Batman and the associated characters are owned by DC. With grateful thanks for cmar for beta reading this chapter and thanks for all the reviews so far! All reviews welcome!

Chapter Eleven – Batman – Time of the Wolf

CRASH!

He landed perfectly at the top of the conifer.

A lancing pain shot up his leg and his arm was twisted violently around as he fell through the branches at an incredible speed.

"Aaah!"

The remnants of his cloak were ripped from his back. A branch lashed at his face, breaking his nose. He crashed against more branches, thicker this time, and one pierced his armour and broke a rib.

Suddenly he was through the bottom of the branches and he fell with a thump on the soft pine needles of the park floor; all his plans of a five-point landing had gone with the shock of the impact, but thankfully he was going so slowly at that time that he only sprained an ankle.

His head was spinning and his cowl was half off his face. He groaned loudly and got to his feet. He had broken his nose many times before and with a practiced hand put it back into place. There was a horrible clicking sound a rush of blood down his face and his eyes watered.

Still, he was alive; he had a lot to be thankful for. He knew his rib was broken but he could still breathe without pain, so he knew it had not pierced a lung. He had sprained his arm but not broken it, thankfully.

His new werewolf genetics healed him up slowly as he limped through the forest and back into Gotham.

Two muggers tried to attack him as he left the park and with barely a thought he disarmed them, knocked them out and threw their weapons down the drain.

He felt his belt for the remote control for the Batmobile but his belt had been melted to his suit and the electronics fused.

He needed to get home quickly. The skies above were quiet, showing that the F16's had seen off the Cyborg. Several squadrons had been designed specifically to fight meta-humans.

Keeping to the shadows, the Batman limped back to his car.


Eileen Engler, one of Team Luthor's finest, got several devices from a metal briefcase she carried with her. They had been picked up from the Lex Corp Science Division and to be honest she did not trust them.

They were part of a containment field designed to catch - what had they called them? Non-corporeal astral presence. She knew what she called them.

Ghosts.

She had stopped believing in ghosts at about the same time she stopped believing in the tooth fairy. She had been about five years old when she had caught her brother stealing the money she had seen her mother put under her pillow. Her brother had needed the tooth fairy after that.

She hadn't joined Team Luthor to fight ghosts and goblins. She had joined to catch and stop international criminals.

Still, she thought as she placed the devices about in the tunnel, if it turned up she would knock its teeth out.

A growling sound started down the tunnel.

Ghosts don't exist, she thought as her vision clicked through several scopes. Infra-red, x-ray, zeon, omega. All showing nothing. The final one clicked in; the world was bathed in a pale blue light and the little green label in the corner of her vision just said 'Astral Plane'. She almost fell back in shock.

There was a huge ghostly wolf in the tunnel with glowing eyes and fangs that could cut a whale to death.

He tried to leap towards her but the devices started glowing as energy ripped into the ghostly wolf to try and hold him down.

She walked slowly backwards, her armour not allowing a run, and spoke quickly into her communicator.

"Control, this is Engler, I have a confirmed visual on Slade, I need reinforcements here now!"

With a final struggle Slade ripped himself free of the energy that was holding him and the ghostly form leaped towards Engler.


By the time the Batman reached his car he had pretty much healed up. He used a thumbprint scanner to gain access to the car and sat down gratefully.

With a throaty roar the engines started and the car leapt down the road towards home. He looked at himself in the mirror in the car and grimaced. He was a mess. His face was covered in soot and blood and his cowl had been ripped half from his head.

Still, he was alive.

An electronic warble came from the dashboard. Batman pressed a button and a small screen lit up, showing the attractive face of the Oracle.

"Hey Batman, you look like…"

"I know."

"Bad day?"

"Not my best. Have you managed to decode Luthor's files?"

"No small talk with you, is it?"

Silence answered her.

"Well, the files indicate that Luthor is hunting an immortal called Slade, who it seems is a shapeshifting werewolf."

"I know that. Why?"

"Apparently his plan is to devastate Gotham. Make the citizens flee in fear of the werewolves, then buy up the real estate at a knock-down price. He wants Bruce Wayne out of the way permanently since he is the biggest property owner in Gotham."

"It makes no sense. How would he get rid of the werewolves when Gotham was empty?"

There was silence again. Batman could see her bite her lip as she tried to find the words.

"What?"

"He has made the genetic structure of the werewolves deliberately unstable. Anyone bitten or infected by them has less than two weeks to live. He reckons by then Gotham will have been all but abandoned and he will be able to buy up the real estate at rock bottom prices. Then when the werewolves have gone he will be not only the biggest landowner in America but the richest and most powerful man in the world."

Batman clenched his steering wheel tightly, his fingers digging into the reinforced plastic. "I will be no use to anyone dead. I need to find a cure and stop him, now."

