This story is based upon the world or worlds and characters created by the imaginative minds behind DC comics of which I do not own rights.

I also do not claim the rights to the poetry used to inspire each chapter.

I do however claim rights to the characters I have created in this work.

Any similarities of characters named or described in this work to real people alive or dead is purely coincidental.

References to places and locales in existing cities such as New York, Miami and New Orleans are colored with my own imagination and should not be considered accurate.

All references to Gotham City are however, completely accurate... in my world.


Goddess: Descention

Book Three: Hunters

Prologue: White


When, In Disgrace With Fortune And Men's Eyes,

When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself and curse my fate,

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)


Miami

He slept like the dead in satin sheets. His long snow-white hair was stringy and damp from the exertions that caused such an exhausted sleep. The limbs of his pale naked body were entangled within the bedding and with the arms and legs of his bed-mates: The two women he had met in the hotel lounge earlier that night. They slept as deeply as he did, they had earned their rest.

She watched him sleep for several minutes and wondered at his strange transformation. He used to be Nathan Stack; a lowlife drug pusher originally from the mid-west who went to New Orleans to feed his growing addiction to the poison he peddled. Then he disappeared. When he resurfaced his farm-boy tan and sandy hair had lost all color and his baby-blues changed to pink. Whatever he did to himself was drastic but that wasn't why she was there.

She had been watching him for weeks, listening, reading him and he gave no indication he was still an addict. Perhaps his transformation had something to do with that too.

He wasn't the only one: He had met with another before he left New Orleans for Miami, she had been watching that other one first. Nathan Stack had made contact with a new underground organization: Niveus Noctis. Her first target had been recruiting for them but hadn't undergone the transformation when Nathan first met with him. They had soon become fast friends, mostly because he had provided Nathan with a seemingly endless supply of drugs, then they both disappeared.

Later that first target was found floating in the Mississippi with his throat cut, his hair had lost all pigment and his eyes were blood red. The authorities could not offer an explanation so far that didn't include voodoo and she didn't stay in the Big Easy to find out if they came up with anything else. He was dead and Nathan Stack wasn't.

Two nights later she had watched the former Nathan Stack stumble back to the seedy motel he had been staying at. The next morning she followed him to the airport and he had become the man he was now.

The people above him were recruiting from the scum of every large city in the country. Not many, just a few here and there and if the new recruits didn't end up dead they were well taken care of: Given new identities, five-star accommodations, and money. She focused again on his starkly white sleeping form, living the good life aren't you Nathan


The man formerly known as Nathan Stack's blissful dreams became troubled as a heaviness, an oppressive weight on his chest pulled him from his slumber… He awoke to a dark shadow holding him down and he felt something cold and razor sharp against his pale throat.

Out of the darkness a voice whispered, dripping menace: "This Horace… This, is how easy it is to get to you…" It was a woman, he could tell that much but little else. "The muscle in the hallway won't come running so screaming won't help you." He stole a glance at the women he brought to his bed. They hadn't woken, and he could smell the sickly-sweet chemical scent of chloroform in the air. The voice whispered again. "They won't be awake any time soon either Horace, I wanted you all to myself."

Horace finally found his own voice, "W-who are you?"

"I'm your worst nightmare Horace, or should I say Nathan? You can change your name, your face, even your entire body it seems but you can't hide from me."

"Wh-what do you want?"

"Information, and you better hope you can deliver…" He felt pressure frighteningly close to his groin, pressure that threatened worse as her knee slowly pushed down.

In spite of the pain growing in his precious nether regions Horace growled back at his assailant, "You have no idea who you're dealing with…"

"No, you have no idea the lengths I am willing to go to get what I want."

"Then what exactly is it that you want?"

"Your boss, your shot-caller."

"Why?"

"Maybe I want to join your little organization…"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Please Horace, I know all about you're little gang of albino vampires."

"If you really want in there are better ways to do it."

"I just wanted to get your attention Nathan, can I call you Nathan?"

"You'll need my recommendation; this isn't the way to get it."

Horace/Nathan felt a sharp pain and a warm trickle weep from his neck. "I could just kill you and take your place…"

"Killing me would do you no good."

