"I'm not sure what will happen, truth be told," Pamela told Woodrue as she opened up the door to her home. Her mind had been reeling for some time as they had driven silently back into Gotham. They were supposed to have confronted Wayne… they were supposed to have did many things at the protest, but once Pamela had demonstrated her plan for their enemies, Woodrue had whisked them away quickly and quietly, promising that there would be another time to confront Wayne… And so it was that Pamela had brought him back into her home. She needed to know more about this man. She needed to understand the depth of what he would do for the planet, and how he could best serve her…
"I have visions, Ivy. Visions of something extraordinary." Woodrue examined her home with fierce love. The plants that engulfed the rooms spoke wonders to his eyes as he tenderly stroked their leaves and took in their scents. Pamela led him into her bedroom, sitting down on the bed and facing the wall, her body shaking. Her heart was still hammering. She had become something new tonight. Something about Woodrue's confidence and encouragement had snapped something into place. Something…that made sense, and felt holy.
Woodrue bent down and studied the bedside display of Archibald Helan's severed head. Pamela had neglected it of late. It was beginning to smell funny and had turned an ugly gray.
"Who?" Woodrue whispered softly.
"One of the first men who ever showed me the truth," Pamela whispered. She began to tell him the story, giving him detail after detail as to why Archibald Helan had changed her life. Woodrue listened with attentive care, nodding where it was needed, his eyes never betraying anything other than pure concern and interest. When she had finished recounting her tragedy, he sat beside her and placed an arm around her, staring at the severed head.
"He's beautiful, like this. This is a true solution, Ivy. Genocide. It is perhaps the only real solution to our problems. The planet needs a reset. Helan, here… he acts as a reminder each day, doesn't he? That is why you keep him close to your bed."
"I… I want to get rid of him… but I just can't…" Her voice quivered, and she smiled sadly. "Archibald showed true remorse when I murdered him. He was sorry for what he had done. And I forgave him for it. He paid the price for his sin in death. I no longer feel hatred for him. I feel only love for him. I love him… so much…" She stroked Helan's rotting hair with a tender hand. "He was honest. He was true. And he helped me see my potential. He helped to break me… and so I met Poison Ivy. So I met me."
"Good for him to do something like that… good for him indeed. I feel, though, as if you don't need any more reminders. You've gone past that point, Ivy. And with my help… you won't need him. Why not dispose of him? Your bedside would look much nicer without him."
"I suppose… but how and where? He needs a proper burial. I owe him that."
Woodrue smiled, squeezing her shoulder. "We'll find a place. I promise. Now… Ivy, listen to me… I want to tell you something I have told…well, no one. No one else, because quite honestly, no one else deserves it. I've seen the lengths you are willing to go to, and I feel your cause as true, so I will tell you this: you are a living reminder of why I gave my soul to Mother Earth. You are a living reminder of my dedication."
"In what way?" Pamela sighed, laying across the bed and stripping down. She wanted him to look at her body and lust for her again, as he had in the alleyway. She wanted him to touch her, to desire her… to worship her… But Woodrue only admired her pleasantly, his mind far, far away from more physical desires. He laid across the bed too, holding her hand in his, and gazed longingly into her eyes… Her heart began to beat rapidly. His smell was so strong… how she yearned for that lavender scent of his…
Woodrue, inside, smiled as well. She's so easy…too easy… The pheromones that he dosed her with went without detection on her part. He could feel her easing up to him, becoming aroused and attentive. He had her under his spell…
"Pamela… I want to tell you the truth. I want to tell you why I dedicated my life to the reestablished Eden…"
"Tell me," she whispered softly, gradually nudging Helan's head off of the bedside table with her foot. She did not want to see him right now. Not in this moment. Woodrue, feeling the need to keep his seduction up (as he had in the alleyway, when he had enticed her to demonstrate her solution to him, courtesy of the secretive pheromones he wore), took to bed with her, dimming the light of the room and sacrificing any faint remainder of his own modesty. They lay there naked in that bed, touching each other, gazing into each other's eyes, and Woodrue knew that she had become the slave now. He had her. She belonged to him in that moment, and she would listen to anything he had to say…
Smiling, Woodrue began to speak. "I grew up a long way away from this place, did you know? Now, of course, I have a family home in Oregon. The Woodrues have always had an estate there, the remnants of decades of work, but I myself was raised on the family farm in West Virginia. We owned a private series of acres in Cabell, some ways outside of the city of Huntington. Our farm… it specialized in peaches and livestock. I am a child of the country."