The car roared towards Wayne Manor. He pressed a button on the dashboard.

Nothing.

He pressed it again, a bit more irritated this time.

Still nothing.

Where was Alfred? A small kernel of fear grew in him, but he squashed it instantly. It could be any one of a number of reasons why Alfred was not replying. Luthor wanted to kill Wayne - had he killed Alfred as well?

He coaxed more speed out of the car and a vortex formed behind it as it headed home.


Gordon checked his shirt pocket for matches and found a packet. Gratefully he pulled it out, only to realise it was empty.

"Bullock," he growled then raised his hand as the officer threw him a cigarette lighter. He sighed contentedly as he sent a plume of smoke into the middle of the room.

"You really shouldn't smoke in here," said Deadshot, who was currently sitting between two burly officers in the interrogation room.

"Like I care what a freak like you thinks." Gordon sat down heavily and eyeballed Deadshot. "What are you doing in Gotham then, son; this isn't your normal hangout."

"I'm a tourist."

"You should be locked up, counting walls in your cell. According to our records you were. Would you mind telling us what you're doing out?"

"Taking in the sights."

"If I had my way, the only sights you would see would be on the wrong end of a Swat sniper team." Gordon shook his head.

"Aren't you supposed to get me a coffee?" asked Deadshot.

Gordon didn't turn around. "Bullock, get Deadman here a coffee, and me one too while you're up."

"Two sugars please, and have you any of that chocolate you sprinkle on the top?"

"You'll get what you're given, son. If I had my way it would be just you, me, and Smith and Wesson." Bullock lumbered out of the room, slamming the huge reinforced metal door behind him.

"Nice man, isn't he?"

"Who let you go and what are you teamed up with that Cyborg creep for?"

Deadshot glanced at the clock in the interrogation room. He had less than an hour to live. He had been injected with explosive nannites, as had the Cyborg, that would be triggered if the Batman still lived. And here he was swapping pleasantries with a hard-boiled policeman. And if he had his way he would be.

"What the…?" Gordon looked at the steel door to the interrogation room, that was spurting dust from the hinges. There were a few loud clanging sounds and several fist sized dents appeared in it. Then the door was wrenched off its hinges and something red shot in, grabbed Deadshot, and then was gone

Several seconds later Bullock came walking in with a tray of coffee mugs.

"Didn't we used to have a door here?"


Batman pressed a button on the console of his car, and a hidden cave opened up in the hill in front of him for just a couple of seconds. The car roared down the tunnel towards the Batcave.

He slammed the handbrake on and leapt out of the car as soon as the hood slid back.

"Alfred?" he called. "Alfred?"

He tried to take his costume off, but it was melted and battered. One of his cardinal rules was never to wear the Batsuit in the house. In the end he just ripped the suit off him and left it in a garbage bin. Seconds later he was washing the grime of the day off in a power shower he had set up in side room in the cave.

He shuddered. God, it had been close. Too close. He did not deserve to be breathing, let alone walking upright.

He grabbed a towel and dried himself off quickly, and then changed into a cleaned and pressed suit he always kept there.

Where was Alfred? Probably out shopping or something. Still, not like him.

He walked quickly up the stairs towards the clock that hid the cave from the rest of the house. There were a few monitors and scanners just beside the door that he checked before opening the door.

"Alfred?" he called again. He looked around the house irritably. The builders had left several mugs of half drunk coffee about the place. There was the sign of concrete dust under windows where they had fixed the windows. They seemed to have done a good job but the place was a mess. This wasn't like Alfred.

His heart skipped a beat as he passed a chair; what he first thought was a pile of old clothes was Alfred. There he was! He ran to the chair and picked up his hand to check his pulse.

Weak and fluttering, but still there.

Alfred's eyes flickered open when they saw him. "I'm sorry sir, I don't know what's…"

"Don't try and speak." said Bruce. "I'll get help."

Several minutes later he had called an ambulance and made Alfred comfortable.

Stay calm, use that damn analytical brain you're so proud of. Look at the facts. Has he had a heart attack?

No.

Some sort of accident?

No.

Some kind of stroke?

No, wrong symptoms.

What are the symptoms, look at the symptoms.

Poisoning. He's been poisoned.

Bruce heard the ambulance in the distance and walked to the door to open it. He pressed a button by the door to open the gates to the mansion and watched the ambulance head up towards the mansion.

How could he get food poisoning when he's always so careful? It must have been artificially induced.

The ambulance screeched to a halt outside the door and two men leapt out and grabbed a stretcher from the back and ran towards the door.

Bruce explained what had happened and told them he would visit him in the hospital soon.

"Keep me informed," he growled before they left. If he had been poisoned there had to be a cure.

Had to be, he repeated to himself.


