Fish slipped out of bed, fighting the overwhelming pain that coursed trough her body at that.
She had to free herself from dozen of cables and needles, but at least she was no longer attached to the bed frame, unlike the previous days. She knew where she was - she felt the sutures everywhere - but she did not know what she was yet. She needed light. She had to know. The heartbeat monitor next to her bed was giving a faint glow. She put her hands in front of its screen, an heaved. Oh, she couldn't make out a single detail, but the shape she saw was gray and not black. Fish moved away, shivering, her legs so painful she got cold sweats and nausea. She grabbed a table - too stupidly low - and a chair - just a few inches too small too. Then she followed the walls, that were all covered with mirrors - until she found a switch.
She closed her eyes and turned the lights on.
She knew it was not going to be pretty. What Dulmacher had done to his previous manager had been horrendous enough, and it had been a punishment for a minor mistake. The man had not escaped the island with several valuable prisoners, sacrificing several others in the process. He has not been the Dollmaker's personal enemy.
It was not going to be pretty.
Well, don 't stand here whining a child, it's not going to make it better.
She opened her eyes. Blue and brown irises looked back at her, still alien and mismatched. Both were bruised violet and circled with yellowish skin that grew pinker as she looked down to her cheek, and lips, and chin. Pale, white skin, patched together by thin pink lines sutured with transparent thread, from her nostrils to her lips, along the cheekbones. She took in the details first, the scars, the cuts, the bruises, the bloody skin color change, the swollen flesh.
He erased me, he erased me, he erased- STOP IT.
It was change. She could adapt. It was more extreme - erasedmeerasedme - than what she was used to deal with, but she could power through this. Thisissomeoneelsesface. She could make use of the change. She could. She forced herself to calm down, controlling her breathing.
Yes, yes, it was some dead woman's face. And so what? Freaking out over it would not bring her back to life.
The full, sulky lips would work. The full cheeks would make her look younger. It was hard to say with the sutured wounds and the swollen flesh, but the face was possibly much younger than Fish's actual age. The eyebrows were…
She took in the whole face, and jumped back.
A beautiful oval face with thick, sulky lips, and heavy eyelids over almond eyes, LizaLizaLizaLiza.
Fish covered the face with her hands (both a pinkish shade of white with faint scars on the sides of the fingers, where the skin had been sewn like the top and bottom of a glove). She didn't scream, she was not about to scream, she wouldn't scream.
The door opened.
«I'm sorry. The likeness is not perfect. It was hard enough to work from photographs, but finding a lookalike proved difficult», Dulmacher said.
Fish could hear his smirking.
She breathed in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out.
Liza. Liza, sparkling blue eyeshadow and pink lipstick Liza, with the blank and empty look from one who had gone past desperate and settled into nothingness. Blonde, elegant, quiet Liza with a silk shawl around her head. Liza who would have done anything because she had nothing, and who had found something at Carmine's side, a hint of herself. Before he had killed her.
Fish's jailer joined her, looking at her in the mirror.
«When I said I'd bring you back from the dead if I had to, I did not suspected I was being literal. That gunshot wound did kill you. You might have lasted a bit longer without that fight, but the blood loss was extreme. I'm surprised you even made it out of the water.»
He took a step back, slipping behind her, and pulled her - the - hands away from her - the - face.
«How do you like being your worst nightmare, Miss Mooney? Arms and legs that aren't yours… Not that there is anything left of you», he said, pulling her hospital gown down.
She was a patchwork. Long white legs, changing tones at the knees, and definitely much longer than Fish's had been. That explained how low the table and chair had seemed. Her body was a patchwork of whites and yellows, connected by glaring red lines, all of it bruised and raw.
«You seemed to have such a high opinion of yourself», the maniac said. «I figured, how best to punish you than by taking 'yourself' away?»
Herself was not gone. She was still right there, a burning ball of rage in the middle of her chest.
«Why Liza?» she asked.
«I looked into you. Followed you back to Gotham, where I learned everything there was to know about Maria Mercedes Mooney, fallen Mafia queen. How she had sent her mistress to spy on Carmine Falcone and caused her death, among other things. Since, for the foreseeable future, you're going to spend a lot of time in front of a mirror, you might as well employ that time to reminisce.»
She stared at his reflection, straight in the eyes, jaw clenched.
«Considering the extend of the - ah - ameliorations, you will also be in excruciating pain for the foreseeable future», he added. «The hazards of muscle reattachment and skin grafts. Every movement you make will feel like-»
She turned to him.
«You think you can bring me down», she snarled.
He raised an eyebrow and smirked.
«I-»
«You think you can bring me down», she repeated, turning his smile into a frown.
She used those strange, alien legs to trip him to the floor, and dropped onto him with her full weight, sinking both knees into his stomach. She punched him in the face.
«Better men than you have tried», she railed, punctuating her sentence with another blow. «Stronger men than you have tried. No one can bring me down! Nothing can bring me down!»
She kept punching him, and would have killed him right there if it had been an option. But her body was coming apart at the seams. Blood was streaming from her shoulders and knees, and the scars along her fingers and wrist were reopening too. Not that she felt the pain. She started feeling faint, however. Her skin grew clammy, her breathing labored. She fumbled to get up and walked to the door, hearing Dollmaker cough and hack on the floor as he rolled to the side. She opened the door and started running away, in clumsy strides. She made it to the end of the corridor, then passed out.
