Chapter Eleven

The Question hurried her new charge out of the van, dawn's rays breaking on the city. Rebecca was still shaken and confused after their escape from the Black Mask's warehouse, and the long van drive out of the city had been a mostly silent one, her saviour and captor angry and focused on the task ahead.

For Rebecca, her whole world had been turned upside down in the space of a week, and she found herself adrift, cut free of all certainties. Once she had been cocky, secure in her position as a Lieutenant in the Gotham City Police Force, and also as a favoured mole for the Black Mask's crime syndicate, turning a blind eye at his command and passing on details about others who could be turned.

But now both those lives had been violently cut away from her. The Black Mask himself had ordered her killed, and she doubted she could ever show her face to any of the GCPD ever again. Even if they didn't know who or what she had been, it would not take much now for it all to come out. There were...questions that would be asked. And Rebecca no longer felt able to glibly lie, and conceal the truth. Not when the faceless vigilante beside her seemed to know everything.

They were somewhere in the suburbs, far to the west of Gotham City proper, halfway into the next city almost. They had come to a small summer house, off the main road, and there was the sound of dogs barking.

The Question hammered on the door of the summer house, impatience and anger still fuelling her. Rebecca simply stood, quietly, hugging herself to keep warm, as the first rays of daylight broke across the sleepy community, a scattering of houses and a lot of trees and fields.

A city girl all her life, Mulcahey had never been into the country like this before. She hadn't even known there was a place like this outside of Gotham. She'd been abroad of course, but only to other cities, other places and foreign countries that had been comfortably, familiarly urban.

Now she was a stranger in her own country, reliant entirely on another faceless stranger. Rebecca found it difficult to understand why she had not been left to die, or simply turned over to the police. But she said nothing.

Finally, the door opened a crack, on a safety latch, and a harsh glaring woman with red hair and pale skin frowned.

"You...? You come here, at this time...?" The woman began to speak angrily, but the Question cut her off.

"Kat, we don't have time for this. I need you to take this woman in. Shelter her for now. No questions. Her life is in very grave danger. I can't trust anyone else with this."

The red-headed woman looked furious, and, more than that, still half-asleep. It -was- pretty early in the morning.

Finally, she sighed. "Well I can't have you freezing to death on my porch, I suppose I better let you all in."

She opened the door, revealing a tall, lithe woman in a dressing gown and not much else. A sawn-off shotgun was cradled in her arm, and two slavering dachshunds at her feet started barking them. She shooed them away. "Come in. They won't bite unless I command them to."

The Question turned to face Rebecca, sighing. "You might as well come in. We've come this far..."

Seeing no other course of action, the formerly corrupt ex-cop followed. At least it would be warmer inside.

Later that morning, Ray found himself called in by Harv to help with the Warehouse Murders. Renee had apparently called in sick or something, which was something almost unheard of for the stalwart woman. It was so rare that they'd taken her at her word, and for now MCU was deferring to Homicide and a liaison from ATF on this case.

"Office politics, pure and simple. Let's just focus on the work, Renee can catch up later." Harv growled, but Ray hadn't been listening. He'd been staring at something in his pile of work, something that had gotten overlooked, and which was now burrowing its way into his brain.

"The ATF think this is just some gangsters fighting over control of an arms shipment, which is bullshit. They're poaching our case to try and score brownie points with the fat-cats in washington. They've already started disseminating press releases about cracking down on illegal gun-running through America's most corrupt ports." Bullock continued, as he tore open a sugar packet with his teeth. He was making himself a fancy cup of coffee at the desk, another way of jibing his partner, who he saw as having fancier tastes.

But of late Ray hadn't really been properly noticing or responding to their usual subtle banter and in-jokes. He'd been consumed by this business with the Prospero Rig case, or, more accurately, consumed with its implications to the burdens he carried from the past, his legacy from Jim and his guardianship over Barbara.

"Anyway, I've got some guys dredging the sewers and the back-flow, see if they can find any trace of the Black Mask or his escape, just in case his body got dumped elsewhere or something. Man, I wish I could get something on the Judge, even a photo, a shred of fabric, something. This guy is good, he doesn't leave any witnesses or traces." Bullock sounded almost admiring of his imagined Nemesis.

Breaking from his fevered train of thought, Wills made an effort to respond to his partner. "The Question Mark. It wasn't random chance. It was deliberate. Now this. And there's more too, Bullock." He growled. Maybe he should bring in Barbara. This case was getting crazy enough.

