author's note:
(previously published for like 24 hours on a random account bc i used the wrong log-in info oops)
so i had an inkling for another story...
i know i know: i haven't updated my other stories in a longgg time. i don't want to give up on them but it's been really hard to find inspiration lately. i've been writing for years (it genuinely shocks me when i look at the publishing date on all my stories) and i feel i've grown a lot as a writer. i feel locked into the stories i made in the past. when i read them back, i follow the plot line of the show so tightly it's hard for me to use imagination, which i know am more comfortable/want to do. i'm planning on going back, rewriting, and hopefully finishing my other ongoing stories. this one feels for the first time like a story i'm actually going to be write and flesh out, instead of just plugging and chugging. it's honestly given me more inspiration to rework my other characters and their stories in the process.
so: TLDR; i apologize to any readers who have been waiting on updates for my other stories and genuinely thank you for your continued support. i'm working on updates for both monsters among men and iron justice now and i really hope to begin taking those stories in a new direction! that being said, i hope you can enjoy reading this new one as much as i've enjoyed writing it.
warnings: underage drug and alcohol use; language
SALEM HEIGHTS
December 24, 06:31 EST
"I don't remember giving you this address."
"I don't remember you having another address."
Cecily didn't answer, instead leaving the door open as she turned to walk back into her apartment. She could hear it click shut behind her, and knew that Dick had followed her inside.
The young woman walked back towards the study, just past the entrance and the kitchen. She didn't use the bedrooms. The penthouse in Salem Heights was old but immaculately kept, and they felt like tombs. Her parents' will stipulated that certain payments from their accounts proceed after their death, until she old enough to take control of her own inheritance. They hadn't wanted anybody else acting on their daughter's power of attorney, for fear of sticky fingers. The cleaning crew that came weekly to dust and vacuum the place was one such expense, and they paid no mind to Cecily's sudden interest in the apartment. She was seventeen, after all, and any respectable teenager would take advantage of having an empty apartment that their parents - or in her case, Bruce - couldn't get into.
They needn't know the situation was much more complicated than that.
Dick's silhouette darkened the study door. He inhaled, his nostrils flaring as he realized what the smell in the room was.
"Cecily, for christ's sake." He glanced at the coffee table in front of the couch. It was empty except for a crystal ash tray with a half-smoked joint in it and an empty wine glass. Cecily had since forgone the glass in favor of drinking directly from the bottle, which she was still holding in her hand. "Is this what you've been doing?"
"Yeah. I also have condoms, you want to see? We can even test them out." Dick glared at her. "Lighten up, I'm kidding."
"You're unbelievable."
Dick tried to take the wine bottle from her. It was almost empty, so Cecily didn't really care if he took it or not, but the principle of his actions irritated her nonetheless. Gray eyes flashing, she put her hand on his chest to block him, holding the bottle behind her back.
"For god's sake, Dick, it's wine and a little bit of weed. It's not like I'm shooting heroin. Or people. Ha."
"Give it to me."
"No." He reached for it anyways and Cecily batted his hand away again, a wide grin stretching across her face despite her irritation. "Stop it, this is none of your - " Dick pried the wine bottle away from the other teenager, grabbing her wrists to keep her hands down until he'd set the wine bottle on the shelf above. Out of Cecily's reach. "You're such an ass."
"Are you done?" Dick let go of her hands and stepped back. Cecily thought for a second and then grinned wickedly, shoving him backwards. He stumbled and Cecily advanced, throwing a light jab towards his chest. At this point, she was doing nothing more than playing, and Dick could tell.
Just as she could tell he was in no mood for it. He dodged the first few sloppy blows, but quickly lost patience. When Cecily tried to kick his side, he grabbed her leg, pulling her off balance. Cecily teetered precariously on her remaining leg and then fell, crashing onto the antique rug beneath her feet. She laughed, even the quick mock-fight filling her with a buzz better than the wine.
"Done now?"
"Oh, damn you."
"Might've held your own if you weren't a bottle and half a joint deep." Dick replied, offering her a hand to help her up. "That is, if you've trained since the last time I saw you."
Cecily propped herself up on her elbows and blew her reddish-brown bangs out of her eyes. Dick was standing above her, his dark blue eyes gleaming in the half-light.
