Chapter 17

Though neither would have admitted it, Nicholae and Batman shared a similar trait: they were both brilliant psychologists interested in human nature and the criminal mind. And Nicholae understood one thing extremely well: people who have criminal minds don't trust other people with criminal minds. They suspect and imagine every single dubious, dirty and manipulative betrayal that a comrade could possibly make against them because those are exactly the kind of moves that they would be making if they were in their shoes. In other words, there is room for raging paranoia behind any master criminal, and that paranoia is amplified tenfold if you hold a position of power.

Having witnessed more than his share of betrayed alliances and duplicitous machination, Nicholae knew that even if he were to do absolutely nothing to the major syndicates in Gotham, there would be a great deal of nervousness and unrest simply in the natural order of things. By planting his people in low level positions where they could begin planting suggestions and 'removing' certain other members of these gangs from their posts, Nicholae soon had all of the major players chomping at the bit to start attacking each other. All that he needed to start the dominos falling was one last little touch, and the Scarecrow had been more than willing to provide that.

The Prince had to admit that not even he had expected Crane's work to pay off in such a splendid fashion, but the good doctor had proven himself invaluable in ways Nicholae had only dreamed of. By modifying some of his terror drugs, the Scarecrow had managed to keep fools such as Maxie Zeus and The Ventriloquist under the spell of their own delusions long enough so that they could be 'handled'. It was this that had kept the number of headaches Nicholae had expected from the would be arch-fiends, but also prevented him from any major outpourings of violence that would have raised the law's hackles --- at least until Kotaski had enabled him to destroy the Joker.

Now that Batman had found his present, Nicholae had figured it was time to begin the endgame. To that end, he had given each of his inside men a variation of Scarecrow's fear toxin to put strategic plays in order against the Syndicate. Given all the reports he had received the Prince didn't think actually that any 'chemical imbalances' would be necessary to set things in motion but at this point he was going to linger on the side of caution.

Tempers had been short in all of the various families for weeks, Nicholae's vamps being crafty enough to plant seeds of distrust not only against other gangs but also within them. Given the condition they were in, all Nicholae would have had to do was wait a few more weeks and the syndicates would simply implode. But he had already spent several months waiting for action and he wanted to proceed now – when the city, the criminals and Batman were at their weakest.

So at 1:55 A.M. on the first day of 2004, several members of the Maroni family, led by a mid-level enforcer who had been known as 'Nails' Gibone – he hadn't needed to breathe for nearly three months--- drove to a warehouse on Gibson and Hilton in the mid-level section of the city. The warehouse had long been known as a stronghold for the Thorne people and 'Nails' had convinced the higher-ups that certain members of Rupert Thorne's syndicate were plotting a major assault on the wharfs where a major shipment of heroin had recently arrived.

Lucia Brancato, a Maroni capo who had never liked Nails when he was alive, was not particularly happy that he was being called into lead the attack. "What makes you so certain that 'Nails' info is accurate?" he had asked Mario Lombardi, the man who had entrusted Brancato with the assignment.

"Nails' says that he got it straight from the horse's mouth," Lombardi had said in an irritated tone (he hadn't been sleeping very well lately). "It's a hundred percent real."

In actuality, members of the Thorne Syndicate were planning an assault for the next day. What Lombardi didn't know was that 'Nails's source was in fact a drug runner in the Thorne syndicate—one who, like 'Nails' had recently become 'living impaired'. He also didn't know that the same drug runner had suggested the raid a week earlier as part of the larger plan--- and had convinced the Thornes that danger was brewing.

So by the time the coalition from the Maroni's arrived at the door both sides were agitated and ready to kill each other. They didn't know that a third group-- consisting mostly of vampires--- were not far away waiting for the violence to start. They also didn't know that three of the Maroni shooters and four of Thorne's men were undead and readying themselves for action of a completely different kind. And even if they had, there was a good chance that many of them would not have cared. Gangsters in many ways are as bloodthirsty as the undead, and right now their blood was up.

Because the bullets would begin flying as soon as all of the gang members were out of the car, no one would ever know who fired the first shot. Much like the shot fired at Lexington in April of 1775, the owner of the bullet is lost to history. And in the long run, it is irrelevant who shot first. The point is someone did. The rest was inevitable.

