A/N: I hope everyone is staying safe out there.


Chapter 8

It was a scene of mayhem and destruction, and in the middle of it, Harry and Zatanna fought to control their laughter. Some things just had to be let out or, eventually, some unfortunate soul would have to pick up the pieces.

For muggles, that expression was largely metaphorical, but for wizards it could be disturbingly close to the truth. Sometimes it was better to accept the absurdity of the universe, and simply laugh it off. No matter how much Harry might want to rail against the cruel universe that seemed to want to put every conceivable obstacle in his way in his search for his friend, the chances that the universe would care were pretty minimal

"Good timing there, Padma," Harry said breathlessly, after his laughter had subsided. She was looking through the glass at him as if she was honestly concerned that he might have lost his mind. It was an expression he had become familiar with during their time working together. He subtly turned the mirror a little so that Zatanna would not be visible to his assistant. Padma would likely have a field day if she managed to catch sight of her. "Maybe not the best time, we've got a bit of a mess here we need to clean up. Can I get back to you?"

"There's no need," said Padma peering around Harry, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever situation he'd found himself in. There was an edge of suspicion in her tone, as if she was worried whatever joke it was that Harry had been laughing at moments ago might have been on her. "Just wanted to tell you, Quigley just got back from meeting with Constantine. He stayed mum, obviously. Quigley's going places though, he dropped a knut with a listening charm in that bloody house of his. It wasn't that long before Constantine found it, but we did get to hear him mutter something about some 'Books of Magic'. That ring any bells?"

"Well, Hogwarts Library is full of them," he said vaguely as his eyes met Zatanna's. He saw them widen just fractionally. It seemed she had heard of them, and judging by the reaction they weren't just any old run-of-the-mill book on magic. His gaze returned to Padma. "Do you have any ideas?"

"Quigley only just brought it to me, and I've never heard of them," said Padma as she shook her head looking a little put out. Harry knew that she took it as a personal affront when there was something seemingly important which she did not know.

"See if the Unspeakables have anything on it," Harry suggested. He decided to cut their conversation short, he didn't have much time. "Now, I'll have to get back to you, Padma. I've got a bit of tidying up to do before the muggle police come round and see an animated couch chewing on a masked gunman's leg. They might ask questions."

"Got it," said Padma, understanding the importance of securing the scene. "Just let me know what's happening, first chance you get."

"Yes, boss," said Harry with a quick grin. "Can I go now, boss?"

Padma shot him an amused look and broke the connection, but not before she fired a parting shot. "Smartarse."

Harry looked back over at Zatanna as he dropped the mirror back into a pocket once more. "What?" he said.

"Are you sure she's the one that works for you?" she asked with an edge of amusement.

"How are you fucken laughing right now!" cried Mikey from his position crouched down, huddled in a corner against his kitchen units. "What the fuck is even happening? Just who the fuck are you?"

"Look, calm down Mikey—"

Mikey interrupted, quickly becoming hysteric again, "Calm down? Calm down! How can I fucken calm fucken down huh? You seen this shit?" He waved his arm around the room, eyes wild. "You seen this? This is not okay, man. Not fucken okay. I think losing my shit is completely fucken called for in this situation!"

Looking over to Zatanna, Harry said, "Try and keep him calm. I need to clean up this mess before too many people start asking questions."

"You do that," said Zatanna before turning to Mikey and starting to talk to him in a quiet, calming tone.

With quick, measured strides, Harry picked his way through the unconscious bodies and other debris until he was back out in the stairwell. There, he discovered a small group of people milling around and looking generally confused about what they should be doing. Two seemed to be checking up on the gunmen, while most of the others were staying at a safe distance. Sensibly, in Harry's opinion, as the men were clearly dangerous. It was a wonder the good samaritans had survived so long in Gotham, the city might as well have the motto 'See no evil', and for good reason.

Harry remembered that he had the fake Interpol badge, and pulled it out as he walked up to the group. He held it out for them all to see. "Excuse me, can everyone please step away from those men. They're currently unconscious, but they may be dangerous," he said, getting an immediate response from the group. The good samaritans, apparently not already having realised that the men armed with automatic weapons were potentially dangerous, jumped away from them like they might spontaneously combust. Harry continued, "Thank you."

"There's two more downstairs, dude," said one of the watchers, glancing nervously between Harry's badge and the unconscious men as he pointed down the stairs for emphasis. "And some kind of weird robot or something? Why's it look like a couch?"