"You're way more fun when you don't sound like Bruce." Cecily's tone was reproachful, and she staggered to her feet on her own, swiping Dick's hand away when he tried to assist her. Dropping onto the couch, the girl studied Dick carefully. "Why are you here?"
"Because you're here." Cecily's heart stuttered in her chest for a second, and she stared at him with wide eyes. Dick didn't appear to realize what he'd said. Instead, he held a hand out again, to help her up off the couch. "Come on. It's Christmas Eve." Cecily dropped her gaze, staring past Dick to the books on the shelves across the room.
"You go ahead," she replied nonchalantly.
"You're not driving there yourself."
"No." Batman's training ensured that Cecily could probably drive better inebriated than most people could sober, but she had no desire to test that theory.
Dick waited another beat and then sighed, dropping his hand. She figured he'd leave, but instead he knelt down on the floor in front of her. Cecily drew her legs up to her chest as he leaned closer, hands braced on the couch cushions on either side of her. Her heart rate picked up.
"Come with me," he said quietly. Their faces were inches apart, eyes locked. "Celie. Please."
Cecily inhaled slowly. The smell of Dick's cologne made something in her stomach turn with nervous excitement. She watched his face as his eyes dropped from hers to her lips, which curved up into a wry half-smirk. Cecily didn't let herself close her eyes. She wasn't an idiot. She wasn't crazy. But she also wasn't going to pull back first.
After another charged heartbeat, Dick's mouth twisted, and he stood up. Just like that, it was over. Cecily leaned back against the couch cushions, disappointed but not hurt. And moreover, not surprised.
"I told you I have condoms, if that's what you're worried about." Dick rolled his eyes at her.
"Funny. But if you think I'm gonna be another bad decision you make tonight, you're insane." Cecily flinched, and Dick's expression flickered slightly, realizing his choice of words. Despite his chagrin, he was too pissed to apologize. Cecily wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees, thinking. Her eyes were pensive, too caught up in her own thoughts to hear Dick's question. She looked up when he said her name again.
"What?"
"I said, are you gonna come down with me, or am I going to have to carry you to the car?"
When she hesitated, Dick shrugged, and then moved to grab the smaller girl. She fought against his grip, not realizing he'd been serious.
"Christ! Fine. I'm coming!" He stepped back, allowing Cecily to stand and grab her bag from the floor. She hastily stuffed her feet into her boots and followed Dick out the door.
The two were silent in the elevator as Cecily worked up the nerve to ask the question she'd been wondering since she'd opened the door to find Dick standing in the hallway. She paused before opening the door to the passenger seat of his car. He looked up at her, raising an eyebrow.
"Did Bruce send you to collect me?" Cecily wasn't sure if she wished Dick was acting on his own wishes or Bruce's. She wasn't sure which of them she wished wanted to find her.
"If Bruce wanted you collected, I'd have come a long time ago." Cecily tried to make sense of that statement. Bruce didn't want her collected? She wondered if she should bother coming back with Dick. Maybe she'd worn out the last of Bruce's good grace. Dick's words also did nothing to clarify whether his actions were his own or Bruce's. Dick must have seen the pensive look on her face but he ignored it, and rapped on the car's roof to get the girl's attention. "Come on. Get in."
As the crow flies, Salem Heights was less than fifteen miles from Gotham City, on the other side of the harbor. But Arkham Island lay between the two, and all the security checks that came with getting through the outskirts of the island made it easier to go around it. Plus, it lessened the chances of getting murdered by escaped patients by at least a tenfold.
Cecily should know.
"Try not to look too trashed when we get there," Dick said lightly as he pulled onto the freeway. Cecily rolled her eyes.
"Thanks for the advice." Now that we were in the car, the charged tension from the apartment had broken somewhat. Dick was more relaxed, his face calmer. But that could just be the promise of Alfred's dinner waiting at the manor. Cecily's mouth watered as she thought of his cooking. Her own skills were slim to none, and she'd had nothing like a home cooked meal for the better part of a year.
She was tired, too. The wine and the weed had given her a pleasant buzz that was making her sleepy as it faded.
"Wake me when we're home?" The question slipped out before she realized what she'd said. Home. A place Cecily wasn't sure she had anymore. Dick hummed an asset, reaching over to turn the music down slightly.
"Well, I certainly didn't go through all that to let you stay in the car all night."
