Alfred sat quietly beside Bruce, monitoring his vitals as he waited for Zatanna to arrive. He hoped she would get here soon. He had managed to stabilize Bruce and he was the toughest man he knew, but even he couldn't last forever in his state. He had done what little he could to staunch the bleeding and suture the cuts, and he had hooked Bruce up to an IV to try and counteract some of the massive loss of vital fluids, but it wasn't nearly enough.
Now there was nothing to do but hope and pray. He hoped Zatanna would come soon, because Bruce's breathing was too shallow for his liking. As if the world itself heard his thoughts, there was a loud crash from upstairs, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of shattering glass. Instantly Alfred picked up the Winchester rifle beside him and ascended the steps to the upper levels of the manor as quickly and noiselessly as he could.
As Alfred got closer and closer to the heart of the house he heard muffled voices, like people arguing, except one was trying to placate another. He took a deep breath, slapped the rifle stock to his shoulder and rounded the corner.
"Identify yourselves." he said sharply, then he cocked the shotgun. All he could see from this angle was a thin lanky man in a dress shirt and pants, with what looked like chocolate milk stains on his groin. He had short but shaggy blond hair and several days worth of stubble on his jaw. The tan Oxfords on his feet could have done with a bit of polishing. He raised his hands the minute he saw the gun.
"Whoah Alfred, its me." said a familiar voice.
"Miss Zatanna?"
She emerged from behind the blond man. "Hi. Sorry about the chandelier. The shock-wave was stronger than I thought it would be."
He didn't lower the rifle.
"Who is this?" he asked instead, motioning to Constantine with his head.
"This is my friend John Constantine. Don't worry, he's here to help."
John didn't dare move. The old man looked like he knew how to handle the weapon. Not that you'd have to be Wild Bill at ten paces with a shotgun.
Alfred didn't like it, but it wasn't like he had a choice. He motioned for Zatanna to follow, finally lowering the rifle.
"Not you." he said sharply when John tagged along. "You wait here. And don't touch anything."
"Er...Okay." John said. Zatanna disappeared down a hallway with the elderly man, and he sat down in a leather armchair to wait. He took the time to study his surroundings.
It looked like he had been dead on about the caller being an upper class person. This house was huge, bigger than any he had ever been in, more like a museum than a residence. The furniture was old, perhaps even antique, but very well maintained. Knobs were polished, wooden surfaces gleamed, and anything with metal or glass shone like stars.
There was quite a lot of art, including one hideous piece that he identified as a Jackson Pollock painting right away.
He had always wondered what the obsession was with rich people and art that looked like utter crap.
The piece he was looking at now resembled a child's doodles on MS Paint.
Maybe it was about the monumental financial value of the paintings that was of interest. Even a layman like him knew that some of these highbrow paintings cost upwards of a hundred million dollars; and that was on the very low side. That must be it, the elitism, because he sure as shit couldn't see any artistic genius on the canvas. He'd vomited better works of art into his toilet bowl after a night of pubcrawling ending with a supper of chicken vindaloo.
In fact, wasn't Pollock a drunk?
It didn't really matter, because he was an artistic drunk.
Still, taste in art aside, whoever this bloke is, he's one rich bastard, John thought to himself.
He could only imagine what the other works of art were worth, what everything else in this big bloody house was worth.
This was the kind of opulence people sold their souls for.
He grinned. This would be the greatest house-call of his life, and the fattest paycheck too. Maybe he could retire early.
"What happened to him?" Zatanna asked, staring at the comatose Bruce in horror.
"I think he was attacked. The weapon used was a sword, a very sharp sword."
"Who could do this to him?"
"I really don't know. Master Bruce isn't the most forthcoming when it comes to his...extracurricular activites." he paused, trying to hide his fear and failing miserably. "Please Miss Zatanna, can you save him?"
She looked into Alfred's watery eyes. He looked exhausted, like he had aged ten years since she had last seen him. She wanted to say 'I'll try', but she knew it wouldn't be adequate. He was clearly on the verge of breaking down.
"Yes." she said with finality. His expression eased somewhat. "But I'll need John's help."
