Chapter 8: Inferno
The moment the door slammed behind Taylor, Bruce snapped into action.
"Alfred how quickly can you tap into her phone?"
"Master Wayne?"
"Just do it Alfred. And call me in the cave as soon as you do." Bruce was already racing for the library's concealed entrance, the Underground Railroad elevator. Despite the safer and more modern routes Alfred had installed, that was still the fastest way to the cave.
He had just finished suiting up when Alfred's voice came over the intercom. "Miss Taylor's phone should be playing in your helmet's headpiece sir."
Bruce flicked it on, started up the re-created Tumbler. Taylor was calling somebody and he had a very good idea who. Nobody answered; it switched to voicemail seconds after he burst from behind the waterfall. She wasn't the sort to give up, though. After three more tries someone finally picked up.
"Who is this?" Bruce recognized Gordon's voice on the other line.
"Commissioner." Taylor's voice was raw and Bruce was forcibly reminded of himself that hellish night when he had raced to save Rachel's life. Tried and failed. He couldn't let it happen again. "It's Andrea Taylor."
"Taylor I don't have time right now for your vendetta against the Bat—"
"I know where the Joker is sir."
There was the slightest pause on the other line. "Know? How could you know?" Gordon's voice had sharpened with surprise, but Bruce nodded to himself. He'd suspected something like this; she seemed the sort of person to think two steps ahead of everyone else and if her friend had been seeing the Joker before…
"Lee—Dr. Quinzel. The hostage on the videotape."
"You know her?"
"She's my friend and the Joker's psychiatrist. I worried that something like this might happen to her, so I added a good-quality GPS to her cellphone weeks ago, when she first got assigned."
"Where can I check up on it?"
"It sends its signal to both my work computer and another tracker, which is what I'm using." Taylor paused and Bruce guessed that she was double checking. "It looks like they're in a skyscraper on the east side of downtown Gotham. Wayne Tower, I think." Bruce's hands jerked slightly on the wheel and he could hear the frown in her voice, probably wondering if the Joker had figured out Batman's identity to have chosen that spot. Bruce knew better. Wayne Tower wasn't the tallest building in Gotham, but it was the most symbolic. The Joker always needed to have the grandest stage for his tricks. "The Joker might move her, of course," she continued, "But wherever he takes her, I'll meet you there."
"Taylor I don't think that that's a good—"
She hung up—probably so Gordon couldn't order her to pull out—and Bruce switched his headset over to Alfred.
"Taylor's got a GPS trace on the hostage. Can—"
"It's being intercepted sent to your car right now sir." Alfred interrupted. Bruce guessed that he had heard Taylor's exchange with Gordon too. "The Commissioner's men are already leaving to find the Joker as well."
Bruce nodded to himself and pushed the Tumbler harder, swerving through the panicked pedestrians and other cars. The Joker would have chosen late afternoon on a Friday—the worst traffic time possible—to break loose. He wasn't used to moving in the daylight, let alone in these packed streets and there wasn't time for this. He needed to get to a roof. The Joker would know he was coming, would be counting on it. He needed to get there before either SWAT or Taylor did, and gave the Joker more hostages and victims.
Andi threw her car in park before it fully stopped and spared a glance for the top of Wayne Tower. She technically had no way of knowing which floor Leena would have been taken to—the tracker didn't give height or depth, just compass coordinates—but something told her the Joker would have chosen the roof for his performance. The most dramatic, the riskiest...
She was short on time. Gordon was on the way, and if he managed to catch her here Andi knew he wouldn't let her go in. Maybe it would be more sensible to let SWAT manage, but she had to reach Leena before the Batman. To him, Leena would just be a pawn in the great game between himself and the Joker. She needed to protect her friend from getting caught in the crossfire.
Sirens sounded behind her while Andi sprinted into the lobby. Despite her fast pace, the security guards ignored her. Andi had dressed in a business suit for her confrontation with Wayne and she passed muster. The elevators? No. They were filled with people leaving work. Andi refused to get others involved in this and besides, the Joker might have rigged them. Stairs were more reliable and, with all the traffic in and out at this time of day, probably just as fast.
Andi remembered the time back in their college days that Pam had raced, stairs only, all the way up Wayne Tower's seventy-eight stories on a dare. More importantly, she also remembered where Pam had said to find them. She made herself walk rather than run, her manner perfectly assured as she went through a door reading "MAINTENANCE ONLY," then kicked off her heels and began to sprint.
