The church service on Sunday was unlike anything Crane had ever been to – although 18th-century America was filled with fire and brimstone preachers aplenty, Deacon Blackfire was another level, outstripping even Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" sermon. All was hellfire and damnation, all the congregation was condemned as deserving the darkest and most evil torments hell could conjure up, including the Headless Batman. Crane listened as Blackfire attested that the apparition was God's punishment on the sinners of Gotham, that those whose heads he claimed were spirited away to hell, that Satan was waiting for any opportunity to seize ahold of everyone here and condemn them to eternal, divine justice for their sins, and rightfully so.
Whatever Crane's personal beliefs, he couldn't argue with the effectiveness of Blackfire's message – the church was packed, and everyone in town was there. If he ever doubted the people of Gotham were masochistic, living in a town with a murdering ghost and all, it was confirmed by watching them as Blackfire berated and insulted them, which didn't seem to affect them in the slightest. It was probably more sociopathy than masochism, in point of fact. Either that or they were afraid Blackfire would notice who wasn't in attendance, and then hunt them down later and burn them alive as punishment. Crane certainly wouldn't have put such zealous fanaticism past him.
He noticed Mistress Ivy in particular glaring at the Deacon with a hatred that rivaled her hatred with which she had glared at J the other night. Crane supposed that if Mistress Ivy was truly rumored to be a witch, that there would be some legitimate tension between her and the Deacon.
As he looked around, he noticed someone was missing from the congregation. He had met Harley and her father at the entrance to the church before the service started, but she had mentioned she wanted some time alone to pay her respects at her mother's grave in the neighboring cemetery, and that was the last he had seen of her.
Crane glanced out the window, assuming that Harley was still at her mother's grave and hoping to spot her. And spot her he did. He was horrified to see her with her back against a tombstone as a familiar man pressed himself upon her, kissing her passionately.
"Repent of your sins, you wicked of Gotham, or be cast into the eternal fires of damnation!" Blackfire was shouting at the congregation, as Crane continued to stare in horror at J and Harley. "The Devil rides among us, cloaked in black batwings, and he will claim your head and your soul for Satan's wicked pleasures! Your sins are infinite and eternal, and that is why he haunts us for eternity, for Satan's minions can never be sated by a taste of carnage! Whenever you yield to your temptations, your greed, your anger, your gluttony, your lust, you draw him here to sip the sweet nectar of your damnable sins!"
J noticed Crane staring at him, and waved cheerfully, while never separating from Harley's mouth as the two sank down behind the gravestone together.
"Repent, oh repent, your wicked ways, and save yourself from the eternal hellfire of Satan's cursed kingdom!" exclaimed Blackfire. "Where the Batman will bring your heads before the Prince of Darkness, his damnable master, before he flings you into the pits of hell to be tormented by demons for all time! No superficial pleasure you receive on earth will compare to the pain you will suffer in payment of those, for all eternity! Confess your guilt, confess your wickedness, confess your sins, and the Lord may yet be merciful, although He need not be with such poor sinners as ourselves! We must beg Him to spare us the rightful fate of all sinners, cast into the fiery pits of hell forever!"
"I don't know what kind of things Deacon Blackfire thinks we get up to," sighed Van Tetch, as the congregation filed out after the service. "I doubt anybody in Gotham commits half so salacious the sins he hopes we do. Harley, my dear, you missed the service," he said, as his daughter came over to join him, looking perfectly innocent.
"That's all right, Father – I'm sure it's nothing I haven't heard before," said Harley.
"Always good to hear it again though," commented Crane. "It was all about the wages of sin, and what horrible fates can befall us by yielding to temptation."
"Sounds like a laugh riot," said J, who joined them, smiling at Crane. "Myself, I've never regretted giving in to a temptation in my life."
"Perhaps you may yet, in the afterlife," retorted Crane.
"Well, I'm not planning on going there anytime soon!" chuckled J. "Plenty of time to get myself right with the Lord! Now where's Nygma?"
"Here," said Nygma, who was exiting the church. "Do you have my money?"
Crane sighed, pulling out a few bills. "Will that be sufficient?" he asked.
"It'll do," sniffed Nygma, pocketing the money. "I hope you have a horse – it's quite a walk from here."
It was about twenty minutes by horseback when they reached a field, wide open and quiet, on the edge of the woods. A stream ran in between the field and the forest, separating the two, and all seemed so still and peaceful that it was almost impossible to imagine a battle taking place anywhere near here. It seemed a strange, dreamlike setting, unbroken by time or the cares of the world.
"The cannon was there," said Nygma, pointing toward the middle of the field. "The Batman came riding out from the woods, chopping off heads as he went. I aimed and fired, and he went down."
"Where did you aim?" asked Crane. "Toward the woods, I presume, but at what angle?"
"Why does that matter?" asked Nygma.
"If I can calculate the angle, the force, the trajectory, and the direction of the cannon ball, I should be able to figure out where it landed," replied Crane.
"Oooh, sounds like nerd stuff!" chuckled J. "Maybe you can bore the Headless Batman to death with that the next time you meet him!"
"I don't understand why you'd want to find the cannonball," said Nygma. "I suppose I could autograph it for you – it might be worth a lot of money someday…"
"So I can find the Headless Batman's head," interrupted Crane. "Which I presume was dragged along with it. If I can find that and return it to him, maybe he'll stop haunting Gotham."
