Hi! I'm sorry this took a while, I'm in a play right now and I've been really busy preparing for that! It goes up a week from Thursday, I'm really excited! But, it's made finding time to write a bit difficult, so I've been working on this in little increments. Anyway, here it is, finally!

Chapter Ten: Enter the Jester

As soon as the cab driver let us out on the intersection of 21st and Hoover I knew Vikki had made a big mistake when booking our hotel. There weren't many "good" streets in Gotham, but 21st street was among the worst. More people got mugged on 21st street than any other street in Gotham, Vikki must not have been in her right mind.

"That's our hotel there" said Vikki, pointing to the building in front of us "the Hemlock". My jaw dropped to the ground. It was a hell of a place, and I don't mean that in a good way.

The building was square with cracking pea-green paint, a tall wooden door hanging from the doorframe on loose hinges, and two tall, chipped windows at the front, one of which had graffiti printed on it which read "FLAMETHROWERZ" or something on it in white spray paint. Fleapit was the first word that came to mind when looking at this hotel, closely followed by danger. "Vikki" I said, nudging her arm, "are you sure this is a good idea?"

"I'm pretty sure it isn't" she sighed, "but where else are we going to get a room at a hotel today, for tonight?"

"Come on, it's not THAT hard to find a hotel in Gotham…"

"You'd be surprised!" Vikki scolded, "I searched all over the place for a hotel! This was the only hotel I could find that number one, we could afford and number two could rent us a room at such short notice," she self-consciously rubbed her hands against her shoulders, and quietly added "except for that motel on Cleveland Street."

I shuddered; the Cleveland Street Motel had unwittingly housed an ax-murderer for about a month and… let's just say it hadn't had a customer since.

"Don't you work at a hotel?" I asked sarcastically,

"Ms. Beaumont's mad at me, remember?"

I nodded, "right…"

The two of us looked at each other, sighed in unison, and trudged inside the hotel. As soon as the door opened the smell of tobacco smoke and cheap beer hit me like a freight train. My stomach rolled mightily, Vikki was positively green. Tattered green couches sat around the room, Styrofoam packing peanuts peaked out of flaws in the cushions. Flickering light bulbs affixed to dusty light fixtures hung from the ceiling at inconsistent intervals. The walls looked as if they had been decorated with pieces of an old pickup truck, complete with what looked like a bumper hanging haphazardly from one of the walls. I looked nervously at one of the men sitting on the couches; a tall, skinny man with black sideburns and a skull tattoo with the numbers 666 emblazoned onto it. He winked at both of us.

I gave a little shiver and wiggled my fingers in reply. This was not going to be a fun night.

Vikki and I dragged our sorry butts to the front desk (really a table of questionable stability which looked like it was made out of wood the carpenter found floating down the Potomac River, and tall glass barriers encasing it so that there was a small slot for the clerk's head to peer out of).

We quickly realized that there was no one at the desk. I sighed and peered through the slot, the area behind the desk was cluttered with paperwork, pens, McDonald's bags and items I don't care to mention. Delightful.

I snarled and backed away from the desk, but Vikki wasn't giving up so easily. She raised her right hand over her head and pounded it into the glass several times "hey!" She shouted, pounding the glass again, "hey! Isn't there anyone in this joint!?" Several of the men on the couch tittered.

I silently reminded myself not to say anything that could be taken as remotely annoying for the rest of the night; Vikki only put on her tough girl façade when she was about to explode, and Vikki exploding with fury was enough to make Jonathan Crane cower.

"Come out here, will you!?" She shouted, banging the glass one last time.

"Okay, okay, I'm coming!" Droned a voice. "You people are so pushy!" A greasy haired teenager, black jeans hanging off his butt and revealing bright red boxer shorts, walked up to the desk sluggishly "what can I do for you ladies?"

I tried not to roll my eyes. "My name's Vikki Cummings, I made a reservation here an hour ago?" Vikki complained, tapping her foot impatiently.

"Oh yeah, I remember you." Without bothering to check the registry, assuming the dump of a hotel had one, or asking for an ID, he handed Vikki a key, "room 3, check out's at noon, if you'd like to stay an extra night it'll be twenty five bucks" he grumbled. "Enjoy your stay."

As if. I thought. Vikki gave him a curt nod and gestured for me to follow her, I did as I was told. The hallways were just as unappealing as the foyer, and smelled just as vile. Vikki turned the key and opened the door with a crooked three painted on it. We stepped inside. I shuddered at the state of the room. The floors were not strewn with pizza boxes, nor were the walls covered in blood and there was no bullet hole going through one of the windows as I had feared when we had initially arrived, but it was still pretty bad.

First of all, there was only one (queen-sized) bed, even though I was pretty sure Vikki had asked for a room with two double beds. Not so bad, I just hoped Vikki wouldn't push me off; which was likely. That was the least of our worries. The bed hadn't been made, which made the dirt, hair, and anything else caught in the bedspread clearly visible, and the sheets, which used to be white, had turned to an off shade of cream. I could smell something rotten in the small refrigerator in the corner, which didn't seem to be working and pieces of the once-white-now-grey carpet had been torn off in some scuffle or another, making the concrete sub-floor clearly visible in some patches. It was a health inspector's nightmare; or dream, depending on the health inspector.

Vikki slammed the door, groaned, and was about to sit on the bed, but instead dropped to her knees and onto the floor because it at least looked cleaner.

I shook my head what have you done? I thought, ignoring the dirt and flopping backwards onto the bed, because by then I was WAY too tired and annoyed to be bothered with it.

