CHAPTER IX:
The Batman paused momentarily, then continued on. The Shadow could be trusted to take care of himself.
He continued several more steps down the dark 2nd-floor corridor. Then, as his right foot pressed down on the floor, he felt the floor give just slightly.
He leaped backwards as a trap door opened beneath him-just barely landing safely on the edge. He looked down the trap. He could see nothing, but could hear the soft lap of water and the occasional splash of something living moving around in it.
Something charged up behind him, not quite silent enough to catch him by surprise. He spun and shifted to one side. A Gongmai knife-man lunged past him, arms flailing as he stumbled over the edge of the trap. Batman reached out to grab him, but the man reacted to the act of mercy by slashing with a long dagger even as he fell, preventing the Dark Knight from catching hold of him. The Gongmai did not scream as he fell, but something thrashing in the water after he landed did elicit a horrified screech.
Two more Gongmai charged down the corridor. His back to the trap, Batman met them with a counter charge. Fighting as much by instinct in the near-pitch dark as by sight, he ducked under a knife slash and caught one of the killers with a sharp uppercut that laid him out unconscious. Batman spun, using the edge of his cape to distract the second Gongmai, then spun a second time, planting his foot alongside the assassin's head.
Batman saw a sliver of light along the wall back the way he had come-a hidden door he'd missed. He charged towards it, hitting it with his shoulder and bursting into a room lit by flickering torches along the wall. The room was perhaps twenty-by-twenty feet, with another door directly opposite. There was also another open trap in the door, this one with a ladder leading down into the dark.
The only other occupant was a white Siberian tiger, who crouched low as Batman entered and growled menacingly...