Rain. It didn't make any sense. Occasionally it could get humid, but the light downpour these past few weeks was bizarre for summer in Gotham. It was extremely uncomfortable, because the type of rain jackets popular in the city were more inclined for colder weather.

There was no rain on this night, but Police Commissioner Gordon wore his jacket anyway. He didn't trust it not to rain at least a little this evening, especially as he was tempting fate anyway by standing on the roof of a building. Besides, he knew that sometimes he had to wait a while for the Batman.

Gordon leaned against the short wall overlooking the city. Thousands of tiny lights flittered about in the hot summer night of Gotham, all representing somebody out there in the darkness. Lights from cars, lamps in windows, streetlights – he just couldn't help but to wonder which one of those lights would go out next.

The bat signal – was that Batman's light, or his?

"I'm here," a voice to his right proclaimed.

"Batman," Gordon shook his head. Despite all of their clandestine meetings, Batman could always startle him. "I've got one for you, and it's not pretty."

"Joker again?"

"No, maybe even worse than him," Gordon sighed. He then pulled a file folder out of his jacket and handed it to his friend. "This has been going on for a few weeks, as much as the boys at the station can figure."

Batman took the folder and flipped through its contents.

"We've been trying to keep this out of the media," Gordon continued, "but the way this has…"

"Is this what it looks like?" Batman interrupted. The photographs in the folder displayed grisly scenes of what appeared to be ritualistic slaughter. Each victim was found with their throats cut and hearts removed.

"Yeah, some kind of human sacrifice," Gordon's voice became hard. "There have been three victims so far, all men in their late twenties to early thirties - can't tie any other common similarities to them."

Batman quickly scanned the reports on the crimes.

"This doesn't sound like any of the usual suspects, Commissioner," Batman said. "You need a profiler. Why call me and not the FBI?"

"No offense, Batman, but it's because of you that the FBI won't answer any of my requests for help," Gordon crossed his arms and leaned his back against the wall. "You've really made them look bad in the past and they don't care if it costs a few innocent lives to see you fail just once."

"We all have our priorities," Batman grumbled.

"Well, I don't like this one bit," Gordon said. "The feds turned their backs on us and I've got no leads. Bullock's only idea is some sort of satanic cult, but he's got no suspects that he can stick it to."

"There is a total lack of theft," Batman closed the folder and looked at Gordon. "The victims are unrelated in any way. We must be dealing with a psychotic who is fulfilling paranoid fantasies to the extent that I haven't seen before. Have you checked with Arkham?"

"Not good," Gordon shook his head. "The only thing they were able to come up with was…"

Gordon was suddenly interrupted by a large black shape which came leaping out of the darkness behind the bat signal. It pounced on Batman, knocking him to the ground. The two grappled, rolling over each other on the floor. Finally, Batman was able to throw his assailant off of him and into the light cast by the signal.

A large jungle cat crouched low on it haunches, baring its sharp teeth at Batman. In the light, the spots on its back seemed to glitter like the night sky.

Batman came to his feet and reached to his belt, but the cat moved before he could react. Gordon jumped to one side to avoid the cat as it silently leapt over the wall and into the emptiness of space.

Both Gordon and Batman rushed to look over the short wall and down to the ground several stories below to find any trace of the cat. As mysteriously as it had arrived, so did it leave – with no sign of its passing save for a few small cuts into Batman.

"What was that?" Gordon almost shouted.

Batman quickly ran to find where the cat had come from, but found nothing behind the bat signal save for a tiny bit of shed fur.

"That was a jaguar, Commissioner," Batman answered, collecting the fur into a small plastic bag from his belt. "What was it that you were going to say that Arkham had been able to come up with?"

"A cult," Gordon turned to look over the wall again. "Where did it go?"

"Hmm." Batman held the fur up to the light.

"Maybe I should call the zoo," Gordon was shook up. "Who in Gotham has flying jaguars, eh Batman? Batman?"

He turned around, but Batman was gone.

"That's it, I'm finding a new profession," Gordon took his jacket off and folded it under his arm.