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Selina's Find

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Like Arkham, Wayne Manor was as old as Gotham, and like Arkham it stood under the shadowed gloom of forest trees. It had once been a happy place, filled with champagne and twinkling lights like diamonds. He remembered clutching his mother's dress as she swept him into her arms in a carousel of ball gowns and tuxedos and bright smiles. They hadn't thrown a party since Dent's mayoral campaign, and now with Alfred gone Bruce had thrown sheets across all the furniture. Even the dining table — ten feet of polished mahogany — had been snuffed out under a sheet. With the polish and gild concealed, the rooms dulled into walls of ash-brown, their wooden panels strangely reminiscent of the trees outside. The only gold now the chandeliers high above, shining like fragmental suns. He'd fade out the house and into the garden. The time out there he could at least measure.

He found himself in the garden a lot. Alfred had taken pride in manicuring the beds, trimming topiary — Bruce had let nature reclaim it. He was sure Al would hate the leaves snaking over the paths and the native flowers that had begun to grow wild in the beds — now a riot of colour and completely uncontrolled. Without chemicals forcing the plants to 'look their best' the insect life had quadrupled, the lower leaves curled brown, but new stems always pushed through, and as long as Bruce pulled a few dead heads off, more flowers bloomed and insects of every shape and size came to suckle from their fleshy cups. The flowers enticed the insects, and the insects enticed the bats.

His car safely in the cave, Bruce had wandered through the manor and into the garden. Still topless and streaked with mud, now crusted and flaking away. He just wanted to sit. He had taken the pills and now he sat, breathing in the calm of floral scents surrounding him. The sun was on its inevitable climb down to the horizon and the shadows of the land stretched wide and long, the sky flush with lilac-orange.

Bruce tucked himself away on a stone bench hidden under an arch of roses. Through the pink folds pushed a different kind of flower. It was a plant he couldn't identify, and it was beginning to twist all about the garden like snakes abandoning their nest. It was no parasite though, the roses seemed fine — in fact — like the other plants — there seemed more buds this year than ever before. Everything seemed fuller and fleshier and just more.

Bruce reached up with his calloused fingers and plucked a flower growing just under a budding rose. He brought it close to examine. True, he was no botanist, but he knew enough of Mother Earth's flora to realise this flower was quite unusual. It looked a little like a lotus. Its plump white petals seamed to glow, their luminous sheen capturing light and holding it within. The stem it had been plucked from was thick and protruding were a nasty set of thorns — hooked and slender like cat claws. Although the flower couldn't boast a great diameter, the scent rising up from its small gold centre made Bruce shudder with pleasure. It was glorious and sweet, smelling of earth, and greenhouses, warm fruit and tropical storms. His nostrils widened. And a cave smell...like water dripping on copper.

"You look like shit." Bruce looked up. Selina had slunk down the garden wall. "Been rolling in it too. What happened?"

"Fell," he said matter-of-fact, and he placed the plucked flower by the side of him on the stone bench.

"Where?"

"Arkham."

Selina chose not to sit next to him, but opposite, one leg resting in a high triangle on the stone wall surrounding the fountain, her arm languidly placed over her knee. "I didn't know Wayne Enterprises held meetings at Arkham, how neoteric of them."

Bruce answered her with a scowl.

She bounced her foot like a cat tapping its tail and smirked softly. "Well, John sure knows how to charm a bat. Let me guess: he had something invaluable your investigation can't live without?"

Bruce nodded. "A word. Gilgamesh."

"And…does it mean anything?" She asked sceptically.

"No."

Selina raised her eyebrows, blowing her cheeks out in a phew. "He sure is desperate to be a part of your life. Does that ever concern you? His intensity, I mean?"

He sniffed, examining his hands. "Not really. John's John. Not that I am trusting the instinct of a schizophrenic." He frowned slightly. "Still, it's an unusual word for him to have picked up."

Selina tilted her head as she shrugged off her motorcycle jacket. "Did he ever remember how he ended up in Arkham?" she asked carefully.

