Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

-from Sunday Morning, by Wallace Stevens

…

He knew it should have been there. An easy peace, between the drift of dark clouds above and every frail breath. A well of calm, freed from passion once more.

It should have been there, but it wasn't.

His car roared to life, and he felt every cord within himself draw tight at the lingering sound, burning to loose his growing frustration in a similar, snarling release. What had gone wrong?

He had done it. He had done what his regrettably impulsive, vilely vase urges had told him to do, had been telling him to do since the last visit to his crumbling childhood home. It was all there, branded into his memory. The flash of her dark-lashed eye in the weakest of lights. What it felt like to catch her breath between his teeth. The ribbon-silk-water feel of her long hair between his trembling fingers.

He should have felt right again, felt clean again. The entangling past should have receded to its old place in the back of his mind.

But nothing had happened. Nothing felt any different—except that, for no reason he could consciously discern, he was decidedly more miserable than before.

Infuriated and powerless, he pulled out, away from her building, joining the stream of nobodies in the streets, heading for Gotham County Jail.

This was not a good time to visit a patient. But today he had no choice. Today was no choice.

When he stopped outside the bleak cement structure, almost indistinguishable from the equally colorless sky, he didn't even pause to consider his options before taking the briefcase of fear toxin into the building with him.

…

"I'm sorry to have to call you on a Saturday, Dr. Crane…" The nearest official all but flew at him when he entered the narrow, dingy corridor to which he'd been directed. "Thanks for coming down."

He waved off the high-strung woman's hasty thanks. At the moment, he didn't want to bother with anyone's anxiety but his own. "Not at all. So he cut his wrists?" Oh, Falcone, always one for theatrics, weren't you?

"Probably looking for an insanity plea. But if anything happened…"

"Of course. Better safe than sorry."

She nodded and held open the door to the interview room for him. His grip on the briefcase was like that of a fanatic, an addict, a martyr as he entered the white-washed little room.

Carmine Falcone saw his entrance and lazily looked up at him, the glimmer of wicked, rodent cunning bright in his hard gaze.

"Dr. Crane," he remarked in with a blandly histrionic flair, "It's all too much, the walls are closing in, blah, blah, blah. Couple more days of this food—"

Jonathan closed his ears to the man's sardonic complaints, feeling the yank of the case at his sanity. Enough.

"What do you want?" He asked, point-blank.

Suddenly sober, Falcone fixed him with a stare that was surprisingly fierce coming from an elderly man in a drab convict's uniform. "I wanna know how you're gonna convince me to keep my mouth shut."

He fought the urge to sit back in surprise, held his suddenly shaky ground. "About what?" Don't look at the case. Don't. "You don't know anything."

The other man smirked, confident of his attack. "I know you wouldn't want the cops taking a closer look at the drugs they seized. I know about your experiments on the inmates at your nuthouse—hear you killed a doctor the other night."

Glass.

Crane struggled to suppress a scowl of fury. The noose was closing about his neck. He could almost feel the burn of the rope.

"I don't get into business with someone without finding out their dirty secrets. Those goons you hired…I own the muscle in this town."

Ugly bag of bones. Ugly scarecrow. No friends, no love, no safety.

"I've been smuggling your stuff in for months, so whatever he's got planned, it's big," Falcone was saying over the howl of blood and anger, "And I want in."

He had to answer, fast. "I already know what he'll say," Jonathan countered. "That we should kill you."

Falcone leaned in, the city shining like some filthy, sadistic nightmare out of his eyes. "Even he can't touch me in here. Not in my town."

I can. Jonathan felt himself smile, automatically, as if a puppet. His hands opened the briefcase with slow, playful deftness.

"Would you like to see my mask?"

The confidence in Falcone came to a stuttering halt.

"I use it in my experiments," Jonathan continued, holding the mask up for the crime lord to see. The familiar power took him over, gripping his face, his mind. "Probably not very frightening to a guy like you. But those crazies…"

There was no point in disputing it—he'd had no control of himself last night. A different man, a weaker man, had laced his fingers in Darcy's, fell with her into the dreamlike dark. But here—he was in charge. "…They can't stand it."

"When did the nut take over the—"

Toxin sang through the air; his smile was hidden in folds of burlap and stitches of twine.

"They scream and cry, much as you're doing now."

Better in my mind you die, old man. But I shall give you the next best thing: insanity.