In less than one minute, all seventeen members of the Thorne syndicate and all fourteen Maroni gangsters were firing. The level of the bullets hitting brick walls, car doors, windows and the occasional person was so loud it could be heard as far away as a quarter of a mile. Twenty-three 911 calls from the surrounding area would be recorded in the next ten minutes. Police did not respond for another ten--- at which time the situation had gotten a lot worse.

Carl Novello, a hired gun for the Maronis was the first man to realize that there was something wrong with the situation. He had emptied his Glock9 twice and he had made damn sure that he been aiming at actual people rather than the building in general. So how was it that it felt like he was still in the middle of the Battle of the Bulge?

Suddenly, he saw a real target – a greasy Romanian named Leon who was one of the more prominent money men in the Thorne syndicate running right at him. What on earth someone like him was doing in the middle of a shootout like this was a question that troubled Carl but (unfortunately for him) not for long enough.

"Adios, asshole!" Carl yelled as he began to fire on the large and inviting target. He got off six shots in roughly nine seconds --- none of which stopped or even slowed Leon. A smarter criminal would have been more concerned about what he was seeing but Carl—like many of his fellow soldiers--- possessed little intelligence and even less imagination. He merely assumed that Leon was wearing Kevlar (although he was sure that he had clipped the Romanian in the kneecap) and decided he would be better advised to raise his Glock to the level of Leon's head.

He fired three shots and one of the nicked the oily Romanian in the forehead. This did get results --- Leon fell to the ground and dropped his head into his hands.

Bullseye, motherfucker, Carl thought—and kept thinking even as Leon raised his head. There was now a rather large scar on the side of the Romanians forehead where a bullet had passed, but that was not what drew Carl's attention. No, the raised forehead and fangs did—along with the fact that Leon, now looking three times as ugly as before, was now running straight ahead.

At this point Carl's head short circuited. In his haste to find safety, he forgot that he was leaning against a rather fast sports car. Rather than dive inside it and depart, Carl got to his feet and began to run in the opposite direction --- thus running right into his death.

"Going somewhere?" said a vamp who until a couple of weeks ago had been a hoodlum named Tommy Duff. "The party is just getting started." And with that he sunk his fangs into Carl's neck.

Tommy took a good, long drink from Carl before discarding him. "That was my kill," said Leon as he walked the rest of the way to the car.

"You wouldn't have liked him much," said Tommy nastily. "Damn Italian all taste the same --- too much crappy Chianti and garlic toast."

Leon chose not to be amused by this particular witticism. "The sonofawhore killed my one of my best friends a year ago," he said crankily.

'Oh, you're not one of those vamps who gets off on all of these blood oaths and revenge jags," said Tommy cheerily. "You know as well as I do that these sorts of grudges are not the kind of things that our masters want to get hung up on."

At the mention of this Leon shut up. There was enough Transylvanian in his gene pool for him to be afraid of these vampires. Besides, there were more than enough Maroni's shooters for him to take out his aggression on. "Then let's get a move on." he said.

"Right you are, boy-o," the former Tommy Duff said as he turned his attention to the other gangsters.

With that the group of vampires who had up until now only been observing the fight charged both groups of the combatants. The two groups of gangsters were so caught up in laying down their own level of destruction that they didn't realize that they was another force behind them until it was far too late to run. Not that they could have run far if they had wanted to, because the vampires who were within both gangs took this opportunity to become another group of enemies.

The shooting went on for another two minutes, which was how long that it took for the gang members who hadn't been shot to expend all of the ammo they had in their guns. The only people who were killed were the poor wretches who had realized the danger they were in and made an attempt to escape. In many ways, they were the luckiest ones of the fight.

A mere fifteen minutes after the battle began, sixteen of the most dangerous felons in the city of Gotham—men who had committed fifty-nine felonies between them--- were lying on the cold, hard ground, dead either of gun shot wounds or severe blood loss through the neck. Seven of the remaining felons had been turned and were therefore left on the sidewalk to eventually raise more havoc and destruction.

The remaining vampires spent a few minutes picking up all of the guns and money that they could get their hands on before Luther Sachs, once a lieutenant in the Thorne syndicate, gestured towards the now approaching sirens and said: "Okay, everyone! We've got a lot to get done before the night is out and we have to get started right now."

The vamps reacted quickly and efficiently. By the time the first police car had arrived on the scene, the streets were empty of all but corpses. Or so it seemed to the police --- until one of the sports cars that had been left behind exploded.

Before the police could even report the fire, they were under attack from a second line of shooters who had been left behind to pin the police down. Keeping the fuzz of Gotham busy was one of the orders of the night--- and the vamps were as good at this as the mobsters they were hoping to supplant.

