Chapter 25 - "A Riddle Solved"
"I don't care, Stanford! We've had two council members murdered!" Gordon fumed. "I know you've got time off, but we need all available officers to look after the city officials. Why? Because someone is targeting them! Just meet me at GCPD."
Gordon slammed his thumb onto the "end call" button as he punched his fist into the marble countertop in the kitchen. His knuckles throbbed in pain, and he glanced down. Warm crimson liquid oozed from the broken skin, and Gordon hissed a curse. Whirling to the sink, he saw Barbara standing in the doorway, her red hair hanging over her shoulders.
"What's wrong, Dad?" she asked. Her voice quivered, and her eyes looked to be confused. Gordon couldn't blame her; he had a bloodied fist and had just cursed, something he tended to not do around his daughter.
"Nothing," he lied. "I'm fine."
"Are you sure? Your hand—"
"I said I'm fine!" Gordon snapped. Barbara bit her lip and shrank back.
Gordon began to weep as he wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his hands. "I-I'm sorry, Barb. Councilman Patrick has been murdered."
Barbara stood in silence. She knew of her father's friendship with the councilman, and she knew the pain he was in. That came of being a police commissioner's daughter. Without uttering a word, she rushed across the room and enveloped him in a fierce hug.
Jim didn't hesitate to return the embrace as the two stood in silence, except for the sounds of sniffling. "I love you, Dad," Barbara choked from behind her tears. Jim smiled as he hugged his daughter tightly, pulling away.
"I love you too, Barbara." He brushed her hair over her ear, forcing a smile onto his lips. "I'm sorry, but I probably won't be around too much for the next couple days. You understand, right?" Barbara gave a resilient nod with a sly grin.
"Of course. That's part of the duties of a loyal police commissioner."
"You can say that again," Jim replied. He slowly turned to exit, making sure he had all of his belongings—phone, check; wallet, check; gun, check. All the essentials were there. He turned to Barbara and said, "If you need something and can't reach me, call GCPD headquarters, the mayor's office, whoever you need to. Okay?"
"'kay," Barbara said with a grin. "Stay safe, Dad."
"I will. See you soon." Gordon turned and left the house, inhaling sharply. It was a new day; but things were still not settled or secure. Gotham was in shambles, in danger. The top government leaders were all in danger—perhaps even himself. There couldn't be too many other influential figures in Gotham City beyond their chief of police. That meant Gordon needed to be on his guard more than ever before, a task that was hard to accomplish in and of itself.
His phone began to buzz, and Gordon checked the caller ID, seeing it was Bullock. Answering it, he quickly spoke: "Bullock. What've you got?"
Bullock answered, "Yeah, Commish, something's come up. That Renegade kid—he has a blood sample of the Bat."
"A blood sample?! Then that means we can find check it out and see if there's anything we can learn about it from its DNA."
"Erm . . . my thoughts exactly, Commish. We'll be waiting for you with Nygma at forensics."
Gordon had begun to stride to his car. "Never mind waiting for me—get on it. The sooner we scan the blood, the sooner we can start to make sense of this giant bat problem. You can fill me in when I get there."
"Sure thing." Gordon hung up the call after Bullock's reply and entered his vehicle, stuffing the key into the ignition and gunning the engine.
Finally, we catch a break.
Harvey Dent was nervously straightening his tie as he glanced from the mirror in his office to the grandfather clock, ticking with the intensity of a bomb's timer counting away the last seconds in a person's life. He could hear the loud shouts and anxious chit-chat of newspaper reporters outside his office. He had glanced out the window dozens of times already, and only God knew how many reporters, photographers, and just plain busybodies were outside waiting for his impromptu speech.
A knock sounded on his door, and Harvey said, "Who is it?"
"It's Ross, Harv."
"Come in, Ross," Harvey softly replied. The door to his office cracked open as a slim and rather slight man walked in. A few years' Harvey's junior, Ross Dewey was one of the DA's official aides, and unprofessionally one of Harvey's closest friends since elementary school. He had actually gotten Ross the job as one of his aides to help him get a footing after his writing career had bottomed out once he finished college. Turned out Ross was quite the natural and keeping things in order, and he had steadily risen to become top of the line for Harvey, both as a political aide and a good friend.
"You ready?" Ross asked, a bit of uncertainty in his own voice.
"Yeah. Yeah, I suppose so." Truth be told, Harvey was anything but ready. First Councilwoman Stevens, now Councilman Patrick? Two city leaders murdered days apart and he's the one called upon to give a speech. He wasn't too surprised; Mayor Hill had too much going on politically for him to be the prime candidate for a speechmaker, and Arthur Reeves was a joke, quite frankly. It didn't surprise him in the slightest, but it still made him nervous.
"I still don't like this thing, not one bit. An impromptu speech just like that? After the murders of two City Council members? I think we should have some security measures at least."
