Title: The Spirit and the Flesh (4/??)
Author: Allaine
Email: eac2nd@yahoo.com
Disclaimers: Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, along with the other residents of Gotham, are the property of DC Comics, the creators of "Batman: The Animated Series", and God knows who else. All other characters are my invention. And if you have a problem with women who love each other, then this story is not for you. Feedback: As always, greatly desired and usually responded to.
Rating: R Spoilers: I strongly recommend you read "Wrath", "It's Just Allergies", "Life Don't Have to be No Bed of Roses", and "Perfect Opportunity" first.
Distribution: If you want it, just ask.
Summary: Six months later, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn have finally returned to Gotham. Unfortunately, so has a legendary killer, one who preys on the guilty.
_______________________________
Chapter 4
"So the Joker and this Quinn girl were lovers?"
"Indeed," Talia replied.
Andrea was sitting across from her. Actually, it was more like lounging. In a bizarre twist, she was relaxing in Talia's room with her jailer. She still looked appalled by what Talia had told her. "God, that's horrible. But she's not his lover now? Now she's a lesbian?"
"Apparently so."
"Huh," Andrea replied.
Talia raised an eyebrow. "You do not approve?" she asked.
"Well, I wouldn't dream of judging them," Andrea said. "And I don't think there's anything wrong with it. It's certainly something that's never appealed to me, though."
"I have."
"Have what?" Andrea smirked. "Appealed to me? I doubt it."
Talia chuckled softly. "Sorry, poor use of grammar. But I have been with other women. Intimately."
Andrea looked surprised again. "You're bisexual?"
"Such labels do not apply to me," Talia said idly.
"But you're in love with Bruce, and yet you've slept with women."
"Well," Talia confided, "some time ago, when I first met my beloved, and I realized he was the man I'd been waiting for, I took a solemn oath never to be with any man other than Bruce Wayne."
"Never to be with another man?" Andrea asked, emphasizing the last word.
Talia grinned. "Sometimes, it can be very lonely at home. And there are servants in my father's compound who would consider it a great honor to share a bed with the daughter of the Demon. Not all of those servants are men, however."
"So you've slept with women because you have an itch that needs to be scratched, and you don't want to break your promise, and you're not really gay?" Andrea summarized dubiously.
"I don't think I've ever used such a phrase as 'itch that needs to be scratched' to describe it, but yes," Talia said.
Andrea leaned back. "Are you always this open about yourself?"
Talia's expression sobered. "Tomorrow night," she responded, "you and I will return to Gotham. With us we will have the location of Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn. You will wear the Phantasm's mask, you will find them, and you will kill them. Otherwise, you will go to jail for murder. Unless, of course, organized crime arranges for some sort of accident while you are in prison. Or the Joker does."
Andrea didn't reply.
"I gave you a second chance earlier tonight," Talia continued. "I could have told my father that you had failed to kill the Ventriloquist, and then you would be spending tonight in police custody. Instead, I have seen fit to grant you another opportunity."
"Why? Don't want to go home to daddy and tell him you never made it out of the starting blocks?" Andrea asked harshly.
"I have my pride," Talia retorted. She stopped herself and took a deep breath. "You do not need further training. All you have is to look forward to tomorrow night. So if I seem unusually talkative about myself, it is only because I am trying to take your mind off what you probably don't want to think about."
Andrea looked at her. "Since when did you care about my feelings?"
Talia scowled, but then she sat up defiantly. "Since that Catwoman became much more of a rival than you," she said.
The other woman shook her head, and she smiled. "So I'm not a rival any more? You finally recognize my relationship with Bruce is over?"
"You say you have moved on. I could never leave him," she confided, "but you are obviously different." Then Talia smiled slyly. "And I prefer you as something other than a romantic rival. You are a very pretty woman. Perhaps one day you, too, will consider it a great honor to sleep with me."
Andrea started coughing. "Thanks," she said after a minute. "Forgot about tomorrow night for a second there."
Talia's smile grew, and the topic of conversation changed from there.
_________________________
"Commissioner? He's waking up."
"Thank you, Doctor," Jim Gordon said gruffly. He looked at Renee and Bullock. "You two ready?"
"What's the big deal, Commish?" Harvey Bullock asked, raising the brim of his hat slightly. "We all know the Bat-freak got him."
"I don't know about that, Detective," Gordon replied. "Usually he gives us some indication of what he's done and where they can be found. Tonight, we only knew what happened because people were reporting shots fired in the area."
"I don't recall seeing him anywhere tonight," Renee said thoughtfully as she got her notepad out. "Not that he can't disappear and reappear like a fresh breeze."
Gordon shook his head. "You're right, he has been missing. Maybe he's hurt." He led the others into Arnold Wesker's hospital room.
The far corner of the room was buried in shadow, but it wasn't so dark that he couldn't see the Batman there. "Well, that answers one question," he said, letting the others enter behind him.
"Commissioner," Batman replied.
Bullock muttered something, his disdain for the Batman never a secret.
The doctor turned and saw the Bat. "Good heavens," he said, startled. "How long has he been there?"
"So what happened tonight?" Gordon asked, ignoring the physician.
"I don't know."