…

The unusual spectacle of a grown man reduced to sniveling depravity never ceased to work wonders for an ill mood. Jonathan felt much better as he left the room, Falcone's screams and cries barely muffled by the wall of concrete dividing them. The ringleader of Gotham's carnival of sin was merely a little piece of Arkham now, waiting to be returned to the whole.

"Oh, he's not faking," he heard himself all but purr to the waiting, wide-eyed official, "Not that one."

She nodded, gullible as a child. Really, the city administration needed to make a point of hiring seasoned, clever individuals.

"I'll talk to the judge; see if I can get him moved to the secure wing of Arkham. I can't treat him here."

He filled out the usual paperwork for a transfer request, never blinking, even when he signed his scrawling lie of a signature at the bottom of the affidavit declaring Carmine Falcone criminally insane. Dishonesty came so easily now.

The stark shadow of the jail disappeared behind him, but his work was far from over. A quick page through a grubby phone book on the way back to his car told him that Robert H. Glass lived near the docks of Miller Harbor. He left the phone booth with the address committed to memory.

Interactions with other human beings, especially those involving trust, were by and large predictable in this town. Somehow, though, this made betrayal—even a betrayal nipped in the bud—smart and sting all the more. By the time he found the slouching apartment, the sleet had become a rain and Jonathan's irritation had begun to boil.

The bedraggled seagulls roosting in the eaves of the soggy roof screamed at him as he approached. He met Glass at the door with his mask in hand and a bladder of fear toxin in his inner coat pocket.

"Morning, Doc," Glass drawled, scratching his protruding paunch, "What can I do fer?"

The harbor air stank of fish, urine, and alcohol. Jonathan was glad to put on his mask simply to escape the smell. Giving the blank-eyed security guard a fierce dose of the toxin was a decided plus.

"What were you thinking?" Jonathan demanded sharply, driving the terrified man backwards into the dank apartment by sheer force of drug-enhanced presence, slamming the weak door shut behind him. "Did you think I wouldn't find out?"

"I'm s-sorry, D-doctor Crane!" Glass stumbled backwards, voice a shaky whine. "Falcone w-wanted to know—"

"You've cost me valuable time and resources, Glass," he growled, reveling in the stockier man's fear, "I should kill you."

"N-no! Please!" Tears streamed down his stubbly cheeks. They meant as little to Jonathan as the water falling from the sickly skies.

"I'll frighten you to death. You'll claw your eyes out before I'm through. You'll scream yourself hoarse, scratch yourself bloody—"

He had to admit, preying on fears had given him a taste for melodrama.

"Oh, God! Please, no! Don't!"

"I seem to recall you having an unhealthy fear of spiders. Is that what you see now? Do you feel them yet, Glass?"

"St-stop, please stop…"

Jonathan hesitated. "I will, if you make me a promise."

"A-anything."

"First of all—never deceive me again. I'll know."

"Never again," Glass blubbered.

"Secondly, you're coming with me to destroy the last of the shipments. So if anyone does hear anything from you—well, there'll be no proof to back you up and you'll know it."

The man's sobs of gratitude made his answer incoherent, but there was more of a hint of the affirmative in his shaky gush of random vowels and consonants.

"I will give you a call to remind you of our appointment tomorrow afternoon," Jonathan said gently. "And remember: not a word. Ever again."

He turned to leave, then stopped. "Oh yes; and the toxin should wear off—in an hour or two."

A chilling wail of despair rose from the apartment as Jonathan exited, shutting the door behind him and gliding to his car, almost forgetting to remove his mask before putting the keys in the ignition.

What a delightfully busy morning. It was enough to make him set aside the disturbing thought of seeing his intern again on Monday.

He headed home through the finger-like tapping of the rain, to home and the nap he had decidedly earned, all the while reminding himself to file a report for the disappearance of one Mike Laramie with the police when he awoke. It would go unanswered and uninvestigated, of course. People had better things to do.

Author's Note

As my profile page states, I'm a little befuddled and overwhelmed by this new author-messaging/review-replying thing. On the one hand, it allows me to converse intimately with registered readers, but it also kind of spoils the fun of the communal intimacy of an in-story reviewer response. So sorry, no responses for Chapter 15's reviews, in-story or otherwise, but I promise to get right back on track with this chapter's reviews and send out replies to everyone. Don't be mad…just review again (that sounds so ulterior) and I'll be dead certain to reply to you individually ASAP. Especial apologies to my new readers, for I know there are a few that I heard from for the first time last chapter. Anyways, Chapter 17, you ask? Try the worst Monday ever and a shocking capture (well, it's shocking if you haven't seen the movie).

Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving!

Blodeuedd