MOUNT JUSTICE
January 1, 14:21 EST
"Delta squad: Miss Martian, Superboy, Bumblebee, Robin, Blue Beetle and Beast Boy. Clayface escaped Arkham, we need you to find him." Echo caught the tail end of Nightwing's debrief as the Zeta Tube powered down and she entered the Cave, the computer announcing her arrival.
"Recognized: Echo, B-One-Three."
Nightwing turned towards me, a frown flickering across his face.
"Aw, don't look so happy, Nightwing," Echo teased, heading over to the center of the mission room. "I come bearing gifts."
Within seconds she'd pulled up to map of Gotham City, isolating and highlight the ten-block radius in Gotham where she'd tracked Clayface. Echo had been living back in Gotham City since Christmas Eve. Bruce had cleared her for patrol that night, and she'd called the Team in after a tangle with Clayface.
"I've contained Clayface to this area. He's in the sewers."
"How do you know he didn't leave?"
The question came from Blue Beetle, one of the members of the Team who'd joined in Echo's absence last year. She wasn't sure if the Team had made use of the technology that was her parents' life's work while she was gone, but she used their acoustic inventions frequently while on patrols or missions. It was effective and nearly foolproof. Cutting edge.
"Ultrasonic frequencies," Echo replied, pulling up the schematics on the side of holographic screen. She clicked a button to highlight where she'd placed the barriers in the Gotham sewers. Taking a step back to look over the familiar technology, her voice sounded faraway to her own ears.
"Doctors Estee Davis and Tobias Arkham, deceased 2013, found a way to create sound barriers within pocket atmospheres. They've been used at Arkham Asylum and other maximum-security facilities since 2004." Giving her head a quick shake to dispel thoughts of the past, Echo glanced over her shoulder to grin at the rookie. "Luckily we've never had to deal with an insane speedster."
Walking away from the screens and back towards the squad of heroes, Echo reached into her utility belt for the other items she'd brought.
"Ear muffs," she said to Superboy as she passed them to him. The Kryptonian's sensitive ears would be able to make out the unbearable noise created by the ultrasonic emitters. Even humans found it distressing to be too close to the sound for too long, though they couldn't hear it and didn't know why. The feeling amounted to one of trepidation and disorientation.
Neither scientist had noticed the effects of ultrasonic frequencies their child was born. Dr. Davis refused to put pause on her work while on maternity leave and decided to take her work home with her. No matter how deeply asleep their newborn was when Dr. Davis entered her home lab, the child woke up wailing the second the transmitters were turned on.
The result? Dr. Davis invented in-ear monitors that cancelled out the frequency. Noise cancelling headphones, but for only one noise. Genius.
A part of Echo wondered if the idea hadn't come initially from a desire to block out the child's cries so the good doctor could focus, instead of as a way to protect her child from the noise. Still, whatever the motive behind them, there was no doubt they worked.
Superboy slid the buds into his ears, and Echo held out a small capsule, placing it in his outstretched hand.
"That's liquid nitrogen," she said. "Electricity won't work on him anymore."
"Got it."
"Good," Nightwing said. "The only other complication." He touched a few keys on the screen and pulled up another file. It opened up a profile on an unknown vigilante. "Gotham Police have been tracking this character, assigned code name Harbinger. Last time she was regularly active was right after Arkham was converted to a psychiatric facility in 1993. Her operations went silent in 2012, until a few months ago. She's been known to operate out of Arkham Asylum."
"Out of Arkham Asylum?" Bumblebee repeated, incredulous.
"Yeah. A major security risk, to say the least. Her motives are unclear, but she pop ups pretty consistently when patients escape, and she's apprehended more than a few of them. She uses vicious force and has killed at least three patients." Nightwing's eyes narrowed behind his mask. "If you see her, you are not to engage."
A video began to play on the screen. It was security footage of hallway outside of Arkham's maximum security cells. A shadowy figure flit down the hall. It was too dark to see much, but the facial features of the thing looked warped and grotesque. It moved forwards, drifting directly through the wall and into the cell. As it began to pass through the wall, the camera began to glitch, the lens going blurry and fuzzy. When the picture cleared, the figure was gone.
"The prisoners call her the Arkham Ghost," Robin added. "The guards says seeing her drives you insane." Nightwing shot the younger boy a look, probably hoping to avoid that can of worms.