###
It had all been planned so carefully. The plan had been so simple, too, and the goal so clear.
Hiring two teams of henchmen in Arnold Flass' name. Abducting the two women in Jim's life. Damaging them just enough to be sure the guilt would eat James alive, and yet not so much as to ruin their lives permanently. Staging an heroic rescue while making sure Gordon could in no way suspect Thompkins and Kean were in danger. Informing him of the ladies' continued survival while rubbing his failing in his face. Reaping the rewards. Making good use of a debt of honor that could never be fully repaid.
It had gone near perfectly too.
Now it was a disaster. An unmitigated disaster.
«GET THAT SURGEON BACK», Oswald screamed as Victor rushed to Thompkins to stem her bleeding. «HE JUST LEFT. HE CAN'T BE FAR.»
Two men ran out. Gilzean joined Zsasz, gaping like an idiot.
Kean walked away from her handiwork and went for the bar, pouring herself a glass of vodka and watching the panic with mild interest. Oswald stared at her in disbelief for a second or so, then charged.
«WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?» he screamed right in her face, nearly head-butting her in his hurry.
She moved back and took a sip of her drink.
«Because I could?»
«Are you crazy?»
«Why, yes?»
The crime lord glared at her. The blonde lifted her eyebrows.
«I'm sorry. Were you under the impression that you had abducted me from 'Arkham, girl scout colony for the mentally sound?'»
Oswald opened his mouth. He found no answer to that, so he went for the second most important subject.
«I did not abduct you!» he shouted. «I sent my men to save your life.»
«What-ever», she replied.
He took a deep breath, fuming. Then he snapped.
«YOU DID NOT HAVE TO KILL HER! WHAT AM I GOING TO TELL JIM?»
«Of course I had to. I loathe the woman.»
«It's a flesh wound», Zsasz pointed out in an unconcerned voice.
«WHAT IS IT TO ME THAT YOU LOATHED HER? DO YOU SEE ME STABBING EVERYONE I DON'T LIKE?»
It was a good thing he and Miss Kean were not very well acquainted, now that he thought of it, because that argument did not hold much water.
«It's… A… Flesh… Wound», Victor repeated, rolling his eyes.
Oswald whirled to him.
«It is?»
«It is?» Kean asked in a disappointed voice.
«It is», the hitman confirmed, pointing to Thompkins.
She was holding a napkin to her neck with her injured hand, and Barbara Kean's shiv with the other. She appeared to be thoroughly pissed.
«It is», she barked. «And let me warn you, if you let her get near me again, you'll have to explain her death to Jim.»
Barbara rolled her eyes and gulped down the rest of her vodka, then served herself a new one.
«A motion like that with a knife that rudimentary could not have made much damage», Victor explained. «There's no enough strength in that kind of motion. It will leave a gash, but you'd need more momentum, or a hooked blade. If you want to be efficient with a front attack to the throat and a straight blade, it's best to stick the point of the knife right here», he continued, tapping the side of his neck. «Then you pull the blade to you.»
Kean was listening to that. Intently. Oswald could have killed them both.
«WILL YOU STOP GIVING THE LUNATIC INSTRUCTIONS?» he shrieked.
Everyone went silent. Everyone remained silent.
He cleared his throat.
«Miss Thompkins, once again, I'm so sorry. If I had suspected this might happen, I-»
«It's not like I was committed for trying to kill her or anything», Kean interrupted. «You couldn't possibly have guessed.»
«Weren't you interned because you murdered your parents?» he snapped back.
«Yes, among other things.»
Oswald sighed.
«Victor. Please escort Miss Kean to the basement and lock her up. Preferably in a room where she cannot acquire makeshift weaponry. And I would greatly appreciate if neither of you contracted a lethal injury in the process.»
The hitman nodded, grabbed Barbara, and dragged her out of the room.
Oswald closed his eyes and collected himself. He told the guards to tend to Jim's irritating girlfriend. He turned to Butch.
«A word, if you please.»
Gilzean crumpled but followed him to his office without a complaint, though he was sweaty and trembling. Cobbleplot closed the door.
«How could you let this happen?»
«Oswald, please, how was I supposed to guess she had a shank? It's not like she tried to use it on our guys when they got her out, or even on me.»
«Did you search her for weapons?»
«Even if I had the time to frisk her, I swear I saw no reason to! She wasn't aggressive or anything!»
«She was an inmate. Haven't you been in prison before?»
Gilzean paused.
«You have a point. I'm so, so sorry.»
His boss tapped his chess with a finger.
«I'll make sure Victor lets you know exactly how much you-»
He stopped. Two cars were entering the property, their arrival shown by the security screen always on in the office (a precaution against Giulia Maroni). One of them was the surgeon's. The other was Jim's. Oswald raced out of the room and down to the basement. He found Zsasz, who was making his way to the first floor.
«Victor», the mob boss said. «My friend. First, I'll let you know that what I am about to do is in no way personal and that you should not retaliate, as I will generously pay you for the pain you're about to experience. Please believe me when I say that I have considered a variety of other options to deal with the situation at hand, yet none were satisfactory, so I'm left with no choice.»
The killer looked at him blankly, bemused.
Oswald punched him in the nose.
###