Goddess: Descention

Book Three: Hunters

Part Two: Meetings


Acquainted With The Night

I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain-and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light.

Robert Frost

(1874-1963)


New York City

Shay raced through the streets of the Big Apple on an old Indian. The motorcycle, a circa 1940's Indian Scout, had been totally rebuilt to run as quietly as possible but with much more power than the original manufacturers could achieve, but it still looked it's age. It was riddled with scuff marks and dirt, it's chrome accoutrements and trademark Indian head logo had been covered over in matte black, heat-resistant paint; like it's rider it was designed to blend in, to disappear. Shay weaved through the light traffic to her destination; an old unused warehouse in Brooklyn's east end. Through the tinted visor of her helmet Shay saw the familiar streets and avenues as she passed by but drowned the memories they stirred. This was no time for nostalgia.

Two blocks away from the target building Shay hid her bike and her belongings in an old shed adjacent to a long abandoned garage and proceeded from there on foot. She had some time to scout the location, the party wasn't scheduled to start yet and none of the guests had arrived so far as she emerged from an alley on the street opposite the warehouse. It was a large building, two stories high with large bay doors tall enough for semi- trucks to back into. There were small windows high on the walls just under the flat roof and a few more at ground level but those were boarded up; near the offices or reception, she guessed. In between the bay doors and the lower windows there was a smaller man-sized door. A chain-link fence encircled the entire area including the parking lot but it sagged and in some places was completely bowed over. On the far side of the compound opposite Shay's vantage point, marshland lay beyond the twisted fence.

Before she advanced Shay carefully opened her mind and scanned the area but detected no one in the immediate vicinity. Sometimes her ability was useful but Shay would gladly give it up to avoid the life it had forced upon her.

She sprinted across the street and silently jumped the leaning fence and in just a few seconds Shay was at the lower windows approaching the small door, her lock picks already in her hand. A few seconds later she was inside and locked the door behind her; she wanted to leave no indication that anyone was there.

The light from the street outside dimly lit the room through the cracks between the boards in the windows but Shay brought her own illumination. She panned her small flashlight around and saw that the large room was bare except for a reception counter and a couple of broken office chairs. Deeper inside the room Shay could see partitions, office cubicles and beyond them opposite the main entrance there was a door. Another door to her right was open and led to the warehouse floor. Tall racks that reached almost to the ceiling dominated the huge area where whatever this warehouse stocked were stacked high on pallets, but now the racks were empty. The door at the far end was unlocked as well and behind it a short hallway was lined with other entrances; restrooms, an electrical room and another door that also opened onto the warehouse floor.

Shay didn't like this, normally she planned things much more carefully. She should already know who owned the building, what it stocked, when it closed down and it's layout. It bothered her going into a situation blind, but this came up too quickly. She had driven all night and most of the day to get there and that left her no time to do any research, or to properly prepare and she just didn't have the resources she used to have. No base of operations, no safe place to plan, people she could trust. It was all here, they were all here, in the city but she hadn't contacted anyone. She wouldn't put them in danger again. She would just have to make do with what she had. She would finish her sweep of the building and prepare for the party. This time the only person she intended to risk was herself.


Nightwing landed lightly on the roof of a textile factory across from a recently abandoned electronics warehouse and hid in the shadows as a dark sedan drove up to the gate. He knew there was going to be a meet and that it was going to be big. A truce was called for tonight and almost every major gang, illegal organization and crime family in New York was sending a representative to this meeting at that warehouse, including the organization Nightwing was tracking as favor for Bruce. As he watched various cars approach and drive through the now open gate of the unused warehouse he thought; this 'favor' had a life of it's own, it's snowballed into something major.

Nightwing was a little conflicted; a favor. His word, not Batman's. When He called it was 'I want you to do this …' not, 'could you please…' Asking was something Batman didn't do and saying no to Him was something Nightwing didn't do, even now, long after he had left Gotham City. Dick was pleased that He trusted him to investigate this on his own but it still rankled that when Batman said 'jump', Dick still asked, 'yes sir, how high?' I'm still trying to impress him, even after all this time. Still, it was not like Bruce to ask him to take over a case when it was common for Batman to juggle several at once. Maybe it was because this case encompassed more than Gotham; it had sent him to several cities along the east coast and Batman had a lot to do with the latest Arkham escapes. Maybe, but Nightwing had a hunch there was more to it, he just couldn't fathom what. He would work on figuring that out later, tonight this case might just break wide open and he would find out what was really going on; on both fronts.