"Thank you for the information," said Harry, noting that the man was right. That made for nine attackers. Perhaps he'd remained at the door as a watchman and only joined the party when he heard the midden hit the windmill. "For your own safety, can I request that everyone return to their rooms while we deal with this mess."

There was some muttering, and a couple of burlier men postured a bit, but they weren't about to disagree with a man that had apparently put down a group of at least four thugs with guns without taking so much as a scratch. Harry wasn't as tall as Ron, nor was he ever quite so broad-shouldered as Neville had laterly become, but Aurors tended to pick up a way of holding themselves that said 'don't fuck with me' in no uncertain terms. Gothamites who wanted to continue living their lives tended to be fairly adept at reading such people, so they soon dispersed. He made his way down the stairs where he found another group of people, this one a little larger as it presumably included people from the lower floors.

His animated sofa was still pinning the two men it had tackled, though it looked like it was unnecessary. One was out cold with a nasty looking gash on the back of his head. He probably had a nasty concussion from the fall, among other bumps and bruises. The other had both an arm and a leg bent in unnatural directions. Either dislocated or broken, Harry couldn't tell.

It certainly looked painful, but the man was making no noise beyond his shaky, laboured breaths.

Figuring it couldn't hurt, as the muggles had seemingly decided that the animated sofa was in fact just some kind of camouflaged muggle robot, Harry directed the couch to return to Mikey's flat and it immediately complied, bounding up the stairs like an eager puppy. Hopefully it wouldn't send their guy spiraling again. That hope was dashed when, a few seconds after the sofa had disappeared from view, there was a high-pitched scream that was abruptly cut off.

The group of people downstairs had stared at the sofa as it rocketed back up the stairs and one of them spoke up, "The fuck was that, man?"

"Can't say," said Harry before he decided to add. "Plausible deniability, you understand? Can you all please return to your homes. We need to keep this area secure. You'll be able to leave shortly."

Once again, the group of people cleared themselves away, and Harry was at last left alone. After glancing around to ensure he was mostly unobserved, he pulled out his wand and got to work.

The first thing he did, somewhat surreptitiously, was cast a simple little spell that sent a swarm of small black blobs in all directions to block anyone from watching him through their peep-holes. It had the additional effect of locking them in their rooms until Harry was able to deal with them individually. That didn't go unnoticed, and soon the corridor was filled with the rattling of door handles and a range of shouting voices running the full spectrum from angry to panicked. As something of an afterthought, he cast his overload spell again, ensuring there would be no more communication in or out of the building.

Anyone who'd already left, he could simply ignore. Even if they could get someone to believe them, there would be no evidence left once Harry was done. It would be shrugged off as a hoax. It was one area where muggle technological advancement had actually proven to be a boon to witches and wizards everywhere, anyone could fake a video or photograph of something magical, and so even real breaches of the statute of secrecy were treated as merely convincing fakes.

With the muggles properly contained, he took a few seconds to transfigure the two gunmen at the bottom of the stairs into beetles. Murdering bastards they may very well be, but he didn't want them dying from a bit of duff transfiguration. He stuffed them away in a box in one of his expanded pockets. He paused for a moment, as he felt there was something important he was missing before quickly switching pockets. It wouldn't do for them to be eaten by the Venomous Tentacula, if it was still alive.

Repairing the damage to the stairs was much easier. Soon the broken sections of bannister were dancing through the air as they put themselves back together. As they marched in narrow ranks back to their allotted places, Harry was reminded of a cartoon he'd watched before the Christmas holiday once when he'd been in primary school. Harry vanished the guns and single smear of blood on one wall and made his way back up stairs.

There, he repeated the process. He transfigured the unconscious bodies of the attackers and added them to his beetle collection and then repaired the broken doors, both Mikey's and his neighbor's. He then set about returning Mikey's flat to rights. The chair, which had been mostly shredded by the grenade explosion, was soon looking as good as new. He sent it quickly scampering back to the living room to resume its usual position.

Finally, Harry repaired the hole in the wall, and the lingering damage to the couch. He glanced around and nodded to himself. It looked exactly as he remembered.

"Right," he said to Zatanna, who was leaning casually against the kitchen top with an unconscious Mikey slumped on the floor. "Uhh, what happened to him?"

"Well, I'd just about got him calmed down when that couch of his charged back into the room," she said. Despite her words she didn't seem too put out. "Passed right out. You finished cleaning up?"

