Batman and the associated characters are owned by DC. James Bond and the associated characters were created by Ian Fleming. With thanks to Cmar for beta reading this for me and thanks to all the reviewers and readers so far! All reviews welcome.

Golden Bat – Chapter Twenty-Two

Oz ran up to the body that was lying shuddering in the jungle. He swore violently and viciously. It was Kirby. Only the ceramic plates in his body armour had stopped the bullets from piercing his chest. As it was, he had narrowly avoided being killed. There was some sort of wire round his chest. One of his bullets must have cut the cord. What the hell was happening here?

Kirby was swearing fluently as well as he tore the wires from his arms. "What the hell are you doing, Oz? You trying to kill me?" He leapt at Oz and his questing hands found his neck.

Oz kicked Kirby between the legs and punched him on the jaw. "Shut it, you nonce! I didn't know that was you! How the hell was I to know that was you? What the hell happened to you anyway?"

Kirby was coughing and choking on the ground. He was battered and bruised and the momentary anger that had filled his soul had gone. It was rare he got angry and rare he got scared. Now he was both of those. "It must be that American. He's got in the trees somehow! He wants to take us out."

"Not if we kill him first," said Oz. He dumped his Bergen down and quickly searched through it. "Heat sensitive goggles," he said, flipping them over his eyes. "You put yours on as well, mate."

The world was a mass of green and blues showing the cold trees and ground. Up in the canopy could be seen the small red dots showing birds and monkeys. In his vision could be seen the cooling barrel of his gun and the small cross hairs. In the distance could be seen a helicopter. "Jeez," he swore. He could see two people hanging upside down high up in the canopy. They were hanging upside down. Judging by the heat they were still alive and judging by the guns they had with them they were his men.

What the hell had carried them up fifty foot into the canopy? Without thinking, his hand reached up to his neck and found his crucifix. It had been ten long violent years since he had last been to church but he still remembered his Bible readings. "Be sure your sins will find you out." He had sinned much in the past few years. Was this his vengeance?

He had faced terrorists in the Middle East, drug barons in South America and even his mum when she had too much wine at Christmas, but nothing had made his heart thump so much as now…

Tim grabbed the steering wheel of the Batmobile and swung viciously to one side. There was a satisfying crump sound and the bike that Alvey was riding was sent crashing into a building.

THUMP!

Tim looked up and could see Alvey had grabbed hold of the roof and was trying to smash his way in.

THUMP!

A dent appeared in the roof above him. Tim pressed a button and the roof slid back, throwing Alvey into the road behind him.

He looked over his shoulder and could see Alvey get to his feet and start running down the road towards them.

He pressed the button again; the roof slid back.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

Alfred was quiet and thinking.

"Where are we going?" he asked again.

The last he saw of Alvey was him breaking into a parked car. The Batmobile was dying. The engine was starting to give out. With a horrible whining sound the car just gave up. Alfred cruised the car onto the sidewalk.

"Come on, Tim. We need somewhere safe… Gotham Police Station."

Batman was hanging upside down from a tree, staring intently at the SAS below. A smile touched his lips. They were getting twitchy. Good. He was still as a statue even as a small brown spider with an incredibly delicate touch started weaving a web from the tree stem to his hand.

The SAS fired a few bullets into the trees; fortunately none going anywhere near him. He could see Bond below closing in quietly on the SAS position like a predatory cat.

His eyes then focussed again on the spider and a chill went up his spine. It was a Chiracanthium inclusum, a small brown sac spider. Little was known about it since it lived in the jungle, but what was known about it was frightening. It had a highly venomous bite and the bites frequently turned necrotic and gangrenous. If you survived the bite you would probably have to survive an amputation as well.

It started crawling up his naked hand. It was so hot in the jungle that he had just put his mask on under his jungle hat. He had no gloves on.

This was a mistake…

It took all his strength of will not to move or even twitch. The SAS were putting on heat sensitive goggles. It would not be long before they saw him.

With barely a touch, the spider crawled over his hand and over his watch. It was now on his arm and getting ready to make the journey up his sleeve.

Unbidden images of necrotic bites took to his mind, and himself screaming on a surgery table as they cut off his arm. He felt something on his fingers. Three more inclusum spiders started the slow crawl up his arm dodging beads of sweat as they went.

"Oohhhhhhhh!" The heartwrending cry swept through the holding cells of Gotham Police Station and quietened even the most rabid drunk.

"Ooohhhhhhhh!"

Donnington Speen felt like the inside of his head had been scooped out and replaced with the Brooklyn Tap Dancing club playing one night only in concrete boots. He raised a hand to his head and opened one bloodshot eye.

What had they injected him with?

Oh yes. Alcohol. Lots of alcohol.

He always got bad hangovers. Back when he was studying in Cambridge University he and his friends used to try for the 'King Street Run'. They would start out drinking in the 'Seven Stars' and have a pint in every pub up to the 'King Street Run'.

He always just about made it to the third pub before passing out.