It all started with an obscure drug sample Batman had found on what he thought was a routine guns for drugs deal, the same night as the last Arkham escapes about a week ago. But this case got complex fast.

The truck that was loaded with vials of the sample Batman obtained was stolen from an industrial lot and Nightwing found it abandoned near the docks but it was empty except for the tracking device Batman planted in it. There were no ships scheduled to arrive at that particular pier or any adjacent one that night and no witnesses saw the truck or anyone near it until later that morning. Dead end.

The substance in the vials was lysergic acid diethylamide, or more commonly; LSD, and each tiny vial contained hundreds of doses but there was more to it. Mixed with the drug there was a compound called topoisomerase: An enzyme that binds to DNA and there are several types. In medicine one type of these enzymes would be introduced into a patient to treat bacterial infections, even cancer because they attack the harmful cells directly, but this particular type was unprecedented, and if introduced into a human, it is unknown what it will do. So far all the tests done show the substance is inert, binding to human DNA in preparation for something else. Something else that will use the enzyme as a doorway into the DNA of each cell affected.

The men that were captured knew nothing except that the deal was for a relatively small load of ordinance for that entire truckload of contraband. The three black clothed fighters that Batman also captured probably knew more but they had disappeared before Nightwing and the police arrived. The only real information the police obtained was the name of the organization they were dealing with, but not the name of the person with white hair that Batman had seen.

During his investigation Nightwing learned that the organization was called Niveus Noctis, Latin for 'White Night' and they've been busy. They have been making contacts among the underworld all up and down the coast, beginning in Miami, or at least that is as far as Nightwing tracked them before the trail grew too cold to backtrack any further. It always seemed to be the same operative though; a man in a long dark coat with white hair, but witnesses who have seen this person all disagree with any other details of his description. Nightwing himself found him in Miami and followed him here, but his contacts in other cities claim he was there too, at the same time. Some say he is in his twenties or thirties, some say forties or fifties. Some reported that he's an albino, others say he's just very pale. The witnesses can't even agree on how long his hair was, or on the accent Batman noticed, but they all agreed on his name; Horace. So, either Horace is one man with a penchant for partially disguising himself or there are several white haired drug pushers named Horace peddling enzyme laced LSD in every major city on the east coast. Wonder what Occam would think of this little conundrum.

After several minutes it looked as though all the players had arrived and it was time for Nightwing to move in. They had posted men on the outside to guard against any unwanted visitors. They were watching the street though, not the marshland on the far side of the building. Nightwing circled around behind the guards and entered the warehouse from the back through a narrow window near the roof.


Inside the warehouse in a dark corner Shay was concerned. She could hear the gangsters arrive at the front of the building and they were early but that's not what worried her. The strategically placed incendiary devices she found during her quick sweep of the building did. They all seemed to be connected to wiring that led back to the electrical room in the office. The men that were arriving at the front in the pitch darkness may decide to turn on the lights and that just might be what the devices were wired into. But Shay didn't know for sure, she had to get back to the electrical room to be certain.

Shay silently made her way back to the front of the building as the assorted criminals trickled in. Lighters flared with tiny flames that lit the gangsters' faces. There were about a dozen of them milling about near the bay doors now and more were coming in. They were voicing their concern that the people that arranged this meeting hadn't shown yet. It was dangerous having so many rivals in one place, she thought, yet two major players and several low level gangs were conspicuous by their absence as far as Shay could tell, and so was the hosts of this little party; Shay's target. The men were posturing, portraying composure they didn't feel. Shay sensed their suspicion, and knew it was well founded, this party was a trap.

Shay's paused her progress toward the office; her sixth sense drew her attention away from the irritated men. She felt someone else and scanned the area again. She sensed something; curiosity, anticipation, there was someone else here, somewhere behind her but she couldn't see anything. A cop maybe, or a security guard, but if he was smart he'd be scared and Shay didn't feel any real fear from him, just caution. She silently cursed. Her target didn't show, this place was wired to blow and if a cop was here now, that meant there were likely more on the way, and she was caught in the middle of it.

