whirled to see Batman standing in the half-light behind them.
"I still want to know what kind of animal could do this. It doesn't seem like a dog..." The same person in the crew muttered once more.
"What could have done the neck, oh Dark Knight? These chomp marks all over her came from something huge." Monahan shook her head, red-gold curls bouncing in the ponytail. "I doubt there's a dog as big as the one that did this in the entire city."
He began to examine the body closer. "It was done by a canine."
Yes, done by a canine, maybe by something rabid. Anybody could tell that from the pattern of the bite marks. The problem was that who or whatever had ripped the deceased's throat open and nearly decapitated the corpse had done it after eating. There simply wasn't enough blood to indicate otherwise.
But... Not only did dogs not interfere with their kill after they ate it, there simply weren't any dogs large enough to have left the tracks this one had, or large enough to have left such large tooth marks.
"Well yeah, but I don't get it— there's no reason for the killing. Maybe it was hungry, but why did it nearly decapitate her after it ate her? And what kind of dog was it?"
"I don't know," Batman said, "but I have a feeling this will tell us."
A single white strand of fur lay in his open palm. The shock of white against black seemed particularly startling, but Monahan couldn't place why.
"Hey! You can't just take that! That could be our only evidence as to the killer."
"There are plenty more, if you look."
And then the Batman was gone.
2
JLA HQ. 09:15 AM EST
"So, the same night something drives Nightwing insane, a young woman is attacked outside the gas station where she works... by a dog with huge tracks, huge teeth, and white fur." Tim Drake scratched his chin. "Think maybe they're related?"
"I can't see how." Batman tapped a few keys, changing the image on the big screen to show a necklace made of wooden beads and a few beads of bones and three fish scales. "The only thing we recovered from Nightwing was a wood and bone necklace and, some fish scales from his hair. The killing was done by a dog."
If Batman thought it odd that shortly after somebody tried to drown Nightwing, the JLA discovered him wearing a necklace he had never owned and fish scales in his hair, he gave no sign of it.
Not to Tim, at least. Tim thought that maybe Nightwing would have been able to tell, but they had sedated him over an hour earlier.
Batman tapped a few more keys. The image on the big screen changed to the single strand of fur recovered from the body of the young woman. A few keystrokes later, the screen showed the results of the DNA analysis.
"So, does the computer know what the fur is from?" Wonder Woman asked.
"It looks like it's a mutated strain of wolf DNA."
"So, we have a mutated wolf running around Gotham." Tim sighed. "Does it get any worse?"
Batman nodded. "Further analysis of the fish scales," a keystroke and the screen returned to the image of the fish scales, "reveals that they are from a fish unknown, but there was a trace of salt water on them. The salt water has a make up consistent with that of the Mediterranean."
"So, a brand new fish that lives in the Mediterranean showed up, gave Nightwing a necklace, and tried to drown him." The Flash sounded doubtful. "Are you sure about that Batman? It doesn't make any sense."
"I would suggest that the culprit was somebody who worked with these fish, and that the scales came from work gloves." Batman turned to look at Flash. "But traces of material from those scales found their way into ten thin cuts on Nightwing's scalp. It is unlikely that the material simply fell into the cuts from somebody's gloves."
"You throw us tantalizing hints of something, give us theories... and then tear them down." Wonder Woman's eyes narrowed. "These games are not what I would expect from you at the moment, Batman. Regardless of your reasons, stop playing them."
Batman ignored her. "I analyzed the wood and bone in the necklace, as well as the thong they hung on." More results scrolled across the giant screen. "The wood is laurel, but the bones are untraceable on their own. We know that the culprit made the necklace himself, with materials he gathered on his own. Marrow had soaked into the leather." He looked briefly at Tim. "According to the DNA in the marrow, the bones came from humans, and from the shape... they're... the hyoid bones."
Tim knew what the hyoid bone was. If a corpse had a broken hyoid bone, then someone had strangled him or her.
"There are minute groups of fissures on each bone, with traces of primitive horse-leg glue."
"Somebody glued the bones back together?"
Wonder Woman went pale. "The hyoid bone is difficult to remove. Somebody went to a good deal of effort to drown Nightwing."
