Chapter 7: Falling into Place

They were moving for what seemed like hours for Crane. His vision was slow to return to normal and his neck ached terribly, the bouncing of Romulus' gait not helping matters. They moved in and out of abandoned streets and dark alleyways they moved, the afternoon sunlight rarely hitting them, and Crane couldn't spot any people following them. He's done this before, Crane realized with dread. The man's gotten so used to moving through the city unnoticed that he's probably mapped out all these deserted streets in his head. And then another realization came to him: Why wasn't he trying to get Milo to do this? Could he have also been stolen away in a similar matter? Had he not been fortunate enough to free himself from Romulus' death grip?

Finally Romulus slowed to a stop, his breathing only a bit faster than it had been at the restaurant. The man was certainly in good shape, meaning that running away from him was certainly out of the question. Crane looked around, trying to identify where they were. The squat buildings that surrounded them were slum-like masses, all of them slowly turning a faded gray-brown with age. Cracked windows were everywhere. They could be in the Narrows, Crane hoped, but then again there were plenty of slum districts within Gotham. And the fact that he hadn't seen a single lunatic along the way indicated they were in an even more deserted part of the city.

With a loud clank, Romulus pushed open the door. Crane tried to maneuver his way around to see where they were headed, but he couldn't see past his captor's muscular back. Romulus entered the building and turned to close the door behind him, spinning around enabling Crane to take in the entirety of the room. The place had obviously been used as a factory at one point in time, the high steel walls and corrugated steel flooring made that unmistakable. The only means of light were the windows near the forty foot high ceiling that circled the entirety of the room. Some were missing panes of glass and others caked with the muck of time, so the dim sunlight that entered gave the room a very dismal appearance. The heavy equipment had long since been removed, so that only a few sparse metallic tables were left behind. Then the smell hit him, putrid and rank he coughed in an attempt to keep the rising bile in place. Romulus laughed, his shoulders vibrating with the sound.

"Do you like the place?"

Crane covered his nose with his sleeve. "It's charming." His voice was still scratchy; even saying so little made his throat ache.

Romulus pushed the door closed with a reverberating slam before setting Crane down atop one of the tables. "Now look, Doc. You're going to tell me exactly where to get the supplies you need for this, and you're going to work on an antidote. No more problems, no more interruptions."

Crane sighed, but nodded his head slowly. "And if I refuse?"

"Then we get a repeat of what happened at McDonald's. Only this time I don't let go," he let out a short bark of laughter. As a psychiatrist, Crane had to wonder how long the man had been living on his own, and how it had impacted his mental capacities. He had obviously not been living within the city long, or else the animal attacks would have been making headlines more frequently. Living alone out in the woods, or wherever he'd been, obviously hadn't done much to beat the spoiled attitude out of him.

"Hmm, not much of an option there. Alright, so since you failed to bring any of the books I might have used, how am I supposed to have any idea where to start?"

Romulus crossed the room to a darkened corner and shoved a number of items aside: a stained duffel bag, a torn pair of jeans, and a broken chair. Finally he returned, a crumpled paper within one fist. "You can use this. It's Milo's original formula. It should at least get you started."

He unfolded the paper, and held it up to the dingy light. Crane could make out the hasty scribbling of a formula and some notes, with several splatters of dried blood along the bottom. He nodded, trying to keep his panic to a minimum. Milo had obviously not only been forced to write this out, but had possibly been killed directly afterwards. Incredible what people will do for a chemical compound. He wondered what Romulus had done with the body afterwards: Had he buried it nearby? No, it was probably festering in a dumpster somewhere. Crane then had a disturbing image of his and Milo's bodies piled in the same metallic trash bin, making a lovely home for the worms and insects within. God, this wasn't helping his nerves.

"Alright," his voice was shaking. "Well let me take a look and figure out what I'll need first. Do you have any clean paper I can use? Or is everything around here marked by eau de Milo?"

The pieces to the puzzle were starting to fall into place, though Batman didn't like where they were pointing. Earlier this afternoon one of Gordon's units had been called in on an assault report at a local fast food restaurant; nothing extravagant, just two customers in a fight. But then the details started to get strange. Somehow the assailant had shoved a man across the restaurant with a single hand, though Batman was fairly certain this was an embellishment on the part of the witnesses. Even if the assailant was a body builder, that kind strength – and the ease of using it – was near impossible. If that wasn't strange enough, he then nearly choked another man to death before throwing him over a shoulder and running out the door – not exactly the typical response of a hunted criminal. On top of that oddity, there were a pile of library books left on the table which had been checked out only about half an hour before by a Luke Sanderson. Oddly enough there was no record of anyone by that name living within Gotham. The nearest one was in Metropolis, and he had no Gotham library card.

The suspect was a large, black-haired man who was heavily built. The victim a scrawny short man with blonde hair, mustache, and beard. At first Batman had written it off as a drug trade gone sour, as Gordon's men had determined. The victim was obviously using a false identity, and the disagreement between the two had heated to a fight followed by a kidnapping. But the number of witnesses that reported the man being shoved across the room stayed in his mind. Perhaps they were telling the truth. On a hunch Batman had decided to look up the books that had been checked out by the victim.