"Mr Speen? Mr Speen?"

"Ooohhh! What is it, Dane?"

"We're in jail, Mr Speen."

"I'm in hell!" He woozily tried to sit up. The effort was too much for him and he immediately lay down again. "Get me some aspirin…"

"How are we going to get out, Mr Speen?"

"There's that word again, 'we'," said Speen, still refusing to open his eyes. "In jail it is every man for himself."

"Okay then, I'll keep these for myself…"

Donnington opened one bloodshot eye suspiciously. "Keep what for yourself?"

"This aspirin. That nice policeman gave me some for you when you woke up, but if it is every man for himself…" Dane looked at the little silver packet of tablets. He then yelped as Speen grabbed them with whiplash speed with his mechanical arm.

"Dane, I have always said what a bright lad you are." He opened the tablets and happily crunched two of them together between his teeth.

"No you haven't," said Dane. "You said I had less brains than a squashed slug."

"Wiser words I never have said."

Speen opened one bleary eye and looked at the jail cell. Fairly non-descript steel cell door. Concrete walls, window high up in the wall, strange chemical smell from the toilet.

He had been in worse. Far worse. At least here they weren't showing him various torture implements.

What was it with torturers? They were like people showing you their holiday snaps. Probably just as painful. This is a pair of pliers. I picked that up in Saigon. Great for extracting toe nails. There's a funny story about that I'll tell you later.

The aspirin and his training were starting to shake off the hangover. He woozily sat up. The contents of his stomach were threatening to escape, but since he was sitting in front of Dane he wasn't too bothered.

He looked about the cell. Even with his enhanced strength they were probably stuck. He might be able to try a jailbreak later. People were always surprised when he burst out of handcuffs with his mechanical strength.

"Do you think Mr Blofeld will be happy you told them where his base is?"

Speen opened one eye and fixed Dane with a baleful glare. "You know what, Dane? I don't think he will be… "

Bond was crawling like an animal towards the two remaining SAS. He had been gobsmacked at Batman's skill as he had ensnared two of them without the others noticing.

Pilot officer Davis was sleeping behind a tree. Well, sleeping is probably the wrong sort of word. When Bruce's back had been turned Bond had knocked him out quickly and efficiently.

He told himself it was so that wouldn't give away their position, but really it was to stop him talking.

In front of him was Oz.

He leapt from the jungle like a cat and pounced on Oz, punching him once with his pistol. This knocked Oz to the ground where he lay not moving.

CLICK!

Bond stopped. "Don't move, slime. I've got you in the cross hairs."

Bond froze, hardly breathing, trying to work out where the voice had come from.

"Lemme see those thumbs." He could feel a muzzle grinding in his neck. "That's it, nice. Drop the gun." Bond left the gun on the ground. "Stand up. Nice and slow. Where's that American gone, pal?"

Bond shrugged.

Kirby lowered the gun towards Bond's feet. "Have you ever seen someone's feet blown off with one of these, mate?"

CLICK!

"Neither have I," said Kirby, licking his lips. "I've always wanted to. You have five seconds to tell me where that Yankee and the pilot are or I start shooting off your toes one by one…"

Alfred had parked the wrecked Batmobile round the corner and dragged Tim out of the car. They staggered up to the huge imposing building. He looked worriedly behind him. The streets were virtually deserted. Most people had fled to the countryside to avoid the strange contagion.

The police, fire department, and hospitals were about the only workers still in the city. The place had an eerie, almost ghostly quality to it.

"Come on lad. We'll be safe in here. Not even Mr Alvey will dare to break into the Gotham Police Station. I hope," he added fervently.

There was a policeman at the front door armed with a shotgun. "All civilians are being evacuated, sir."

"No you don't understand…"

"If you are sick I recommend the hospital."

"Please just let us in!"

A car came careening round the corner and mounted the steps. It screeched to a halt centimetres from the cowering Alfred.

The door was kicked off the car and Alvey erupted from the car.

Alvey roared and made a grab for Alfred.

BANG!

The policeman blasted Alvey back down the steps.

"That won't stop him! We need sanctuary!"

"Get inside," growled the policeman. He clicked the smoking cartridge out the gun and reloaded another.

BANG!

Alfred dragged the weakened Tim into the building. He had been here several times with Master Bruce.

One of the officers inside recognised him. "Alfred Pennyworth, isn't it? You work for Mr Wayne?" said Detective Renee Montoya. She was a young pretty officer. Alfred was happy to see a familiar face.

"Yes it is," said Alfred.

BANG!

"What is going on out there?"

"Damian Alvey has some sort of superpowers! He is trying to kill us!"

"Get back there, Alfred," said Montoya, talking into her communicator. "Commisioner, this is Montoya."

"What is it Montoya?" crackled the familiar voice of Gordon.

"We gotta problem down here, sir."

The steel door burst off the hinges and Alvey, his shotgun wounds healing as they looked, burst in to the station.

"A big problem!"