"Batman, if you would give me a copy of the DNA from the marrow, I'll search the databanks for it." Oracle looked just as pale as Wonder Woman, but Tim was pretty sure it was because somebody had tried to kill Nightwing and gone to a lot of effort.
"Does Nightwing have any known enemies?" This time, it was Superman who spoke. He had been content to listen quietly, his shock plain on his face.
"Aside from the entirety of the Rogues' Gallery?" Tim asked sardonically. "Only Blockbuster."
"Anybody with reaches into the Mediterranean?" Wonder Woman asked.
"Does Nightwing's secret identity have any enemies?"
Batman shook his head. "Nightwing knew better than to make enemies without the mask on. No, Blockbuster is his biggest enemy, from what I can tell."
Tim wondered why Batman was so calm. Somebody had tried to drown Nightwing on Batman's turf.
Considering Batman's long tradition of holding himself responsible for everything and going crazy when a Robin (or former Robin) got hurt, Batman should have been trying to tear apart Gotham.
"I note that nobody has broached the question of how they managed to get Nightwing's head underwater." Black Canary said. "I know Nightwing. That boy goes down fighting or doesn't go at all."
"No traces of drugs in his system, so they didn't tranquilize him."
3
JLA HQ. 11:15 AM, EST
The first thing he noticed was that his mouth was dry and tasted bad. The second thing he noticed was that his head ached, he felt about to throw up, and somebody was waving a large bottle of water in front of his eyes.
"Is my mask on?" He grumbled. Well, he tried to grumble that, but his mouth didn't cooperate. Instead, he said something that sounded rather like, "Ishmaymahshakum?"
"Water first. Questions later," said the person who was going psycho with the water bottle.
He accepted the water bottle and drained it. The gross feeling in his mouth went away, and his headache lessened.
"I feel like I have a hangover." He tried to say. This time it came out something like what he'd intended.
He began to make out psycho-water-bottle-guy, and he realized it was Superman.
"Dehydration," Superman said. He went psycho with another water bottle.
"I rather thought so, because I wasn't partying last night."
"No," Wonder Woman agreed, "I wouldn't call nearly drowning, then going into hallucinations and trying to strangle yourself partying."
Did I try to strangle myself? Why would I do anything as stupid as that? "I nearly drowned?" Nightwing looked puzzled. "What are you talking about? I was patrolling Gotham, to help Batman with a case. Some weird person starting singing, and then I told him to be quiet. And then..."
He wracked his brains, but oddly enough, he couldn't think about what had happened after he'd told the cloaked boy to be quiet the second time.
"You don't remember, do you?" Batman asked. "Robin found you sleeping face down in the fountain. You hadn't inhaled much water, so he must have found you just after the culprit left."
Nightwing downed another bottle of water, took the pair of pills sitting on the table next to him, and looked askance at Superman. "You know that people usually dehydrate after being heavily tranquilized... why didn't you guys put me on an IV and hydrate me?"
"We couldn't. We tried, several times, but you kept doing damage to yourself and slinging the IV around. Pulled the needles out on several occasions and you tried to strangle yourself with the wires." Robin gave him a weak grin. "If it hadn't been so terrifying, it would have been funny."
Nightwing nodded. "So... was I drugged up?"
"We aren't sure why you went into fits of delirium. We think the attempts to strangle yourself, at least when you tried with your bare hands, to be result of your hallucinations." Batman looked hard at him, and Nightwing knew for sure that Batman had been worried out of his mind. "Do you remember anything at all?"
Nightwing shook his head. "I remember a hand, a woman's, I think, because the person had long fingernails... the hand was dangling this gold cross on this gold chain in front of me." He stopped, thinking. "On the back of the cross, there were some letters... My Dad designed that cross for my mother. I saw him take the design to the goldsmith."
"Anything else?"
"Well, I think she fastened it around my neck, because I remember having this crazy urge to take it off, because my mother had worn it when she died and it had been touched with death..."
Nightwing watched Batman and Superman exchange looks.
"We found you wearing this," Batman proffered a necklace made out of wood, bone and leather.
The bones were U-shaped.
"Are those bones... are they the hyoid bones?"
"You could tell just by looking?" Tim asked.
Nightwing shrugged. "I've seen a lot of strangulations. And a lot of autopsies."