Gordon blinked. "You mean you're not responsible for this?" He gestured to the Ventriloquist, who shifted in his bed, his head wrapped in bandages.
"I only found out when I heard the reports on the police scanner," Batman replied truthfully.
"Well," Gordon said. He wasn't sure what else to say.
"Maybe it was one of the baby Bats," Bullock suggested snidely.
"It wasn't."
A grunt from the bed was the first sign that Arnold was nearing the point where he could communicate, and Gordon allowed Montoya to approach his bed. Without the dummy, Wesker was easily intimidated by authority figures, and with that concussion, the doctors didn't want him panicking.
"Arnold," Montoya said quietly. "Wake up, Arnold. You're in the hospital. Arnold?"
Slowly he became aware of her voice. "What happened? Where am I?" he asked.
"You're in the hospital. You're in police custody now."
His eyes looked at her, then moved toward Bullock and the Commissioner. When they spotted the shadowy figure in the corner of the room, Arnold sucked in his breath and cringed. "No, he's back," he whispered.
"Toldja," Bullock said.
But as Batman emerged from the darkness and became clearly visible, Arnold relaxed. "Oh," he said. "It's just you."
Gordon looked at Batman. "Well, that's a first," he murmured.
"Arnold, what happened tonight?" Montoya asked him. "Was it another gang? One of the other patients from Arkham?"
"Mister Scarface," Arnold said, horrified. "He's gone again, thanks to that monster. That horrible, horrible face," he added, shaking his head from side to side.
"What monster?" Batman asked.
"It touched Mister Scarface," Arnold went on, "and he burned up. And it had a face like death. It must have been a devil or something." He wept silently. "Why did it kill Mister Scarface? Why couldn't it have taken me?"
"Oh, for Pete's sake," Bullock groaned, but Montoya shushed him.
"Who?" she asked, turning back to Arnold. "Did it have a name?"
He looked frightened. "It said its name was the Phantasm."
Batman was so shocked to hear that name that he took an involuntary step backward, and his jaw tightened so much that he thought his teeth might crack.
"The Phantasm?" Gordon asked, surprised. "I haven't heard that name in years. I thought the Phantasm was dead. You said he - no, wait, she, you said she was dead, Batman." He glanced at the superhero. "Batman?"
"I'm fine," Batman growled, even though a bowling ball had settled at the pit of his stomach. "And I thought the Phantasm _was_ dead."
"We also thought the Phantasm killed the Joker, but we were wrong about that too," Gordon said, looking at Bullock.
"Just what this city needs," Bullock said disgustedly. "A wacked-out vigilante who kills. We've already got the Huntress. Why couldn't the Phantasm go somewhere else?"
Gordon turned back and saw that, once again, the Bat had managed to slip out without being detected. "Damn," he said. "Batman gave us a name years ago when he said the Phantasm was dead. What the hell was it?" But neither Montoya nor Bullock knew, if they'd ever heard it. "Find out any particulars from Wesker," he said, sighing. "Looks like we go back to the old case files tonight."
_____________________________
Batman concentrated so intently that he never even heard her come from behind. "You haven't moved in ten minutes, you know," she purred in his ear. "I almost took you for a gargoyle."
He didn't move. "Not tonight, Selina," he said quietly.
His peripheral vision could see one long, black boot appear to his right. "So what are we staking out tonight?" Catwoman asked, crossing her arms on one knee. Her whip dangled from one of her hands and caressed his ankle. "Auto thefts? Drug ring? My favorite, jewelry store robbery?" she added with a naughty grin.
Did she have to remind him of that tonight?
She glanced down into the street. "Opium being used as ingredients in bagels?" she murmured, thinking it odd the only thing of note below was a shuttered bagel shop. "Fast hint, they're called poppy seeds."
"Catwoman, do you _mind_? I don't need your little jokes tonight."
His tone of voice was colder than he had wanted it to be, he had condescended to her sense of humor, and he'd called her "Catwoman". He supposed he should be regretting that, and later he probably would, but right now he was trying to digest. She'd been alive. She was _alive_.
And he'd never known. Why hadn't he looked? Had he wanted her to be dead? Had her return scared him that much?
Further introspection was arrested by the discomfort of feeling her claws digging into his forearm as Selina spun him around to look at him. "We're both still learning this couples game," she hissed, her eyes boring into his. "One day we may reach a point where you tell me what's bothering you instead of shutting me out, and where I can find less physical ways of getting you to open up to me. Obviously you haven't reached that point yet, and neither have I."
"Let - go," he said, feeling her claws draw blood.
"If you can say something other than 'go away and leave me alone'," Catwoman said more calmly, "I will."
"The Phantasm is back."
It was so completely different from what he'd said before that she let go instantly. "Who?" she asked curiously.
"That's right, you were in Paris," he said.
"When?"
"Years ago, when someone called the Phantasm went around town murdering Mob figures, and the police thought it was me," he said quietly.
She nodded slowly. "I remember that," she replied. "I thought the idea was, well, insane. A city full of psychopaths obsessed with killing you, and you lose it over a few organized crime farts?" Catwoman chuckled. "You always struck me as having better priorities."