"I admire that," Pamela said softly, her eyes dazed over. The pheromones, he knew, truly now were taking effect. She had been his slave for a while now… and he was satisfied to have her under his influence. She kissed him, and he allowed her to make such an advance, responding with the right touches in the right places… but only in small doses. After all, reward had to come from her listening.
"Yes, life growing up on a farm was very becoming for a man of my studies. I did not just grow up knowing plants: I breathed them. I lived them. They were like family. They were family. Still are… In fact, they were the only family I had for some time while I lived there. At least, after I lost…" His voice broke, and he faked a quiver. Predictably, she detected his subtle pain, and her eyes filled with concern at once.
"Tell me," she whispered again. Woodrue, playing the part well, smiled and nodded.
"I had a sister," he told her. "Mark these words well, Pamela, because I never tell anyone else this. My sister's name was Pampadora. Pampadora Woodrue. And she was my life."
"Your life…?"
Woodrue smiled. "She was the only person I could tolerate. I laugh, now, thinking back on it… how similar my circumstances are to the rest of my family. We were always close to our siblings out of necessity. It breaks my heart, thinking back on it now. But… Pampadora and I were of one life. Without her, I had no life. No reason. Nothing. It was an empty way of being, once I lost her…"
"Don't stop," Pamela whispered to him, stroking his hair…wanting to comfort his shaking body… And so he began.
"Pampadora protected me, Ivy. She was there for me when no one else could be, when no one else would be. Thinking back on all of it, even now, I can no longer remember my childhood before her. All I remember was my time with her, and what she did for me. What she taught me. From the earliest memories that I can hold onto, Pampadora protected me from my own mother and father. Both were kind enough, and never would have been found abusing substances… and yet they were far worse than people guilty of those sins. They lived in condescension, expecting the expected."
"Expected?"
"Social expectation. We were a rich, powerful family… and we were expected to display it. From my birth, I was raised to be a man of business, instructed on how to deal with people, how to manage expenses and make necessary sacrifices to an order…pruning branches off of a tree so that the tree could continue to thrive. They desired me to be ruthless, expecting formality of dress, speech and action in every day life. I was slave to their manner of doing things. Social life was a non-existent thing: friends of locality aspired to be men of space and entertainment, and thus were considered a poison to my upbringing. My parents had private tutors to homeschool me. I was denied a driver's license and a car until I had become a man. I was not allowed to leave the farm. When they unleashed me into the grand world, I would be, ideally, the definition of distinguished."
"And that was why Pampadora held me close. She knew that my parents were destroying my chances at having a life. She knew what they were taking away from me. I spent my days with her, in her greenhouse. You see, she was a genius. More than a genius. She had been born a goddess of the mind. A prodigy child, filled with the deepest intellect. From the age of one, she was already articulating basic words, and her literary range was advanced far beyond her years. She was an embodiment of perfection, a living wellspring of knowledge. And she loved me. She loved me so very much."
"I found comfort in my sister's words when she spoke, as she instructed me on the care of plants and the importance of them in the maintenance of a true ecosystem. She, like me, despised our parents. They saw her love, her "obsession", as they put it, with plants as a mere shield to her true potential, as a massive waste of time. They could not appreciate her, as they could not appreciate me. But flowers were her life. Steadily, in the greenhouse on our farm, she experimented on them."
"Experimented on flowers…" Pamela breathed, closing her eyes in relish. "Wonderful."
Woodrue nodded, and took her some more, subjecting her to a most passionate affair that left her breathless, before continuing his story.