"No. I had Dr Leland double check the records." His frown deepened. "Materialised out of thin air like a phantom. No description, no family, nothing. Just a number next to a name that was never his."

Selina appeared to be thinking as she tweaked the zip of her Jacket. Then she asked more careful still: "And…this business with your father…do you think John could have somehow been involved?"

"Don't say that," he whispered darkly. The crease between his eyes pulled tight so that the shadow cast made his gaze seem a skull. "He's too young anyway."

"None of this shit is your fault, you know," exclaimed Selina boldly, sliding her leg down from the fountain wall and sitting up straight to find his eye. "And you don't owe John a thing!"

Bruce stared at her, then began to laugh hollowly. "I can't believe I am saying this for the second time today: John is a friend!"

"Yeah, and your big motivation is guilt!" She bit her lip at the look on his face and turned her eyes to the roses above. "I am sorry. I just don't want John to be…rubbing off on you," she said quietly.

Bruce jolted like he made to stand. "What the hell is that supposed to mean!"

Selina grimaced, but continued to speak softly and with concern, never taking her eyes of the powder-pink petals. "It isn't like there aren't other guys out there."

As if ice-cold eels had suddenly ruptured through his abdomen, Bruce's stomach squirmed. His face paled in disbelief and his eyes narrowed. "What did you say?"

Hazel eyes continued to stare above him and eventually slid to meet his. He tensed as Selina unexpectedly held her gaze, but eventually she turned her face to the side of the fountain and sighed, "nothing."

They sat still for a few moments and let the lilac tones of dusk cool the sky. Bruce's relief was slowly ruined by a feeling of deep unease. Fear nipped at the edges of his voice as he asked, "what do you mean by rubbing off?"

Selina sat in silence a little longer, shifted herself on the bricks, and answered him patiently but in truth. "Since Alfred left, you've been — or should I say appeared to have been," she countered, catching his eye, "— struggling."

He brought his hand to his chin and pulled his lip down with a finger, stopping a retort.

"Your nights on the rooftops are relentless," she continued, the urgency in her voice causing an ugly sensation to prickle his throat. "You're pushing and pushing and I don't know what for. I don't even think you do!"

Selina's words travelled far on the breeze, her hesitation finally replaced with a firmer tone, "and then, you have moments."

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah, moments." Selina sat a little higher. "Where you — appear — confused. Detached. Like you've fallen through the looking glass or something."

Bruce eyed her wide in disbelief. At her hand resting on her hustler-leathers with nauseating confidence.

"Well, being Batman is hard!" he snarled. "I haven't slept properly since…I just need sleep, Selina. Just sleep and then I'll be on top again. Okay!"

"On top?"

"Yeah, of everything!"

"Including Alfred?"

After trying to make her shrink with a glare, which instead ended in his sharp turning from her unwavering eyes, Bruce curled his lip in disgust. His snarl a clear indicator for the loathing he felt at the idea he should be the one to reach out.

Selina had sprung up off the fountain in outrage. "The pair of you can't just leave things like this!"

"I didn't leave anything!" he bellowed.

"And how do you know it wasn't the last resort of a man trying to protect you?"

Her words were beseeching, her expression urgent and full of emotion Bruce thought rather silly on her face. The 'kindly grandfather' was Alfred's default persona. Had Selina not realised Alfred called her a 'dishonourable thief' too? That Alfred was a Janus like everyone else in Gotham?

Bruce snapped his eyes back at her. "Yeah. And if he thinks sitting alone somewhere sulking is going to bring me crawling back…I am not doing it, Selina. I wasn't the only one behind Batman!"

There was a gentle scrape as Selina abandoned her pose, taught with confrontation, and eased her back against an ornamental boulder. He ogled her, daring her to comeback at him with more misplaced sentiment. A flash of black distracted them both. The bat fluttered in circles about itself, making that high pitched click Bruce was sure only he and a few others with impeccably trained ears could hear.

