Evil Intent part 26

Alfred stared at Bruce as he put the phone down solemnly and looked up at him.

"Is something wrong?" he asked in a concerned tone.

"She's alive, Alfred. He brought her back. She hasn't killed anyone yet as far as they know but she strapped Gabriel Williams to a chair in his kitchen and told Adrian that in a few days all of Gotham would be dead… she included Zai in that statement." He said solemnly.

Alfred's eyes widened slightly but then grew solemn as well and he put a hand on Bruce's shoulder in a comforting manner.

Curiosity approached the old drive-in with a hollow look in her eyes as a black SUV pulled up to greet her.

Talia looked a bit sick as she handed her a small red candle stick with a black wick.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" she asked sternly, not letting go of the candle even as it lay in Curiosity's palm.

Curiosity nodded gravely and grasped it tightly.

"What do I really have left to lose?" she asked a bit sadly before turning her back on Talia and walking away.

Talia seemed to struggle with her conscience for a moment but then nodded and resolutely turned the key and sped out of the drive-in once more.

Curiosity looked down at the candle in her palm.

"Through me you enter into the city of woes, through me you enter into eternal pain, through me you enter the population of loss . . . Abandon all hope, you who enter here." She laughed hollowly and began walking back to the Ace Chemical Factory.

"Is it poetic or sad that I want to end it all where it all began?" she asked no one in particular and when she got no answer she smirked, "Eh, doesn't matter, I'm fucked anyway." She laughed.

Zai slid her eyes over to Yin momentarily.

"Would you mind if Talia and I had a moment in private?" she asked in the most positive tone she could manage.

Yin smiled tightly but nodded and headed to the kitchen and Talia opened the apartment door so that they could talk in the hallway.

"Where's Curiosity?" she demanded the moment they were out of earshot of Yin.

Talia smiled wanly at this and then checked her watch.

"She should be in Gotham by now although my guess is that she's probably sleeping. Jet lag and being resurrected from the dead tends to take quite a bit out of people." She said drily.

Zai glared at her. "You're up to something. I don't know what it is but I'm going to find out." She hissed before turning around and heading back down the stairs to find the man in the lobby still passed out.

She picked up an empty beer can off the floor from near his desk and chucked it at him angrily before leaving, causing him to fall off the bed wondering what in the hell had just happened.

When she made it out of the apartment building and across the street she finally broke down and let white hot tears race down her cheeks, both of relief and worry. She was grateful that Curiosity WAS in fact alive but at the same time she wondered at what cost that came. Talia and her father obviously had their own agendas and she could only wonder at what evil intentions they had in store for her friend that would be worth bringing her back from the dead.

She suddenly wiped her tears away angrily. Crying about things didn't change anything. If she was going to find Curiosity she would have to think. Where would Curiosity go when she had no place to go? The police had swarmed her house after her death thanks to Batman. Where would she go…?

She thought for a long time before an idea hit her. She'd lived in Gotham before they'd met. Perhaps she'd gone back to the place she used to live when she was still Haley. She thought about this notion for a long moment and finally set on finding where exactly that was from the only person she knew who would know exactly where to look: Joker.

When Curiosity finally made it to the Ace Chemical Factory she looked at the candle and sat it on the edge of the railing of the catwalk the Joker had been shoved over to fall into the vat of chemicals and looked at the spot a few feet from her where her father had been shot. She could almost see everything happening again in slow motion and tears fell thickly from her thick black lashes. She wiped her eyes and felt her heart sink into her stomach hopelessly as she once again gazed at the candle.

She finally fished around in Adrian's jacket pocket only to find that there were no matches.

She sighed, she'd half hoped Adrian was a smoker like Strange but she supposed that was too much to hope for. Adrian WAS pregnant after all.

Instead she made her way down the catwalk and to the parking lot across the street, picking a junky car out that had one window cracked. She gracefully slid her arm down and pulled up on the lock, jerking the car door open, its rusty frame screeching slightly in protest as she did so. She smiled when she finally saw the cigarette lighter on the dash and pulled it out before slamming the door closed once more and walking back over to the Chemical Factory.

Just when she was about to cross the street once more however she saw the Joker's van speeding up the road.

"Nice…" she muttered but then sighed, "Might as well scare the Hell out of him. Ought to be amusing to see if the clown can get any paler…" she said, walking across the street and picking up a rather good sized piece of concrete off the chipping curb and hurling it through the windshield of the van.

Joker ducked and immediately leapt from his van with intent to kill before seeing her.

She waved at him with a smug smirk, leaning up against the chain link fence surrounding the factory now and grinned as he took a step back in shock.

"I really am crazy…" he said, rubbing his eyes and she laughed.

"And you need me to prove that?" she asked.

He tilted his head at her now and then shrugged with a mad grin.

"Hallucination or not this ought to be fun…" he laughed, advancing on her.

"Try demon." She offered and flashed her teeth at him before laughing and lighting the candle, "I'll see you in Hell Jack!" she said before disappearing out of thin air in front of him.

Joker rubbed his eyes again and then looked at his clearly smashed windshield before laughing hysterically and hopping back behind the wheel.

"See you in Hell kid!" he called back to the space where she'd been as he pulled away.