Family
Chapter Fourteen
Disclaimer: all characters are property of their respective owners.
Spoilers: to the end of season 7 of Buffy (I'm not including the season 8+ comics in this continuity), general spoilers for Batman and mild spoilers for X-Men: Evolution season 1.
Author Note: the version of the Batman that will appear here draws from several versions. And the X-Men hails from the X-Men: Evolution cartoon, although I'm not above drawing from the comics.
A/N 2: I would appreciate feedback on the story, on how could be improved, or things that I have gotten wrong.
A/N 3:Sorry for the long hiatus, but real life intervened. I hope that the next chapter will be here in a more timely manner.
I wish to give thanks to JediKnight for betareading and general creative input.
Silas Wayne residence
After talking for quite a bit with Uncle Silas, Bruce and the Summers sisters decided to go back to the manor. Bruce went to pick-up his car first, and found to his surprise, that somebody waiting for him in a sports car.
"Julie! What brings you here?" Bruce said, getting out of the Lamborghini as he saw the redhead walked toward his car.
"Hi, Bruce. And it's something better to be discussed..." Julie started to say, as the Summers sisters arrived in their borrowed SUV, "...here outside."
"Hello, I'm Buffy Summers." Buffy said, getting out of the car in her best Valley Girl impression.
"Buffy, this is Julie Madison, one of my best friends." Bruce said, gesturing to the redhead, "Julie, Buffy is... a relative on my mother side."
"Yep. Mom was, like, from the black sheep branch of the Kanes." Buffy said.
"Joyce Kane, right?" Julie said, and then explained, "She caused a bit of a ruckus in the society pages back in the day, the prodigal daughter of one of 'Gotham's Four Families' returning home."
"And you would know, as one of the curators of the Gotham City Museum's collections." Bruce said with a smile.
"Just an assistant curator and even that is only part time." Julie said, with the easiness that denoted an old 'back-and-forth' between the two of them, "Anyway, I was going to call you to vouch for me, he has a reputation as a bit of a hermit, but finding you here it's even better."
A few minutes later they were back into Silas study, Julie looking around with interest, while the old man gave her a deep look.
"Julie Madison? You are Norman Madison's daughter, right?" Silas asked after she was presented to him.
"Yes, do you know him?" Julie said.
"Only by reputation, actually." Silas said, shaking his head, "I had retreated from Gotham high society when your family moved to Gotham from L.A."
Buffy frowned when she heard this. 'Could she be related to Amy? There is some resemblance...' she thought.
"Yeah..." she said, the silence stretching for some time, until she started to speak again, "Well, the reason why I came was to ask about the Kyle collection."
"So, somebody finally joined the pieces." Silas said.
"So it's true that your father Charles bought most of the Kyle collection." Julie said.
"Yes, Father had been lucky in 1929; he didn't lose almost everything like the Kyles or the Queens, and was able to help the Kyles to at least pay the debts." he said, and then sighed before continuing, "Unfortunately he couldn't prevent Felix Kyle's suicide."
"He killed himself?" Dawn asked, while Julie noted it down.
"Officially it was ruled as an accident, but, well, he was found drowned in the riverside in November 1929, despite being a great swimmer, wearing his usual clothes, and before disappearing he had left everything ready for his wife and child, so they could have a comfortable life." Silas said, "A bit surprising, given that from what Mother told me, he was not in his right mind in his last weeks, talking at all hours about owls wanting him dead."
"Owls? Why, owls?" Julie asked.
"I don't know, but Mother thought that it had to do with a piece of art from one of the tribes that lived in the area before Gotham was settled, representing a creature with the head of an owl." Silas said with a shrug.
"That would be the piece that was called the 'Owl Witch-Doctor'." Julie said, before explaining, "I have been looking for clues about the Kyle collection in the last weeks, including looking at pictures of the more unique pieces. That piece was part of a set with a warrior with the head of a bat..."
Buffy looked at Bruce and arched an eyebrow, who shrugged.
"...and possibly other pieces, but the 18th Century manuscript that described the... acquisition of the pieces by Jeremiah Kyle was damaged in the Great Fire of Gotham of 1889." Julie finished, not noticing the byplay.
"Acquisition? Given the stories that I have heard about Jeremiah, he probably stole them." Silas said with a snort, and then explained, "He and Samuel Kane were highwaymen in England and when they came to the New World they become pirates before settling in Gotham as rich men."
O'Hare International Airport. Chicago
"Dad? It's Barbara, I'm in the airport, my flight will depart in an hour." Barbara Gordon told to her adoptive father's voicemail. 'He's probably working in a case. Typical. I'll call again before embarking.'