Selina spoke slowly and with grave disdain, "so pride is going to stop you from saving the relationship of the only family member you have left?"

"It isn't pride, Selina, it's duty!" He had finally stood up, spit flying, barely coherent in the rage he felt. "And — he isn't my father — the criminal Thomas Wayne is my father in case you haven't read the papers! Christ, maybe guilt was the only reason the butler stuck around for so long anyway. You don't just walk away from the people you love."

He finished, panting, sure the heat radiating from him was causing her to sweat like he was. Selina stared at him, unshaken:

"No, you choose to dress up as a bat instead."

Bruce pulled an expression like a slapped cod and then began to laugh nastily. "What?" he mocked, "you're actually saying you'd leave Catwoman behind under any circumstances?"

Selina unfolded her arms. "For Alfred I might!" Her eyes flashed. "I never had someone as good as Al in my life. And you never asked."

Grabbing her leather, she turned to leave and Bruce quickly put himself in front of her and the path. "Selina!" he pleaded, his voice softer in reproach.

She appeared unmoved, but at least she had put her jacket down. "Like I said, Bruce. There are other guys out there."

A sudden passion took hold of him, and he grabbed Selina in an embrace, pulling her close. Her brown eyes looked up at him. They were dark, so dark they set a chill in him. He placed his lips on her mouth before the chill could extinguish the flickering heat in his chest. He waited, expecting her to start mouthing kisses over his chin, to shut her eyes and take hold of him. He waited. Her nose was cold against his, her lips dry to his own. She looked once to the floor and back up, gazing into his eyes with expression both patient and sad. Slowly he pulled his face away. The heat burning under his skin dampened and a cooler, calmer mood settled him. Now he wanted to hug her. He felt guilty. The outline of their bodies pressed together, the swell of her breasts and angle of her hips, and all he wanted from her was her arms around his shoulders. He stepped back from her.

The pair watched another black shape flutter above. A second bat, or maybe it was the first. The evening air was now full of small dark bodies, racing the insects that had come out to drink from the flowers below.

Bruce sighed, his voice morose with earnest, "look, I can't walk away from my responsibilities. Because I am —."

"Batman. I know," she said dolefully. "So, aren't you going to ask what I found out?"

"Please, Selina, tell me what you found."

Selina shrugged her hands. "Your Themis is a ghost."

Bruce blinked.

"No one has seen them or had dealings with them directly — not even their associates. Nothing. And with my connections that means nothing. Whole book turned up in the publisher's inbox one day. And that's it."

And that was that. If Selina couldn't sniff out a trail, then there really was no trail to sniff. Now it was a question of turning as many stones over as possible and waiting for something to scuttle out they could use. Batman could not get involved with any of Bruce Wayne's problems. He was going to have to do this without the suit.

The Wayne Asylum had been published by a lesser-known press and written by — the now notorious — 'Themis'. Obviously, the author's name was a pseudonym. Anyone privately educated would know from Greek studies that Themis is the personification of justice. The Themis who wrote The Wayne Asylum clearly desired revenge. Their words had unsettled Gotham as well as dealt a crippling blow to both Wayne and Stag Enterprises. Unwittingly, Themis had struck Batman too. If his company went under — or if the board had their way and made him a scapegoat — then Batman went down with it. If only Themis knew who he was — what he did for Gotham! He couldn't blame Themis and he didn't think of them as his enemy. On the contrary, he respected what Themis had done. From any sane vantage point, why wouldn't Bruce Wayne be corrupt? He was sickened by what The Wayne Asylum revealed and, unlike Stag, actually wanted to help bring his father's actions to justice, but he just couldn't afford Batman to be caught in the crossfire. He simply refused to let that happen. He just wished he could talk to Themis, look them in the eye and explain how sorry he really was and show them all he had done to atone the Wayne name. Themis was right, Gotham was his city and he needed to protect it any which way he could…even if that meant letting Alfred go, or locking John up, or dying in an alley like his father had done.

