Less than a mile away, less than an hour before, a lone figure closed in on the end of an international pilgrimage. Her's was a journey that began with a nightmare and a desperate search to find some closure.
Montoya? Montoya can you hear me?
She hadn't heard his voice in years, and the desperation in it triggered memories both real and imagined. Through her coursed recollections of a good man shot in the back by a dirty cop, broken dams that flooded liquor back into her bloodstream, and a quest for justice Gotham homicide could never fulfill. That was the power of hearing his voice again, she supposed, strength enough to force her across the ocean just to investigate.
The Pain et Vin restaurant was housed a few blocks from an enormous black cathedral, hence the Eucharistic implication of its name. A sign on the front door stated the owners were off on holiday for the week. When she tried the back door, it opened without issue. Maybe that was idealism, maybe it was incompetence.
The voice in the dream began so calm, and then slipped into a shout.
Montoya—Mother of God, they've got me! Summoned me here, I don't know how, I don't have much time left— a shriek of pain followed.
The restaurant was dark from end to end and only a little of the sun's setting rays made it in. In her blue pinstripe suit and hat, the Question almost could have passed for a well to do customer, at least until the wait staff got a good look at her mask.
Montoya… Renee… please—every few words was cut off by another shriek of agony. The speaker only appeared for a few sporadic seconds and he wasn't as the Question remembered him. His dark skin had gone white as snow, he was garbed in little but a green cape, and his very eyes seemed to hold the distillation of death. But his deep, firm voice was unmistakable. Find them… stop them…. He clamped his teeth shut the stifle another cry. And through them he shouted, For me, for you, for all of us! His clenched jaw came free as he uttered a last scream. ALL OF US! And then his entire frame was thrown back and came apart, more like a popped water balloon than anything human.
That was all she'd seen and heard in the dream. Something else, intuition, a last gift from that old friend, something like that led her this far.
"All right, Cris," she said. "I'm here. What do you want from me now?"
Flashlight in one hand, the Question descended into the cellar. It was a cool, dank space filled from wall to wall with casks of wine and olive oil. The floor was formed of rough, ancient stonework that made every step echo, and the Question was sure some of the barrels' contents were older than she was. Her movements remained one part intuition from the nightmare, a little of Victor Sage's old paranoia, and the attention to detail she'd learned back in the GCPD.
The many wooden casks of wine in the basement bore small symbols over their spouts. The Question assumed they were family seals or production logos or something of the sort. Some were simply signatures, some depicted birds, and a few were even great, intricate designs of rolling vineyard hills. But the sigil she sought would almost certainly be the simplest, once she found it.
Between a carving of a galloping horse and one of the many French signatures she couldn't identify, the Question found it. Her gloved fingers ran along the outline of a small cross with widened, half-rhombus ends. She knelt in close and squinted from behind her mask for a better look for some kind of mechanism. The crusader-style cross didn't slide into the cask when she pushed it and nothing came out when she turned the spigot. With two fingers she slid first down, then across, like the padre had taught her back in Sunday school. Still, nothing happened.
In frustration she shoved at the barrel and found it relatively light. From behind her mask, the Question raised an eyebrow and yanked the cask off the shelf. No secret codes or gestures were required, the barrel just hid a tiny, cramped passageway. It wasn't especially well hidden, the restaurant's owners may well have known it was there. Still, the simplicity of entry didn't preclude something more sinister from going on. It was a tight fit, but the Question forced her way in nonetheless.
If nothing else the tunnel was dry in both feel and smell. That suggested it wasn't in regular use, which was reassuring for secrecy if not for structural integrity. At least, the Question noted, her mask covered some of the dust she could be breathing in.