"I don't know about that Horace, I don't think you're as irreplaceable as you'd like to believe. Remember your friend in New Orleans? I'm sure he thought he was important too…"

"H-he wasn't worthy…"

"And you are?" he felt the sharp object against his skin bite deeper and his assailant's voice grew colder, "You are nothing Nathan, just a junkie who thinks he got lucky, they'll use you then throw you away, just like the others."

"No, you don't understand…" She sighed, he was a believer.

"Then explain it to me Nathan."

"I-I can't."

"Give me your boss then and I'll ask him, maybe he'll be more eloquent, then you and I can both pretend this magical night never happened."

"I can't, they'll kill me!"

"I can kill you too…"

"I don't know who the top people are."

"Yes you do Nathan, there's all kinds of information stored in that feeble junkie brain of yours and you are going to tell me." He was afraid, she could tell but of them more than her. This confrontation was risky and she had a fleeting thought that maybe she should have stayed hidden and continued the surveillance but someone else was watching Horace too, she felt she couldn't wait any longer. She was growing angry; she didn't think she was going to get what she wanted tonight, then miraculously...

"All I know is they are sending me to New York, I don't know anymore than that." Unnoticed, Horace's assailant's breath caught in her throat, Damn, not New YorkBut she quickly recovered…

"You're lying to me Nathan, you know who they are."

"You'll never get to him, he's well protected."

"So were you… A name Horace, just a name and then I'll go away."

"If they find out …"

He gasped as the pain in his groin increased, "It will be nothing compared to what I'll do to you. Just a name, he won't learn who gave him up."

"S-Spar, Devin Spar."

"Very good Horace, see how easy that was?" The pressure on his groin subsided, then… "Sweet dreams…" She whispered as a swift fist sent Horace/Nathan back to slumber-land.

She looked down at the manufactured albino. She felt like she needed a shower. His thin pallid body disgusted her, and… he was lying. Devin Spar wasn't the name of his real superior. Spar was the candyman, the chemist, and just another rung in the ladder with delusions of grandeur, but it didn't matter. What she was really after from this pale worm wasn't a name at all it was a place and she got that; New York City. If Niveus Noctis stayed true to their pattern, her real target would be in New York soon as well. She was getting close and she should have been elated but she wasn't. She sighed, New York. I suppose it was inevitable. At least it wasn't Gotham, she shuddered at that thought, Gotham City would have been worse, much worse But why did it have to be New York? She had stayed away for so long but now… Now it was time to go home.


Outside, on a roof across from the high-end hotel another shadow moved cautiously. This shadow wore black and dark blue body armor that displayed the symbol of a bird on his chest. He had been recording his target's sordid activities for days and tonight's venue had been more of the same. He was hoping his target would receive a call or say something about his next move. Instead, night after night he would lure some woman or women to his hotel room for a roll and promptly kick them out the next morning without so much as a thank-you. The guy was a prince.

Since tonight seemed to be no different from the last three he had decided to get some much needed sleep but as soon as he drifted off his surveillance system's alarm went off: He wasn't getting a signal from the device he had planted in the target's hotel room. He had gone up to the roof to check the dish but it was just as he left it and it was functioning normally. The device itself was being jammed. He looked towards the target room, it was dark and he saw no movement within. He watched for several moments, and then…

In the pre-dawn twilight he saw a shadow move from his target's balcony twelve floors up and descend in a controlled fall to the ground below, but too fast and too far away for him to follow. A quiet beep from the surveillance device attached to the parabolic dish indicated that it was working again, whatever was jamming the signal ceased as the shadowy figure left the area. From the ground he could hear the distinctive but unusually quiet sound of a motorcycle drive away.

With the device again functioning he could hear his target in the hotel room stir…


Head pounding, Horace crawled over the prone forms of the women in his bed and groped his way toward his clothes and pulled a phone from his pant's pocket. Just inside the door of his hotel suite he found his unconscious bodyguards and sneered at their ineptitude.

Still naked he stood at the window as the sun slowly rose and made a call. He listened to the ringing in his ear as he gazed out the sliding balcony doors. He looked like a ghost in the reflection of the glass, or a vampire's victim as blood oozed from the cut on his neck and dripped darkly down his pale skin. He had to shield his sensitive eyes from the brightness of the rising sun as he waited for his real superior to answer. When the other line finally picked up Horace simply said, "We have a problem."


To be continued...