"These are fresh." Bruce looked down at the delicate fingers running over the scrapes and scars twisting the skin on his torso. He had no answer.

"Come on." Selina pulled him by the hand. "Back to the house. I'll play butler."

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x BAT x

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Back in the manor, Selina rattled around empty fridges and cupboards till she opened one filled almost to the top with sardines and tinned ham. "Really, Bruce?" Then she made him go shower, made him promise not to touch the suit — even if Jim used the Batsignal — and busied herself in an attempt to rustle up something half-decent. When he came downstairs in a clean shirt with his hair slicked-back wet, a plate of eggs awaited him alongside a glass of orange juice.

Bruce took a bite.

"Tortilla Espanola," said Selina with a plump smile.

"Not bad. Might even surpass…" He forced a cough.

"Ugh. Latin boyfriend." Selina quickly filled any painful silence. "Wasn't good for much, but omelettes he could do and I kept him longer than was necessary since he knew how to pet the pussy, shall we say."

"Nice," said Bruce sarcastically.

Selina shrugged. "Gotta live. He could do that — and eventually I stole his boss's wife's diamond jewellery," she said with a smirk. "He was low ranking cartel. I was gone before he or his boss clocked."

Raising one eyebrow, Bruce chewed his eggs disapprovingly.

"What — it was the early days!" With one hand on chest, Selina pretended to be offended. "Don't be judgey. I bet on the wife's platinum sapphire that you had a delinquent phase before your ass got tight."

He took a slow sip of juice. "You may be right."

"Ooo, so you do know fun?"

Bruce shook his head. "Not fun — I was cruel."

Selina looked like she was going to ask what he meant, but decided against it. "So…Stag's grinding his axe tomorrow?"

"Yeah. He's closing in alright." Bruce wiped his mouth on a napkin and pushed his empty plate aside. "He's hiding something. Near hysterical in trying to pin all blame on us. Yet again, my father centre of the storm."

The characteristic crease between his eyes reappeared. Selina was staring at him in mild wonder, her lips pursed slightly in the anticipation Bruce was about to say or do something enthralling. Standing on rooftops, that sullen pout usually gave way to miraculous displays of acrobatics, followed by the squealing of whatever unlucky schmo had been stupid enough to get in Batman's way.

Abruptly, Bruce rose from the table and gestured for Selina to follow him. "Where are we going?" After first grabbing a set of keys hidden deep inside the stone mouth of some coiled sea-monster, Bruce led her up the spiral staircase at the back end of the house. Outside a handsome door, Bruce rattled the keys and caught Selina's face alight with excitement. She thought he was taking her to the Batcave. Fat chance, Cat Burglar. Inwardly, he smirked.

Instead, he let her into his father's study. He kept all his parents' rooms locked — if the content was sensitive or sentimental it was shut up tight — and if it was really sensitive then it went downstairs. Selina crept into the room like she was entering Aladdin's cave. Her look of wonder slowly faded into disappointment and then reappeared when she realised the extent of precious artifacts Thomas had accumulated.

The study was huge, the desk a colossal sprawl of carved oak and on it — as well as all around the room — were figures in gold, or shell, or ebony — posed as warriors or crouched grotesques with animal faces — from Egypt and Mesopotamia and Rome — Assyrian and Etruscan and relics from the early Christian world. There were masks up high on the walls and strange dirty fragments beneath glass — eroded with time and wholly boring until you realised you were looking at a piece of human history before the age of civilisation. Artifacts from before Gotham too, of a people whose land was stolen by conquerors with pale skin — Bruce's ancestors among them.

He let Selina finger the contents of his father's desk. By the look on her face, her knowledge of antiquity had confirmed to her that what she was holding was indeed real. Bruce was sure Thomas had modelled his study on Freud's own, but made sure it was bigger, more extraordinary — never losing an opportunity to dazzle his audience with theatrics.