Twenty-three stories up, Andi was regretting her decision to take the stairs. Against her better judgment, she slowed, dropped from taking them three at a time to two, to one. Thirty stories. Thirty-one. Thirty-two. A weak voice in the back of her head was beginning to protest, suggest a pause or going for the elevators, when her ears picked up screams through the thick concrete walls, jolted her back to awareness. Andi sped up, but something blazing dropped right past her at the next window she passed and she had to look.
Below her, both police and civilians were diving for cover as what looked like a rain of fire fell on them from the top of the tower. Explosives, Andi realized. The Joker's tossing them off the roof and keeping anyone from getting out or in. Leena. Andi was her only chance now if SWAT was pinned down—he was bound to have something to deal with choppers too. She wasn't going to leave her friend to the Joker's mercy.
She turned and kept running, ignoring the screams from people on the floors she passed who only now seemed to realize the danger they were in. More explosions sounded below her, but they became more and more distant as she climbed higher. Even Pam, fit as she was, had been sore for a week after this course, but what Andi lacked in physical strength she made up for with sheer desperation. SWAT would be planning something drastic, the Batman would arrive soon, had to get there first, had to got to Leena—
She sprinted the final five flights and, to her utter relief, found that the maintenance door led out onto the roof. Andi leapt through before her nerve could fail.
From the ground, it had seemed as if Wayne Tower tapered to a point. From here, Andi could see that the pinnacle actually flattened into a small, luxurious rooftop garden, complete with a swimming pool. The roof sloped down and away on every side, giving both an illusion of spaciousness and a dazzling view of Gotham.
It probably would have been charming if the whole place hadn't been chock-filled with explosives.
And if the Joker hadn't been standing in front of her, pressed against the guardrail to watch his handiwork.
"OohahaHAhaha! Look at 'em go, Harley-Quinn!" He trailed off into high pitched giggles as, far below, there was the sound of yet another explosion. His back was to her, engrossed in the horror he was unleashing on the streets. Andi dove behind a stack of dynamite crates before he could turn and find her, then peeked around the side and saw him roll what looked like a full barrel of oil from the top of the building, whooping and hopping from one foot to the other as he watched it fall. Leena, where was Leena in all this?
"IIIIIIII-yuh know an old lady who swallowed a fly!" The Joker started singing. Andi couldn't see her friend from where she was, just the madman as he pranced around the roof, randomly breaking into snorts of laughter and snatches of nursery rhyme as he tossed off more explosives.
"Oh, come on! Lighten up!" he said, suddenly turning his attention away from the chaos to someone hidden behind a cluster of oil drums. There was a shriek and he dragged Leena into view, her face a bloody mess by now, and made her look down the dizzying drop. "See, they're all, um, catching on! Even your friend thinks it's funny doesn't she?" His voice raised to a taunting singsong. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!"
Andi ducked behind the crates again and tried to remember how to breathe. Did he know she was there? Or just suspect? She dumped out her purse and carefully put what forensics training and too many action movies identified as a Molotov cocktail inside. She couldn't blow it up here, not with all these explosives around, but perhaps she could threaten the Joker with it. Slowly she stepped out from behind the dynamite to find the Joker staring straight at her, still holding Leena close.
"Hmmm. Andrea Tay-lurrrr." He gave her name the English rather than the Spanish pronunciation Andi was used to. "The loyal best friend." Andi didn't respond. Her mind was spinning frantically, a rat trying to escape its cage. How to get to Leena?
"I was, um, expecting Dr. Quin-zel's other friend too. The red one. Uh, Pam." The Joker sounded Pam's name out carefully, almost lovingly and raised his eyebrows at her.
"Andi? Andi run!" Leena finally seemed to see Andi standing there and some of the fight returned to her voice. There was a crack as the Joker struck her across the face yet again and Leena subsided with a sob. The Joker giggled.
"IIIIIIIII-yuh know an old lady who swallowed a spider." He began chanting, shaking Leena like a rag doll as he did it. "It wriggled"—head snap—"and jiggled"—head snap—"and tickled inside—"
Something inside Andi broke. She couldn't light the cocktail, but it was still in her hand as she dashed forward, swung it straight into the Joker's face. It shattered on impact, shards of gasoline soaked glass embedded in his cheeks and chin, and Andi took the split second to jerk Leena free of him get between the two of them.
He whooped and pushed them both to the ground before she could run. Andi landed on top of her friend and curled up over Leena as kicks and random blows began to shower on her.