"Just give me a couple of minutes to make sure no-one remembers anything," said Harry as he walked out of the room. In their current situation, there was really no alternative to obliviation. They'd be happier not remembering, Mikey was proof positive of that.

When he returned to the room, Mikey was still passed out cold, though Zatanna had moved him to his chair. Upon entering, Harry realised he'd forgotten something. "What happened to the last three guys, did you clear them up?" he asked. Always best to be sure.

Zatanna pulled out three playing cards with unusual designs and flashed them at Harry. "You want them?"

"That's some nice work," Harry said, impressed. Human to inanimate transfiguration was a tricky business, made all the trickier if they were unwilling subjects. "You can keep hold of them. We'll have a chat with them shortly, I'm sure."

"How are we going to play this, then?" Zatanna asked, glancing once more around the room. "Are you going to wipe everything, or just the attack."

Harry thought about it for a moment before deciding that actually, it was probably best to wipe everything, including the attack on the restaurant. Just let the guy think he'd had a really bad panic attack or something. It was a little cruel, but he'd been out of work for nearly a week, and there was nothing he could do to cover for that.

"I'll wipe it all," he said. He liked to be thorough.

"Good, he's clearly been a mess since your friend pulled his stunt at La Sal," said Zatanna, readily agreeing with his plan.

Harry turned back to Mikey, and for hopefully the last time that day, he incanted, "Obliviate."

Before the man could come around, Harry reached over and took Zatanna by the arm before they both disapparated with a loud pop.

They reappeared in Harry's hotel room. Zatanna immediately pulled away from Harry and doubled over.

"Oh, sorry," said Harry, belatedly realising that a surprise side-along apparition was not the most pleasant of experiences. "I probably should have warned you."

Fortunately, she didn't take long to recover, and it did not involve her making a mess of the hotel's squishy carpets. "Yeah, maybe some warning next time. I don't usually apparate. I think I'll stick with ordinary teleportation, thanks."

It was a much more comfortable method of travel, but it required a bit more time and preparation than simple apparition. Harry had tried it once or twice after seeing how smooth it was when Constantine did it. He hadn't seen the point. Ultimately, apparition, portkeys and teleportation were much the same, it was just a question of comfort and control against speed. Perhaps Harry was too impatient to wait the couple of seconds it took to perform the teleportation spell.

"I'll let you handle it in future," he said, before adding, "assuming we're not in immediate danger, that is."

"In that case, remind me to avoid immediate danger," said Zatanna wryly. She was clearly feeling recovered enough that her sense of humour was returning.

Harry smiled, if only it were that easy. "Good plan. Now, what did Constantine mean by the 'Books of Magic'? There's thousands of books of magic."

"He wouldn't have been talking about any old book on magic," said Zatanna, her previous good mood forgotten. "He meant the Books of Magic. They're said to be the source of all magic. Only a few even know about the legend, my father was one of them."

Harry moved over to the table that looked out over the balcony and sat down. "What can you tell me about them?"

"I know a bit, but not everything," she said, joining him at the table. "Remember when I said my father disappeared for years, and I stayed with Nick?"

He did. "Your father's student," he said.

"Yes, well, the reason he disappeared? He was looking for the Books of Magic," said Zatanna, "Him and some... well they weren't friends really, more like associates? Well, they went off looking for the Books. I don't know what happened but one day, out of the blue, my father came back. He said he'd given up searching, that they weren't worth it."

Gave up after years, just like that? That didn't sit right at all. "Do you think it's possible they actually found what they were looking for?"

"I don't know. Maybe?" she said, looking torn. "I never really thought about it at the time. I was just so happy to have him back."

"Do you think he might have told Constantine about what happened?"

"I don't think so," she said slowly. "Not directly, anyway. He must have said something to Nick though."

That was unexpected. "Why do you say that?"

Zatanna stayed silent for a few seconds, but eventually she broke her silence. "Look, what happened between me, Nick and John was ugly. I really don't like talking about it, but towards the end, Nick became... obsessed with the Books. Even worse than my father had been."

"And that's why you broke up," Harry extrapolated. Perhaps he owed Constantine an apology.

"Broke up doesn't quite cover it." She picked at something on the table. "He was distant, and John was there and you know he has that weird charm of his."

No, Harry didn't know. Well, he'd seen it in action, but he'd never been able to understand it. Was Constantine's bad-boy attraction really that great? "Go on."

"Well, Nick couldn't get much out of my father on the Books," she continued. "But he assumed me and John knew something. Thought we were conspiring against him. At the end I don't think he even cared that I basically left him for John. All that mattered to him by then was the books."