The parties he held were simply spectacular. Bruce remembered his father seizing a cigar he had stolen from one of the guests, and on second thoughts lit it up for him to try. Inhaling the acrid smoke Bruce was nearly sick. It put him off smokes for life, which must have been Thomas's intention as he laughed — belly deep and honest. A laugh that always made Bruce feel like a trillion dollars. Once recovered, he scooped Bruce up on top of his shoulders and passed him a cream dessert with a cherry on top. Many-a-time Thomas's guests exchanged looks to say: 'children should be seen, not heard'. Thomas set a shame amongst them — in a way only he could — taking a finger full of cream and blobbing it on the end of Bruce's button. He giggled up high on his father's shoulders, and wriggled in delight when Thomas slid him down into his arms, kissing the cream from his nose.

Selina mirrored the faint grin he must have been smiling, and he turned to stride across the room with a little cough. He unlocked a further set of doors that led into Thomas's real sanctum — the stuff he had personally found or acquired on his trips around the globe. As Gotham Museum demonstrated, Thomas's particular raison d'etre was the indigenous people of the New World.

"Oh my," Selina gasped, drawing her hand across her mouth.

Bruce raised his eyebrows in agreement. Splayed across the wall was the four-foot wingspan of a monstrous bat. The animal had been stuffed, mounted, and instead of glass eyes there glittered the faceted orbs of cut rubies. The varnish used to preserve the wings gave the appearance of something dredged out of a peat bog. Black and shiny folds of skin too distorted to be organic. The snout — that had been air dried — twisted likewise in a dead, rigid expression, with needle-teeth jutting out of the round hole of a mouth. Its lips made to shrivel back in the scorching rays of a tropical sun.

Selina went to touch it and shuddered. "Eww."

Bruce laughed. "Camazotz," he groaned spookily. "Less supernatural terror and more overlarge specimen. Spectral Bat or False Vampire. Either way, he's an impressive size for his species."

"Camazotz?"

"Mayan death god — literally 'Death Bat'. The night was his domain. During the day he retreated underground, only to rise up in the absence of light and pass judgement over the people. The strong he sanctioned, the weak — or unvirtuous — he sacrificed and drank their blood, sending their souls to the underworld or 'Xibalba'. Often depicted with a knife in one hand and a human heart in the other. Some accounts say he could take the form of man, but had to retreat from sunlight or else he'd spend the day as stone."

The cruel edge of Thomas's blade — suspended in Gotham Museum — came into his mind. Bruce always wondered how many hearts that obsidian shard had ruptured. How much of the black glimmer was really stone, and how much was blood congealed over centuries of slaughter?

He pulled out of thought and saw Selina looking at him in bemusement, her expression saying something like: 'please tell me you see the irony here?'

Bruce shook his head. "Camazotz is nothing like Batman. I am not a deity and I certainly don't take sacrifices." The humour in his tone failed to affect her and he frowned at her scepticism, her hazel eyes wide in dubiety. John would have giggled.

He went to a pair of slatted cupboards at the side wall — "help me" — and began pulling out boxes containing diaries and albums. "My father was a careful man, but one thing he could never part with was his pictures."

Opening one of the albums, he flicked through the wallets at speed. Selina copied him, though with less gusto, unsure what they were looking for. Honestly, Bruce wasn't sure either. Together they scrutinised the pictures. Family holidays — his father in a thick aviator jacket, his mother in a muff, himself on her lap wrapped up like a baby Eskimo, and Alfred in the background standing smart with his cable-knit scarf tied tight around his throat. Yachts and private planes, a fairground hired out just for him. His grandfather — already ancient when he was born — sat like a wrinkled tortoise, enjoying whiskey with Thomas. South American plants. South American animals. Caves in Columbia. With irritation Bruce saw gaps where whole pages had been cut out, and then he turned to pictures of Arkham's grounds. With unbroken intensity he examined them and re-examined them, but saw nothing of use.

Selina blurted, "hey — I recognise that!"

She showed him the picture from the album in her hand. "See that wall?"

Bruce nodded.

