Chapter One

Night is always old. No matter where you are, in what crowded city or deserted jungle, night creeps in on rotting and decayed paws, and you stare into its ancient face and maybe you blink and maybe you don't. Those who stare too deeply go insane, and then Bruce has to drag them bodily from the bloody edges they carve to where they cannot hurt anyone else.

Bruce doesn't blink in the face of the night. He knows every crevasse and wrinkle, every tag of dead skin that the zombie darkness wears. The night is an old friend, or at the minimum it is not an enemy, and sometimes that's the same.

Tonight he is cloaked in shadows, his favorite suit, as he watches them from the opposite rooftop. Even if one looked directly at him, there would be nothing to betray Bruce, not even the presence of darker shades of night.

The word came from the Watchtower an hour ago:

"We're not sure how they ambushed her," said Mister Terrific. "They want you, alone. I've got two teams on alert waiting for my signal."

And Bruce responded: "I'm going alone."

She's bound with her own lasso. He cursed whoever had revealed that nugget of information to the public, that Diana could be rendered helpless with the use of her own equipment. The men, all is masks as dark as Bruce's own, leered at her, though the way one limped Bruce knew she'd gotten in her own blows. She was still clothed, and none of them were touching her. Small favors.

He readied his batarangs. At the last time he'd timed himself, he could release four in less than two seconds. He'd incapacitate them before they even had a chance to react. Life was easier when the enemy was this stupid.

They crossed back and forth randomly. He waited until noen stood directly behind her.

With slick, practiced movemtns, he rose, aimed, and threw the batarangs. The first two bounced off a green field that appeared suddenly around the rooftop tableau but he'd already thrown the other two and could not stop them.

The men instantly spied his position and aimed their weapons. Bruce was already gone, merged with the shadows in another nearby building.

He'd given away his presence, and worse, he'd done so without so much as touching any of Diana's captors. He cursed again, even as one of the men placed a hand to his ear.

"Ah, Detective," came a too-familiar voice from elsewhere in the shadows. "I was hoping you would join us."

(to be continued?)