"Come in, Bruce," said the cool voice, and it sent a chill through him as he pushed the ajar door to the billiards room open. The girl was there, the lightening sky of dawn just behind her. She looked exactly the same as she had in the early evening of the night before, when she had performed as the night's entertainer in the high class club that Bruce had visited in an attempt to keep up his millionaire playboy image. Her rich auburn hair fell over her shoulders, bared in her halter dress. The dress itself was sleek and modern, an affair of black satin that emphasized her pale skin and gorgeous hair. She was leaning on her pool cue, relaxed and at ease, but somehow cold and distant, still as a piece of white stone.
"How did you get in here?" he demanded, stern in his combination of excitement and anger, his voice roughening into the one he used as the Dark Knight. She looked at the pool table, eyes wandering aimlessly over the multicolored balls on the table, ignoring his question.
"Who are you?" Bruce tried again, his tone becoming deeper and more gravelly, unable to help himself. He had spent two weeks looking for this elusive girl, and now that she was here in his house, he was exerting all his self-control to keep himself from pinning her to the pool table and getting the answers that had plagued him since the casino incident.
"Who am I?" she mused softly, as if reflecting briefly on the question. She stepped around to the furthest corner of the table from him, and lined up her shot before precisely and neatly sinking the red three. She straightened and looked him dead in the eye from across the table. Bruce froze, his blood going cold as her dead-of-night black eyes fixated on his. He felt fear scramble up his spine.
"Do you have a name?" he asked, his voice trembling slightly. He was unnerved by her gaze though her expression was as smooth and unreadable as the blank face of a wall.
"Aeron," she answered, nodding at the rack of pool cues behind him. He found himself inexplicably reaching for one, and she racked the balls in the meantime. At a loss for anything else to say, he asked about the only other night he had seen her.
"Are you the girl who saved the people at the casino?" he asked, feigning ignorance. She sighed delicately as she picked up the black eight ball, but did not drop it in the rack.
"Don't bother," she murmured, leaning the cue in the crook of her arm and passing the eight from hand to hand, rolling it across her palms. "I know you've been looking for me, Batman." Her tone was ever so slightly mocking on the name of his alter ego. There was a pause as he digested that, controlling his violent urge to force her to tell him everything she knew. His voice quivered when he answered.
"How do you know?" he demanded, his voice slipping back into Batman's again. She dropped the eight into the rack, unconcerned.
"I know a lot of things," she answered, passing a hand over the rack before lifting the frame. The balls shimmered briefly and then turned jet black and Bruce paled considerably.
"How did you do that?" he asked, the shaking pervading his voice as he fell back into his normal voice. He was confused, trying to comprehend how any of the things she had done were possible, and he felt more than a little lightheaded.
"Why does it matter?" she asked, lining up the cue ball. When her fingers left it, it also turned black.
"It's… impossible," he said, hesitating over each word as he tried to articulate through his confusion.
"The line that divides possibility and impossibility is thin, Bruce," she answered flatly, "You of all people know that."
"No, it's not," he argued, but he was reeling.
"Don't hurt yourself," she observed, her eyes flashing over him and taking in his now awkward stance. For once, her expression was not entirely blank, and the edge of contempt in her abyss-like eyes was like a physical blow to him. He flinched away from her though he didn't want to, unnerved by both her sudden unnatural stillness as her eyes bored into him and his own sudden terror of her. His reaction was deep and instinctive, and he was vaguely aware of being caught between the desire to run away and the nearly irresistible pull to get closer.
"Don't be afraid," she said softly, breaking the tense silence, "When the line blurs, you get closer to the true reality of things."
"Ignorance is bliss," he replied automatically, breaking the eye contact and looking down at the table. He found relief in the small action, and a lessening of the magnetism she seemed to be exuding.
"Truth is power," she answered, and he looked askance at her, unsure of how to take the simple statement. "And power…" she paused a beat and he couldn't resist watching her, "Power is something you want, is it not?"
"What do I need power for?" Bruce asked, almost offended. He had all the money he could possibly ever need, he was one of the most influential people in Gotham, and he had his occupations. What more could he need or ask for? She laughed derisively, and he caught a glimpse of gleaming white teeth with longer, pointed canines. Some part of his mind reflexively screamed in abject horror, but it was muted and he didn't notice.
"What do you need power for?" she mocked, wielding her pool cue like a queen's scepter, or a fairy's wand. "You wish me to believe that you don't want to catch the criminals out there in Gotham? You don't want revenge for the death of your parents? You don't want to catch the Joker?" She leveled the wood at his chest, her face suddenly contemptuous and cold again. "Don't make me laugh. And don't lie to me or yourself." Bruce flushed with anger and embarrassment, and then a breath later, the sun rose over the horizon and she was silhouetted against a backdrop of steadily brightening light.
"So are you offering me power?" he demanded, just as the light was growing too bright for him to stand looking directly at it much longer.
"If you prove that you deserve it and are willing to take it, perhaps," she mocked, and he tore his eyes away from the blinding brilliance, blinking, trying to rid himself of the imprint of her figure on his retinas. When he glanced back, he merely re-blinded himself, but it took only a moment to realize that she was gone, her cue laid neatly along the length of the table next to the racked balls which were all their proper colors again. He turned away, and paused in the doorway as he was walking out of the room.
"Damn!" he snarled, slamming a fist against the doorframe. Then composing himself, he went to find Alfred.