"That's the start of the prison Peña Duro. The same prison Riddler escaped from…"

A little too roughly, Bruce snatched the album from her. His father had been bending down to take a photo of some lizard, but behind the scaly tail was the unmistakable outline of a large wall crowned in razor wire. Bruce flicked his head in bewilderment, rotating the picture in case it was to reveal a trick.

"Santa Prisca? But it's a small island off the coast of Honduras. Why would my father have gone there?"

He began flicking through the rest of the album, baring his teeth at more lizards, blue feathered quail and toucans. He snapped the book shut with a snarl.

"Riddler maintained the Agency used it as a holding place for their more problematic enemies," said Selina helpfully.

"Ugh, took lessons from my father, did they?" He opened the album again and found the picture, tracing the outline of Peña Duro with his finger. He gazed at Selina probingly, and tried to ask nicely and not in his interrogatory style that had become habit when asking questions:

"Riddler — when he was saner — he never mentioned my father, did he?"

"No," said Selina quickly.

"Or Stag?"

"I'd tell you if he did. Nor Arkham. I am sorry, Bruce, but I don't know what this means."

Selina shook her head and took hold of her ankle curled at the side of her. Bruce adjusted his own crossed legs and looked at her impatiently to continue.

Selina sighed, "Riddler had connections with a lot of influential people, but he never mentioned the Wayne's. If he did, then he'd have been sure to have tried to use you."

He chewed on her words and felt a heat starting beneath his skin. "What did you see in him?" He snapped, startling the silence and causing Selina to let go of her foot:

"Before the lotus virus drove him mad? He was still a criminal, still terrorised Gotham — still reprehensible even before he became a madman!"

His brow knotted, causing his eyes to disappear in shadow. Alfred had told him that it was only Riddler's ingenious cunning that kept Thomas and Falcone from stamping him out. That both men gave Riddler 'a wide birth' even when his father was king of the city.

"Eddie wasn't always driven to hurt people," she insisted. "He was never a sadist! He held people hostage — sure — set up puzzles to mess with the police, but no one ever got killed! Eddie always said when he tried to survive in the real world, he barely made enough to feed himself, never mind live life in a city that demands you wear your worth on your back. He was sick of being an underdog! Once he turned his brilliant mind to crime, he made more money than he knew what to do with —."

"So, he hired you to steal from the Louvre," tittered Bruce nastily.

Plump lips tightened in response to his disdain. Selina uncurled from the floor, speaking coldly, "you know what I am, Bruce. If you can't stomach it, point your finger at the door."

He stood too, his words said in an exasperated rush: "I just don't understand why you can't see that you're better than a thief!"

He no longer sneered, but glowered at her with conviction and reproach.

A nasty silence fretted between them, and Selina rolled her eyes as if to say 'we're here again'. She tapped her foot.

"What? A whore better, Bruce?" she asked mockingly. "Gotham is a hard world. When you're from the gutter options are limited. We're not all born with a silver spoon in our mouth. Some of us actually have to adapt to survive!"

He folded his arms, keeping his face impassive.

"Look — you don't know what it's like to have no one you can trust! To not know where your next meal is coming from — if you're going to be warm that night or spend it in a doorway in the rain!"

Poseidon-blue eyes continued to stare at her, his face colourless.

Selina finally lost her temper. "Your righteousness gets old, Bruce. Real old!" She held her arms wide, then let them flop. "Sure, I was friends with Riddler, because I saw the human being behind it all. He made me laugh and made me feel valued." Her boot twisted like she made to leave, but ground back. She smiled slyly, "not unlike your Joker."

In an instant Bruce's arms were rigid by his sides, one finger rising up to point. "That is not the same thing! John is trying!"

"Sure it isn't," Selina grinned. "And I guess Harvey isn't another 'madman' you visit because you see the humanity in him?"

"Not fair — you have no right to mention Harvey!" He spluttered, "you — he —."

"Is a friend," barked Selina. She glared back, daring him to open his ass and actually see things from another's perspective. "How about you judge yours and I'll judge mine."