Amanda Waller, the head of the suicide squad, looked at the two monitors she had next to her. They were both giving her live feeds of what was happening in Gotham. There was a clock in the corner counting down the minutes that the Cyborg and Deadshot had left to live. They only had two minutes left.

She grimaced at the latest information that appeared on the screen. The Batman had somehow survived his encounter with the Cyborg.

Luthor would not be pleased.

She looked down curiously at her left elbow. A cup of steaming coffee was there that wasn't there before.

She picked it up to sip it when she heard a metallic cough behind her. She span the chair around and could see the Cyborg and Deadshot had infiltrated her office.

"We were wondering," said Deadshot.

"Yes?" Amanda said cautiously. Their life span was mere seconds now.

"When these nannites explode in our head, what's the blast radius?"

"About three metres." She shook her head and smiled. "You'll be dead in seconds. You can't threaten me."

Deadshot moved to within a few centimetres of her face, well within the blast range, and said, "Oh, but we can. Let's talk terms?"


Bruce Wayne was in the kitchen. It was a place he rarely visited now since it was Alfred's domain.

There was a paper bag from Preston Ranch, where he got all his food. There was a receipt from the place. No-one had infiltrated the mansion, that he was sure of. The builders had not been anywhere near the kitchen, scanning sensors he left about the mansion confirmed that, that only left the Ranch.

He would find who had poisoned Alfred and get the antidote from him.

What if there was no antidote?

His mobile phone rang. He answered it with a terse, "Wayne."

"Hi, Mr Wayne. I'm Doctor Allinson from Gotham State…"

"I know where you are from. How is Alfred?"

"He is not in a good state, I'm afraid. We don't know what is wrong with him."

"He's been poisoned."

"Well, if we could have a sample of what he was poisoned with, we might be in with a fighting chance."

"How long?"

"An hour. Two hours maximum, after that…" Bruce clicked the disconnect call on his phone. He hadn't time to bandy words with a doctor.

He needed to get to the Ranch quickly. He walked to the front door. He pressed a hidden button next to an armoured knight as he walked past and a silver metal suitcase slid out from a hidden compartment under the stairs.

It was very heavy but he picked it up like it was a light as a feather, and he strode out of the mansion towards the garage.

A couple of minutes later he was roaring down the road towards Preston Ranch. The afternoon light was starting to fade. Soon the moon would be up.


Luthor was being driven at high speed through the Gotham traffic towards where Slade was being fought by his men when his phone rang.

"Luthor."

"You wanted to be informed when your files were cracked, sir?"

"Yes."

"Well, your special files have been accessed. Considering the level of security, I wasn't expecting them to be opened so soon."

"Good, by the time the Batman discovers the truth it will be too late."


Preston Ranch was closed to business when Bruce drove in. There was a hand-written sign on the door saying the owner was "off sick". The door to the ranch presented no problems to him and he could not have opened it faster with a key. He stood in the entrance of the shop, not moving for a few seconds, his eyes taking in every detail of the layout, from the door to the cash register.

He walked over to the cash register. It was an old-style one. There was a spike on it that the owner jabbed receipts onto. Bruce put on some rubber gloves and carefully removed the top couple. The second one down was slightly different handwriting from the others. The man who had written it had made a good attempt at copying the handwriting of the owner, but there were a few important differences to the slant, size and pressure of the letters.

He carefully removed it as evidence. He quickly checked the rubbish bin for any evidence and the drawers and shelves around. Nothing, whoever had been here had been careful. He got out a small aerosol can and sprayed the surface of the cash register; it contained an antibody that would make fingerprints show up under infrared light. He got out a small infrared torch and the fingerprints on the cash register showed up. There was only one set of fingerprints there; several were smudged, showing someone had been using gloves when they were here. He took a picture of the prints and scanned them into a small palm-top computer he carried about with him. They accessed the computers back in the cave and then onto the fingerprint records of over 30 police forces and intelligence services in America and abroad.

A couple of minutes later a match was found. John Preston, the owner of the ranch. He had a criminal conviction for drunk and disorderly when he was 18.

Nothing since then.

Unlikely to be the poisoner then.

Whoever the poisoner was, he was careful.

He then walked slowly out back to his car, taking care to step in the same places he had walked in. He had parked his car on the grass verge to as not to damage tracks. There were several dozen car tracks he could see, most at least a day or two old, judging by the weathering on the side of the tracks. Some fresh tracks were from a yellow cab, judging by the tread marks. A local tyre company had a deal with them so he knew their style of old.

He grabbed his mobile, a non traceable phone, and rang a number.

"Gotham cabs," came the gruff voice.

"Hi, I'm at Preston Ranch, I'm trying to track a friend of mine down. He said he would meet me here but I got caught in traffic. Have you taken him back home?"

"What do we look like, a charity?"

"I'll tip double if you can get me there."