"You're too pessimistic, Ross," Harvey said lightheartedly. "There's going to be a dozen officers there standing guard, not to mention my own security staff. Things will be fine."
"I don't know. Don't you think—"
"Ross, relax. Things . . . will . . . be . . . fine. Understand me?"
Ross nodded solemnly. "Yeah, I understand what you're saying, but that doesn't mean I have to buy it hook, line, and sinker. The one who had saved the day when everything was going to hell was the Batman, and he's gone—no one's heard from him in, like, weeks. Now all we can trust is GCPD, and if I'm being fully honest, I don't know if I could trust them more than I could throw them. They're either corrupt, or too stupid to do anything—no offense to Jim Gordon, but it's God's simple truth."
Harvey stared at Ross and blinked once before stating firmly, "I know things aren't looking good, Ross, but they can't go down anymore. Things have to look up sooner or later."
Ross slowly nodded. "I suppose you're right."
Harvey grinned as he patted his friend's shoulder. "Go out there and tell Mayor Hill that I'll be ready in a jiffy."
Ross gave him a slim smile back. "Sure thing, Harv." Ross turned and left the room, and the moment he did, Harvey's grin slowly dissipated.
"What am I going to do?"
Gordon quickly rushed into the forensics office at GCPD headquarters, where Renegade, Bullock, and Nygma were surrounding a microscope that Nygma was peering through. Immediately as he entered, the three glanced to the commissioner. "Find anything?" he asked the moment he crossed the threshold.
"Not yet," Nygma sighed. "I'm not seeing anything too out of the ordinary. Quite honestly, it just looks like a sample of human blood with a few minor variations. More human than animal."
"Do you think," Gordon started, stroking his chin, "that this bat might actually be . . . man? Not fully animal?"
"It's quite possible," Nygma spoke after a few seconds of silence. "A lot has been done with gene-splicing lately. It's certainly in the realm of possibility that someone with the know-how could have gotten their hands on some splicing equipment and done some experiments and . . . well, the results are quite obvious."
"In that case," Gordon began, "get that sample and run it through our computers. Perhaps it can find a match and we can continue with this investigation down a more traditional route."
Nygma nodded briskly. "On it." He quickly removed the blood plate from the microscope and turned to a computer console, where he began fiddling with some instruments.
"While he does that," Gordon said, "I think we should take the time to—"
The door into the forensics lab slammed open and Officer Grant was standing at the door, huffing. "Commissioner, I've been looking all over for you."
"What is it, Grant?" Gordon asked, turning from Bullock and Renegade.
"It's the DA," Grant replied. "Dent's about to make an emergency speech outside of City Hall about the murders."
"What?!" Gordon exclaimed. "That fool—why didn't he contact me? He'll have close to no security there, besides the officers regularly stationed there."
Grant shook his head. "Dunno. He must've figured this was too important to prolong or something. Regardless, he's starting his speech in ten minutes."
Suddenly, from his computer, Nygma's head snapped towards Gordon and Grant. "Wait a moment—Grant, did you say he was giving his speech at City Hall?" Grant nodded. Nygma's face fell. "Oh my." He turned to Gordon, who had an incredulous look of confusion on his face. "The riddle in Councilwoman Stevens's office—it said 'the bell, book, and candle.' City Hall has a massive bell affixed to the top of it, and it's right next door to the library."
Catching on, Renegade's face likewise fell. "And City Hall is right on the corner of Candle Way."
Gordon's jaw dropped. "Dear God—we've got to get there now." He whirled to Grant. "Get to dispatch and have them contact the rest of the team and have them meet us at City Hall. Something's going to go down—I just know it."
Grant nodded and took off down the hall as Gordon turned to the others. "Ed, the blood sample can wait. We need all the help we can get at City Hall. You three come with me."
They didn't need any additional prodding.
Well, it's certainly been a long time.
First things first: I am so very sorry that it has taken so long for me to update this story, but the waiting game is over. I've tried to work on the story as much as I can, but things have been incredibly busy over the last year, from tons of changes in my life as a whole to the ongoing time I have to devote to work and school, and pretty much all of my free time has been swamped over by a combination of those things. Long story short, I have been able to work in my free time lately to piece together the next chapter of this story. It isn't incredibly long, and the story doesn't advance a ton (and yes, I know that practically none of the OCs got any time in this chapter, but trust me, next one will more than make up for it). I have just been wanting to get SOMETHING done for you guys, because it has been so long.
My deepest and sincerest apologies to those of you who have been waiting for something new for this story, and as this chapter is evidence, the wait is now over. The next chapter will have a ton of action, some really sweet character moments, and just be an overall banger to bring this story back with. I hope that everyone who has submitted an OC or has followed this story since day one is still here and will be back with me for this journey - it is one I have wanted to get back to for the longest time.
If you have any suggestions or just want to shoot the breeze and talk about something related to this story, then drop me a PM, I'm always open for a chat! Hope you all are doing well and will stay tuned for the next chapter. Thank you all.