With a swish of her hair she turned briskly, pulling her face in disgust at the bat grinning obscenely on the wall — then froze — her eyes bulging.

"What?" asked Bruce, suddenly as tense as she.

"A Knock at the door."

Bruce looked at the clock face. It was 20 past midnight. Together they crept into the hallway and listened. A thunderous rapping spiralled up from downstairs. Glancing first at one another, they rushed down the steps and into the entrance hall. Their eyes followed the chessboard floor all the way to the great front doors that were sprung wide open. "Selina — wait!" But her agile form disappeared through the wooden maw and into black. He sprinted after her, his shoes clapped across marble, echoing like hammer strikes. He skidded to a stop and tried to peer through the door. The world outside was so dark. He crossed over the threshold — "Selina!" — and raced over gravel to the trees. "Selina!" His cry failed to travel far and he heard no cry back. The night was unnaturally quiet. He spun on himself and saw the garden wall. Over it had burst leaves, thick and shiny and dark — like leather wings reaching over each other — and flowers he had no name for. Fleshy and bright even in a night that held no stars above. He moved through the garden, swamped with plants and vines he had to brush out of his way as he moved through the space that had become hot and humid like jungle. From an airless knotted earth rose the clicking of insects and the low belching of toads. The plants grew denser and his hands became frenzied as he swiped them away. He screamed for Selina again, but she had gone too. He was on his own now, scrabbling in sweat and dirt under a canopy of leaves that were blinding him in their number. He pushed out from their waxy tips and fell onto his hands and knees and onto the path leading back to his house. The manor doors were still open. The light inside shone brightly out into the gloom. Like a beacon guiding him, he ran towards it.

He passed through the rectangular beam of light and heaved the doors shut. In the quiet he turned back on himself and froze. Beneath the family portrait was a seated figure dressed in a black suit, with silver hair swept back, and Bruce could see the tips of glasses hooked over old ears. "Alfred?" He approached the seated man and extended a tentative hand. He grasped the man's shoulder and instantly Bruce realised he had seized a corpse. Beneath the suit where there should have been flesh it was hollow. The fabric folded under his touch till his hand felt the hard shaft of bone. He drew back in horror as the mummified face of his father rolled towards him — eyelids stretched over empty sockets and yellow teeth bared in a grin set rigid by the desiccation of his face — his skin a foul brown, like varnished leather — the strands of his moustache held loosely above a curled lip. Bruce stumbled and his foot splintered through an object on the ground. He looked down at his foot fast inside his mother's rib cage. "No. No. No. No. No." He tried to slide his foot out but it wouldn't come. He shook her and the pearls around her neck rolled away from her fallen head. Her skeletal hand was fast in Thomas's own — he tried to break their embrace but couldn't. In his mania he shook his mother apart and dollar bills exploded as her bones scattered. His father's corpse fell forward on top of her and out the dark folds of his suit spilled money — rolls and rolls of dollars. They flew into the air and suddenly the whole manor was a shower of green papers. They poured down from the ceiling. Their rustle deafened him, their falling glitter blinded him — there were so many — surely he'd be crushed under their weight? He pulled clean out of Martha and she rolled away in pieces under the mounting hail of dollar bills. He raced for the sitting room — to the grandfather clock.

"Alfred! Seli—." He was through into the cave, but the entrance was smaller now. The shrinking walls forced him into a crawl and like a bat he pulled himself along the ragged rock. His eyes saw nothing and so he clicked his tongue. The more he clicked the more the darkness seemed to make sense. The tips of his fingers seemed to reach unnaturally far in front of him. He clawed his way forward. Click. A faint light began to trace an outline of something in front. Click-click. A crucifix shone above, lighting a cavern where water dripped off stalagmites, hanging as if molten, and into a lake of rippling darkness. Bats of every shape and size flapped madly around the ghostly cross, and on the undulating tar of the lake passed a vessel aflame with an unearthly, ethereal green. The smell rising up from its glow was heavenly sweet, heady and viscous like boiled wine. In a flap of his arms, he swooped down from his hole in the rock, and upon circling the glow he saw it to be a chalice. He landed, skeletal and thirst-stricken on its copper rim, and reached his tongue, straining to taste the blood bubbling at its centre. Armoured hands of Templar knights, the sun-soaked fingers of pharaohs — Mayan priests — all around him hands reached to drag him away from the chalice. He punished their greed, opening his jaws to bite. Each row of his teeth a dagger in the alms of justice.