He didn't smile. He smiled more now that they'd gotten together, but he didn't have it in him right now. "It turned out the Phantasm was a woman named Andrea Beaumont. Her father got involved with the Mob and they killed him."
"Vengeance, okay," Selina said. "Vengeance and costumes go hand in hand a lot in this town. Why's it so important? Is she setting you up for another murder?"
"Andrea Beaumont," Batman said heavily, "was once Bruce Wayne's fiancee."
She stared. "Oh," she answered. She sat next to him. "Oh," she repeated. "You know, the way you can refer to Bruce Wayne as this separate identity is not something I've gotten used to," she tried to say lightly.
"I thought she was dead, but now she's back," Batman continued, "and I have to figure out what this means. Selina," he told her, "she was my first love."
She tapped her claws on the rooftop absently. "So is that why you wanted me to leave?" she asked finally. "You want this Andrea back."
"No!" he said immediately. "Of course not."
"Well then?"
"I don't know," he finally admitted. "It needs sorting out. Why is she here now? Does she still want to kill the Joker?"
"Wait, the Joker?" Catwoman thought back. "You know, he was gone for a while when I got back from Paris, but I never bothered to find out why. Was he hiding?"
"No, the Phantasm had him," he said. "At first I thought they had both perished. Then when he returned, I assumed he killed her." Batman looked away. "For a detective, I did a whole lot of assuming when it came to Andrea Beaumont. I'm not even sure if I wanted her alive or dead."
She nodded. "Are you sure it's her?"
"It could be a new Phantasm," he admitted. "I won't know until I find it."
"Would you like my help?"
"Not right now." He finally permitted himself the smallest of smiles. "I probably shouldn't ask the woman I'm involved with to help me find someone who could be my ex-fiancee. I've already seen you with Talia."
Selina's claws stopped tapping. Then, surprising him, she laughed. "Oh hell," she said when she was finished. "She really does know how to push your buttons, doesn't she?"
"Who?"
"Come on, Bruce," she said, smiling grimly, no doubt at the thought of what she would do to Talia. "Your pet stalker Talia shows up in your house, and she finds out about us. Within just a few days, some character shows up in Gotham who might be your ex-fiancee. The al-Ghuls know all about you, don't they? They must know about your engagement?"
He nodded, as images became much more distinct in his mind. She was right, Talia pushed his buttons like a professional.
"I mean, are you trying to tell me you think Talia's return, coinciding with someone pretending to be your ex, is a complete coincidence?" she asked, pretending to be astounded by his gullibility.
"What is she hoping to accomplish?" he asked out loud, clenching his fist.
"I suppose she thinks you'll go mooning after 'Andrea' and we'll break up," she guessed. "And when you rip off the Phantasm's disguise, the first word that greets you will be - "
"Don't say it, _please_ don't say it."
She grinned wickedly. "I'll ask again, can I help now?"
"Considering the things Talia said to you the other day," Batman said prudently, "how can I say no?"
"That's my boy. We'll find her tomorrow night, and . . ."
"No, not tomorrow."
Selina stopped. "Why not?"
"Tomorrow I'm going to track down Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn."
She rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. They're pulling penny-ante crimes. People are saying they're hoping their crimes are so below your notice that you won't come after them."
"I know. Which is why I have to find them." He shook his head. "I told them they'd be better off if they never came back. Besides, I suspect they have something else up their sleeve. They may look like minor incidents, but they must have some sort of plan, and I don't want it to blow up in my face. Or anyone else's."
Catwoman pouted.
Batman took her hand. "On the other hand," he continued, "if you could find out for me where Talia is hiding, I could be appreciative."
She smiled. "If you come to my place right now, we could see just how appreciative you are."
A half-hour ago he would have said no.
A half-hour ago he would have been an idiot.
______________________________
A pleased smile spread across Talia's face the following night as she looked through her binoculars. "This is perfect," she murmured.
"What?" the Phantasm asked, still unsure about what she was going to do when she had Poison Ivy and her lover under control. At least she wasn't dealing with that pathetic little man any more. Anyone who could sleep with the Joker had to be a seriously disturbed woman. And even in Europe, Andrea had heard tales about the rabid eco-terrorist Poison Ivy.
"They will be completely defenseless when you go in," Talia said, although the look on her face suggested to the Phantasm that she was taking too much pleasure in this.
"Why?" Andrea asked in her distorted voice. True, the two women were holed up in an anonymous apartment, not a shithole but not a penthouse either. They were almost certainly alone, because how many hirelings could there be in there?
"Come look," Talia replied, offering her the binoculars.
Andrea took them and looked. Her jaw dropped.
Talia had turned the magnification to the highest level, so that even from the rooftop across the street, she could practically see right into their bedroom. And what she was, judging by the photographs Talia had given her, Harley Quinn naked from the waist up, sitting up in bed.
She couldn't see who was in bed with her because of the headboard. But before she could ask Talia if she was alone in there, she saw a lithe arm rise up and fondle the blonde's left breast. Andrea could almost see Harley shiver before she bent down for what could only be a kiss.
"You're enjoying this way too much," she said, handing them back to Talia.
"Oh, come now," Talia replied. "They won't be armed. They won't even be dressed. They'll be totally vulnerable to attack. They should be dead in no time."
Andrea only growled in response.