"I doubt it," retorted Nygma.
"You don't believe that's the reason he rides through the Hollow every night?" asked Crane.
"No, I don't," retorted Nygma. "For one very simple reason. If all he needed to be at eternal peace was to find his head, why hasn't he found it by now? He knows where it blew off, and could probably spend his nights hunting the area for it. He would have stumbled across it eventually. But he's spent twenty-five years chopping off heads rather than looking for his own, which seems counter-intuitive if that's the reason he can't rest."
"I hate to admit it, but he makes a good point," said J, nodding.
"Maybe he can't intuit without a head," said Crane. "Maybe it needs to be returned to him by someone living. Maybe whatever supernatural power that binds him to the earth has restrictions against him being able to search for it."
"Of course that makes sense," said Nygma sarcastically, rolling his eyes.
"A headless corpse that can ride a horse and chop off heads doesn't make sense either, but here we are!" snapped Crane. "Just show me where the cannon was pointed!"
Nygma sighed. "Probably about here," he said, walking over to a patch of grass. "Pointing that way. It was tilted up, I'd say at about a sixty degree angle if memory serves."
"Excellent," said Crane, pulling out a small notebook and scribbling a diagram while calculating some numbers in his head.
"How is drawing gonna help you find the head?" asked J, looking over his shoulder.
"It's basic geometry and physics, J," sighed Crane. "Come attend my class sometime. You'd fit right in with the children – you're at the same level mentally. Now if my calculations are correct, the cannonball should have landed somewhere over here..."
He carefully began walking through the meadow, trying to visualize the battle, the blood and sweat, the sound of gunfire and bullets hissing through the air, the pain and confusion and rage of the dead and dying. He tried to visualize the Batman, emerging from the woods like a demon, like the wrath of God, like Deacon Blackfire said, bringing death to the wicked and virtuous alike with a slice of his sword across their necks…
He stopped, looking down. He had reached the edge of the field and now stood upon the bank of the stream. It was fast-flowing and fairly shallow, and as Crane looked down into the water, he saw the usual aquatic flora being pulled downstream, along with various rocks and pebbles...
And something else, he noticed, as the current brushed the algae aside to reveal that it was growing on something. Something round and black, like a cannonball…
Crane waded into the cold water, reaching down into the silt of the stream and trying to lift the cannonball. It did not budge easily, but eventually he managed to roll it away to reveal a grinning skull staring up at him, capped by a bat-shaped helmet.
"Success!" exclaimed Crane, seizing the skull and pulling it out of the water. "I found it!" he said, heading back over to Nygma and J.
"Great, give it to me!" said J, excitedly. "I've always wanted to do this – 'Alas poor Batsy – I knew him well!'" he said, posing with the skull.
"First of all, it's 'I knew him, Horatio,' - everybody misquotes that line," Crane muttered, taking the skull back from him. "And now we can test my hypothesis by reuniting the head with the body. Where is the body buried?"
"It isn't," retorted Nygma. "Obviously. It rides through the Hollow every night."
"But it must rest somewhere during the daytime," said Crane. "He doesn't have a grave?"
"Not that I know of," replied Nygma.
"But what did you do with the body after the battle?" asked Crane.
"Nothing," replied Nygma, shrugging. "Left it there for the crows. Nobody wanted to touch the corpse - everyone was afraid of him for good reason, and had no faith that death would hold him. A belief that was justified, as it turns out."
"I daresay that's contributed to his restlessness," retorted Crane. "I daresay once we return the head to the Headless Batman, he will die properly, and we can finally lay him to rest by giving him a proper burial."
"I admire your optimism," said Nygma, in a tone that implied the opposite. "But my suspicion is that the head has nothing to do with this. I told you, we left his body alone here after the battle. It's entirely possible that someone could have interfered with it, which is the reason he rides out now. I think the most likely explanation is that there's a spell upon the body, and that is why he rides out. Someone is controlling him."
"Someone?" repeated Crane. "Who?"
Nygma shrugged. "I have my suspicions. But really there's only one person who can cast spells in this town, only one person who was taught by somebody later hanged for witchcraft."
"You refer to Mistress Ivy," said Crane. "What motive could she have for invoking a vengeful ghost?"
"I just told you – her mother was hanged for witchcraft," said Nygma. "It was Deacon Blackfire who condemned her, along with most of the other residents of the town. I believe the Headless Batman is not God's judgment, but rather Ivy's way of making the town pay for what it did to her mother."
"That kinda makes sense – she is a total bitch," agreed J, nodding. "And suspiciously, everyone who's been murdered by the Batman so far has been men. And she really hates men."
"If Ivy is behind this, why is the Deacon still alive?" asked Crane. "He would logically have been her first target. Or don't you believe she can command the Headless Batman to attack specific people?"
"I don't, actually," agreed Nygma. "I believe she can bring him to life, but anything else is beyond her power. Anyway, Blackfire's no fool – he never leaves the church after dark, so perhaps there has been no opportunity for the Batman to dispatch him. Especially if Blackfire suspects that Ivy is controlling the Batman, he'll be extra cautious not to leave her an opportunity to attack him. And since Ivy can't make the man she wants pay, she makes everyone else pay until she can. I don't think reuniting the Batman with his head will do anything at all."
"Well, I look forward to proving you wrong," said Crane, placing the skull into a bag. "Which I will tonight, when the Headless Batman's reign of terror will come to an end."