"Arkham Ghost?" Beast Boy's voice rose in pitch, clearly put off by the security footage.
Frankly, no one could blame him. The camera footage looked like something straight out of a found footage horror film.
"Well, if a place is ever gonna be haunted it would be that shithole," Echo muttered. Nightwing glared at her, but she ignored him. "Anyway, if it helps, there's been no sign of her tonight, at least not in Gotham." Echo's eyes opened wide behind her domino mask and she grinned widely again, unable to help herself. "Then again, if she's a ghost - "
"Echo - "
"Or maybe she can't leave the island. Her spirit is contained to the walls of the asylum, doomed to walk - "
"That's enough," Nightwing snapped, his patience wearing thin. Echo shut up, scowling at the back of his head as she wondered when he'd stopped being able to take a joke. Robin shot her a look, silently warning her not to test him again. "She's not a ghost. Investigators best bet is that she was incarcerated for a time, maybe even in Arkham herself."
"Anything else, Nightwing?" Miss Martian asked, crossing her arms over her chest. He shook his head.
"Dismissed. Report back when Clayface is contained." Echo turned to follow the other heroes, but Nightwing called her back. Robin paused a few feet away, waiting for the two other Bats to finish. "Echo, you're not going. Rendezvous with Batman back in Gotham." Echo scowled.
"Are you serious? I was already tracking him - "
"And you called for help." Nightwing cut the younger hero off. He had turned his attention to the holographic screen, not even looking at her. "You called the Team. Batman may have cleared you for patrol, but I didn't. So go back to Gotham, but stay out of their way. Make yourself useful and prove to me that you still deserve to be here." Echo took a step towards him, frowning. The expression was out-of-place on her usually cheerful face.
"Excuse me?"
"This isn't a discussion, Cecily." Nightwing's voice was low when he said Echo's real name. "They're orders. Follow them."
She stared at him incredulously for a beat, and he finally turned to her, his face perfectly impassive. Echo turned around without another word and walked towards the Zeta Tube. Her heart was beating rapidly, irritated by his condescending attitude. Robin started walking with her, casting a glance over his shoulder at Nightwing.
"What was that about?"
Tim had been living with Bruce for just over a year now, but the two teenagers had only overlapped in their time at the manor for about three months before she'd left town. Still, he'd always been easy to get along with, and Echo didn't mind his question.
"Hell if I know. He's been weird ever since I came back." She glanced at Robin. "You see it too, then? This isn't just how he is now?" Robin shrugged.
The rest of Delta squad had gathered in the Zeta Tubes, waiting for the two heroes. Echo followed them in, knowing that she'd need to split from them when they arrived in Gotham. She could see Nightwing looking at Miss Martian, and after a moment, the Martian glanced to the younger girl. The Martian was leading the Delta that night, and she didn't doubt that Nightwing had just used a psychic link to tell her that Echo wasn't to couldn't tag along. The founding members of the Team had worked together for so long that they moved in sync, and Miss Martian wasn't like to let a direct order from Nightwing slip.
"On the bright side," Robin said lightly as the Zeta powered up around the group. "Looks like you get to skip the Gotham sewers."
"That will help me sleep tonight."
GOTHAM CITY
January 4, 18:41 EST
"Damn it!"
Tim laughed as his back hit the mat. Cecily grinned, offering a hand out to help him up. He took it, allowing her pull him to his feet. He was much less pissy about getting beat than Jason was, although that made have been due to the fact that Jason and Cecily started training at the same time. Tim was willing to respect the elder girl's relative experience over him.
"I thought you said you hadn't trained all year."
"Dick said that," she corrected the younger boy, taking a swig from her water bottle. "He doesn't know what I've been doing."
"What have you been doing?" She grinned at Tim.
"Nice try." Cecily plopped down on the edge of mat, crossing her legs. Tim sat down beside her.
"Seriously, for someone who talks so much I'm surprised it hasn't come up yet," Tim teased. "There are only so many combinations of words in the English language." She aimed a playful kick at him, which he blocked easily.
"So. Two new Team members, Wally and Artemis retired, Kaldur gone rogue." Cecily shook her head with a slow sigh. "What else have I missed?" Blue Beetle wasn't the only addition to the Team since Cecily had left; Wonder Woman had taken on Wonder Girl as a protege, and she'd been on the Team since October. The other two pieces of information, particularly the bit about Kaldur, had been far more distressing than the appearance of two new heroes.