"Besides," she added evilly, "considering what we talked about last night . . ."
The Phantasm remained resolutely silent behind the mask. She had been plied with wine and the illusion of female camaraderie, damn it!
"So," Talia mused, leaning against a chimney, "when you said last night that you would consider sleeping with a woman if she was the right one, just how would you define the right one?"
She resisted the urge to bury her hook in Talia's chest. She'd said it just to shut Talia up, she was sure of it. And they'd been up for hours, and the wine made her say stupid things.
"You're right," Talia finally said when she saw Andrea would not reply. She did leisurely stretch, however, showing off her perfectly sculpted figure. "Better not to talk now. Just go in and finish them."
The Phantasm finally looked at her. "If this is going to be their last night," she said firmly, "then let it be their last night together."
"Very well," Talia told her. "Only you can't let the opportunity slip. So you'd better be ready to move in as soon as it appears they're finished." She smirked as she handed the binoculars to Andrea once more.
Biting her lip behind the mask, the Phantasm took it and tried to watch objectively.
Once the other woman emerged as she sat up as well, and the Phantasm could see it was her other target, Poison Ivy, from the brilliant shock of red hair. Mostly, however, she felt like a man in a peepshow as she watched the two women engage in slow, passionate sex.
She tried to ignore the stirrings inside and mentally labeled them as signs of her growing discomfort, nothing else.
Glancing for a moment at Talia, she gritted her teeth as the Demon's daughter licked her lips slowly, her eyes sparkling salaciously.
And if her breathing was a little ragged, Talia could try wearing the mask of the Phantasm for an extended period of time and see how well she breathed.
"Is it over?" Talia asked as Andrea put the binoculars away, wondering why she was being so aggressively flirtatious just to annoy her. Getting her angry perhaps wasn't the best idea.
But she had envied Andrea her opportunity to watch the other women alone together.
"It's over," the Phantasm said. "And it's over."
Then she immersed herself in smoke and was gone.
Talia adjusted the microphone attached to the side of her head and picked up the rifle.
___________________________________
They were insane, Andrea told herself. They had killed people. And if she didn't do this, she herself would die in prison. If Talia didn't kill her first.
She had no idea what would happen next, however, as she emerged from the darkness.
Neither woman noticed her at first. She saw much more than she could have with the binoculars. Their bodies were intertwined in the sheets, and that was a good thing, because it would be that much harder to run away. Both their bodies and the sheets were also soaked in sweat.
Harley Quinn, she also saw, had a more trim physique. Ivy's curves, meanwhile, were undeniably very sexy, the kind any man would become weak looking at. They looked more tired than anything, however. They panted, wrapped in each other's arms.
Talia said they were in love. Did they know the meaning of the word? Did Talia? Did she?
"Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn," she finally intoned. She'd stared at the tableau too long. Talia was undoubtedly smirking as she watched.
A moment ago they were the image of languor. Now they bolted up in their bed. "Batman?" Harley squeaked before she got a good look.
"Who are you?" Ivy demanded, not even bothering to cover her breasts or her erect nipples with a sheet.
Andrea was momentarily taken aback by yet another angle of their luscious nudity. "I," she finally said, "am the Phantasm."
Harley gasped.
Ivy looked at the Phantasm coolly. "I hear you almost killed the Joker. I'm very sorry you failed."
"If she had, I never would have become Harley Quinn," Harley reminded her. "And then I never would have met you."
"You do have a point."
"Just shut up, both of you!"
They stopped talking. Their shoulders touched as Harley drew imperceptibly behind Ivy.
"The Joker escaped my wrath once," Andrea said. "He shall not do so again. Neither will the rest of the filth that makes this city a cesspool of corruption."
"Did you and Oswald take the same elocution lessons?" Ivy asked.
The Phantasm held up its hand so that they could see the curving blade. "I am not Batman. I am not the Dark Knight. Rather, I am your eternal night."
Harley trembled while Ivy tried to think of a response. Her body betrayed her, however, as she felt a familiar surge - not now! - welling up inside her stomach.
Andrea kicked aside their pile of clothes with one foot. "Unarmed, defenseless, you should just give up. I would not wish to prolong your suffering."
"Why not, it's what we've been doing," Ivy murmured as she practically fell out of bed and scrambled on all fours for the door nearby.
The Phantasm smoothly interposed herself between her and the door, burying the point of her hook in the wood so that it splintered. "You abandon your lover so easily? I'm not surprised." She opened it slightly to see what manner of room she was heading toward.
The bathroom?
Ivy knelt before the Phantasm, putting her hands over her mouth. Desperately she turned toward the corner of the room and threw up violently.
Harley watched her, a woeful expression on her face.
Andrea was mystified. "Do I scare you that much?"
Ivy crouched on the floor and could only laugh helplessly, a shaking laughter rendered breathless by her gasping lungs.
"She has AIDS."
The Phantasm whirled about to stare at Harley.
"And I have HIV," Harley added somberly. "In six months we'll be dead together."
Looking into the bathroom again, this time Andrea noticed the pill vials scattered all over the sink.
"My God," Andrea whispered. She was telling the truth.
To be continued . . .
(Author's Note - _please_ keep reading! Much will be made clear.)