The Clock Tower, Gotham City. 8:41 PM EST.
Dick Grayson stared at the photographs of the mutilated body, wishing he had arrived earlier. The glare would have obscured most of what he saw. "What was it?"
Barbara tapped a few keys on her computer, her face impassive. "It was a woman, by the name of Kelly Jo Garzone, according to her dental records."
"What got her?"
"A mutated wolf."
"Are you kidding me?" Dick's eyes widened. "There's a mutated wolf running around Gotham? What kind of mutation?"
Barbara pulled up a photograph of the paw prints. "This kind of mutation."
"Those are some huge feet."
"And big teeth," she temporarily cropped the photo of the clearest bite marks. "That's the girl's torso— the wolf took out her right side. It ate almost all of her."
"Disgusting."
"Blood spatter indicates the near-decapitation occurred post mortem."
"Not a lot of spatter, more like it just oozed out of her."
"That's why it occurred post mortem."
"Because her heart had stopped, therefore the blood couldn't jet enough for a decent spatter."
"Ah hah, somebody did listen to his criminology lessons when he was nine."
Dick shrugged, forcing his tone to be light. "Yeah, and I had to take a refresher course to become a cop."
"Oracle," J'ohn appeared on the monitor.
"Yes, J'ohn?"
"I have traced the DNA signal to a specific place in Gotham. Please help me to get in touch with Nightwing."
"I'm already here, J'ohn." Dick said. "I'm assuming you need me to take the wolf out?"
"Something like that."
"Give me a way to locate it and I'll get right on it."
"I am uploading the tracer frequency to you now."
Dick watched as a blank computer screen came to life, showing a green grid with two blinking dots, one blue, and one red.
"The clock tower is the blue dot. The wolf is the red dot."
"Got it." Nightwing applied adhesive to his mask and put it on. He hummed Into the Wild Blue Yonder, and shot a jump line from the clock tower.
City Streets.
"Okay, Short Pants," Oracle laughed in his ear, "take a left."
Dick obeyed, stopping every now and then to get his bearings or let Oracle make sense of her maps.
"You're getting close, is there any sort of disturbance?"
"I haven't heard any screaming, if that's what you're asking." He grinned cockily. "Maybe it's a pet."
"It's a giant wolf, Nightwing."
"Well, I'm not seeing any tracks in the snow, and I'm not hearing any screaming."
Barbara continued to direct him, until his jump line tangled around a streetlamp, with him dangling a few scant feet below. To no avail, Dick worked to free it.
He made a slight growling noise, frustrated. Great. First somebody tries to drown me and then I get my jump line stuck like a rookie...
"Stay where you are. I have another call."
Not like I'm really going to get anywhere, considering that I'm currently hanging from a streetlamp.
"Okay, I'm back. Batman says that not only have the autopsy reports come through, but also that he's managed to get a copy of the security tapes from the gas station."
"Really? And?" Nightwing concentrated on the knot.
"He says it's crazy, but the tapes show a prepubescent girl in a full-skirted muslin dress, with a pair of pantaloons and a layer of petticoats walking up behind the counter."
"So, Kelly Jo's younger sister likes to dress up like Alice from Alice in Wonderland. Your point?"
"...Who walks behind the counter, and turns into a wolf."
"That's weird." Success!
Nightwing dropped silently to the ground. He began to stride in the direction she'd indicated, and soon found himself face to face with a girl dressed only in white, from head to toe.
She looked like an albino.
"Uh, Oracle?"
"Yes, Short Pants?"
"I think I found our wolf."
"I noticed. Want me to alert the others?"
"No. I told J'ohn that I'd handle this, so I'll handle it."
The girl's gray-white eyes seemed to look through him as he approached. The white snow crunched beneath his black boots, and the girl's lips curled into a snarl.
The snarl grew wider and louder the closer he went.
He found himself staring into the ice-white eyes of a huge, white wolf. The thing was as tall as he was, with jaws that could easily snap him in half.
I am the fly who
Dreams of the spider
The path to the web
Becomes deeper and wider
I dream of the silk that is
Tangled inside you
And know that I want to be
Somewhere beside you — OCTOBER PROJECT, Paths of Desire