Alfred frowned.
"I'm not sure I trust that fellow." he said. "He seems like a...forgive me for saying this, but he seems like..."
"Like what?"
"A rascal. A hooligan. A ne'er do well. The type of chap that would steal your spoons when you weren't looking. And he reeks of tobacco."
"Look, he's not the sharpest looking guy you'll find, but he's a reliable guy, I promise. I didn't bring him here just to gawk at stuff."
Alfred sighed.
"Very well, but only because you vouched for him. But what about later? You know how Master Bruce feels about strangers in his home, and...in the basement."
"We'll cross that bridge when we get there."
He looked doubtful, but relented. "Alright. I suppose I shall leave you to it. If you should need anything-"
"I don't think we will. Get some rest Alfred. You look like you need it."
"Rest? Who can rest at a time like this?" he muttered to himself, climbing the stairs.
Bruce's mind was elsewhere, in a pool of memories long buried but never truly forgotten.
He is running through a field, chasing a butterfly. He is 6 years old.
The butterfly fascinates him, its colors are so pretty, and the sun seems to shimmer on the dew of its wings like irises.
His spirit is all Martha. Ever inquisitive, and stubborn to a fault. But he's the spitting image of his father.
He'll break a lot of hearts when he grows up, the ladies say.
Bruce runs after the butterfly as best he can on his stubbly toddler's feet, not yet accustomed to the slight rolls and bumps of the fields in Wayne Manor.
His parents are just a few metres away, playing badminton with a net hastily erected by Alfred at his own insistence. It is summer, and it is hot.
There is a pitcher of lemonade on a small table beside them, and every few minutes Thomas pauses to pour himself and Martha a glass. He was born into obscene privilege, but Thomas doesn't like having a butler hovering over him like some brainless automaton.
Though he's had servants surrounding him all his life, their presence makes him oddly uncomfortable. His friends constantly chide him for his humility, but it is secretly a quality they all admire and envy with equal measure.
Alfred himself is in the house as usual, putting the finishing touches on the strawberry cheesecake that he will serve as dessert after their lunch of lamb tagines and stuffed bell peppers.
Martha stops to have a drink of lemonade to quench her thirst. Normally they'd be swimming in the pool when it got this hot, but the tiles are being redone. The old ones have started to crack and show the gunky brown bottom, filled with moss.
"Lunch really should be ready about now. I'm hungry." Martha said.
"Yeah? Sure its not the fact that I'm kicking your-" she shot him a reprimanding look.
"Butt. I was going to say butt." he grinned.
She pointed the racket at him threateningly, then she motioned to where Bruce was seated.
"We don't want our son learning bad manners, do we?"
And that's when she noticed their son wasn't there anymore.
"Brucie? Bruuucie honey, where aaaare youuuuu?" she called in a sing song voice.
No reply.
She calls again, still no reply.
"He probably just went off exploring again Mart. You know how he is."
"Bruuuce? Brucie honey, come back. If you're playing hide and seek, you've won! You can come out now! Its almost time to have lunch!" her voice took on a more urgent tone.
Silence.
"How does he always sneak off so quietly?" Thomas mused aloud.
"I told you to stop watching all those action hero shows with him Tom! He goes around half the time thinking he's Zorro or The Phantom on some great adventure."
"Hey, relax hon. We'll find him. I know this place like the back of my own hand."
But there had been a storm a few months back, one of the biggest in Gotham's history in fact, and it had washed away much of the top soil in the expansive compound. What Thomas and Martha didn't know was that an ancient, collapsed tunnel network had been uncovered by the floodwaters. It wasn't exactly a gaping hole, but it was more than large enough for a six year old boy to fall into, which is exactly what had happened to Bruce.
The moment he fell in he had been deathly silent.
He was paralysed, truly paralysed with fear. Save for the sliver of light peeking in through the narrow crevice, it was so dark he couldn't see past his own nose, and he could hear the trickling and constant drip drip drip of an underground stream. It smelled dank, and he could hear soft rustling sounds, accompanied by strange chattering noises.