Author: Allaine
Email: eac2nd@yahoo.com
Disclaimers: Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, along with the other residents of Gotham, are the property of DC Comics, the creators of "Batman: The Animated Series", and God knows who else. All other characters are my invention. And if you have a problem with women who love each other, then this story is not for you. Feedback: As always, greatly desired and usually responded to.
Rating: R Spoilers: I strongly recommend you read "Wrath", "It's Just Allergies", "Life Don't Have to be No Bed of Roses", and "Perfect Opportunity" first.
Distribution: If you want it, just ask.
Summary: Six months later, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn have finally returned to Gotham. Unfortunately, so has a legendary killer, one who preys on the guilty.
_______________________________
Chapter 4
"So the Joker and this Quinn girl were lovers?"
"Indeed," Talia replied.
Andrea was sitting across from her. Actually, it was more like lounging. In a bizarre twist, she was relaxing in Talia's room with her jailer. She still looked appalled by what Talia had told her. "God, that's horrible. But she's not his lover now? Now she's a lesbian?"
"Apparently so."
"Huh," Andrea replied.
Talia raised an eyebrow. "You do not approve?" she asked.
"Well, I wouldn't dream of judging them," Andrea said. "And I don't think there's anything wrong with it. It's certainly something that's never appealed to me, though."
"I have."
"Have what?" Andrea smirked. "Appealed to me? I doubt it."
Talia chuckled softly. "Sorry, poor use of grammar. But I have been with other women. Intimately."
Andrea looked surprised again. "You're bisexual?"
"Such labels do not apply to me," Talia said idly.
"But you're in love with Bruce, and yet you've slept with women."
"Well," Talia confided, "some time ago, when I first met my beloved, and I realized he was the man I'd been waiting for, I took a solemn oath never to be with any man other than Bruce Wayne."
"Never to be with another man?" Andrea asked, emphasizing the last word.
Talia grinned. "Sometimes, it can be very lonely at home. And there are servants in my father's compound who would consider it a great honor to share a bed with the daughter of the Demon. Not all of those servants are men, however."
"So you've slept with women because you have an itch that needs to be scratched, and you don't want to break your promise, and you're not really gay?" Andrea summarized dubiously.
"I don't think I've ever used such a phrase as 'itch that needs to be scratched' to describe it, but yes," Talia said.
Andrea leaned back. "Are you always this open about yourself?"
Talia's expression sobered. "Tomorrow night," she responded, "you and I will return to Gotham. With us we will have the location of Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn. You will wear the Phantasm's mask, you will find them, and you will kill them. Otherwise, you will go to jail for murder. Unless, of course, organized crime arranges for some sort of accident while you are in prison. Or the Joker does."
Andrea didn't reply.
"I gave you a second chance earlier tonight," Talia continued. "I could have told my father that you had failed to kill the Ventriloquist, and then you would be spending tonight in police custody. Instead, I have seen fit to grant you another opportunity."
"Why? Don't want to go home to daddy and tell him you never made it out of the starting blocks?" Andrea asked harshly.
"I have my pride," Talia retorted. She stopped herself and took a deep breath. "You do not need further training. All you have is to look forward to tomorrow night. So if I seem unusually talkative about myself, it is only because I am trying to take your mind off what you probably don't want to think about."
Andrea looked at her. "Since when did you care about my feelings?"
Talia scowled, but then she sat up defiantly. "Since that Catwoman became much more of a rival than you," she said.
The other woman shook her head, and she smiled. "So I'm not a rival any more? You finally recognize my relationship with Bruce is over?"
"You say you have moved on. I could never leave him," she confided, "but you are obviously different." Then Talia smiled slyly. "And I prefer you as something other than a romantic rival. You are a very pretty woman. Perhaps one day you, too, will consider it a great honor to sleep with me."
Andrea started coughing. "Thanks," she said after a minute. "Forgot about tomorrow night for a second there."
Talia's smile grew, and the topic of conversation changed from there.
_________________________
"Commissioner? He's waking up."
"Thank you, Doctor," Jim Gordon said gruffly. He looked at Renee and Bullock. "You two ready?"
"What's the big deal, Commish?" Harvey Bullock asked, raising the brim of his hat slightly. "We all know the Bat-freak got him."
"I don't know about that, Detective," Gordon replied. "Usually he gives us some indication of what he's done and where they can be found. Tonight, we only knew what happened because people were reporting shots fired in the area."
"I don't recall seeing him anywhere tonight," Renee said thoughtfully as she got her notepad out. "Not that he can't disappear and reappear like a fresh breeze."
Gordon shook his head. "You're right, he has been missing. Maybe he's hurt." He led the others into Arnold Wesker's hospital room.
The far corner of the room was buried in shadow, but it wasn't so dark that he couldn't see the Batman there. "Well, that answers one question," he said, letting the others enter behind him.
"Commissioner," Batman replied.
Bullock muttered something, his disdain for the Batman never a secret.
The doctor turned and saw the Bat. "Good heavens," he said, startled. "How long has he been there?"
"So what happened tonight?" Gordon asked, ignoring the physician.
"I don't know."