The passage twisted and curved at several points, and, quickly, visibility was lost to the Question, save for her flashlight. The cavern was silent apart from the scuffed sound of her crawl. Eventually, she caught sight of an interruption in the flow of the tunnel. It didn't lead to an exit, it just stopped. The Question grit her teeth at the prospect of a dead end, but then determined to see it a little closer. As she inched up to it, color came into focus. Whatever covered the opposite end of the passage was a deep shade of purple. Closer still, the Question saw seams that ran up and down its length, and it even seemed to rustle a bit. So it wasn't a solid cover, but what did that make it? A towel? Perhaps a curtain—
A pair of meaty arms burst through from behind the cover, grabbed ahold of the Question by the sides of her head, and yanked her out of the tunnel. With a throw her attacker tossed her from the passageway and she hit the floor of another cellar.
As she shook away stars and pain, the Question's assailant stood over her, tall yet gangly. His face was no clearer than hers was under an ancient, expressionless, wooden mask, and across his chest he wore a cloth garment emblazoned with the great, blood-red cross of the crusades.
"Ugh, what's this now?"
Behind the lanky giant, leaned against a great, stone block of some sort, leaned a man of deep, tanned skin and black hair. From his accent and completion, the Question was briefly thrown that she'd apparently encountered another Latino. In one hand he held a disposable coffee cup, with the other he raised a small book to the only light in the room, just over his head.
Four words into an inquiry of butchered French, the Question interrupted with, "I speak English."
The man's face briefly lit up, he nodded, and shut the little phrase book. He took a step closer and recoiled. "What in the— what are you, a Noppera?"
"A what?"
"Faceless yokai. Japanese spirit types. But no, apparently not." He scrutinized her for a moment before he asked, "What are you doing here?"
Before the Question had a chance to respond, there came a sound somewhere between a long groan and a hiss. "Sandoval? Is someone out there?" The sound seemed to come from the stone the reader sat on.
"Go back to sleep, Benjie." He tapped the stone with the heel of one foot. "It's nothing, and the sun will be up for a bit longer." He took another sip of his coffee. "Sorry about that."
The Question's glare remained fixed on the stone. "What the hell is inside there?"
"I was asking you questions first, let's not get this twisted."
Before the Question responded, she took mental inventory of the rest of the room. Across the large but low-ceilinged room was another opening, like the mouth of a small, black cave. Sandoval's stringy companion stepped between the two of them. Even expressionless as it was, his wooden mask seemed to judge her presence. By the strange, stretched shape of his body and the way his eyes looked clouded over and dull gray, the Question pondered if he giant wasn't some kind of monster. Since donning Sage's mask, she'd seen far stranger creatures than that one.
Still, combat was better avoided, if possible. "I was called here by a friend to investigate a murder." To her memory, the Question couldn't recall anyone who looked like either of the two in the room from her dream. There was only one face other than Crispus's visible, and it was so shrouded she wasn't sure she could pick it out. "Of a Crispus Allen."
Sandoval took a deep breath, sipped from his coffee cup, and said, "I advise you give up this fool's errand… miss? Is it miss? Lo siento, I can't tell."
"If you were remotely innocent, you'd have denied knowing anything."
He shrugged. "I'm no innocent, friend. My sins and the sins of my father still follow me all about." With a swivel of his neck, he referred to his skinny giant. "I didn't kill your friend. You're not going to stop the person who did. Mourn him, let him rest, go home, and think on your transgressions. Because I'd rather not send you to join him."
Beyond the words, it was the total monotone in his voice that forced the Question's hand. Out from the back of her belt she pulled a collapsible baton, flung it outward, and ran toward Sandoval. With hardly a change in expression, he flicked one finger in her direction and his giant lunged forward to meet her. There was no way the big one could have seen the motion, so the Question concluded one must be puppeteering the other somehow.
The Question swung hard and connected with the giant in his stomach. The blow only stopped her opponent for a moment before he threw both of hands around her neck and shoved her against the wall.
Teeth grit but will enduring, the Question got ahold of the giant's hands, bent, and twisted. The grasp on him was almost more unsettling than his hold on her. Something was off about his hands, they seemed too soft and malleable. There were certainly bones within, but the appendages felt far more like sacks of fat than anything else. With a sharp twist toward the creature, she broke his grip and snapped a few bones.