Barbara Gordon could not believe her eyes and ears. Despite everything that had been happening in the city over the past few months she now realized that she had believed that Gotham would always remain fundamentally sound and could withstand any crisis. Now, as the first day of the new year stumbled ahead, she realized that this might no longer be true.

First, there had come the discovery of the Joker. Admittedly, when she had learned that the horrible creature that had put her in a wheelchair, murdered her stepmother, and had committed a thousand other atrocities in his atrocities, had been tortured and crucified her initial reaction had been simple and primitive: The bastard finally got what was coming to him. Now, however, as she, like Batman, realized the implications of this, she began to understand the magnitude of what was going on in Gotham City simply because there had been next to no chatter about the Joker from any of her sources. Since his escape he had demonstrated what seemed to be a remarkable amount of restraint in his behavior, which Barbara had taken as a bad sign --- if the Joker was quiet that inevitably meant he was planning something terrible. Yet almost none of her sources or intelligence had been able to find even a hint of where he might have been holed up. Somehow, though, what she had begun to call 'the undead underbelly of Gotham' had managed to succeed where they had failed and demonstrated their power in a spectacular fashion. In a very cold-blooded way, this was a giant thumbing of the nose by the vampires at the law of Gotham City and there would be no way to argue it any differently.

No sooner had she begun to understand this, a series of attacks occurred throughout the city. There was a gang shootout in the downtown section of the city which had escalated into a literal firefight--- an exploding car set part of the neighborhood on fire. The police had just responded to that when there had been reports of another major gang outburst ten miles to the north--- this time in the slum section of town. Attack after attack followed. Barbara knew enough warfare to realize what was going on; this was blitzkrieg meant to strain Gothams's police resources to the limit---- which it did in less than an hour. Even worse, when she had talked to her father about what was going on, he seemed detached and almost undisturbed about what was happening in his city. Her father had clearly come into a state of shock at the worst possible time--- which made Barbara certain that this was also part of the plan.

With the cops and the paramedics strung about as thin as they could, Barbara had contacted everyone else Gotham had fighting on the side of good. Batman had been dispatched to the eastern sector of the city; Robin had gone to the western sections; Faith had been dispatched to the south. That left only the northern section--- which was the part of Gotham that the clock tower was in. Barbara made a series of phone calls in which she tried to direct some of the police still around towards this area, but she knew that it was going to be a futile cause and she didn't want to be responsible for sending any more men to their deaths .

This, however, led to another problem --- one that Barbara knew was also an exercise but that, given the desperation of what was happening, that she knew she had to follow.

"Andrew, you have to do it now!" Barbara said as calmly as she could manage to the young man who had been holding court with her over the past six weeks. "The situation is becoming critical."

"How many times do I have to tell you that I don't know where he is?" A tone of stern defiance that most Sunnydale residents wouldn't have expected from the young geek was now in his voice. "Spike gets in touch with me; not the other way around!"

"Even when things are this bad?"

"Things are always this bad in California." Andrew spoke sarcastically but honestly. "The city is always just a few attacks away from destruction, and in case you've forgotten, LA's four times as big." Now a sardonic smile appeared. "Congratulations, Gotham has become Hellmouthish."

Oracle's nerves were stretched thin as it was. "Andrew, I'm getting more than a little tired of this bullshit."

"So this is all my fault?" said Andrew incredulously. "I suppose that you always know where Nightwing is?"

This was perfectly valid but Barbara didn't need this sore spot being picked. Dick had always been a lone wolf; it was what had led to his break with Batman the first time. When Spike had presented his idea to Nightwing, the young man had jumped on it with an eagerness that was typical of him. Barbara, who had extremely strong reservations about the idea, had been pretty pissed at how easily Dick had been willing to go along with it.

To say nothing as to how angry that she had been that Dick insisted that only a single, almost invisible, tracking device be given to him instead of a more powerful machine.

Soon after Nightwing had left with Spike, the signal had become faint until they reached the easternmost entrance into Crime Alley--- after which it completely disappeared. This could mean any number of things, ranging from the possibility that the heavy electronic activity regularly occurring in that part of town had drowned out the signal or to the most extreme scenario that Spike and Nightwing had been waylaid by Nicholae's gang members, found the tracking device with relative ease and gotten rid of both vampire and crime-fighter.