Harv turned, frowning. "What are you talking about?"

Ray picked up the report from the Coast Guard, now two weeks old, and showed it to his partner. "You were right. The Lunatics are back. One clue might be chance, but two? Its deliberate."

Harv grabbed it from his hands, reading it thoroughly, his face paling.

"A Riddle? Stuffed in a dead guy's mouth?"

"The Placement is no accident. The body was down-current from where the Rig was. Whoever this psycho is, he wants us to know he did this, but on his terms."

Harv muttered, trying to work out the content of the riddle, and failing. "I don't get it."

Ray took the report back, and read the Riddle out loud.

"I was the thirsty mountain now aflame

I am the hall a million faces but no name

I will be the storm of winter, shrouding all

Five Acts my play will have

A prologue has commenced

The roarers cry the name of the king

While a master works his puppet strings

Four more marks will I make

before my mask is shed

One storm, One show

A beast to draw out a hero

Know my name is a riddle

Eternity holds but one of me

Nations hold only two

Invisible I hide, now three

Growing in my pride, I become two again

Master my name, for I am only one

Anwser, and prove yourself human."

Ray looked at Bullock, who still looked baffled. "Well, I can figure out part of it. The thirsty mountain now aflame is clearly the Prospero rig he blew up."

"Now, come on Ray, you can't leap to-"

"Whose leaping to conclusions? You think some crazy vigilante is going around murdering cops and crime lord's henchmen." Ray chastised his partner. "I think whoever gave us this Riddle is sending us all a message. The second part of the riddle is him showing off. He's using the Tempest- the Shakespeare play, a framing device." Wills began typing the riddle out on his computer, while Bullock looked on, his coffee growing cool in his hands.

"The last part of the riddle is unconnected, and an obvious piece of vanity. He spells his name out as being ENIGMA, riddle. This guy loves mystery and puzzles, and I wouldn't be surprised if he sends more riddles."

"You're no forensics expert, Ray. I know you've had a hard few weeks and all-"

"Bullock, I'm serious." He said, flatly. "You think after the clown we can brush stuff like this off? Gotham's a sick city, Harv. You know this. We didn't cure that sickness last year. Jim worked his whole life to fight the crime syndicates, but it's not the Dons I'm worried about. It's the monsters who feed on the weak while everyone up top has a good time."

Harvey looked at his partner with a re-appraising look. "I didn't realise you felt that way, Ray."

Detective Wills smiled grimly back.

"I didn't. But...well, I'm a detective. I've never played the politics game, Harv, and I don't mean to start now. But there's a perp out there whose behind all of this, and I aim to catch him."

"Alright, but what does any of this have to do with my case or the Judge?" Harv asked. "I'm pretty sure the brass won't care much for you chasing your "riddler" around town, or poking into Prospero any more. There's bigger fish to fry."

Ray frowned, as Harv slurped his coffee, pacing back and forth.

"Ray, you've been grinding yourself to fine powder over these boring as shit cases for a year or more. I know you've been looking after Babs and what you've done for her has been saint-like. But this case... You know what, screw the brass. You do your thing, Ray. I'll handle the Warehouse Murders and all this shit. You follow your instincts."

Wills didn't know quite what to say.

Harv continued. "Ray, I believe you. Maybe there is a nutball who blew up the Oil Rig, and left this riddle, and plans to do whatever else. Maybe there isn't, and you're chasing ghosts. But none of us is getting any younger, and I'm as tired as you are of cleaning up the messes the syndicates make. It's time we all did some real fucking police work in this city, and if that means you have to take time to settle a lead like this..." He paused.

"We're sniffer-dogs, Ray. I got a scent, you got a scent. Too old to learn any new tricks anyway. You follow your shit and i'll cover for you, ok?"

Ray blinked. "I owe you one."

"You sure as hell do. Coffee?"

Ray sat there for a moment, nodded, and let Harv make him a cheap-ass coffee from the office pot, black as night.

He didn't have the words to communicate how he felt, or what he was thinking now. But he knew what he was going to do, and that certainty made everything so much easier.

He hadn't even realised how meaningless the work had become until now. It was more than just having a crazy riddle dumped into his lap. His talk with Barbara, seeing her earnestness, how she had progressed so much in a few weeks...He felt a spark in him he hadn't felt in years.

He printed off a copy of the report, and started putting on his coat and hat. Bullock returned with a cup full of the cheapest, blackest coffee he could, knowing how much Wills would hate it.