Gordon blinked. "You mean you're not responsible for this?" He gestured to the Ventriloquist, who shifted in his bed, his head wrapped in bandages.
"I only found out when I heard the reports on the police scanner," Batman replied truthfully.
"Well," Gordon said. He wasn't sure what else to say.
"Maybe it was one of the baby Bats," Bullock suggested snidely.
"It wasn't."
A grunt from the bed was the first sign that Arnold was nearing the point where he could communicate, and Gordon allowed Montoya to approach his bed. Without the dummy, Wesker was easily intimidated by authority figures, and with that concussion, the doctors didn't want him panicking.
"Arnold," Montoya said quietly. "Wake up, Arnold. You're in the hospital. Arnold?"
Slowly he became aware of her voice. "What happened? Where am I?" he asked.
"You're in the hospital. You're in police custody now."
His eyes looked at her, then moved toward Bullock and the Commissioner. When they spotted the shadowy figure in the corner of the room, Arnold sucked in his breath and cringed. "No, he's back," he whispered.
"Toldja," Bullock said.
But as Batman emerged from the darkness and became clearly visible, Arnold relaxed. "Oh," he said. "It's just you."
Gordon looked at Batman. "Well, that's a first," he murmured.
"Arnold, what happened tonight?" Montoya asked him. "Was it another gang? One of the other patients from Arkham?"
"Mister Scarface," Arnold said, horrified. "He's gone again, thanks to that monster. That horrible, horrible face," he added, shaking his head from side to side.
"What monster?" Batman asked.
"It touched Mister Scarface," Arnold went on, "and he burned up. And it had a face like death. It must have been a devil or something." He wept silently. "Why did it kill Mister Scarface? Why couldn't it have taken me?"
"Oh, for Pete's sake," Bullock groaned, but Montoya shushed him.
"Who?" she asked, turning back to Arnold. "Did it have a name?"
He looked frightened. "It said its name was the Phantasm."
Batman was so shocked to hear that name that he took an involuntary step backward, and his jaw tightened so much that he thought his teeth might crack.
"The Phantasm?" Gordon asked, surprised. "I haven't heard that name in years. I thought the Phantasm was dead. You said he - no, wait, she, you said she was dead, Batman." He glanced at the superhero. "Batman?"
"I'm fine," Batman growled, even though a bowling ball had settled at the pit of his stomach. "And I thought the Phantasm _was_ dead."
"We also thought the Phantasm killed the Joker, but we were wrong about that too," Gordon said, looking at Bullock.
"Just what this city needs," Bullock said disgustedly. "A wacked-out vigilante who kills. We've already got the Huntress. Why couldn't the Phantasm go somewhere else?"
Gordon turned back and saw that, once again, the Bat had managed to slip out without being detected. "Damn," he said. "Batman gave us a name years ago when he said the Phantasm was dead. What the hell was it?" But neither Montoya nor Bullock knew, if they'd ever heard it. "Find out any particulars from Wesker," he said, sighing. "Looks like we go back to the old case files tonight."
_____________________________
Batman concentrated so intently that he never even heard her come from behind. "You haven't moved in ten minutes, you know," she purred in his ear. "I almost took you for a gargoyle."
He didn't move. "Not tonight, Selina," he said quietly.
His peripheral vision could see one long, black boot appear to his right. "So what are we staking out tonight?" Catwoman asked, crossing her arms on one knee. Her whip dangled from one of her hands and caressed his ankle. "Auto thefts? Drug ring? My favorite, jewelry store robbery?" she added with a naughty grin.
Did she have to remind him of that tonight?
She glanced down into the street. "Opium being used as ingredients in bagels?" she murmured, thinking it odd the only thing of note below was a shuttered bagel shop. "Fast hint, they're called poppy seeds."
"Catwoman, do you _mind_? I don't need your little jokes tonight."
His tone of voice was colder than he had wanted it to be, he had condescended to her sense of humor, and he'd called her "Catwoman". He supposed he should be regretting that, and later he probably would, but right now he was trying to digest. She'd been alive. She was _alive_.
And he'd never known. Why hadn't he looked? Had he wanted her to be dead? Had her return scared him that much?
Further introspection was arrested by the discomfort of feeling her claws digging into his forearm as Selina spun him around to look at him. "We're both still learning this couples game," she hissed, her eyes boring into his. "One day we may reach a point where you tell me what's bothering you instead of shutting me out, and where I can find less physical ways of getting you to open up to me. Obviously you haven't reached that point yet, and neither have I."
"Let - go," he said, feeling her claws draw blood.
"If you can say something other than 'go away and leave me alone'," Catwoman said more calmly, "I will."
"The Phantasm is back."
It was so completely different from what he'd said before that she let go instantly. "Who?" she asked curiously.
"That's right, you were in Paris," he said.
"When?"
"Years ago, when someone called the Phantasm went around town murdering Mob figures, and the police thought it was me," he said quietly.
She nodded slowly. "I remember that," she replied. "I thought the idea was, well, insane. A city full of psychopaths obsessed with killing you, and you lose it over a few organized crime farts?" Catwoman chuckled. "You always struck me as having better priorities."
He didn't smile. He smiled more now that they'd gotten together, but he didn't have it in him right now. "It turned out the Phantasm was a woman named Andrea Beaumont. Her father got involved with the Mob and they killed him."