Shay looked through the tall racks at the men just a few yards away. There would be some big names in the criminal underworld if those who were invited showed. None at the very top, but close to it. They were criminals but they were loyal, even if this place was raided it was unlikely the police could make much of a dent in any of their respective organizations. The police didn't worry Shay as much as the bombs did. On her way back to the office she found another one. As she inspected it she pondered; if she were a new drug merchant as this Niveus Noctis was, would she want to have to deal with all these various drug lords or would she dispense with their major lieutenants in one fell swoop.

She looked back at the disreputable men. Shay knew the politics of the underworld, it was almost the same in every major city. Truces were made and discarded on a daily basis. Wars were fought in the night with guerrilla tactics; drive-by shootings, hit-men, snipers and kidnappings. It wasn't just the gangsters themselves that were targeted either, it was their friends and families as well, even if they had no affiliation with criminality. With those two major organizations missing from this collection of criminals blame would laid at their feet for whatever happened tonight. This could start a gang war that would encompass the city and result in many innocent people caught in the crossfire, as she was about to be. Shay looked down at the device again; she could just walk away, she had no stake in the outcome tonight, her reason for being here didn't show. She wasn't a crusader, at best she was a mercenary, at worst a common thief and she wasn't getting paid to risk her life tonight.


Through the night-vision lenses Nightwing wore over his mask he could see a figure standing over a device that looked much like a bomb. He had noticed this person skulking around in the darkness unseen by the criminals up front and went to investigate. As he made his way closer he found several of the same devices this unknown person was standing over strategically placed around the warehouse. He had been told that the 'Horace' that escaped Batman had a number of black clad protectors, dressed much like this solitary one. He also knew that Niveus Noctis so far hadn't made an appearance tonight. That meant that this wasn't a meeting, it was a trap.

Nightwing advanced toward this dark unknown figure. He would prevent whatever tragedy this person was about to engage. He moved silently, he was trained by the best but something was wrong. The figure's posture changed and just as Nightwing was about to reach out to subdue, the figure turned to face him.

Shay had felt him advance on her but she couldn't tell the direction, whomever he was he was good, but her senses never failed her, very few had actually succeeded in sneaking up behind her. As she turned she deflected the arm that reached for her and saw at once he wasn't a cop, he was a mask. She tended to avoid these masked vigilantes in her travels, all they seemed to do was complicate matters and tonight it seemed, would be no exception.

For a few seconds they stared at one another, sizing each other up. He saw a woman in black body armor with short tousled hair that, along with the black streaks of camouflage, partially covered her face. Her stance was battle ready and she stood only a few steps away from the bomb behind her. Protecting it?

She saw a man several years younger than herself in a dark blue and black costume she didn't recognize. She felt his suspicion and his determination. He would take her down if he could and she couldn't afford to waste the time fighting him. Any moment now the gangsters would get tired of stumbling around in the dark and they would search for a means to light the area. She had to get to the electrical room before anyone else. A fight would be noisy and would attract attention. She didn't know how good this young mask was, but she didn't want to have to battle him and the more than a dozen armed thugs that would come running at the sound of a fight in the darkness. She decided to try and reason with him. Quietly she whispered, "I don't know who you are or why you're here, but you need to walk away, right now." She was honest enough with herself to admit that diplomacy probably wasn't her strongest attribute.

Nightwing was mildly surprised at the audacity as he whispered back, "I need to… Who are you? What are you doing here, did you set these charges?" Batman said the three he fought never said a word. Looks could be deceiving but he couldn't afford to be duped by a pretty if concealed face.

She ignored his first questions. "No I didn't but there are several of these devices all over the warehouse, I think they are wired into the electrical circuits, I need to get to the electrical room in the office and disconnect them." She doubted this tactic was going to work, his suspicion spiked…

"Or detonate them, who are you working for?"

Inwardly she sighed, talking never seemed to work for her. "I don't work for anyone and we are wasting time, the devices could trigger at any moment!" Shay heard a door open and close, someone had entered the office and she was too far away yet to stop them. She had no time now to waste on this mask…

Nightwing heard the door too and when he glanced in that direction the distraction cost him as she suddenly kicked out and connected solidly in the middle of the stylized bird symbol on his chest and sent him flying into the rack behind him. The noise echoed in the quiet dark but she couldn't stop to worry about the repercussions now. Shouts from the front of the warehouse echoed too and voices were coming closer but she was already moving. She had almost reached the side door to the office when the lights came on and a split second later multiple explosions rocked the building.


To be continued...