A line of four white vans lined up in the parking lot of Saint Michael's Cathedral. Men bundled in winter coats moved in and out of the building periodically, in their hands each pair carried pallets covered with tarp. None saw the figure on the rooftops across the street as he observed them with a set of high-powered binoculars and considered the best angle of attack.
Batman's own transmitter screeched fifteen minutes before. The instructed SOS signal he'd given the girl didn't come, but the high, harsh noise and rumble of too many failed entry attempts did. Since he already knew she wasn't vocal, Batman wondered if she would fully understand his instruction. Regardless of if Angel had simply forgotten or she'd been cornered, he figured the men who walked in and out of the church were what she was alerting him to.
With a fire of his grapple, the dark knight ascended fast and high into the freezing December air toward the bell tower he'd last come in through. If the thieves were going about undeterred, it meant they must have somehow gotten the better of Angel. As he crept down the tower's narrow, winding staircase, he listened for anything that might clue him in to what was going on.
The first thing he heard was the constant, high howl of a small dog. Then came the occasional shout from a deep, gravely voiced man, which became clearer as he descended.
"Watch it, you idiots!" Came one of the shouts. "Those could be the tears of saints you're stumbling around with, do you have any idea what they could be worth?"
Batman stopped before he reached the ground level to duck through a door marked, "Choir section." With his stance bent low, he slipped past lines of dark pews and an enormous organ and peeked outward on a view of the cathedral from higher ground. Over the next five minutes, the haphazard waves of flashlights confirmed six men climbing up and down the ladder underneath the altar. Two men stood on either side of the underground entrance, Tommy guns held tight in both of their clutches. Last, the man with the strongest voice, and a scrawny teenager, stood by the pulpit, a flashlight in the man's hand. If Angel was in the room as well, Batman couldn't see her.
The dark knight weighed his options: the distance to descend on the group from the choir seating felt significant and left him little room to maneuver. If even one of the thieves alerted the gunmen, they'd open fire. He might be able to sneak through the hallways, but then he could bump into the men carrying the treasures outside. A distraction seemed the best place to start.
On the floor, Joel Ryan monitored his men's work with a careful glare and occasionally patted his son on the back. "You gotta keep an eye on the property movers, George, or they'll break everything apart. I watched them as they unloaded at our new place back in Ireland—"
George swallowed. "Ireland?"
"Yeah, how about that? We're going back to the motherland. You're gonna love it, it's a refurbished old castle and everything." Joel prodded his son with an elbow. "Be good for picking up cute Irish lasses, you get me?"
"Y-yeah, sure," George said. "Dad—Dad listen, I know what you said before, about looking after our own—"
The thunderous roar of the cathedral's enormous organ sang through the nave. Four of the men with tarp-covered pallets jumped and lost hold of the treasures they carted. The duo with the Tommy guns raised the weapons and opened fire at the church's second level. The bellows of bullets as they flew and smashed into the organ's ancient lead pipes filled the air with a reverberating explosion of power and noise.
Joel ran up to the two men and tried to scream, but when he wasn't heard he grabbed one by his shoulder, which made him pause, and then ran to the other. When both guns had quieted, the gangster shouted, "What is wrong with you? Are you trying to draw the police here?"
"No, but whoever was playing that organ might've been," his employee said.
As the rest of his cronies tried to pick back up the gold and silver they'd dropped, the other gunman asked, "Did we get him?"
As if in reply, another deep note sang from the organ. The man at Joel's side raised his gun again, but his boss grabbed him by the shoulder once more. "No," he said. "No more noise. Not now, not if we can avoid it."
"Well, what, you wanna just leave that guy up there? He can see us!"
Joel glared up at the choir section and, through grit teeth, said, "Get up there and see for yourselves."
"It could be the Bat—"
"You think the Batman's on a petty case like this? This city has literal cat burglars, literal two-faced attorneys, and killer clowns. Now get up there and find out who's wise to our operation!" Much of Joel's words were laced with false bravado, he did indeed fear interference from Gotham's dark knight, but there was no reason to show it when the ringing in everyone's ears covered his racing heartbeat.
Joel's two most heavily armed enforcers looked back and forth between each other and their leader, swallowed, and crossed to the other side of the church. With a turn and a, "Back to work!" the rest of the gang resumed their theft. After a few seconds of silence, another blast of music burst from the organ, and the two with Tommy guns tried their best to ignore it as they walked up to the choir balcony. When they reached the doorway, one series of notes held without end, as if the player leaned onto the keys and didn't release their hand.
