Gordon had called in reinforcements for a hold up taking place within the warehouse, and while he waited for more people the place had grown silent. The warehouse stood over Miller Harbor and had been abandoned about a year prior, when Carmine Falcone had shown interest in the property. The property had yet to be officially sold, but that never stopped the crime lord before. They responded to the complaints of a woman saying that there was a child being dragged into the building. Believing it to do with their open case of little girls being kidnapped then killed, Gordon asked for a team of twenty (and received ten) to catch the man they assumed was working alone.
When the case first appeared with the first body found in Robinson Park Commissioner Loeb was less than interested. It was difficult to get too much evidence, and no substantiating DNA, and with wars between Maroni and Falcone, people were bound to get hurt while lesser thugs were put away. Six comrades had gone in to scope the place while Gordon took a call from the commissioner over how they were proceeding with the case, and readied the other four to go in to investigate. That was hardly two minutes before four gunshots were heard.
Assuming that only those four gunshots mattered, two of Gordon's men must be alive, the other four (keeping in with positivity) could be injured and would need medical attention immediately.
"Hello," a man cooed over the radio, a rough voice, one Gordon tried to memorize immediately. "Your men, they are alive… for now." It continued unabated by the lack of response. It was coarse like gravel to the ear, but firm as though he felt justified by his actions. "They are m-my prisoners until I've finished my work."
They were being held hostage within, and he was forced to wait. He was equipped to collect the evidence in crime scene investigation with all its glory, and now he had to wait for backup that may never come. "Let my men go, we were just called in over a disturbance."
"A disturbance in the Maroni estate, they send cops." He chewed on that information, as though he already knew and just wanted to echo their doom. "These cops are sent to find one killer, not fight my men." The voice threatened, then static silence followed, casting a looming shadow above him and his remaining men.
Gordon felt baffled that this man knew that they had been called and even what they had expected, and had countered by bringing friends to this fight. The silence held over the warehouse, only broken by the soft sounds of waves from the river, made it unbearable to wait. He secretly hoped the dark knight would have a hand in this and end it quickly, but he knew there were other crimes being committed, and there was no certainty that Batman would be here.
A voice came over the radio, "Another girl was found off of Salem Street. She was found in a blue dress, and this time almost completely covered in blood. It looks like someone beat her over the head."
"Fuck," one Officer Moreno muttered. He looked over at Gordon, "Lieutenant, we should be the ones over there, not here, when are the reinforcements going to get here?"
At that moment Gordon had realized the man he was trying to figure out wasn't the serial killer they had expected. They had just stumbled across something much different.
...
Batman had already analyzed the young girl; the manner of the murder seemed more violent than the previous girls found. Just to the trained eye blunt force trauma to the parietal was the cause of death, meaning that she was hit hard and though further analysis someone could conclude what weapon was most likely used. But Batman had to gather as much evidence as he could in such a short window that he couldn't focus on what object was used by the murderer and moved forward with his investigation quickly. When he had looked at the wound it seemed that the force might have been enough to knock her out but not kill her immediately Knowing the current patterns of the murderer and how he has tried to resuscitate the girls, including this one, he may have allowed her to lose enough blood in his panic. There was skin under her nails, providing more evidence against the perpetrator. This particular murder seemed much more intense than the previous ones, bruises all over her arms and legs and the same bruises on her chest as the girls before her. Death may have taken a few minutes.
This serial killer was trying to keep these girls alive. His intent was not to kill them, but to keep them sedated and with him for some other cause. Batman's job was to figure out what was going on and quickly dissolve this operation.
He had sent off Robin to try to zero in on Carmine Falcone's hideout, if the thug had in fact returned to his boss. He knew that the boy wanted to be a part of this new investigation, but felt that it was time to divide their efforts and shut down that drug ring as soon as possible.
Still Batman wanted to keep him away from Falcone since Maroni had proved to be more than dangerous enough in a courtroom setting. He knew Falcone was aware of being targeted and he would be ready. This was the something that was more likely to be deadly and he hoped his ward wouldn't advance too far without him.
Still for now, all his focus laid on this serial killer of Alices.
...
"Shut up, man," Officer Walker interrupted. "We're needed here; this is where we're at, so no complaining."
Gordon looked away from them and back at the building, nothing moved, and his men had spread themselves around the building strategically to be able to keep an eye on each other. Lt. Gordon refused to lose anymore men to this knew player.
Gordon sighed decidedly, and looked up into the cloudy sky, this needed to end, "Stay here," Gordon called, holding his gun with both hands and rushing toward the warehouse. He made it to the iron door on rusty hinges, and pushed it open. Maroni's men were most likely hiding throughout the warehouse, and Gordon had to go unnoticed as he tried to help the hostages escape. He took one more breath of the cool dock air, and couched low as he crept into the darkness inside.