Harry thought he could see where the story was going.

"Well, he confronted us. Tried to force us to tell him everything," she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. "He'd set up a ritual circle, and threatened to activate it and send us to a hell dimension if we didn't tell him."

Harry could see what it was costing her to tell him the story, so he decided to take pity on her. "But I'm guessing Constantine found some way to reverse the ritual, and it was Nick that got banished?"

She smiled uncertainly, but Harry could see she was grateful for not having to say it. "Yes. John and I broke up for a while after that."

"Are these Books really that important?" Harry asked, finding it hard to imagine anything was worth that kind of suffering.

Zatanna just shrugged, efficiently communicating for Harry that they weren't that important to her, but they seemed to be important to other people. He could understand that.

They sat in silence for a while, considering what they'd learned. Eventually, Harry was moved to speak. "Okay, let's set that aside for a moment. What about our friends from Mikey's flat?"

After almost visibly shaking herself from whatever melancholic thoughts had been occupying her, Zatanna looked up and met Harry's gaze. "They're False Facers," she said with no small degree of certainty. "No doubt about it. Both at the restaurant and at Mikey's."

"So, what does that tell us?"

"Nothing good," said Zatanna thoughtfully. "They're bad news…" She trailed off, her eyes going distant.

Suddenly, there was an injection of energy into her body language. "Actually, maybe there is something. There was a news report last week, maybe a couple of days after the La Sal attack? A guy was found beaten and bound outside GCPD HQ. I remember the video of him, he was ranting about having his face stolen."

She stood up and started pacing, snapping her fingers as she tried to recall something. "What was his name, what was it?"

Harry wasn't sure where she was going with her line of thought, and tried to interject. "So—"

"Sionis!" said Zatanna triumphantly, cutting Harry off in her excitement. "Roman Sionis. They will have dragged him off to Arkham of course."

"Why is that useful to us?" Harry said, still not really following.

"He's from a really connected family. Big in the cosmetics business," she explained quickly. "If he's involved with the False Facers, he'll know more than our street goons."

"We should question them anyway," he said, "Maybe they'll have something useful at least. For instance; were they there for Mikey, or for us?"

"No harm in trying, I suppose," Zatanna allowed. "I just wouldn't hold out much hope of getting anything useful out of them. The two that broke through the wall at the flat tried to convince me to surrender and they had the same weird dead voice you said the taxi driver had. What are we going to do with them?"

"Well, it seems this city is fairly comfortable with the idea of thugs being dropped off on the police's doorstep in the night." That was certainly the simplest solution.

"I see where you're going, but we don't have any evidence of their crimes. The GCPD would have no choice but to release them straight away," said Zatanna, pointing out a major flaw in that plan. "Batman always leaves irrefutable evidence. They don't just lock up anyone who turns up chained to their fence."

She had a point, Harry realised. It wouldn't be impossible to come up with good evidence, but it would take time, and that was something they didn't have in abundance. "You're probably right. We can't just let them walk free though."

He groaned and ran a hand through his hair. "But we also can't hold them ourselves." He might be playing somewhat fast-and-loose with the law, but after what had happened to Sirius, the thought of consigning someone to lifetime imprisonment without due process was simply not something Harry could consider as a possibility. Even if he was sure of their guilt, the Aurors that had arrested Sirius had been sure of his guilt too.

"Maybe we should see what they have to say for themselves first?"

Harry suspected that that was merely putting off the uncomfortable decision, but nh nonetheless jumped at the opportunity. "Yeah, we can one what we're going to do with them later."

He reached into the pocket where he'd placed the transfigured beetles, and pulled them out. He conjured a little tub and deposited them into it. Zatanna threw her three playing cards in too, and Harry wondered, if the beetles woke up, if they'd try and eat the playing cards. That would be unfortunate.

He selected one of the beetles at random, though taking care to avoid the one with the broken legs. A few seconds later, the untransfigured gunman was lying unconscious on the floor of the hotel room. "Rennervate"

The process of waking up from being stunned was a strange one that Harry had experienced a few times. It was categorically not like waking up. Being hit by a stunning spell didn't result in falling asleep, instead it was as if the spell went into your head and found a little switch marked 'off'. It was pretty much an instant reversible coma.

As a result, the confusion felt when returning to consciousness was significantly greater. For a wizard that understood what was happening, it perhaps wasn't quite so unsettling but for a muggle it could be terrifying. The last thing the man had seen was, likely, an animated couch trying to eat either him or his companions, and a bright flash of red that grew to consume him. As far as he was concerned no time had passed. The brain also had a pretty strong attachment to the idea that reality was a fixed construct and did not randomly change around it for no reason.