"She had obtained her ingenuity from our ancestors. Our family was of a very unique strand of individuals, spawning geniuses throughout the generations. Our genes were courtesy of the earliest settlers in America, prodigies who came from Britain to help settlers establish effective government in the new land. We enjoyed the majesty of having come from some of the most brilliant people of the ages: Alonsis Nedry, Killory Woodrue, Janus Dae and, of course, my family's most famous connection in lineage: the Ashfords. The founder of the Ashford, Veronica, had been a prodigy of mind and form, and her descendants carried on her superior genes, spreading them through family relations. The Woodrues are perhaps the closest in lineage to the Ashfords, so much so that our families reflected upon one another for our exploits and discoveries."
"Pampadora was a natural recipient of Veronica's distant genes, not unlike our cousins in Europe… and by the age of ten, she had already graduated basic school and had moved onto college level courses. I found comfort in Pampadora, shielded and protected by her kindness and realistic outlook on the rest of the world. A living utopia… but I don't doubt for a moment that my parents loved me." He gazed into her eyes intently. Both sets were wet. "No, my parents loved me very much… so much so that they became blinded by their desire to give me a future in all the wrong ways. And this made them a liability. A road block. An obstacle."
"That's why she did it. Even when she did it the first time, and I acknowledged that my parents did not in fact hate me… I still saw fit for her to do it. She did it quickly enough… well, for my tastes. They were bound to chairs, and she brought me in, so that I could watch. She did not want me to miss it, Ivy… she did not want me to miss a second of it… And I did watch. I watched and watched and enjoyed… Oh, how I enjoyed it… It was the most beautiful, most romantic moment… they choked, and they spasmed… they died so horribly. No… it was not a quick, peaceful death at all…" He was looking away from her now, his focus lost as he gazed longingly at the distant wall… and yet still she listened. She listened so intently. "She poisoned them… as easily and willingly as you poisoned that poor bastard in Bludhaven… as I myself have poisoned many, many of my own enemies…"
He gripped her by the shoulders, his face filled with some kind of passionate madness. "It always comes down to poison, my beloved Ivy… Poison dominates our souls, and becomes us. Chemical death… liquidated destruction… Poison becomes our soul itself. And I enjoyed it… I relished in it… I reveled in it… Watching my sister force their stupid faces into that clay pot of mutated hemlock…" He pulled away from her, sitting up and staring at the door now. Pamela climbed up to him, gripping his shoulders, desperate for him to not take his gaze away from her… she wanted his eyes as he spoke… But now Woodrue had become quite frantic.
"The effects are evident, dear brother," he whispered… and when he whispered, he did so in a strange voice. Almost… almost a high-pitched sort of voice. As if he were deathly afraid of something. "This strain of hemlock has been advanced to a highly poisonous degree. A small cutting could kill an entire school within a matter of minutes… but you do not need to worry, love. This sample will not harm you. Go ahead…touch it…"
"Jason?"
"Eat it," Woodrue insisted, his mind going blank at once.
"Jason!?" Pamela shook him hard.
"Dear brother," Woodrue whispered, "a small ingestion of hemlock, and your death will be ensured. The poison is called coniine… Coniine reaps the neuromuscular connections. It will paralyze your system, your organs, bringing everything to a deathly halt before taking away your ability to breath. Watch, now… I'm going to demonstrate on mommy…"
Pamela stopped trying to get Woodrue back to his senses. The man was in some kind of trance… but she still could not shake off this… this desire for him. Why!? What was it about the man that drew her to an almost uncontrollable beastliness?
Woodrue turned around to look at her. "See now, Jason… see how she seizes up like that, and how she struggles… oh, shut up, Daddy… you're next…"
Pamela's heart was beating so hard that her own breathing was beginning to stopper. Her chest erupted in the pain of it. She had such desire… such necessity…
Woodrue's pupils dilated. "Ivy…"
At the sound of her name, her insides jellified. She forced her hands into his chest, pushing him down fiercely, and began to advance, adamant on taking control of this situation: whatever it was about Jason, she did not want to be the ogling one. She reached beneath the bed, and yanked out a large perfume bottle, aiming the nozzle and the pheromones within right in his face. She blasted him desperately, her teeth gritted, and as she did, she hissed, "Enough talk. Obey me… obey me, and no more talking…"
Woodrue smiled softly. "Ivy, dear… what are you doing?"
