Chapter Fourteen

I've never seen him like this. Never.

"Where were you, Nocturne?" He is screaming at me, red-faced, trembling with rage. "He was here, in my house! In my bedroom!"

I don't know why I don't feel fear, why I don't feel anything as I watch him pace the room, as if he's looking for something to smash. There are two large gauze pads taped to his face and his wrist is wrapped. He has never been under this kind of attack. The Bat just got up close and personal, and Fagen, who has always been so skilled at ordering other people into the line of fire, simply does not know how to handle this.

"You didn't even warn me! He could have killed me."

He says it like it means breaking a law of physics. Yes, John. You too can be killed. How do you like that thought?

"This is over." He turns to me. "You bring him to me. Immediately."

How can I be so calm?

"I can't do that, John. Not immediately."

The look on his face is one of such surprise it is almost comical.

"What?" he roars.

Why am I so cold? "Before he came here last night, he dumped my surveillance. All of it."

His face goes hard in an instant. "That's too bad, Nocturne." He looks me over slowly. Then he turns and goes to the phone on his desk. "You were a good agent once. An agent I have invested a lot of time and money and trust in. Apparently that was all a waste."

Numb, I watch him, and he seems to move in slow motion. This is it. His hand is lifting the receiver. Idly I note the room's exits, escape strategies ticking off in my head by rote, by habit. Even though I know that if I managed to make it out of the building, off the grounds, out of Gotham, John would have me hunted to the ends of the Earth.

Survive. It is all I know how to do.

But I feel myself fracturing, splitting right down the middle as I speak.

"There is one way." He stops, fingers hovering over the numbers. "Create a situation he can't stay away from. Something with…innocent people, trapped, hostages. Maybe bombs."

"He'll know it's a trap."

My eyes close for a second, "Make it bad enough and it won't matter." I look at him. "Children."

What have I become?

"He'll come. And I will bring him to you."

He puts the phone down, but it is a long moment before he answers. "All right, I can arrange that." Those frigid eyes pin me. "This is your last chance, Nocturne. Fail me this time, and you are gone."

I have always thought, all these years, that I had somehow come far from what I had been. But in this instant I know my life has never been anything but this.

"Yes, sir."

I no longer have a choice. I consider going in the mask, but I cannot bring myself to use fear in this encounter. I don't want to use her. But she is all I have left.

I see the blinds move when I knock and it is several minutes before she comes down.

Opening the door, she steps out onto the sidewalk and pulls it closed behind her.

"What are you doing here?" her voice is carefully controlled but her eyes search my face, and all that before seemed so deeply buried; I can feel it, close to the surface.

It is difficult for me to begin. "I wanted to see you. To apologize. I overstepped my bounds the other night. I didn't mean to…"

A frown flickers over her brow and her black eyes go sharp. She repeats slowly and carefully, "What are you doing here?" Taking a step closer to me, her voice is soft, but her eyes unsparing, "What is your interest in me, Bruce?"

"I was worried about you. The way you left. You seemed so frightened."

She blinks and looks at me like I just slapped her face. Her eyes are wide, her chest rising and falling with rapid breaths.

I reach to put my hand on her arm, "Marlowe, what's wrong?"

She tries to take a step back, but I move with her, keeping my gentle grip on her arm. Turning, she ends up backed against the store window. She won't look at me. Her face is cut and stark in the harsh streetlight, my shadow falling over her.

"What is it?"

She shakes her head slowly and her voice is low, "You don't know what you're asking."

"Whatever it is, you can tell me. Let me help you."

"Stop it!" She looks up, and her eyes are a window onto a desolate midnight street. "Who are you?" Her eyes close tight as she turns her head away. "Why are you doing this?" she whispers. She sounds as if she cannot bear the thought that someone would care what happens to her.

"Because I can tell you're in trouble."

She starts to laugh quietly, but the gaze she raises to me is cold and humorless. Her hand moves, reaching up, touching my face.

"Bruce…" her voice is full of grief, " I am in trouble. I…" Slowly, softly, her fingertips slide from my jaw, down my throat. I catch her hand in mine.

"You can tell me, Marlowe. You can trust me."

She says quietly, "It is not a matter of trust."

"If someone is trying to hurt you, if you've done something wrong, just tell me and I'll…" Her expression is so devoid of hope, it freezes the words in my throat.

"There are some things even money can't take care of. There's nothing you can do. I'm… trapped." In her eyes I see that hunted look.

My hands touches her shoulder, the hair against her neck, "What are you so afraid of?"

Her eyes close at my touch. She whispers, "Gotham." Her voice trembles, "Myself." So softly I can barely hear her, she says, "I'm nothing but a ghost." Suddenly she looks up at me, her dark eyes desperate, "But somehow… you see me." Her hands touch my arms, sliding up to my shoulders. Her fingernails suddenly bite into my shoulders. "Are you real?" The question is urgently spoken. She is staring at me, holding onto me like I am the only solid thing in a world gone mad.

I feel my hands touch her waist, the small of her back, though I did not will them to move. I hear my voice, low in my own ears, "I'm real, Marlowe."

Her eyes are bright with unshed tears. Her lips are trembling, "Am I?"

My eyes close at the feel of her lips, her body. She molds herself to me like molten metal. Her fingers bite into the back of my neck, and I feel my control tear apart, feel it ripping right down the center of my body. This desperate moment seems outside of time, only she and I exist, she… and I am falling into her, falling…

"No," I pull away. She tries to follow, but I hold her back. "This isn't…why I came." Why did I come here? Fagen. Fagen has me…

"Please?" Somehow the length of her body is against me again, her cheek touching mine, her breath caressing my ear. "I don't have much time left, and I'm so tired of … being invisible." Her silken hair on my face, the scent of it. She pulls back to look at me, softly pleading, "Please, Bruce? Couldn't I have just one moment?"