"Just a sec, I'll ask."

Bruce held his breath as he waited. "Yeah, we took him to the Hersham Motel on East side a couple of hours back. Do you wanna cab?"

Bruce disconnected the call and gave a grim smile. Seconds later he was in his car heading back to Gotham.


Team Luthor had the tunnel surrounded with astral plane containment devices. Several of the devices were smoking and sparking with the pressure but they were holding. Tendrils of energy could be seen holding Slade in the energy prison.

One of the technicians tutted as he looked at the readings on his laptop.

"The energy he is expending is incredible, and it is getting higher all the time."

"What does Luthor want with him?" asked his colleague

There was a coughing sound behind him and the technician cursed quietly. "Mr Luthor," said the bald headed villain, "wants him for a very special role. One about which all of Gotham will find out soon enough."


Barry Fosco, the Metropolis Poisoner, was quickly throwing his few belongings into a bag. He had already binned all the clothes he had worn when he poisoned the food. He came. He poisoned. He went.

He had the blinds closed and the light, a single bare bulb, bathed the room in a yellowish tinge.

He didn't like being watched.

He never stayed around after setting his poison, too dangerous; even if the poison failed he would leave. Not worth the risk. The longer he was around, the more chance of being caught. He was busy cleaning the hotel room he had stayed in. He wiped down the toilet and the walls with his own special brew. It was a mixture of bleach and light acid. It would remove any biological remains he might have left behind. With police detection so advanced now he could not risk even a strand of DNA left behind. The mixture would break down all protein and biological elements left behind, even hair.

He worked methodically and carefully, his hair in a plastic shower cap and wearing plastic clothing to leave as little evidence as possible. He had left his belongings in the corner and was carefully covering the carpet in a light covering of the spray.

The room had never been cleaner.

Sadly, he had had to forgo public transport and use a taxi to get to the ranch. He shrugged his shoulders; he had used cash though, and he only ever gave notes he had treated with his solution. He had used a false name and had carefully researched the motel to make sure they didn't have CCTV.

The risk was minimal.

He would be back in Metropolis in a few hours; no-one would be able to track him down there.

The light winked out above, casting the room into stygian darkness. He looked up in confusion, one hand reaching behind him for a small snub-nosed pistol he always carried. He never used it, preferring the delicacies of poison, but in his business a bit of self-protection was always recommended.

Dust spurted from the hinges of the door of the motel room he was in, and a huge booming sound echoed around. He staggered back to the middle of the room, pointing his gun at the door.

With another powerful kick the door came flying into the room, and a huge dark indistinct shape launched at him, ripping the gun from his hand before he had a chance to fire.

His other hand reached for a stiletto he kept in his belt but his hand was crushed by one huge black-gloved hand.

He whimpered in pain and tried to stagger back, but an elbow caught him a glancing blow on the chin and he collapsed unconscious on the ground…

Several minutes later he woke up. He couldn't move his arms or legs.

Not good.

He seemed to be upside down and someone had tied a blindfold round him so he couldn't see.

Not good.

He could hear a rustling sound, like wind through the branches of a tree. What was that? He tried to get out of his bonds and started swinging gently in the breeze. He was up high.

Definitely not good.

"So you're awake?" The voice was deep and foreboding.

"Who are you? What do you want?" He tried to sound confident, but it's difficult to sound confident when you are hanging upside down above god knows what.

"You poisoned a man today; I want to know what it was and what's the cure."

He started laughing. "Me poison? You can't prove nuthin'."

"You had a small bag of poisons with you. Which one did you use?"

"I work with tropical animals and deal with their maladies. You need a wide range of chemicals for that kind of work. Let me go!"

The voice chuckled but there was no humour in the sound. "I don't think you understand your position."

His mask was ripped off and he screamed as he saw what he was above. He was hanging just above a live power line about fifty feet above the ground. The crackling sound was the electric current passing through the cables. He couldn't see his tormentor from where he was, but he could just see the scalloped edge of a black cloak. The mask was put back on him. He tried to recover his confidence. "It's Batman, isn't it? Are you the Bat?" He could feel himself being gently lowered. "Woah! Woah! Slow down! You won't kill, right? I've heard of you! You never kill!"

"Who said anything about kill? I was just going to barbecue you a bit."

He lowered down a bit further. "Woah! Woah!" The crackling sound of the electricity got closer and closer to his ears until it was all he could hear and think about. "I used Tetrachloric acid! Tetrachloric acid! For god's sake let me go!"

He could hear the clinking sound of the masked man looking through the bottles he carried in his bag.

"Where's the antidote?"

"There isn't one!"

He felt a huge hand grab him by the throat and pull him upwards. "Not good enough. Do you want to die?"

"There's no antidote! No antidote! For god's sake you must believe me! If anyone has been poisoned, they die!"