The police radio in the car went off again, "Gordon, we're sending reinforcements."
Moreno's hands pressed together and he looked up at the sky, silently thanking God, while Walker looked down at the radio and picked up the radio and spoke into the speaker, "Officer Walker here, how long until reinforcements?"
A gunshot was heard, and every surrounding officer looked at the building, dread building up like the morning fog starting to come in. A second gunshot was heard, then soon afterwards a third.
"Officer Walker here, we'll really need that backup right now, they're shooting at us in there, over."
"They'll be there in ten minutes."
Gordon stayed low as more shots went off, and slowly waded through the darkness. He felt his old eyes adjust behind the think framed glasses he wore. He quickly made out a set of stairs along the wall he stayed close to, and large crates far to his right. He was exposed to anyone that was looking for him with eyes already fine-tuned to the shadows and yet he closed in on the area the bullets were coming from. He made his way closer to the stairs and found a metal door slowly pushing it open, then heard another shot come from above and rushed up the stairs.
He catty-cornered the doorway, scanning the room quickly, noting a single man bathed in the light of a hanging lamp, sitting in a metal chair, his hands cuffed to the chair. Crates were few in this room, though there lay one ten feet from the door. He slipped into the room.
The man sat there, his mouth hung open, a hole in his throat, blood escaped through the added orifice. He looked around for anyone else, but couldn't in the contrast of light in such a dim warehouse. He darted towards a metal table five feet away. He peered over it, noticing that the man in the chair had both his knees shot, blood pooling beneath his chair. He scanned over the room and made his way towards the man once he realized no one else was inside.
He slipped out of the room to see a shadow pass by quickly. Gordon smirked to himself in relief, knowing Batman had finally arrived.
"FUCK!" a yell was heard throughout the warehouse, shots fired in all directions. Gordon hurried down the steps closer to the commotion. "What… What are you?" he heard a man stammer. He peeked around the corner and into the room with a conveyer belt, and saw a man laying supine on the ground, trying to get away from a man that stood over him, wearing a suit with different colored halves, though in the darkness of the room he couldn't make out color.
He saw another shadow go by, this time it seemed smaller than Batman, and reasoned Robin was moving in. The man mumbled something, and flipped a coin, pointing his gun at the petrified man.
Gordon pulled his gun to his face, ready to jump out and stop the execution, but a shadow cast over the two men. Gordon looked up, and the executioner turned to the shadow that grew larger, cape-span out. the small figure glided towards the scarred man.
The thug, still on the ground cringed and jolted to his feet, running as quickly as he could. The man in the bi-colored suit shot at the figure and Gordon closed in trying to see the man fully to be able to identify him, but the figure's shadow made it obscure.
A loud noise was heard at the door, "Lay down on the ground! Put the guns down!" The backup had arrived. Gordon turned back to the man running away, and the small figure giving chase.
He felt himself want to follow, but decided against it, settling for checking on the hostages. He calmly walked over to the men, checking the few dead and those that had only lost consciousness, sighing when he found one of his officers dead. He and the rest of his team began putting down tags, as the medics took away those unconscious, and his team took care of the rest. Two officers put down the white outline while he picked up evidence, scouring the place. But with all the filth, and probably all the traffic the place had received in the past few years it would be difficult to determine the mystery shooter.
...
"He's trying different types of barbiturates on these girls, and he's not getting the affects he wants." Batman muttered, as they sat in the bat-mobile. Batman typed away as he received all the new information from Alfred.
"Yes, sir, it seems that the police are finding it difficult to track where he's getting this supply from and keep hitting dead ends."
"Bruce!" Robin called his attention, as he typed away on the other laptop hooked up to the bat-mobile. "This last girl was raped."
Alfred had started to speak, but Batman clicked off the communicator and slammed hard on the gas. "Read me the entire report!"
"Um, Angelica Mortem, fifteen, found in… Where are we going?" Dick asked as Batman took a sharp turn over-zealously, and the younger had to press his hand against the door to keep himself from slamming into it.
"I've been tracking his movements, where the girls go missing and where the girls are found. Though they've been taken from multiple locations, he dumps them in or around Salem Street."
"And the theme of Alice?" Dick followed up.
"I've been looking for any places that have anything to do with tea parties. But now I'm assuming that the tea party characters are more important, and there's a pet shop and a haberdashery on that street. If it's someone that believes he's the mad hatter, Haberdasheria seems like a perfect spot."
"And the pet shop?"
"Rundown now, and might be good for either March Hare or the Dormouse."
Soon enough they arrived in front of the haberdashery and Bruce parked behind a corner on the small one-way street. The duo made their way to the small store, Batman quickly taking out his grapple gun and Robin quickly followed suit, but his mentor put up his hand, "Stay here," he ordered, then launched his grapple up to the roof, lifting off and stopping on the window sill, opening the window and slipped in. The boy-wonder stood there dumbfounded by his mentor's forbidding attitude as of late, and could not decide between following him or his directions.