"What is it about you?" she breathed, her eyes wide and mad. She tossed aside the bottle in frustration, and it smashed against the wall, spilling pheromone chemical all over the carpet. The fumes wafted about the room and overwhelmed them both, to the point where even her own head began to swim into the strongest daze…
And yet Woodrue could only watch her, smirking. Half of that smirk was a genuinely sympathetic form of smile, though even he decided at best to hide this face from himself: she was an experiment, after all. From the moment he had first begun to instruct her in his class, he had seen her aptitude of deeper understanding…deep love…for plants and their place upon the Earth. In Bludhaven, his own control over her had forced her to demonstrate how far she was willing to take that love. She had signed up for this. When he had first caught the whiff of the pheromones during his first encounter with her at the greenhouses, he had held suspicions about her that she was actively participating in something very illicit with her time… Bludhaven had all been a test, and tonight had confirmed everything: she, like Pampadora, had discovered how to utilize plant pheromone extracts efficiently. He suspected, too, that she had a part in the many disappearances over the past year that had started off with a series of incidents right here on campus…
Standing to his feet, he decided that he must investigate in peace: he would drug her, and search the house. If he found evidence that she was indeed involved in the many disappearances… well, then he would know that she was going to be very, very useful to him. Truly Poison Ivy, as she proclaimed.
"Jason!" She clambered after him as he walked over to his jacket and began to search the top-most pocket. "Come to bed. Don't stop the flow now… don't stop the flow…" She was giddy and out of it. The overdose of her own pheromones had knocked her silly… coupled with Jason's own contributions… He felt not a thing. She felt everything. And so too did she feel the sharpness of the needle of his syringe as he jabbed it into her neck, and watched her collapse at his feet. She was out cold… but she would be fine. A mere anesthetic, to allow him peace and time to search the house.
And he went immediately for the basement. The basement, as Pampadore had told him, was the key. "Pirates bury their treasure," she had told him, "because the dirt is such a safe place for treasure to thrive." It helped that he could detect a barrage of chemicals coming up the staircase, even through the danky door. He smiled in satisfaction. His senses were god-like… they had always been god-like… he had always been god. Had he found a goddess? A goddess that came anywhere close to the perfection that had been Pampadora…?
Oh, Pampadora… oh, my goddess Pampadora… I will never fail you. I will never disappoint you… I will do everything for you.
The basement smelled foul for many more reasons than the mad table of chemicals and bubbling beakers where, he confirmed, Pamela must have been preparing her poisons and pheromones for some time. It came from other things, too. Other people. He beheld Alissa, curled into a corner, sleeping (or perhaps dead… one could hardly tell). The young woman was nearly starved and pale, weak and crazed, by the look of it. She was surrounded by her own shit and piss. An untamed animal, by appearance. Chains lay open around her body.
As he made his way around to her, he studied the tables closely. These poisons were many. Cuttings of hemlock and containers of ricin and arsenic… Plants samples of Mortrius and cannabis, nightshade and Gloratess… hallucinogenics and deadlies. On one table, a collection of eyes. Fresh eyes, too, preserved in some gunky liquid. These he was very intrigued by. Human eyes, they seemed to be. In a jar beside that one, a collection of penises and ears, bits of noses and a few toes.