"Okay" I said, "I'm calling the cops, now, then we're leaving, okay?"

Vikki nodded dismally from her position on the floor.

Might be a bad idea I thought as I reached for the phone, half of the people in the hotel probably have warrants out for their arrest…

KNOCK, KNOCK! I looked to Vikki pretend we're not here I mouthed at her. She nodded.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!

I shook my head no, Vikki didn't respond.

"Hey!" A voice shouted "open up! I can hear you breathing in there!"

I looked down at Vikki, "could you get that?" I asked. She grumbled, stood up and walked to the door.

"Well, hello" said a male voice.

"Hi, what do you want?" Asked Vikki,

I recognized that voice. Who was it? I got up from the bed,

"Oh, nothing much…" he said, was that smarm in his voice? Geez.

"Okay, my friend and I are trying to rest here, so if you could please…"

I looked over Vikki's shoulder and knew who it was. His long blonde hair had been cut short, the diamond stud was gone, he wore a pair of wire rimmed glasses and his suit had been replaced with a black leather jack and blue jeans.

"Mr. Archer?" I asked, cutting Vikki off mid-sentence

He jumped when he saw me. I could tell by the look in his eyes that he knew who I was too. "Archer?" He asked, raising an eyebrow in false confusion, "sorry lady…my name is David Ewell…"

"Oh don't play stupid with me!" I shouted, pushing in front of Vikki. "What the hell are you doing here!?"

It took Vikki a moment to realize what had just happened, "you two know each other?"

"Yeah!" I said, looking at her out of the corners of my eyes, "he was at that party I told you about." I looked back at Archer. "A haircut and some glasses don't fool anyone." And then, without thinking about it, I went right for the jugular, "and neither does blue hair dye and a crooked smile, Mr. Stone." I regretted what I had said instantly, but it was too late to take it back.

Stone's face paled for a moment, and then relaxed. He pressed his forearms against either side of the doorframe, filling it so we couldn't leave. "Small world, isn't it Sarah?"

Vikki and I took a step back, "the-the police are on to you, you hear?"

He walked inside and shut the door quietly behind him. "Now, now, sweetheart, let's not wake the neighbors…"

"Oh God, Sarah what have you done?" Squeaked Vikki,

"Quiet!" Shouted Stone, and before I realized what was happening, I found myself backed up further into the room with the barrel of a pistol pointed squarely between my eyes. Vikki barely stopped herself from shrieking, "sit down" he said, he jerked the gun at Vikki "both of you." We shared a sideways glance and sat down on the floor. He nodded warily at us, pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and dialed. "Yeah, Boss?" He said, "We got problems."

…

Well, this. Is. Dandy. I thought. We had been sitting on the dirty floor for what felt like hours, listening to Julian Stone pontificate about the people he had killed. "…And then there was that woman. What was her name…Glover? Right, Jackie Glover…" he proceeded to pace around the room, gun cocked toward us near to his thigh, while he went through the gory details of how he had murdered her. Vikki cried quietly beside me, little whimpers escaped her lips every now and again; tears leaked from my eyes, but I made no noise.

Eventually there came a knock at the door, "yes?" Asked Stone,

"It's me, Ewell!"

"Come in."

The door opened and two people walked in. "This had better be good, Ewell!" Shouted the first man taking off his coat and throwing it aside. "Oh, it is!" Stone reassured them, he jerked the gun at Vikki, "this one's just a pretty face, but she isn't." He nodded his head in my direction.

The man knelt down to my level, beads of sweat appeared on my forehead. He was a bulky, sickly pale man with a shaved head and perpetually glaring green eyes; he loosely fit the description of half the thugs in Gotham, meaning he was pretty scary. "What's your name?" He asked with a passive disinterest. I knew there was no use lying, as if I did Stone would just "correct" me. "S-Sarah Valens, sir." I said, my voice barely a whisper. His eyes narrowed for a brief second, before his lips curled into an amused smirk. "Oh" he said, "the tailor?" I nodded my head quickly.

"What are you doing here Sarah?" He asked, "You're not going to forget about our agreement, are you?" My face paled, he's the Jester? I thought, under other circumstances, I would have laughed out loud. The image of this man in gold pantaloons and a ruff was very amusing, but I was too afraid to giggle. "N-no" I rasped, "of course not, Mr. Jester!"

"Then what are you doing here?" He questioned, "I don't see a sewing machine, or materials."

"I…" I raced to come up with an excuse, "I…was planning to buy those once I got here! You see, my old sewing machine belonged to my boss, and he's skipped town, so I…I can't really use it, and, uh…I couldn't work on it at home because…it's…against my building's regulations!" I quickly shouted.

The Jester thought about it for a moment, and nodded. "Of course." He looked at Stone "now put the gun down, Ewell." Stone put it back into his jacket pocket, if he goes around carrying a gun like that, once of these days he's going to shoot himself! I thought, feeling some satisfaction as he scowled at me. "I think you realize that it would be foolish of you to try and leave, but just in case, Ewell!" Stone looked up at him. "Take Miss Valens to the front desk, rent out this room for the next two weeks and guard he door." The light reappeared in Stone's eyes, "tomorrow, go with her to any store she suggests to purchase the necessary materials and equipment, after that, they are not to leave this room until my request is finished."

"What do I do with her friend?"

"Keep her as collateral, an extra incentive to work quickly." He looked back at me, "as for you, Miss Valens, I wish you luck." The Jester and his other body guard left the room, slamming the door shut behind him. Vikki and I looked at each other mournfully, we were really in for it.