She took her laptop and started to work on the software project she was working on, automating database searches for police work, inside a series of parameters to minimize the amount of false positives. Unfortunately, in its current state only she could use the program, and she didn't fancy being an oracle when she had better things to do with her time.
"Barbara Gordon?" she heard a voice say, interrupting her train of thoughts.
She looked up and saw a brown haired young man with an athletic build looking at her. He looked familiar for some reason, but she couldn't place him.
"Yes?" she asked warily.
"Ted Kord, from..." the man said, presenting himslef.
"Kord Inc. Yes, you were one of the sponsors of that science festival last year." Barbara said in a more relaxed tone, "What can I do for you?"
"I was quite impressed by your work in the science fair, and I wanted to know if you would be amenable to work part time on Kord Inc..." Ted said.
"I would be interested in that, but I have already enrolled in Gotham U..." Barbara started to say before being interrupted.
"I'm aware of that, but the job I'm proposing it can be mostly done from home, only having to go in person to my offices monthly, if that." Kord interrupted her.
"...What part of my presentation are you interested in?" Barbara asked.
"The self-piloting software for the drone." Kord asked, "I assume that it can be applied to full scale flying vehicles."
"In theory, but it would need to be refined quite a lot." Barbara said, "With a five pounds drone you can ignore several factors that become important once you increase the mass by one or two thousands."
"And the converse is true." Kord replied,
"Pretty much, Mr. Kord." Barbara nodded, "Furthermore..."
Silas Wayne Manor
While Bruce and his cousins left probably for Wayne Manor, Julie checked the notes he had taken from what Silas had told them. In between notes about the Kyle collection, and Jeremiah Kyle and his obsession with murdering owls, she had amassed a good collection of stories about Gotham's Four Families, the Waynes, the Kanes, the Kyles and the Queens, and their origins. It could be interesting for a future exposition, though maybe downplaying a bit about the Queens, after last year revelations.
Apparently, a sizable part of the collection was still in Wayne Manor, the pieces that Patrick Wayne hadn't donated to museums or sold to collectors, probably because they were curios without real value. A significant exception, at least according to Silas, was the owl-headed figurine that had been the probable source of Jeremiah Kyle obsession, and some ancient books. Bruce had invited her to look at them tomorrow...
Julie wasn't aware that her hand, where she kept her phone to take verbal notes, was moving on her own volition, sending a call to a number that she had in the memory of the phone, and cutting the call immediately.
She had just finished revising her notes, while thinking of some of the stories that Silas had told about Gotham past, when the phone rang. She looked at the number and recognized it as Dala's, and unknown to her, the same number she had unknowingly called a few minutes ago.
"Yes, Dala?" she asked, knowing that the Monk didn't like modern devices.
"Hi, Julie." Dala said on the phone. "May the Master blessing be with you."
Upon hearing the code phrase, Julie entered a trance.
"Yes, Mistress?" she said, in a flat tone.
"Report." Dala ordered.
"Found the whereabouts of two of the tomes." she said mechanically, "They were part of the Kyle collection, but after the Crash of 1929, Charles Wayne bought the bulk of it to help his brother-in-law, and despite Patrick Wayne divesting himself of most of it, they are still in Wayne Manor."
"Can you get access to them in the next days?" Dala asked.
"Bruce Wayne invited me tomorrow to give it a look." Julie replied, in the same flat tone than before.
"Make some excuse to stay that night and take them to us." Dala ordered, "Is there any other piece on the collection that may be of interest?"
"There is a figurine which may be the Owl Shaman." Julie replied.
"Really? Interesting." Dala said. "Bring it to us, also."
"Yes, Mistress." Julie answered.
"You'll wake up from the trance at the count of three and you will remember that you called me by accident, and that we chatted a bit about the next session." Dala said, "One, two..."
Thomas Wayne Memorial Clinic
Sidney Delveccio had just finished her dinner, bland hospital food that after the junk that the monsters had fed her tasted like a piece of heaven, and after disposing of it she sat down on the bed to think about her future. A month ago she was just a waitress who dreamed of escaping the dreariness of life in Gotham City, but that life was long gone by now.
Her reflections were interrupted by the arrival of Doctor Thompkins.
"Hi, Sydney, how are we today?"
"Physically, well enough, I suppose..." she said, trailing off at the end.
Leslie understood what had been left unsaid, and resolved to talking to Buffy as soon as possible. She had confided her plans to offering Sydney a place in one of the Slayer Academies they were setting up, and she thought that this girl needed heavy counseling before even thinking to fight against those... monsters. Something she wasn't really happy about, but...