He held his breath instinctively. Something was coming.
When the first bat flew at him he screamed in abject terror. It was the ugliest and most horrifying thing he had ever seen in his all too short existence. All fangs and evil black eyes, its shrill shrieking filling his ears. He screamed for what felt like ages as more and more flew around him, swatting his face and hands with their coarse leathery wings. Eventually he stopped; not because he had conquered his fear. His throat simply hurt too much. Luckily his desperate cries had attracted his parents.
"Bruce! Bruce! Oh my god! Thomas! Thomas! He's fallen down a hole!"
"I am pretty sure that wasn't there before...Alfred! Get a shovel, some rope, and the biggest plank of wood you can find!" He called out with the air of a man used to giving out orders and having them followed. Had he been anything but a neurosurgeon he doubted he would have been able to keep his wits about him so masterfully in the face of such a crisis. It must have been fate. Perhaps what everyone said about trouble finding him was right.
Martha was beside herself with fear, but she kept up a strong front for the sake of her baby boy. Still, the doctor in Thomas recognized the signs of shock she was displaying immediately, and the husband in him could see beyond that, see the terror in her eyes. He wondered if she could see through his front too. When Alfred arrived with the items, he knew he had to work quickly.
Between the digging, constantly checking to make sure he didn't accidentally bury Bruce, and wedging the plank inside the tiny slit to widen it and get Bruce to safety, it took 3 hours to extricate him, and that was with Thomas working non-stop, not even letting Alfred relieve him for a second. His shirt clung to his sweating body, and his face and arms were smudged with mud and dirt. The only positive was that all the digging and light drove the bats away.
Through all that time Bruce had been silent. His infant mind with no grasp of time had no way of knowing how long he had been trapped in there. He only knew that it was bright when he fell in, and now it was dark.
When Thomas pulled him out of the hole Martha couldn't hold herself together anymore. She hugged Bruce so tight his ribs hurt, and she didn't even care for the dirt that stained her four hundred dollar summer dress.
"Don't ever do that again! Don't ever leave me! Do you hear me Bruce?" she had said.
He nodded dumbly, still trying to process the whole situation.
She burst into tears, but he had been too young to understand that sometimes people cried because of joy. He desperately tried to wipe her eyes with his grimy hands, smudging mud on her face.
"I'm sorry mama. Don't cry. I'll never ever leave you again. I promise." Bruce said earnestly.
She laughed then, and nuzzled her face against his.
"I know baby, I know you won't. And I'll never leave you."
Thomas stood off to the side, catching his breath. His hands wouldn't stop shaking. Out of old habit he reached into his breast pocket for a cigarette, and then remembered Martha made him quit months ago. He blinked rapidly to stop the tears of relief he could feel coming on. Thomas had always been a stoic man, but having a child changed him so much. He cried so easily now, at the tiniest of things. He handed the shovel, rope and plank to Alfred, with instructions that the hole should be cemented over the very next day by the workmen once they finished tiling the bottom of the pool.
"Come on you little troublemaker, let's get you cleaned up." Thomas said, taking one of his hands as Martha took the other. They walked back to the house as the sun set, Alfred walking behind them with the tools.
At that moment Bruce knew that he was loved, because if anything ever happened to him, his parents would always be there to save him.
"What the bleeding hell is this, a gimp?" John asked, looking down at Bruce. His face was still concealed by the cowl, and whatever parts of his body that weren't injured were still in costume too.
"John, please, not now."
"Not now? I don't even...I mean, what is this place? Who has a computer this big? And...Are these more gimp costumes? Is this some sort of underground BDSM club? Why do rich people have to be so goddamned eccentric? Does the money make them kooky or what? And I thought Howard Stern was weird."
"I think you mean Howard Hughes. If you could just focus on the matter at hand here, that would be great."
He stooped closer to inspect the injuries. "My Lord, this man's been cut up, multiple times. He's not been attacked by a demon, has he?"
"No."
"The house isn't haunted?"
"No."
"Nothing supernatural at all?"
"No."
"Well then I can't help." he said, straightening up.
"You said you would."