"All right, so he's standing right at the organ, trying to freak us out," one said to the other.
"He's a sitting duck. Let's do this."
Joel's pair of enforcers threw open the door and set loose a fast burst of bullets. The notes on the organ did not yield. Muzzles still hot and smoking, both men stepped onto the balcony for a better look. The notes held, but there was no one there playing them. The two crept up until each saw a thick, hardbacked Bible set on top of the playing keys.
Batman leapt from the shadows and tackled the enforcer nearest to him. The other raised his gun, but yelped and lost his grip when a trio of batarangs struck his hand. With a pair of cuffs from his utility belt, Batman bound the first attacker, then lunged and dropped the second with one hard hook punch, then another.
"Oh no—" Joel swallowed hard. "One of you, get the big guy in here!"
One of the gangsters ran out of the side exit as Batman climbed onto the railing of the balcony and swooped downward. Joel reached into his coat and fumbled to slip his handgun from its holster. The moments of shaking cost him his possible advantage as Batman swung forward and delivered a two-legged kick to his gut. Joel shouted in pain as he flew backwards and was stopped only by the wall of stained glass behind him.
"Dad!" George ran to his father's side, a hand at the older man's lower back for support.
Batman scowled at the gangster and his son for a moment before he looked back toward the cathedral. The rest of Joel's gang seemed to have run out on him. But what had he heard about a big guy—
The shattered sound of cracked wood overtook the space. Batman turned to where a door was torn from its hinge with a thrust, and a giant entered the room from the opposite side.
"And here he is," Bane said. "Have you come to confess your sins, Batman?"
The dark knight did not respond, but did widen his stance and clench his fists. Against most opponents, Batman could rely on fear and physical superiority, but against Bane, he wielded neither. The giant took off at a sprint toward him.
As the two threw the first of their punches, Joel turned toward the exit. "I've already paid the lug and we've got gold enough to make our escape, come on Georgie, let's get out of here!"
The hard sounds of flesh and bone smashed against one another by Batman and Bane echoed through the cathedral as the gangster and his son rushed for the door. Before they slipped out, Batman ran toward them, but Bane took advantage of the momentary distraction to grab ahold of his cape and jerk him back around. The Bat roared in pain as the giant swung and smashed him into one of the church's pillars.
When he heard the sound, George froze in place as his father ran ahead of him. The four vans Joel rented remained parked out back as the gang leader ran toward the vehicle at the front of the pack and called back to his men.
"All right, we're taking what we have, boys! The Bat's arrived and Bane's keeping him busy, time to cash out our winnings." Joel reached for a ring of keys in his back pocket as he closed in on the van. As he reached the door, still no key in hand, he started to panic, and felt around every pocket with both hands. Still there was no key. His heart quickened with dread; had he lost the key when he'd been inside? When the Bat knocked him down? Would he need to venture back inside to get them again—
"Boss, what's your kid doing?"
With a chill in his spine, Joel turned back toward the van at the back of the pack. George stood at the rear of the vehicle, Joel's lost keys in his hands. When had he picked them up? When he'd helped him to his feet?
"George? Georgie?" Fear welled up in Joel's voice. "What are you doing?"
"She didn't hurt any of us," George said. "I don't care what you do with the money or this stuff, but Cassandra doesn't deserve—"
George was interrupted as a black and white blur rushed out of the van and thrust him against the wall of the cathedral. The young man gasped as the girl who held him glared into his eyes with a wild fury and her muscles pulsated with the vile that flowed in her blood.
"Cassandra—ack! Cassandra wait." George struggled to take in a good breath with the tight hold she had on his shirt. "I know I almost ruined everything but—but I'm trying to make it right—"
"Get your hands off my boy!" Joel rushed over to the two, his handgun drawn again. Still with a feral energy, Cassandra jerked her head over and looked toward him.
"Dad, no! Don't—"
Cassandra released her grip on George, rushed forward, and beat a sloppy blitz of pressure point strikes into the older man. Joel shrieked in pain, his body not disabled, but every precise strike from the enraged young woman nailing his with waves of agony. The old gangster dropped his gun and crumpled as the twitching, almost hyperventilating opponent before him sized him up. Joel shut his eyes tight, turned his head away, and waited for the worst.
Another cry echoed out from within the cathedral. Cassandra jolted straight up and turned toward the church. The deep shout was Batman's, she was certain of it. The part of her brain that could still reason insisted she could deal with Joel Ryan and his son later. Without another thought, body still aching and shaking with the flow of the venom, Cassandra ran inside.