Barbara had been more inclined to believe Spike and Nightwing had been involved in some kind of fight which had damaged the device. Dick had a habit of not taking care where he got hurt in battle. This feeling – rationalization, hope, or whatever you want to call it—had grown fainter as each day had gone by and there was no communication from either one of them.

Perhaps what bothered her more than anything was Andrew's unflagging certainty that the two of them were all right despite having no evidence to back up that assertion. And now that the end of the world as they knew it seemed to be coming closer and closer, Barbara was getting more and more irate at this attitude from Andrew. This in itself was significant considering how normally slow to anger she rarely became. But these were desperate times and her emotions were floating closer and closer to the surface.

That was part of the problem. The action that Spike had suggested, that Dick had seized upon and that the rest of them had gone along with, had seemed something of the kind of desperate measure that seemed to be called for. Now the time for real desperation had arrived—and they had no other action to take.

Oracle drove her chair back over to Andrew with a determined look on her face. "Andrew, we can't wait around any longer," she said as she tried to find the right mixture of urgency and calm. "Whatever technology or magic or whatever the hell you use to reach Spike, you have to use it now."

"We won't need to resort to that." Andrew said in a calm tone that Barbara was beginning to find infuriating.

"Why the hell not?"

"Spike just got in touch with me."

For a moment Barbara was nonplused by this remark then a very obvious question occurred to her. "How did he do that?"

Andrew looked incredibly annoyed at the question before his expression softened. "When we arrived in Gotham Fred--- my friend from the science department--- came up with a device to use as a signal beacon. She gave the transmitter to me and the beacon to Spike and said it was for use in only the absolutely direst of cases."

Barbara was on the verge of getting pissed yet again. "And you didn't tell me this before because---"

"It was the absolute worst case 'unlock the suitcase with the code words that launch the missiles that start World War III' scenario."

"What does it do?"

"It's the pocket-sized equivalent of an EMP."

Now Barbara was worried. "You don't mean---"

Andrew nodded. "The science department at Angel-Slayer has some marvelous gadgets. One of the devices we found was a miniaturized version of the electromagnetic pulse. It has enough power to knock out all the electricity within a ten block radius for exactly ten seconds. By tracking down the radius of the inactive radius, my computer can triangulate the exact location where Spike is."

Oracle had heard of some rather than remarkable mechanical devices over the years, but she had never heard of anything--- not even from WayneTech--- that had this kind of capability. Which led her to ask 'Where does he work that he has technology like this?' and that question was immediately followed by 'What kind of place would use technology like this?'. These were vitally important questions but ones that right now she couldn't ask.

She could, however, deal with something that was going to come up. "So in amidst of the city in danger of being overrun by havoc, you thought that the best way to maintain contact with your friend was by adding more chaos to the mess?" she said coldly.

"Like I said, it was only to be used in the worst-case scenario, which right now I think qualifies." Andrew said doggedly.

"Do you know how much trouble you---"

"Look," Once again Andrew's voice demonstrated the steel that was underneath it, "you want to get in my face about the mess that we're adding too later, fine. But right now, things are going from very bad to even worse, so let's deal with the problem, all right?"

Under normal circumstances Barbara would have pressed the point but, like Andrew had said, these weren't normal circumstances. So she held her peace and simply said, "Have you got a location on Spike?" she asked as calmly as she could manage.

"Thirty seconds and I will." Andrew began rapidly punching keys.

A series of numbers appeared on the screen for a few seconds before a miniature map of Gotham appeared. Barbara had just enough time to take in the fact that Andrew had somehow managed to hack into one of the weather satellites that flew over Gotham before it decreased in size until it was practically down to the size of a map.

"There he is." Andrew said with a certain measure of triumph in his voice. "The corner of Mulholland and Walsh."

Oracle looked at the screen. "Not bad, I'll admit. However, there are two things that you seem to have overlooked."

"You mean like how we get somebody to him?" Andrew said calmly. "According to the streets, he's in the eastern section of town, about three miles away from Batman's location. Tell your friend that if he can dispatch one of those mini-transport devices he has, he should be able to get one to Spike and Nightwing pretty quickly. Once they've linked up, they can figure things out from there."

"All right, but you've left out the other small problem."

"Which is?"

"That's where Spike and Dick were. How does knowing that help us locate them now?"

Not even this query seemed to perplex Andrew. "You don't need to look very hard to see where Spike has been fighting." He gave a small smile. "When he's at work, he always leaves a real neat trail of bread crumbs."