One … moment…

"I can't." Fagen. "But I can help," now my voice comes near to shaking. She has to believe me. "If you will just let me, I can help you. All you have to do is tell me - "

Her face twists. "No!" She pushes me away. "You don't understand!" Something has snapped, her eyes are wild. "You don't know… who I am, what I am." When I reach toward her, she jerks back, "Don't touch me!" Then her voice drops and she looks down, "Don't…"

Slowly, she straightens and raises her eyes. They are cold, deadly cold, as are her words, "Go away, Bruce. Just go." Her gaze does not waver. "Please."

Are you real? Am I?

I have no choice. I turn away from her.

Gotham.

I walk Gotham's streets and I remember.

I remember being a child on these streets, being nothing, terrified every moment, running, hiding, starving, helpless. The smells, I remember all of these smells, filth, waste, fear and violence. I remember kindness, feeling protected for a blissful moment, and having that ripped apart, feeling myself ripped apart by vicious strength, brutal, hard, hurting hunger.

They left me for dead that night. But I did not die. I should have died then. I wish I had died.

Then I would not have to be what I am.

My legs feel weak, but I force myself to keep walking. I stumble and have to lean against the corner of a building for a moment. I almost double over as a wave of nausea twists my stomach. I taste bile in my mouth. How can this be happening here? How in Gotham, in Gotham, where no one escapes, where even he did not escape, could he look at me and say, let me help you? Couldn't he see what I am?

I hear a desperate cry, a helpless shriek of despair, of pain. I can barely lift my head. But my body moves toward the sound. I look into the alley on the other side of the building. Two of the four men standing over the fallen girl see me.

One laughs, "Must be our lucky night."

The girl cowers, helpless, hopeless, in her eyes I see the resignation. She is weak, they are strong, whatever pain and violation she has to take, she will, if she can only survive.

I take a halting step towards them. Three of them come for me and I am frozen as their hands seize me, pulling me into the shadows. I do not resist as they push me against the wall, one's sweaty body pressing on me, and they release my arms.

But… I am no longer weak.

My hands come together with stunning force over his ears. He shrieks and reaches up. My fist cracks his collarbone in half and he falls back. Ducking a blow from the one on my right, I hear his fist strike the brick where my head had been. He doubles as my knee drives into his stomach. Holding his shoulders, I ram him down on my knee again, and again, and… The one to my left wraps his arms around me, pinning my arms. Holding his stomach, spitting, screaming in fury, the other lands a blow on my face. The one holding me tosses me down beside the girl. The one who had been on her jumps to his feet.

I hit the asphalt. My head aches and I taste blood.

My eyes meet the girl's. Hers widen and I say, "Run."

One bends to grab my hair. I shove up hard, my elbow connecting with his nose, which crunches loudly. My leg lashes out, smashing into another's knee. Spinning as I come up, my clasped fists take one across the face and he strikes the one beside him, who stumbles as he tries to hold the other up.

"Run!" I shout at her, ducking a punch and kicking one of the men back. If they close on me… I strike one in the kidney, crunch my knee into another's groin. I hear her scramble up. Her feet pound the street. A vicious punch snaps my head back, sending me stumbling. Hands pin my arms. I use their support to slash out with both legs, sending the one before me smashing into the wall. I come down solidly planted and bend, tossing the one holding me over my back. I stomp on his head.

Hearing a wild cry, I turn and am seized in a back crunching hold. My teeth sink into his neck. He yells and jerks back. I drive a hook punch up under his ribs and he retches. A double-fisted strike to his face sends him staggering back against the wall, his head hitting the brick with a dull, squishy thud. I keep him from falling, locking a hand in his stringy hair, wet with blood, and my other arm coils back. His trachea stands out in his arched throat, ready to be crushed in a killing blow.

A hand seizes my bent arm below the elbow and I spin, my free hand turning up, ready to drive the butt of my palm into my attacker's face. The black hand is so fast, I don't even see it catch my wrist, freezing my arm in mid-strike. The man behind me hits the ground.

My breath rushes out of me like I've just taken a blow to the stomach as I look up into the masked face. The moment seems to stretch, each heartbeat pulling it tighter and tighter. I can feel his hands on my flesh, his fingers like steel bands. I can see his eyes. And his eyes see me.

My legs buckle and I sway in his grip. Reality is tearing right out from under me. Everything is turning inside out and I can't…I can't…

My voice is low and strange, "I am…what Gotham made me." My face is cold, and wet. "You are what Gotham made you. How…"

His hands release me like my flesh has burned him. His eyes, his eyes… I am shivering. I feel dizzy, weak, I can't take his eyes seeing me.

And when I look up an instant later, he is gone.

My body goes nerveless and I fall to my knees on the street. Stripped of feeling, I wrap my arms around my shuddering body.

Gotham – I never meant to return here, never to remember what it was to be helpless, preyed upon, innocent, like so many are here. Never to remember how I was before I was…this.

What choice did I have with the lessons the city taught me? Take what you can get, never show weakness, always be ready to kill, or you're dead. You're dead.

I look up. The building walls tower over me. So alive and alone. I feel my heart beating. What do I live for?

My soul answers with silence.

Gotham made us both, but instead of running away from this god-forsaken city, he has become the god that would not forsake it. He has seen me for what I am and, rightfully, he has damned me for it.

I am Fallen.