Pamela had been collecting body parts. From her victims? It seemed almost so. But why? To what purpose? The basement was a utopia for a serial killer, and Woodrue now acknowledged as truth that that was exactly what Pamela Isley was. A true serial killer… and one who had been doing a very intent job for some time. Notes lay scattered all around these things. He read a few:
Hybrid failed. Rejected the pieces. Trying again…. Seventeen, this time. Young enough, but will it make a difference? No… failed again… Made a hand do a little jiggle, but only for a second. Probably a reflex. The nerves are tricky… Miss Kathy lasted five minutes. Impressive for the enhanced injection, but I need them to survive longer. I need them to survive long enough to see results from the other injections…
Nothing concrete here, all abstract. He would need to force the truth out of her: what was she doing with these body parts? And what were the injections that she had mentioned? Photographs were pinned above this table to the wall, freshly developed, it seemed, and only slightly discolored from the fumes that swum about this foul-smelling room. Bodies. Bodies of what appeared to be men and women strapped to some kind of table… a table that looked oddly enough like the one directly behind him right now, in the center of the room. Each victim seemed to be lost in pain, their expressions agonous, their veins bulging and their teeth gnashing… On every single photograph was a bright red sticker of a sad face.
Only one photograph on the wall showed anything different, and it was of Pamela herself, along with a friend. Pamela had her arm around the shoulders of a young woman with flowing blonde hair and a very well built face, eyes bright blue and shining. Both girls seemed to be content enough with the park that they seemed to be standing in, Pamela's smile cool and confident, the girl's more refined but no less filled with joy. In permanent marker, Pamela had written something on the bottom of the photograph: Ivy and Lissa, BFF's forever…
Lissa? Lissa, Lissa…
Alissa Jagner. The young woman who had went missing prior to Woodrue's arrival at the college. The young woman who had been noted for always hanging around with Pamela, whose disappearance had led to brief harassment from the campus police and GCPD…
Frowning even deeper, mainly because he wished to know all about the nature of these photographs and notes, he finally turned to the sleeping creature. He knew at once that what he beheld before him was Alissa Jagner. Sitting down beside her, ignoring the fecal matter that so disgustingly saturated his pants (he had worked with far worse in his career), he shook Alissa gently.
Alissa jerked, moaning loudly as wide, tormented eyes stared up at him… and when she saw him, she shrieked loudly, those eyes filling with tears at once as she clambered at the front of his shirtless body, clawing into him desperately as her breathing became mad and lost in a barrage of wildness.
Woodrue remained calm. He nodded, acknowledging the woman's right. '
"Alissa Jagner?"
"Getmeoutofherpleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasegetmeoutgetmeout!" She was spluttering her words, her body lost in spasm as tears cascaded down her dirty face. "Sheiscrazymadcraztmadmadmadmadmadmad…" She was rocking back and forth, shielding her face from the light of the basement, burying it into Jason's chest. Jason placed an arm around her, and sighed, nodding in his understanding.
"I understand, Miss Jagner. How long have you been down here?" He whispered soothingly into his ear.
"Getmeout!" Alissa sobbed into his shoulders, gagging and choking. She vomited, the contents of her shrunken, skeletal system staining his naked body… and still, he cared not. He gave it little regard. He was a million miles away. This blonde woman had been through Hell, and he could see it. He could feel it. Pamela had done terrible things to her. Very terrible things. "Getmeoutgetmeout…"
"Okay, okay… I will save you, Alissa." Woodrue's voice was calm and assuring. He stood up, dragging Alissa along with him, who would not release her grip on him. He did manage to peel her hands off of his chest and clasped firmly in his hand. His mind was working fast. This was a fascinating find, a grand discovery down in Pamela's basement… and he could do something marvelous indeed to appeal to 'Poison Ivy' in a personal way. He placed his hands upon Alissa's body, and examined every inch of her. She was a stunning woman, when fed right and restored. This he knew. This he understood. He noted bowls of dog food, cat biscuits and what seemed to be a crudely burnt slab of beef roast on a plate near the filthy, unsanitary mess that had been Alissa's nest… Pamela had treated her "BFF forever" as nothing less than an animal. This simply would not do. He tutted softly in his head, shaking it and sighing. "I'm going to take you away from this place, Alissa."