All of the eight books that had been checked out had a similar thread: lycanthropy.

After seeing Crane transform in front of him the other night, he had a good idea who the victim was now. However he still had to confirm the attacker, even though he had a pretty good idea of who it was. The animalistic attacks that had been cropping up across Gotham had the entire city panicked, especially now with the suspicion that there were two of these creatures. Batman had been fairly certain Romulus was behind it from the beginning. No native carnivorous animal within miles of the city would have the ability to do that much damage and not be caught. And he'd faced Romulus in his wolfish form before, though the man had fled the city years ago.

Earlier this evening, he'd convinced the manager at the McDonald's to give him a copy of the surveillance tape from the day. It hadn't been very difficult: she just wanted a Batarang to give to her son as a souvenir, making it perhaps the easiest piece of evidence he'd ever obtained. The cops hadn't looked at the surveillance video since there had been plenty of witnesses involved to tell them what had happened. Returning to the cave, he'd done some image analysis of the two men and came up with exact matches of them: Anthony Romulus and Jonathan Crane. Not that he'd really been surprised, but it helped to verify his initial hunches.

Since Milo's disappearance from Blackgate six months ago, Batman had been on the lookout for him. He'd assumed he'd broken out of prison on his own, and due to his extensive mob connections Batman had expected his thirty year sentence to be cut short. But Romulus' interest in Crane now pointed at something entirely different. Romulus was still bent on a cure for Milo's toxin, and Crane was one of the best and most feared chemists in town. After six months, Milo was more than likely dead, and Crane would be soon to follow if he chose not to cooperate. The man's narcissistic tendencies meant that he'd more than likely not be up for following orders, regardless of whether or not it meant his death

Batman only hoped he could stop Romulus' rampage before he killed again.

Crane opened his bleary eyes and put on his glasses, still sitting exactly where he'd left them the night before. He glanced at the tiny scrap paper beside him, and scowled at the six jagged markings he'd made for each of the days he'd been here. Had it really been a full week? He scrawled out the seventh marking on his scrap paper with the forcefulness of a doomed man. For that's exactly what he felt had happened. Somehow the great Scarecrow, the terrifying mastermind behind the gassing of the Narrows, had been kidnapped. Imprisoned by a steroid junkie athlete dropout who was foolish enough to actually iask/i for this crappy toxin running in their veins.

He kicked off the sleeping bag with begrudging acceptance and wandered over to his lab table. In addition to excellent sleeping accommodations, Crane was also fortunate enough to have not another scrap of clothing other than what he was wearing. And his requests for clean garments were mocked, or answered with an order to return to the work. A week without a shower for Crane was like a week without laughing for Joker, or a week without flipping a coin for Two-Face. It just made him quake with disgust at every scent of his own body odor and every greasy strand of hair that got in his face. Even dogs got baths.

For a moment he bitterly eyed the stool he'd been given as a chair for the week, deciding that his rear was far too sore from sitting on it yesterday for him to resort to it quite yet. The notes he'd taken on Milo's work were sprawled across the table, and even glancing at it made his head throb. It was a complete mystery how the hell Milo had created the cure for his home grown lycanthropy out of such an absurd formula. Nothing he tried had worked, and Crane had come to the conclusion that the formula itself was incorrect. He suspected that Milo had played one final trick upon his foolish patient, knowing full well that Romulus would kill him after getting it. Crane could only guess how long Milo had been attempting to create the cure before giving Romulus this garbage. Apparently he'd been unable to stand such treatment any more than Crane could. But unlike Milo, Crane wasn't about to give the satisfaction of his death to his tormentor. Hell, he'd give the man him grape juice and tell him it was the cure if it meant getting a moment to escape.

Of course explaining Milo's fake formula to Romulus was completely out of the question. Crane knew the man wouldn't believe him, and who knew what the punishment would be for delivering that gem of information. No, Crane either had to think his way out of this mess, or miraculously find the cure to a disease he'd only just begun to understand.

Dragging a hand through his hair and cringing at the stiffness of the follicles, Crane took another look around the room. Other than the numerous stainless steel tables there was little else of use. The pile of random belongings from which Romulus had pulled Milo's note was still strewn about in the corner beside a large freezer chest. Crane had gone through the pile a few times but everything looked simply useless. Then there was the steel circular stairway that went up to the second floor. That was where Romulus typically stayed, within what must have once been the foreman's quarters. Crane truly had no desire to lurk up there unless he had no other option, so that left the remaining doors on this level: the exit and a smaller doorway that looked like it went to a storage room. That room was always locked, and although Romulus had only entered a couple of times, he'd come out with reloaded guns and fresh knives. Strategically it was the best option, since he was sure he wouldn't get away even if he were to escape without a weapon.

With a new course of action in mind, Crane turned back to his lab table and started mixing chemicals with renewed vigor. He might be able to free himself from the bastard after all.