"Oh, this spider wants to play when she catches her fly!" the Joker cackled, "Then let's see you wrrrrrriggle!" Something burning and sharp sliced across Andi's back, her exposed arms and legs, and she found herself screaming before she could stop, curled up as small as she could make herself. Hold onto Leena, protect Leena, had to just—the knife moved to the skin just above and behind her ear, not slashing but peeling, trying to scalp her, and her whole body crumpled in agony, shrieks tearing from her throat.
And then it was gone.
Still holding tight to Leena, Andi lifted her head and saw Batman and the Joker… dueling was the only way she could describe it. The Joker hopped and dove madly from spot to spot, while Wayne circled to keep himself between them and the Joker, each of the pair landing blows whenever the other came too close.
"Imagine that she swallowed a bat!" the Joker chanted, "She swallowed the bat to catch a spider—"
He pulled out what looked like a huge rifle and shot it, not at Wayne, but behind himself. Rather than firing normally, it sent a huge cable crashing through one of the tall windows of a nearby skyscraper.
"She swallowed the spider to catch the FLY—"
Somehow he landed a blow that sent Wayne staggering, and leapt straight into Andi and Leena. Andi tried to hold on, and he kicked her hard in the head. White spots exploded in her vision, something ripped from her hands, and when she could see again she was alone on the ground, the Joker—and Leena with him—standing at the very edge of the tower. Batman had picked himself up, but only watched, apparently unwilling to attack while the Joker had a hostage, even when the Joker pulled out a match and struck it.
The Joker hesitated, looked at Leena curiously, and shrugged. "I don't know why I swallowed this fly." He dropped the match on some of the spilled gasoline and then leapt from the roof yelping, "Perhaps she'll die!"
Something black and heavy grabbed Andi around the waist, there was a dizzy, spiraling sensation, something huge exploded above them, and then Batman and she crash landed on another skyscraper, him on the bottom. She felt him pull on her wrist, tilt her face, made herself croak out, "I'm fine, I'm fine, get Leena!"
He nodded and sprinted away, leapt straight off the rooftop. Andi groaned. Her cellphone was gone, blown up with the top of Wayne Tower. No way to call for help. She pulled an arm behind her bleeding scalp and let her wound rest against it for pressure, but there was little else she could do for herself. Everything seemed fuzzy with that blow to her head and loss of blood, and she couldn't think of anything else to try. She'd done everything she could, and Leena was still left in that monster's clutches. She could hardly move; it felt as if her wounds were sending fire into her bloodstream. Thoughts were slowing. Hard to focus, nothing to focus on anyways. A scent registered on her nose. Gasoline. The Joker had poured gasoline on the knife, that must be why it burned so badly.
With nothing left to do, nothing left to give, Andi's body took the most practical option still left to it.
She passed out.
END OF PART I
Author's Note: And y'all thought last week's ending was a cliffhanger.
This week's chapter was a bi— *Remembers her younger readers*...bad... one to write. I actually had the hugest writer's block on trying to figure out just what the Joker would do with Leena and only solved it when I went to my little sister and asked her 'if you had a barrel of oil and two sticks of dynamite, what would you do with it?' She told me she'd throw it out the window, and... well, the idea evolved from there. Anyways, in all seriousness, Heath Ledger as the Joker is little less than sheer brilliance incarnate, and trying to put down those intricacies on paper was nearly impossible for me. I'd really really appreciate feedback on this guy because... well because he's the JOKER. I feel like I should do him justice.
So I'm planning to post a story involving Leena's transformation to Harley Quinn at some point, but I'm a little unsure of how to do it. The way I have things set up right now, I can interweave the story with Andi's and have them play off of each other, or I can write it as a separate short story (I'm hesitant to say one-shot because I always write more than I plan) that would still use my own take on the characters in Unmasked, but be posted separately and you wouldn't necessarily have to read it if you think I screwed up horribly on the Joker and want to read about him as little as possible. Any thoughts?
And how 'bout them Irish? With a much-needed victory last weekend and a record number of reviews to feed it (except for yours Sanis Chan!), I have been able to placate the monster for another week!
Oh yeah! The thank yous! Muchas gracias lopo479, and Limplict for putting me on story alert, and ChristianBale Girl 2010, and Limplict for favoriting. Also, I feel like I should give a thank you here to Secret Identity Girl for her awesome reviews since I can't seem to message you and say it, along with a thank you to all of my reviewers in general. Every single one of y'all made my week.