"YES!" Alissa screamed, sobbing and sobbing as she stumbled into the table of body parts, knocking a jar of fingers onto the floor, where it happily smashed and began pointing in many directions with its various indexes. "I want out want out want out want out…"
Woodrue brought the woman back to him, calming her in his arms, shushing her softly. He even pressed his lips to her filthy hair. "It's alright, now, Miss Jagner… I'm here for you. Whatever Pamela Isley was trying to do with you… she will not succeed. I promise. Come. Come with me now. Up the stairs… that's it…yes, right, now, come on." He helped her ascended, practically carrying her in his arms as her legs bended about wildly. How long had she been down here, and how long had she been on the floor? Her ankles showed bruises from the chains that had supposedly been used to bolster down the victim. But those chains had been removed from her when he had come down… Alissa, it seemed, had not tried escaping. Something was wrong with the young woman's mind, and Pamela had seen to that, probably intentionally.
Up the stairs and into the kitchen, Alissa stumbled across the room, breathing raggedly and wildly, her eyes bulging as she struggled for the front door… and Woodrue followed her closely behind, but only after retrieving something from the bedroom. Another syringe from his coat pocket, filled with the same anesthetic he had used on Pamela. He had plans for Alissa Jagner this night, now that he had found her. She was suitable to be helped in the greatest way imaginable…
"Remember, Jason: when you are given the ultimate opportunity, you are not just encouraged to take advantage of it: you are compelled. Required. It is mandatory. This is a goddess law, and I am the goddess: take the opportunity, despite inconvenience, and serve the opportunity. Worship the opportunity."
"Yes, goddess," Woodrue whispered. Outside, Alissa scrambled, screaming into the night, and Woodrue worked quickly to subdue her, grabbing her into his arms and running with her towards his car. Alissa was kicking and screaming, forgetting, it seemed, that this man had just saved her from goddess Pampadora knew what… But she was in the backseat before long, forced onto the leather by a fierce shove from Jason, and he quickly enough put her at ease, injecting her with the anesthetic and pinning her into the seat as she slipped away into unconsciousness…
When he was sure that she had been secured away, and that she would sleep soundly, Woodrue returned to Pamela. The anesthetic was powerful, and she would be out for many hours to come. He sat upon her bed, admiring her body with the deepest lust. She was so beautiful. She was perfect, a form of Aphrodite in body and spirit. Half of him wanted to carry her out to the car and bring her away from this place alongside Alissa, and give to her the same gift that he now planned to give Alissa… but he needed Pamela in the right at the right time, for now. He knew her potential and understood her role in things to come. He would use her. He would manipulate her for as long as he could, and when the time was right, and her work had been done, he would make her his forever. He knew that much, at least. She was a fine thing to look at indeed, and he had enjoyed every second spent fucking her this very evening… so much so that she could be made to act as his mating partner without question or delay. There was days coming that would change the world as they knew it, days that would be affected by Jason Woodrue's work… and even Pamela Isley could have a place. Not beside him, of course. No. His queen had to be special, something beyond words and thought. Pamela Isley was a key to fulfilling that wish… but in the end, she was just another pretty face to manipulate for as long as he needed, and to either be disposed of, or made to serve some lesser purpose, at his desire.
She'll do... something, I'm sure, Pampadora. Her and a million other lovely flowers. Jason liked women. He liked them a lot. One could never have enough flowers in one's life. He had time. He decided that he would drive Alissa back to his own home in the city, and set her up with far better accommodations than what Pamela had given her. Then, he would return to here and ensure that when Pamela awoke, it would be in her bed, with her beside her. She would have few memories of this night, and in her drunken state, there was no way she would ever remember having been drugged. He would tend to the prick in her neck. He had to keep her close on a complacent level, for now. He needed to get answers out of her.
So, taking out his phone, he proceeded to photograph every inch of her body, turning her over and shooting from every angle imaginable, salivating as he did it… These pictures would do him well in the days to come. He fantasized many things in that moment, forcing to his mind the sexual advantage that he bore over the unconscious Pamela Isley, and considered for a long moment as to whether or not he would follow through on them…
No, no… there will be so much time for that later. For now, get Alissa Jagner out of this place. The work on her must begin soon.
Nodding, content with his explorations for the night, Jason Woodrue dressed and left Pamela in her bed, stepping out into the night with confidence in his stride and a smile of victory on his face. The Floronic Man was alive and well tonight.