Sandoval's servant relinquished its grip without sound or expression. Free of his hold, the Question drove multiple blows into his stomach until he keeled forward, raised her baton like a baseball bat, and swung square across his face. The strike was enough to send his mask flying off.
"Ugh. Benjie, stay in here." Sandoval hit the stone with the heel of one of his boots. "This is about to get ugly."
The misshapen heavy tottered for a moment, his face turned away from the Question, before he turned his head back around to leer at her. Even in the unusual facial state the Question was in, she was taken aback by what the creature was hiding. Like the rest of him it seemed stretched, distorted and hideous. But even in that state, his cheeks were still round and whatever crackle was on him seemed an extension of the stretch. His was, disfigured though it may be, the face of a child.
The elongated boy's mouth opened, stretched, and he emitted a hellish scream. As it screeched, the pallid creature's body shimmered and grew hot. At the height of the scream, the body burst. Out from the flesh came a blast of fire. The Question retreated backwards as bits of her coat sparked and sweat lined the inside of her mask. The flames couldn't have been, or at least they weren't fire as she knew it. Such a blaze probably should have burned her to the bone.
"I'm in control of the fire that blazes within the anchimayen," Sandoval said. "Their power, their flames, they're as strong and as hot as I care to make them."
The Question asked, "And I guess you thought it was a sick joke to make that thing look like a child?"
Sandoval uttered a rueful chuckle. "A sick joke indeed, but that wasn't my idea. Consider that one your last warning. Forget what you've seen here, or the next one will blaze a lot hotter."
The Question thought nothing of his demand and rushed at him again, baton clutched in both hands. Sandoval made a weaving motion with his hands and two more of his lanky giants erupted from beneath the stone floor between himself and the Question. Again, she was met with the looks in two pairs of dead eyes as they extended their twitching hands toward her.
With one finger over a switch in the baton's center, the Question tore it in two. Between the two lengths of sturdy metal in her hands ran a thin but tough cord. A few of her old friends back in Gotham laughed and wondered aloud what practical use any police officer had for nun chuck training. To her, it was always a significant meditative exercise. If she lost control of one half of the weapon, it was as likely as anything else it would smack her right in the face. Utmost attention and unshakeable patience were needed to make the weapon work. Those were important skills for a recovering alcoholic to piece together.
The Question set upon the creatures Sandoval had called the anchimayen. Though each stood nearly eight feet tall and moved quickly, none of them struck very hard. As the Question swung her opening whips at one, his companion grabbed her from behind and tossed her against one of the cellar's walls. But even that throw didn't slow her down for long. Indeed, it seemed that their strength was limited and spread thin across the surfaces of their huge bodies. A third lumberer stepped forward from behind the stone Sandoval sat on.
"Think on your sins," Sandoval said. "And remember I gave you a chance to walk away."
With the knowledge of their frailty, the Question moved fast between her strikes. Their numbers didn't mean much when their abilities strength seemed so limited, but that wouldn't mean much if Sandoval could just detonate them at will. As if it could play a role in that process, the Question aimed specific strikes at the creature's wooden masks. Each shattered with only a few strikes of her nun chucks and, again, she wretched internally at the faces beneath. She'd hoped to see the same face under each of the masks, that would have convinced her they were all similarly modeled and artificial. But each childlike face had its own contours and oddities, the one who came up from behind Sandoval even appeared to be a little girl. Whatever they truly were, the idea disgusted her through and through.
True to the last one the Question had fought, all three of the child-faced monstrosities began to shimmer with the flow of their internal fire. With the three packed so tightly together, it was a simple matter to grab them, one after another, and trust them toward Sandoval. The implied countdown as the fire rushed through their beings left her just enough time for force the last one just in front of him. She was not a killer, not anymore, she relished no part in the act. But he'd said it himself, he was in control of their flames. So she'd let him protect himself, if he could.
Each of the three went up in a huge, hideous blaze around Sandoval's body. The fire extended upwards to the cellar's ceiling and the whole basement quickly filled with smoke. In the clothing boutique above, the fire tore through a small section of floor and ignited the first silken shirt in a long, crowded row of garments.