"Vengeance, okay," Selina said. "Vengeance and costumes go hand in hand a lot in this town. Why's it so important? Is she setting you up for another murder?"
"Andrea Beaumont," Batman said heavily, "was once Bruce Wayne's fiancee."
She stared. "Oh," she answered. She sat next to him. "Oh," she repeated. "You know, the way you can refer to Bruce Wayne as this separate identity is not something I've gotten used to," she tried to say lightly.
"I thought she was dead, but now she's back," Batman continued, "and I have to figure out what this means. Selina," he told her, "she was my first love."
She tapped her claws on the rooftop absently. "So is that why you wanted me to leave?" she asked finally. "You want this Andrea back."
"No!" he said immediately. "Of course not."
"Well then?"
"I don't know," he finally admitted. "It needs sorting out. Why is she here now? Does she still want to kill the Joker?"
"Wait, the Joker?" Catwoman thought back. "You know, he was gone for a while when I got back from Paris, but I never bothered to find out why. Was he hiding?"
"No, the Phantasm had him," he said. "At first I thought they had both perished. Then when he returned, I assumed he killed her." Batman looked away. "For a detective, I did a whole lot of assuming when it came to Andrea Beaumont. I'm not even sure if I wanted her alive or dead."
She nodded. "Are you sure it's her?"
"It could be a new Phantasm," he admitted. "I won't know until I find it."
"Would you like my help?"
"Not right now." He finally permitted himself the smallest of smiles. "I probably shouldn't ask the woman I'm involved with to help me find someone who could be my ex-fiancee. I've already seen you with Talia."
Selina's claws stopped tapping. Then, surprising him, she laughed. "Oh hell," she said when she was finished. "She really does know how to push your buttons, doesn't she?"
"Who?"
"Come on, Bruce," she said, smiling grimly, no doubt at the thought of what she would do to Talia. "Your pet stalker Talia shows up in your house, and she finds out about us. Within just a few days, some character shows up in Gotham who might be your ex-fiancee. The al-Ghuls know all about you, don't they? They must know about your engagement?"
He nodded, as images became much more distinct in his mind. She was right, Talia pushed his buttons like a professional.
"I mean, are you trying to tell me you think Talia's return, coinciding with someone pretending to be your ex, is a complete coincidence?" she asked, pretending to be astounded by his gullibility.
"What is she hoping to accomplish?" he asked out loud, clenching his fist.
"I suppose she thinks you'll go mooning after 'Andrea' and we'll break up," she guessed. "And when you rip off the Phantasm's disguise, the first word that greets you will be - "
"Don't say it, _please_ don't say it."
She grinned wickedly. "I'll ask again, can I help now?"
"Considering the things Talia said to you the other day," Batman said prudently, "how can I say no?"
"That's my boy. We'll find her tomorrow night, and . . ."
"No, not tomorrow."
Selina stopped. "Why not?"
"Tomorrow I'm going to track down Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn."
She rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. They're pulling penny-ante crimes. People are saying they're hoping their crimes are so below your notice that you won't come after them."
"I know. Which is why I have to find them." He shook his head. "I told them they'd be better off if they never came back. Besides, I suspect they have something else up their sleeve. They may look like minor incidents, but they must have some sort of plan, and I don't want it to blow up in my face. Or anyone else's."
Catwoman pouted.
Batman took her hand. "On the other hand," he continued, "if you could find out for me where Talia is hiding, I could be appreciative."
She smiled. "If you come to my place right now, we could see just how appreciative you are."
A half-hour ago he would have said no.
A half-hour ago he would have been an idiot.
______________________________
A pleased smile spread across Talia's face the following night as she looked through her binoculars. "This is perfect," she murmured.
"What?" the Phantasm asked, still unsure about what she was going to do when she had Poison Ivy and her lover under control. At least she wasn't dealing with that pathetic little man any more. Anyone who could sleep with the Joker had to be a seriously disturbed woman. And even in Europe, Andrea had heard tales about the rabid eco-terrorist Poison Ivy.
"They will be completely defenseless when you go in," Talia said, although the look on her face suggested to the Phantasm that she was taking too much pleasure in this.
"Why?" Andrea asked in her distorted voice. True, the two women were holed up in an anonymous apartment, not a shithole but not a penthouse either. They were almost certainly alone, because how many hirelings could there be in there?
"Come look," Talia replied, offering her the binoculars.
Andrea took them and looked. Her jaw dropped.
Talia had turned the magnification to the highest level, so that even from the rooftop across the street, she could practically see right into their bedroom. And what she was, judging by the photographs Talia had given her, Harley Quinn naked from the waist up, sitting up in bed.
She couldn't see who was in bed with her because of the headboard. But before she could ask Talia if she was alone in there, she saw a lithe arm rise up and fondle the blonde's left breast. Andrea could almost see Harley shiver before she bent down for what could only be a kiss.
"You're enjoying this way too much," she said, handing them back to Talia.
"Oh, come now," Talia replied. "They won't be armed. They won't even be dressed. They'll be totally vulnerable to attack. They should be dead in no time."
Andrea only growled in response.