Her train of thoughts were interrupted when her phone rang.
"One moment," she said as she stepped out of the room, one of the few that the clinic had for patients that needed a longer stay, and looked at the caller ID. To her surprise it was Bruce, by his normal number, not the special line he had for his... night work.
"Hi, Bruce." Leslie said,
"Hi, Leslie. Do you remember Buffy and Dawn, Joyce Summers daughters?"
"Vaguely, it has been... what? Fifteen years?" she answered. 'So, this is how you are going to play this, right? Maybe there is still hope for you, Bruce.'
"More or less. Well, they are in town."
"Ah, yes, Dawn is sixteen now, right? I was one of the witness for you father's will, remember."
"O..kay," Bruce said, she had to give him points for naturalness, "They want to visit you, having being a friend of her mother and all that."
"Of course, I have no problem. Are you coming too?"
"No, I have... other commitments, sorry." Bruce said.
"Ah, okay." Leslie said,while thinking, 'Meaning, of course that he has to skulk around in his bat costume somewhere.' "I'll go to receive them at the door"
DuBois Manor
Jim Gordon had needed most of the morning to get the Sheriff to agree to this, and he only did after he pointed that Gotham's County Sheriff Department lacked a dedicated SWAT team. Not that they have needed it at the end, as they found the manor abandoned in what seemed to be a hurry.
Now the CSIs were pottering around recovering traces and unearthing the corpses. So far it served as a grim reminder of the evil of man, not that anybody serving as Law Enforcement in Gotham needed such reminder.
"Captain Gordon?" one of the sheriff deputies called him, interrupting his thoughts. He was tall, but slightly overweight, and his red hair was starting to thin on his head, not unlike his old friend from his time in the Department of Homicides, O'Hara. The bushy moustache, mirrored sunglasses and raspy voice completed the image. A false image, because they had already talked earlier, and knew that Batman was under the makeup and prosthetics.
"Yes, Deputy... O'Bannon?" he asked, pausing just enough to look as if he barely remembered the man.
He didn't say anything, but motioned Gordon to follow him, which he did, because there was something that he wanted to see, to confirm some of his suspicions. They only walked a few steps, finding themselves close to one of the manor broken windows, where they could see the ballroom where most of the action had taken place.
"What have you discovered?" Gordon said, while looking to the ballroom. 'Ashes all over the place, in clumps that couldn't have been made by the wind. Just like I suspected.'
"Nobody has come since yesterday, also, the results of the autopsy of the two officers dead when transporting Blackout should be in your desk when you come back." Batman said.
Gordon looked at the time and frowned.
"No time today, I have to pick up Barbara at the airport." He said, and then added, to confirm a suspicion he had since he saw the state of the corpses, not to talk of what he had just noticed here, "I assume you have read it, can you give me the cliff notes version?"
"Officer Barr's neck was broken, and officer Wein died of blood loss..."
"Caused by the bite on the neck." Gordon said, and then he asked, after Batman's nod, "Blackout in both cases?"
"No. The broken neck was undoubtedly caused by Blackout, but the bite marks were too small to be from Blackout, and apparently there were signs that another person handled officer Wein's body perimortem."
"A vampire, right?" he said, and then added, seeing Batman expression, "I noticed that there was a lot less blood than it should have been from that wound in the neck, not to mention how the Ripper seemed to kill their victims from blood loss and paying special attention to wrecking the neck."
"You noticed the same things that I did, but how did you attributed it to vampires?" Batman said.
"I didn't do it, not immediately, but I didn't dismiss it out of hand, and this finally clinched the deal. You see, I have dealt with them before, in Chicago." Gordon said, before chuckling mirthlessly, "'Dealt'. I was saved from being their dinner by a slip of a girl no older than Barbara is now, and then pressured by a British guy to keep it on the down low." He then looked at Batman, "The woman who helped you...?"
"It's a long story, but I can tell you, that while there is a connection, she's not the same woman." Batman said after a pause, "Anything else, Jim?"
"No, in fact I should go to. Barbara is going to arrive..." he started to say, before he heard somebody calling him. He turned his head and saw a rookie officer, Montoya he thought she was called, coming to where he was, together with Steve "Shotgun" Smith, one of the Sheriff Deputies and a damned good cop before being pressured to resign.
"As I was saying..." he turned his head only to see that Batman had vanished, "Typical." he said under his teeth, before turning to face Smith and Montoya.
TO BE CONTINUED...