"Where you going?"

"To catch me a Riddler." He said, full of confidence. He didn't know where he was going to start exactly, but he knew he wasn't going to get any closer to the answers in his office. Time to hit the streets.

Barbara finished her session with Dr Whistler, feeling more sprightly than ever. Whilst spending time in group therapy with Harley, Emily, Selena Kyle and the others had previously been a mixture of boredom and anxiety, now she almost looked forward to them. The mystery of Selena Kyle lingered, and her early forays into finding out more about the other victims via the Internet had not produced positive results. She had been a little amused at some of the conspiracy theories surrounding them all and the Joker, but otherwise had been unable to find anything useful.

But returning to Arkham no longer held quite the heavy dread it had done so in the past. She had convinced Ray to let her help him, and she felt herself sinking into a new role, spending more and more time on the computer, re-engaging with groups she had long neglected, re-establishing friendships and sending cautious, tentative messages to re-engage with Spoiler, her friend who had warned her about the Grey Ghost connection, and who she felt certain had the best nose for clandestine information of any of the anonymous hacker community in Gotham.

Therapy was practically a breeze, now that she had something real to occupy her mind with. She delivered satisfactory, rote answers to Whistler's questions, and blocked out everything else. Each session she endured was one less she would ever have to endure, one step closer to being released from this tedium entirely.

She knew she could do this. Maybe it would take forever to recover her lost strength, but she was sure she could use what she had now, and make a real promising start on something of worth, something that was interesting and might be of real help, not only to her friend and guardian Ray, but to her cause of keeping Gotham safe.

As she sauntered down the corridor, lost in her thoughts, she simply didn't notice where she was going, until she slammed hard into someone coming the other way.

"Ugh! Watch where you're going, you mindless simpleton!" A cultured, male voice cursed. She looked, up, apologising profusely, to see a hawk-faced man in a doctor's coat, his brown hair slick and matching with dark, piercing brown eyes.

"What sort of place is Arkham running here these days anyway?" the doctor muttered darkly, before hurrying off.

"Don't mind him, that's Dr. Ned Eigward. Brain surgeon whose just come over to treat us crazies." A calm, friendly male voice said, coming up behind her, as Barbara picked herself up off the floor, the doctor having neglected to help her up.

"Thanks, sorry, I had my mind on..." She turned, and froze, looking up into the smirking face of someone even she recognised.

Victor Zsasz. The Serial Killer. The tally man. Arkham Asylum's most dangerous inmate. She stared at him uncomprehendingly, before he burst into laughter, holding his hands up, showing the cuffs, and as he did so she realised he was also being escorted from behind by two gruff orderlies.

" Don't worry ma'am, we're taking him to see . Move along now." They said, hauling the powerfully built maniac along roughly.

"Frail bird. Maybe I'll set you free from your cage sometime." He laughed at the look in her face, barely wincing when the orderlies jabbed him in the stomach with the end of a baton.

"Stow it Zsasz. You really want another session in the shock chair with Eigward?"

Barbara shuddered as the killer was hauled off, feeling his gaze still boring into her even after he had left. He absolutely looked like he could snap her in half. Suddenly she felt very cold and afraid, keenly aware of exactly what it felt like to be powerless, to be completely at someone's mercy.

She remembered the feel of cold steel on flesh, of thin knives cutting at her face...

She shut her mouth tightly, so hard it hurt, to keep from screaming. Yet closed, she couldn't take those all comforting pills...

She sat in the hall-way, trying to recover her composure. A violent, powerful reminder. Her mind really wouldn't be enough if she wanted to be a Detective. It would be safer to be a Lawyer, but in this town, not by much.

If she really wanted to help people, she would have to confront people like Zsasz, and everything they were capable of, every day. She had thought herself stronger than that, perhaps believing that after the Joker nothing could faze her.

Finally mustering the courage to open her mouth enough to swallow some pills, she shivered gratefully, feeling some warmth flood back into her body, her knuckles aching from how hard she had been clenching them.

It was then she remembered where Zsasz had been going. Dr Thompkins? Wayne's doctor. Surely she wasn't going to give...but of course, it made sense. Who better for a guinea pig in an experimental medical trial than someone like Zsasz?

The idea that even abstractly someone might see her and Zsasz as occupying even theoretical space made her furious. Such fury quickly overcame lingering fear and doubt.

She wasn't going to spend all her time surfing the net for answers, she decided. She was going to look into getting some personal defence lessons, too.