"Yes, because I assumed we'd be dealing with the paranormal, not...this." he motioned at all of Bruce. "Fuck. Take him to a hospital. This man needs a team of surgeons, not a demonologist and a stage magician."
"John, pull yourself together and stop being a little bitch. We can do this."
He sighed, running a hand over his face.
"Alright...I'm assuming we want to heal him, correct?"
"Yes. But these are complex injuries, many of them internal. Its not like I can just say 'heal' over and over again."
He puffed out his cheeks, wracking his brains for an answer.
"It helps to make it a sort of incantation."
"Like what?"
"You know...Like the witches in MacBeth. Double double, toil and trouble... Chant it like a mantra. Like the old spells. But you've got to keep it short. It has to be easy to recite, and most importantly easy to focus on. Remember-"
"The words are just words, the magic is inside me. I know, dad used to say that all the time." she paused. "I'm not too good at poetry."
"Neither am I."
"You're British."
"So what? That makes me W.B Yeats all of a sudden?"
"Yeats was Irish."
"You just keep getting things right today."
"John, this is serious. I'm nervous too but I'm trying to be composed here."
He sighed again.
Alright you crackpot, you've cheated the Devil himself. How hard can this be?
"How about this?
Skin and bone, muscle and sinew
Form yourself as if anew
Wounds knot, bones mend
To this pain, I bring an end.
Good enough?"
"That's it? That's...That's pretty basic. Why are you even here? I could have thought of this myself."
"Its not like I had a flipping choice. I was enjoying my cereal and sci-fi very much, thank you."
"Fair enough."
"Anyway, basic is good. Basic can't be forgotten. But can you say it backwards?"
"I can sing entire albums backwards. What's a four stanza poem?"
"Alright." he said, rolling up his sleeves and taking off his wristwatch. It always went on the fritz whenever serious magic was involved, and this was a Breitling, not just any old thing pawned from a shifty-eyed skag head inside the local.
"Let's get to it then."
Zatanna slowly started the incantation. It was a little unnerving to hear her speak in that manner, but he was growing accustomed to it. He didn't need to chant anything, experienced enough to cast spells using his will alone.
Slowly the air around Bruce started to shimmer, then hum. A bright white light surrounded his body as the spell started to take effect. She could already feel the drain on her body, a slow trickle like her life essence was slowly leaking out of her. Across from her, John's bright yellow energy signature backed up her own silvery signature. She had a lot more power than him; the result of several centuries worth of (near) pure mystic blood flowing through her veins.
In all honesty, Zatanna didn't really need John's help. He was a bit of a jobber when it came down to it, whereas she was a Homo-Magi. She'd seen him practice magic several times over the years. His spells were just quick-fix sort of things. He was more into divination, and simple incantations that would protect him from hazards of the job, like 'getting his soul ripped out through his arsehole', as he once eloquently said.
True sorcery though, always was and always would be the preserve of her race. Besides, she had more than enough creativity and ability to handle this sort of thing.
So what the hell did she need him for? Inspiration? He wasn't exactly the poster boy for that.
Perhaps it was the personal sentiment involved, because she had never really been the damsel in distress type who needed help for every little crisis in her life. Perhaps knowing Bruce made her over-cautious, maybe even scared.
Had the roles been reversed and it was her lying on that gurney, she'd like to believe Bruce would be scared too.
Ha, not fucking likely Zatanna.
John could feel the neural 'load' getting lighter. In a few more minutes she'd be doing all the work and he'd just be performing a fancy light-show.
He wondered if she knew just how powerful she really was.
A/N: Once again, I haven't abandoned this story. I've been battling some personal issues that have affected my ability to write and publish as frequently as I'd have desired. This is all I've got for now, but the next update will be more substantial because I'd like to wrap this up soon and move onto the next instalment; then I can crack open the Easter eggs I've laid.
How about that Wonder Woman film though? Exceeded my expectations by far. I just wish the Germans spoke more German, but everything else was perfect. It also seemed to show at the end that Diana can fly(?) Justice League looks promising as well, perhaps Aquaman will be the dark horse.