Chapter 8: Last Words

Vampyra sat on a cold marble throne. Before her was a long marble hall guarded by pillars on each side. Between each column was on of the many Rogues, all motionless in a state of surprise. If the figures had not stood there, it would have shown graves resting along the walls of the tomb.

She lounged in the deadness, shuffling her deck of tarot card. She paused to look at a flight of stone stairs and returned to her deck.

In her younger years, Vampyra could find her father, Victor Star, sitting in that very same marble throne, amidst the ancestors of the Star lineage. She had always thought her father eccentric, spending more time gazing at the stars and constellation maps that with his lone daughter. Her moth had died three years after Vampyra was born from leukemia. After her mother's death, Vampyra's father spared no expense in giving his only child everything for a proper education.

Maybe she had taken after her mother in her level headedness. Vampyra revered tarot cards and astrology as nonsense, more taboo than science and fate. That might had been the reason she choose bioengineering, a practical and influential purpose. She wanted to save lives, not dream away with the night sky. However, there was always a sliver of intrigue.

Now that intrigue was obsession. Vampyra calmly placed the deck on the arm of the chair. Her eyes wandered toward the stairs as she drew a single card from the deck. Knight of Pentacles, he comes for a deal.

A black cape and cowl descended the flight. Over his should was a limp purple mass. Batman eyed the frozen statues that lined the tomb. He approached Vampyra and rested the Joker's slumbering form on the cold floor.

Vampyra replaced the card into the deck and uncrossed her legs to stand. Her eyes bored into Batman's as she gravely advance on him. Her black boots stopped inches away from the Joker's body.

"Our deal?" Batman's tone was menacing.

Vampyra gave an evil smirk and remover a dark blue vial from her coat pocket, dangling it in front of his face. "The cemetery mausoleum."

Batman snatched the vial in his fist and swept out of the crypt without another word.

Vampyra gave a triumphant smirk. At her feet the Joker began to stir. "Jack…" she said in a soft kind voice. "Wake up, honey…"

The Joker's face turned upwards and his eyes blinked groggily at Vampyra. His bleary eyes sprung wide and he let out a scream. Joker made to stand and run, but tumbled over, his hands and feet shackled.

"Don't' lease too soon," Vampyra stepped on the chain that held his feet together. "You're the guest of honor." She pulled out two baseball-sized orbs and tossed them down the rows of villains, a dark navy smoke spewing from them.

Joker watched as one by one all the Rogues began to awake, stretching and then circling around him and Vampyra.

"Did I miss the show?" a feline voice called from the stairs. A woman in a skintight leotard leaned against the wall. In the moonlight, two cat ears pointed from her head.

"Not yet…" Vampyra gave an evil smile as Catwoman came through the circle of grinning Rogues to Vampyra.

"What's going on?" The Joker demanded outraged that his fellow criminals stood smiling while he lay cuffed on the ground.

"Just a small meeting," Vampyra said offhandedly, not breaking her gaze from Catwoman. She pulled that deck of tarot cards from he coat and offered it to Catwoman. "If you would, Selina."

Catwoman obliged and pulled the top card off the deck. She glanced at it and showed the others, The Empress. Silently, she slid the card back into the pile and took her place in the circle.

Vampyra's attention turned back to the Joker, her hand replacing the deck in her coat. "Any last words, Jack?" Her right hand played with the gun at her hip.

Joker's head snapped back at Vampyra. "What! You can't be serious?" He turned to his other Rogues. "Two-Face?"

Two-Face flipped his coin. "Bad heads, you lose…"

"Riddler?"

"What's purple and white, but laughs no more?"

Joker grimaced and moved on. "Penguin?"

The Penguin only turned up his beaked nose.

Joker looked around. Scarecrow scowled, Poison Ivy had never liked him, Mr. Freeze could care less, but then his eyes came to rest on his only hope. "Harley!"

Harley was at the edge of the circle, between the Mad Hatter and Killer Croc. "Yah know, Mistah J, at first I wasn't too keen on all this, but then V, here, talked some sense inta me. There better men out there, right Jervis?"

"As you said, my dear…" The Mad Hatter slipped an arm around Harley. "How could you treat such a Queen of Diamonds so rudely? My dear, if you would?"

Harley gave a maniacal grin and said in a final tone. "Off with his head!"

Joker jaw dropped in horror. After all he's done for her, Harley was just going to stand by?

"Well, Jack?" Suddenly, Vampyra's gun was pointed at his head.

All the Joker did was gulp, his eyes fixed on the barrel. "Victoria, I-" his voice was inaudible.

"What?" Vampyra was smiling a wide, fanged grin, tilting her ear to the Joker and cocking the hammer of the gun. "I can't hear you!"

Joker grimaced. "I love you!" The words seemed so far from anything he had uttered before, but he opened an eye at a gasp from Harley.

Vampyra's face was filled with hatred. "Too late, Jack…"

Joker heard the bang. His entire body braced for the bullet, but it never came. His eyes parted to see a red and yellow flag with the word "BANG" on it inches from his forehead.

Vampyra burst into fits of insane laughter, a high crazed shrieking laugh. The Rogues all joined in a chorus of laughter. Vampyra bent down to the Joker, her face light with joy. "Gotcha!" She twirled the flag around in the air.

The Joker gave a bewildered grin and a short, demoralized chuckle before he collapsed on the marble floor, out cold.

Batman existed the tomb. In the distance he could see the cemetery's mausoleum. Behind him, he heard a loud shriek. On instinct, he wanted to run back into the crypt, whether or not it was the Joker, it was still someone in trouble.

Batman, however, remember Vampyra's threat on the Commissioner's and Mayor's lives, along with many other innocent socialites. He had a duty to return them safely to their home before aiding the criminally insane.

He could see the frozen statues of the Gotham leaders lined along the sides of the mausoleum. It seemed almost too easy, but then Vampyra was after the Joker, not him.

Batman entered through the glass-paneled door. He glanced around, no spikes or blades lunged at him.

Suddenly, steel plates began to slide over the glass doors, trapping Batman and the other inside.

Batman looked up. Suspended above was a bundle of dynamite, enough to level the entire mausoleum. Beyond it, a steel panel began to cover a skylight.

Without hesitation, Batman fired his Bat-grapple at the dynamite and the closing skylight. The hook latched onto the dynamite and catapulted it through the skylight just as the plate snapped shut on the line of the hook.

Outside, the explosion shook the whole building, but the danger had past.

Batman removed the blue vial from his belt. Inside, he knew that this was just the start of Vampyra's madness.