"Ha-oooh. Oh, oh. OH!"

Bruce grabbed a jutting piece of stone, stopping himself plummeting into the depths below. He looked above and gasped in fright. The walkway to the Batcomputer was above his head. Somehow, he had climbed down from the steel platform, with nothing on his feet and his shirt torn open. He pulled his body close to the rock, the nausea in his stomach giving him the feeling of vertigo. The bats, normally peaceful at their roost, were flapping about at his disturbance. Had he been shouting to upset them so? Their number screeched about him, and Bruce did all he could to shut out their cries as he climbed slowly and carefully up to the platform.

Once safely on the steel floor he collapsed, gasping and cradling his chest as his addled brain stopped its spin and returned to compos mentis. He felt obscene. Never had he — it was getting worse. He needed sleep! His instinct to guzzle the medication hidden in his draws was replaced with the awful realisation that if he did, then he wouldn't be fit to confront Stag. He pulled himself to his feet and stood still. Eventually the bats quietened and their beating black bodies disappeared into the rock surrounding him. He stood in silence and listened to himself breathe. Batman's armour stood behind glass like a sentinel. For a moment he let his eyes lose themselves in the darkness of the cowl. Beneath the hooked beak there was a deep shadow. A ghost. Like a monster's mouth, the hole yawned wide in a soundless scream.

Bruce held his head, then the Batcomputer caught his eye.

Slowly, he made towards it and sat himself securely in the chair fixed to the floor. Up on screen was a photo. It was from The Wayne Asylum. His father was sitting in a room that looked like a private suite in the Gotham Grand. Large and expensive, with the curtains pulled shut and the chandelier light twinkling above. He sat at a table and across from him — with a paper file in his hand — sat Stag. But they weren't alone. There was security standing sullen behind their black-tinted glasses. They weren't from any corporation he recognised. They weren't Falcone's lot, nor Mayor Hill's, nor police, but they were obviously there to oversee whatever was happening at the table. Guns visible in their holsters.

Bruce studied his father: at first he appeared emotionless, but Bruce knew that deadpan stare all too well on his own face. Thomas was angry. Really angry. Stag looked uneasy. He was sweating profusely, but he also had a look in his eye like a dog unwilling to let go of its bone. They were arguing. This he was sure of. His father and Stag were arguing — and whoever took the photo had done so without their knowledge or permission.

His square fingers, bleeding from his climb over sharp rock, now franticly swept the keyboard as he searched the picture for more clues. The file in Stag's hand was turned away from the cameraman…but the hotel room was expensive…and the table they were sat at was polished marble. Bruce dragged his finger over the touch-pad and the Batcomputer swelled the photo to eight times its previous size. Bruce reversed the image of the file reflected in the shiny surface and asked the computer to, "sharpen." Still grainy and rather small, letters began to come into focus.

The file in Stag's hand had indisputably printed across it:

'PROJECT GILG.'

Bruce breathed deep in disbelief and his lips whispered, "Project Gilgamesh."

Blue eyes widened, ocean and crystal.

"John, you were right…"

X

X

NOTES

Hi guys, I hope you enjoy the latest chapter! If you did, kudos and comments really are appreciated.

Next chapters due next weekend:

30th July — 'Rutting Season'

31st July — 'Vanishing Bat'

Also in total submersion of the bat fandom I've cobbled together a blog. Kinda like a big mood board that I will post more on. There's even a picture-button that throws up a random post — honestly it's really cute (minus the Arkham horror). So if you fancy having a click, or following, look here:

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