The Question stared into the sight of the eruption for just a moment before she ran for the passageway on her opposite side. A few steps in, another of the anchimayen burst from the smoke and threw her back against the wall next to the entrance she'd crawled in through.
As the first screams reverberated above them, Sandoval's voice cut through the smoke. "I think that's our cue to leave. Benjie, a hand with the escape?"
Through the smoke and her struggles against her latest opposition, the Question couldn't get a good look at what Sandoval was doing. But through shadows and silhouettes, she made out Sandoval as he shoved a lid off of the stone he'd sat on. Something within the casing let out a hiss and a body too small to be an adult human's leapt out. There came a few scratches and then a pounding at the ceiling before a fiery chunk of the ceiling came free and crashed into the floor, right in the Question's path.
"We're sorry about this, ma'am. Truly we are." In spite of everything, Sandoval sounded genuine.
Out from the smoke came a projectile like a tiny, blazing arrow. The Question couldn't properly take in its shape before it struck her in a collarbone and she uttered a teeth-grit shriek. She fingered about for the little fire, but it slipped swiftly through her coat, her undershirt, and eventually, her skin. Once it did, the pain faded as fast as it had come.
In place of the physical pain, a surge of power and anguish rushed into the forefront of the Question's mind. The force of the assault was enough to break her stance and she fell to the floor as the creature that held her relinquished its grip and slipped away into the smoke. Her head stung with the dull ache of a thousand hangovers and the sharp cut of long uncovered rage. Her body didn't hurt any worse, but the attack on her mind was such her being quivered with autonomous sympathy.
A thousand questions she'd worked for years to bury surged back to the forefront of her mind. "What was Sage thinking, passing his mask on to an alcoholic, disgraced cop? What good were you supposed to be to this world if she can't even be good to yourself?" With that thought came memories of loose women in a dozen different bars across Gotham. A mocking voice in the back of her consciousness taunted, "You used them all, and you despised them for it, didn't you? Bad enough you're a queer, but you're a slut too, aren't you?"
The Question gripped her temples, grit her teeth, and commanded, "Get out of my head!"
"Your parents was always right you know, chica," the voice whispered. "Dent may have forced you into the open, but you're the one who decided to go with it. It cost you your parents love, your faith, and your stability. And what has it ever brought you in return?"
Smoke and fire continued to fill the underground, but the Question couldn't make herself stand. Overhead there came a scream, but it hardly registered in her mind. Even a later yell directly right at her couldn't move the Question from her catatonic freeze.
The tiny, tormenting voice in her head had actually vanished after its first few inquiries, but the Question didn't realize that. With her sins laid bare came regret, and with regret, despair. Her mask would offer at least minimal protection against the smoke in the cellar, but soon enough it wouldn't matter. And defeated as she felt, the Question couldn't bring herself to care.
A small body leapt down from the ceiling and landed near a pile of the blazing rubble. The Question was aware of this detail, but didn't react to it.
"You!" Cassandra ran up to the limp figure in the underground. With a brief look at her featureless mask, she took an off-put step backwards, swallowed, and approached her again. "Place is burning. Time to leave." Cassandra snapped her fingers a few times for emphasis, but the Question still didn't respond.
Frustrated, she looked up at the pit she'd jumped into. The decor in the boutique's underground was so minimal Cassandra could see the planks and boards that made up the building's skeleton. If the Question could shake out of her daze, they could probably climb out and escape to safety. But without that option, there was only the small entryway on their right side. Even with the fire the opening revealed nothing, the two would be wandering into darkness.
Still, Cassandra decided, it was better than staying put. She grabbed ahold of the Question's hand and, when the strange woman moved with her for the first steps, ran toward their unknown haven.
At the moment Sandoval's fire reached out and licked at an unseen point in the tunnel, it died out. Hot as they blazed, the fire of the anchimayen could not pass into the catacombs beneath Notre Dame de L'Assomption.