"Besides," she added evilly, "considering what we talked about last night . . ."
The Phantasm remained resolutely silent behind the mask. She had been plied with wine and the illusion of female camaraderie, damn it!
"So," Talia mused, leaning against a chimney, "when you said last night that you would consider sleeping with a woman if she was the right one, just how would you define the right one?"
She resisted the urge to bury her hook in Talia's chest. She'd said it just to shut Talia up, she was sure of it. And they'd been up for hours, and the wine made her say stupid things.
"You're right," Talia finally said when she saw Andrea would not reply. She did leisurely stretch, however, showing off her perfectly sculpted figure. "Better not to talk now. Just go in and finish them."
The Phantasm finally looked at her. "If this is going to be their last night," she said firmly, "then let it be their last night together."
"Very well," Talia told her. "Only you can't let the opportunity slip. So you'd better be ready to move in as soon as it appears they're finished." She smirked as she handed the binoculars to Andrea once more.
Biting her lip behind the mask, the Phantasm took it and tried to watch objectively.
Once the other woman emerged as she sat up as well, and the Phantasm could see it was her other target, Poison Ivy, from the brilliant shock of red hair. Mostly, however, she felt like a man in a peepshow as she watched the two women engage in slow, passionate sex.
She tried to ignore the stirrings inside and mentally labeled them as signs of her growing discomfort, nothing else.
Glancing for a moment at Talia, she gritted her teeth as the Demon's daughter licked her lips slowly, her eyes sparkling salaciously.
And if her breathing was a little ragged, Talia could try wearing the mask of the Phantasm for an extended period of time and see how well she breathed.
"Is it over?" Talia asked as Andrea put the binoculars away, wondering why she was being so aggressively flirtatious just to annoy her. Getting her angry perhaps wasn't the best idea.
But she had envied Andrea her opportunity to watch the other women alone together.
"It's over," the Phantasm said. "And it's over."
Then she immersed herself in smoke and was gone.
Talia adjusted the microphone attached to the side of her head and picked up the rifle.
___________________________________
They were insane, Andrea told herself. They had killed people. And if she didn't do this, she herself would die in prison. If Talia didn't kill her first.
She had no idea what would happen next, however, as she emerged from the darkness.
Neither woman noticed her at first. She saw much more than she could have with the binoculars. Their bodies were intertwined in the sheets, and that was a good thing, because it would be that much harder to run away. Both their bodies and the sheets were also soaked in sweat.
Harley Quinn, she also saw, had a more trim physique. Ivy's curves, meanwhile, were undeniably very sexy, the kind any man would become weak looking at. They looked more tired than anything, however. They panted, wrapped in each other's arms.
Talia said they were in love. Did they know the meaning of the word? Did Talia? Did she?
"Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn," she finally intoned. She'd stared at the tableau too long. Talia was undoubtedly smirking as she watched.
A moment ago they were the image of languor. Now they bolted up in their bed. "Batman?" Harley squeaked before she got a good look.
"Who are you?" Ivy demanded, not even bothering to cover her breasts or her erect nipples with a sheet.
Andrea was momentarily taken aback by yet another angle of their luscious nudity. "I," she finally said, "am the Phantasm."
Harley gasped.
Ivy looked at the Phantasm coolly. "I hear you almost killed the Joker. I'm very sorry you failed."
"If she had, I never would have become Harley Quinn," Harley reminded her. "And then I never would have met you."
"You do have a point."
"Just shut up, both of you!"
They stopped talking. Their shoulders touched as Harley drew imperceptibly behind Ivy.
"The Joker escaped my wrath once," Andrea said. "He shall not do so again. Neither will the rest of the filth that makes this city a cesspool of corruption."
"Did you and Oswald take the same elocution lessons?" Ivy asked.
The Phantasm held up its hand so that they could see the curving blade. "I am not Batman. I am not the Dark Knight. Rather, I am your eternal night."
Harley trembled while Ivy tried to think of a response. Her body betrayed her, however, as she felt a familiar surge - not now! - welling up inside her stomach.
Andrea kicked aside their pile of clothes with one foot. "Unarmed, defenseless, you should just give up. I would not wish to prolong your suffering."
"Why not, it's what we've been doing," Ivy murmured as she practically fell out of bed and scrambled on all fours for the door nearby.
The Phantasm smoothly interposed herself between her and the door, burying the point of her hook in the wood so that it splintered. "You abandon your lover so easily? I'm not surprised." She opened it slightly to see what manner of room she was heading toward.
The bathroom?
Ivy knelt before the Phantasm, putting her hands over her mouth. Desperately she turned toward the corner of the room and threw up violently.
Harley watched her, a woeful expression on her face.
Andrea was mystified. "Do I scare you that much?"
Ivy crouched on the floor and could only laugh helplessly, a shaking laughter rendered breathless by her gasping lungs.
"She has AIDS."
The Phantasm whirled about to stare at Harley.
"And I have HIV," Harley added somberly. "In six months we'll be dead together."
Looking into the bathroom again, this time Andrea noticed the pill vials scattered all over the sink.
"My God," Andrea whispered. She was telling the truth.
To be continued . . .
(Author's Note - _please_ keep reading! Much will be made clear.)