"This sucks!" he whispered to himself as he looked up to through the window that his mentor had slipped in through. He shot his grapple gun up to the sill and zipped up, raising the window up a bit. He looked back to the bat-mobile contemplating the reason that Bruce might have to hold him back, flustering himself with different reasons and finally decided against the order, slipping into the building and figuring his way through the dark.
...
Batman quickly accustomed himself to the darkness, finding pictures of the couple that must have owned the haberdashery previous to the criminal that inhabited it as of late. He slinked his way down the stairs, the whole place seemed cramped, the air system too small for him to maneuver through. He heard soft trained footsteps trailing behind him, recognizing them as his apprentice. He couldn't do anything about it now, and continued to search for the criminal.
"Come now, Alice," he heard a strange gnarled nasally voice, convincing some new victim into his ever sickening game.
Batman made it to the bottom of the stairs and he crouched down peering around the corner, seeing the man dressed in a green trench coat and an over-sized d'orsay beaver hat balancing on the man's large ears, looming over a small child. The small girl clad in a blue dress with a small white apron seemed confused by what the Mad Hatter asked of her. She looked up with glazed brown eyes, and the essential long blonde hair. The room was decorated with colorful curtains lining the walls, some torn and frayed, and Alice sat in a small chair, surrounded by mix-matched chairs small and large and painted all different colors, around a large table with a long white table cloth with tea stains and cake.
"I said, 'Let us go,' Alice." He seemed to be losing his patience and reached out to grab her arm, pulling her to her feet.
Batman pulled out a batarang as the girl's eyes filled with tears and she attempted to withdraw from the strange man. He forced her forward, heading towards the hall Batman was in. Bruce glanced back, scoping his surroundings, and noticed a strange gilded mirror with a slightly warped reflection.
"But my name isn't Alice," The little girl insisted, her voice was muddled, the drugs already set in play.
"Don't be silly Alice!" He rebuffed, his voice trembling with anger. "I had taken too long to get you to put on the dress; we must hurry to go back through the Looking Glass!" His voice seemed shrill with desperation.
"But I'm not Alice," the child insisted, eyes drooping closed, sagging into the table. Tha Mad Hatter pulled the girl in front of him, nearly tripping over a teapot on the ground. "Alice is a girl's name!" The child slurred as he slumped against the wall.
Bruce felt Robin approach behind him, and without a word exchanged, he threw the small weapon into the Mad Hatter's shoulder, just as he had raised his hand to slap the boy. The batarang knocked him off balance and Batman ran close behind him, jumping over the small boy and rushed the enemy. Robin quickly followed, scooping up the child, and tried to head for the door he had seen from the outside. The door had been sealed off, plaster and curtains blending it into the rest of the scenery.
The Mad Hatter found a large black shadow swoop down onto him, a fist raised, and another cloaked being stole away Alice. His Alice! He had looked so hard to find her, and these masked hooligans were stealing her away! He screamed and struggled against the larger being, confused by the sudden intrusion. "Alice!" He cried out to the small confused boy, reaching out desperately for help. "ALICE!"
Robin ran back down the hall with the stairs, and finally took note of the long hallway, with parts of the walls torn out and a large mirror at the end of it. "My name isn't Alice, it's Jason," the boy retorted, limp, and nearly cataleptic in Dick's arms. He rushed back upstairs quickly as the struggle between the madman and his mentor continued downstairs, he slipped out of the window, as the sedated little Jason's eyes wondered around confused before they slid shut.
He slipped into the bat-mobile and initiated contact with Alfred. "Penny-one, can you look for any missing children's reports with the name Jason?" Dick touched the boy's forehead which felt cold and calmly to the touch.
"Right away, sir." The older man's voice sounded over and the communication went silent.
"My parents aren't looking for me," the small boy muttered, taking slow shallow breaths. "They're dead."
Robin felt a twinge in his heart as the boy faded off to sleep, remembering the death of his own parents. "How?" he asked, half hoping the boy was too far gone in slumber to respond.
"A man killed her," the boy murmured, "a tall man, with yellow skin. The Roman said for them to die, and my mom screamed a lot."
Dick looked down at the boy looking peaceful in his sleep, his face seeming like porcelain in the soft glow of the interior lights, noting that his face was caked on with makeup, and bruises were hidden beneath those layers. He realized then he couldn't let him sleep "Penny-one… I think he's overdosed!" He felt the panic come up at full swing, he knew West Mercy Hospital was nearby.
"Don't let him sleep, sir, and make sure that he's laying on his side if he vomits." Alfred paused, "I will call the police to take a statement from the boy when he's been checked in."
Dick drove off quickly, heading towards the hospital.