The streets of Gotham were full of people eager to leave work and return home or go to the bar or whatever it was that they cared to do after eight hours of indentured servitude. The sounds of their muffled conversations and the honking of the taxicabs blended into an odd cacophony of sound that by now he was getting rather used to. After all, it was not all that different from his home.
The sun was low on the horizon and night had all but come, leaving him shrouded in the pre-dark twilight shadow found only in a world of artificial mountains that people call "city". He liked standing on the roofs of these buildings, looking down on the people below him – people oblivious to his presence. It seemed to be a fairly bizarre concept, to exist in solitude even when surrounded by others.
Yet then again, he was never truly alone.
"Necocyautl," he called the jaguar and gently stroked it as it nestled against his hip.
She was a rather large cat, six feet from her nose to the tip of her tail and standing nearly two and a half feet tall. She was powerful, especially when she was hungry.
"Is it time to feed again, daughter?"
The jaguar looked up at him, her mouth opened slightly and tongue exposed.
He was a man of average height and well-muscled. His clothes were spare, consisting of a torn, open vest made of black leather that exposed his chest and stomach. Upon his chest sat an obsidian mirror which hung from a necklace. He had long black hair, darkly tanned skin, and a black, sooty stripe painted down his face. His eyes appeared yellow in the fading light.
"You have tasted the blood of Zinacantan," he patted the jaguar's head. "We must not yet take him. The temple must be made ready first."
The jaguar let loose a growl of impatience.
"There are others we can feast upon in the meantime, Necocyautl," he told her.
He took the mirror on his chest in both hands and stared into it.
"Yes, there are so many others…"
Somewhere in the building below, an alarm was triggered. Within moments, three large men in black clothing and masks barreled out of the stairway that led out onto the roof.
"Boss! Boss!" one of the men shouted, blinded by the lack of light in the newly fallen night.
"Over here," the owner of the jaguar beckoned.
He three men turned to face their boss and ran toward him.
"We got it, boss! Wow, it was just like you said!" The thug thrusted a black bag toward his boss.
"Are you being followed?" He asked.
"Yeah, I think so," one of the other men said, nearly out of breath.
"Good. Now, do like I said and I will deal with whoever comes after you."
"But boss, they got guns," the goon with the bag proclaimed.
"Yes, but I have Necocyautl," the man grinned.
His smile was just like the panther's – and it told them to leave.
Gordon was having a very bad week. First, there was the double homicide at the docks. Then, there were the multiple animal attacks throughout the city. Now, standing on the roof of the museum, he was facing grand theft and five dead security guards.
They weren't pretty, either.
"Commissioner," a deep voice whispered from the shadows behind him.
"Batman," he turned and tried to rub the pain out of his aching head. "We have a situation."
"I see."
What Batman saw consisted of five men, brutally slain. Their heads had been crushed, apparently by some animal. Their chests were torn into and their hearts removed.
"That's not all," Gordon sighed. "Whoever did this also stole an artifact from the museum, a showcase item on loan from the British museum – some kind of mask."
"What kind of mask?" Batman asked.
"It was part of a Pre-Columbian art exhibit, something to do with one of the Mayan or Aztec gods," Gordon scratched his chin. "It wasn't the most expensive piece, apparently, but it was the only thing they stole. I'll have the security video for you in a minute."
"It looks like the jaguar from last night was here," Batman surmised.
"That cat did this?"
"You can the claw marks on the chest."
"But the heads…" Gordon was getting sick looking at the carnage.
"A grown jaguar like that can easily pulverize human bone with its jaws and they typically kill their prey with a cranial attack… you might even find a broken tooth."
"But if that jaguar did this, then why didn't it eat their whole bodies?" Gordon asked. "Why would it just tear out their hearts?"
"It didn't," Batman growled. "Something else carved out the hearts."
"A person?"
"I don't think we can call it a person," Batman said.