So in most cases when woken from the effects of a stunning spell muggles tended to have immediate panic attacks.

It was a bit surprising, then, that at the moment Harry's revivification spell took effect the man jumped to his feet and tried to tackle Harry.

He may even have made contact if Zatanna hadn't been faster. "Dnib htiw sepor!" she said rapidly. The result of the strange incantation was a large number of thick ropes materialising out of thin air to trap the man.

No sooner had he reached his feet, than he fell to the ground again with a muffled grunt, immobilised again.

"Thanks," said Harry, as he glanced across at her.

"No problem."

Crouching down on his haunches, Harry leaned over and turned his head so that the man could see him. "Well, now that was rude. Why don't you tell me why you attacked me and my friend?"

"You were warned," said the man, his blank face and level tone similar to the cabby from the day before. "Now your friend must suffer, and you must die."

Harry grabbed the man and hauled him upright. He was shocked to discover that he weighed almost nothing. Thick clothes aside, he was little more than skin and bone. "If you hurt him," said Harry after throwing against the table. "I will make sure you never see the sun again, do you understand?"

"I am but the instrument," said the man, showing no sign that being bent backwards over a table with Harry's hand on his neck was in any way uncomfortable. "I am the knife, yes, that is my true face. The Black Mask has seen it, as you saw it. The knife does not cause suffering. It is through your choices that you have directed me."

It was going to be another of those conversations, Harry realised. He rubbed his forehead wearily and straightened up. "Who is the Black Mask?"

"He is a puppet on your strings, like me," said the man as he wriggled himself into a position where he could continue to stare unflinchingly into Harry's eyes. "Only, his sight is clear. He sees the strings and he seeks to break them, to free us all. He has read of the scriptures."

That was worrying. Did he mean Harry specifically, the magical world? "What do you mean, my strings?"

"Those who rule the world," said the man before falling silent and saying no more.

They tried questioning two others, getting much the same result from each of them before they gave it up as a bad job.

"I don't think we're going to get anywhere with this," said Zatanna after she returned their most recent interrogatee to the transfigured form of a playing card. "They're all clearly brain-washed by this Black Mask."

Harry had to reluctantly agree. They were more like cultists than gang members. "You're right. We need someone higher up the food chain if we want to find out what might have happened to Neville."

"Then you'll go after Sionis?"

She was probably right, it was the best plan of action, but he still didn't like the idea of breaking into a prison. He sighed. "Okay, tell me about Arkham Asylum."

"Well, it's an asylum for the criminally insane," said Zatanna in the tone of one who thought that that told him everything he needed to know.

"I got that bit," he responded. "What I mean, is what kind of security does it have?"

"Well, it's as much a prison as it is an asylum," she said slowly. "I assume it will have some pretty impressive defenses."

Harry realised that Zatanna had clearly never actually been into the asylum, and was working largely from impression and rumour. If he was going to sneak in, he'd have to work it out himself. "Okay, never mind. If I'm going in blind, it might be best if I do it alone. I have my cloak, which should keep me hidden, but if they're as highly strung as you seem to think, I imagine that ordinary invisibility might not cut it."

"You're probably right," said Zatanna and fortunately, she didn't seem to have taken any affront at being asked to hang back. "I should see if any of my father left any notes to do with the Books of Magic. Maybe there's something I missed, or he didn't tell me."

"That's a good plan." He'd almost allowed himself to forget their other mystery. He fished around in a pocket and pulled out a spare communication mirror. "In that case, take this. If you find anything important, just speak my name to it and it'll connect to mine."

"Right," she said, taking it from him. "Be careful out there. Arkham has a bad reputation, even for Gotham."

Harry smiled reassuringly. "I'll do my best. Oh, if you run into any trouble, you can either contact me, or smash the mirror. I'll know immediately."

"Thanks, Harry," she said, before tracing the strange shapes required to complete the teleportation spell. A glowing ritual circle appeared at her feet, and a moment later she winked out of sight, ritual circle and all.

He had to admit, it did look like a nice way of traveling. He glanced over at the oversized clock which was hung on the wall. Just about lunch-time. Maybe he could get some room service before he headed off to investigate Arkham Asylum.

He tried to push aside his rising concerns about just what had happened to his friend, but failed. Perhaps he'd get something to-go instead.