Chapter 29

St. Anthony's cathedral loomed over the Gotham cityscape like a gothic giant, poking out of the urban decay around it as a reminder of times past. Its arches and columns evoked a sense of reverence and order, while its bells chimed every hour to signify that the world went on as it always had. It was solid and permanent, like a cornerstone to the city's rotting foundations.

But far below its spires and parapets stood a small and insignificant man, wrapped in a trench coat and smoking a cigarette. It wasn't out of habit this time. His wife was as good as dead and his unborn child as well. That psychopath clown had them, and was threatening to hurl them onto the sidewalk if the police so much as set foot inside the cathedral. He was a nervous wreck of the worst kind, the kind that would collapse at any moment, only held together by the noxious fumes of cigarette smoke. Only two years before, he had come home from the war. He had thought that the fighting and killing would stop, that the world would return to peaceful normalcy, that the lunatics wouldn't start running things, taking over the asylum, as it were. He had been wrong, so very wrong.

Above him, perched on a ledge, loomed the shadowy figure of a dark avenger. No one knew his purpose or his identity. To some, he wasn't even a human, just a phantasmal vision, a shadow or spirit come to rescue or punish them. His cloak lapped in the wind and he stared down at the figure in the street below, silently waiting for some epiphany, some miracle to come down from on high. He knew that man, and knew something of the pain he felt, though he would dare not express it.

The cloaked figure silently sprang from the ledge and latched onto the side of the cathedral. The police searchlights caught a glimpse of him as they scanned the walls for any signs of him or the murderer he was chasing. But he eluded them, deftly scaling the wall discreetly.

The bell-tower of St. Anthony's was as magnificent and haunting as the rest of the cathedral. His footsteps creaked as he stepped across the wooden floorboards, creating a hollow echoing sound throughout the belfry. Pale moonlight pierced the windows, creating mystical geometric patterns all over the bells and walls. It was the full, bright kind of moonlight that only came on those darkest nights of the year. The criminal had chosen this night well for his crime.

There was a scream, a muffled scream that reverberated throughout the spacious chamber, and then a loud and clanging bell rang, as if to drown out the sound that came before it. Then, a laugh. A cold, terrible and psychotic laugh shrieked like a banshee, creating a cacophonous disharmony with the ringing.

"Well, well, well! Guano Man and I finally meet again, face-to-face! Well, at least I can see you. You'll just have to follow my voice and find me, if you can at all."

The caped shadow whirled around as the voice echoed all around him, before there was silence again.

"It seems we have a bat in our belfry, and a blind one at that!"

Footsteps sounded behind him, he turned and raised his fists defensively. There, illuminated by the dancing moonlight, was the chalk-faced killer. He raised a revolver and pulled back the hammer. "Tell me boy," he said, "have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?"