"The Harbinger person." Cecily tilted her head to the side, looking at Tim quizzically. "It's weird that even Bruce hasn't figured out who it is, yet. There's literally no record of her. Do you think there's really a ghost at Arkham?" Tim asked. Cecily shrugged.
"It's not impossible. I mean, there's magic, there's metahumans, and there's aliens. Who knows what else could be out there?" She stretched her arms over her head and leaned back on the mat. "Zatanna and Artemis saw one once, you know. Their first year on the team." Tim stared at me, and Cecily shrugged again. "Creepy story, guy killed his little sister."
"That's not creepy, that's fucked up," Tim said, aghast. "And depressing."
"Well, so is my family's history," Cecily said nonchalantly, pressing her arms up to rise into a bridge position. She kicked her legs over her head, holding herself in a handstand. Her arms started burning sooner than she would have liked, acrobatics being one of the few things she was rustier on now than when she'd left. "Like I said, I wouldn't put it past that place to be cursed by something."
"Seriously?"
Arkham Island wasn't just the asylum. Not too long ago, the island had been a small town. The buildings now used as the facility were the Arkham family's estate. Cecily's grandfather had grown up there, and her father had been when he was young before it was turned into a hospital. The place wasn't remodeled into a psychiatric facility until 1990s, a couple years before Cecily was born. After that, its relative isolation made it perfect for a place to keep the criminally insane. You can imagine how that might tank the property value.
Her family - namely, her great-uncle Dr. Amadeus Arkham - bought out the owners of most business and stores in the town out, redirecting the funds to creating the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane, after his mother.
As usual, Cecily wondered what exactly had possessed her parents to name her after her great-grandmother: Cecily Elizabeth Arkham Davis. They'd had enough sense to give her her mother's surname, and the first name of Cecily, but still. It was her name, and they were her blood. And the twisted Arkham family history spoke for itself.
The old town does still exist, with a few stores like a gas station and a motel still operating for the occasional visitor. But it was largely abandoned. No one wanted to touch the place - and yet the Arkham family keeps coming back to it. Seemed like a curse to Cecily.
"Seriously," Cecily finally replied. Tim shook his head.
"I don't think so. I think there has to be a logical explanation."
Cecily was about to reply when she heard a beeping from her bag and let her legs drop back down on the mat, springing to her feet before bounding over to where she'd left her stuff at the edge of the gym. She rifled through her backpack and pulled out her phone, grinning when she saw what the alert was.
"Wanna hear what Bruce is saying about me?" Cecily asked, skipping back over to Tim. He arched his eyebrows at her, asking a silent question. She motioned to her phone, grinning as she increased the volume. "I tagged Bruce's office with bugs that pick up the sound of my name," she told him. "I like to know what people are saying about me."
"Bruce hasn't found it?" Cecily grinned mischievously.
"Not yet." Cecily clicked play on the live tape, and Bruce's voice played out over the speaker of her phone.
"...said it yourself, we're stretched thin," Bruce was saying. "Cecily hasn't fallen behind. She's more experienced than when she left. If anything, I trust her better now."
Cecily grimaced, knowing what Bruce was referring to. She hadn't exactly been in the best or most of responsible places when she'd split town. Acting out on patrol, taking unnecessary risks, pushing back on orders...there weren't many lines she hadn't toed in her final weeks at the manor last year.
Since she'd been back, Bruce had said nothing of her actions in the past. It was as though he'd given her a clean slate, but hell if she knew what she'd done to deserve that.
"Isn't that a little suspicious to you?" Dick was asking. Cecily pictured him pacing behind Bruce's desk, the elder man sitting and watching. "What was she doing last year?" There was a rustling sound over the mic, and the voices became muffled. Only snatches of the conversation were audible.
"What's going on?" Tim asked. The auburn-hair girl frowned, fiddling with the schematics of the advice on the watch.
"Not sure. These have a built-in wireless signal, there shouldn't be any weak patches."
Snatches of the conversation floated through the air as she tried to see what was up with the bug. She'd placed it before she'd left; so it was possible it was a hardware issue, but these things were pretty resilient. It wasn't exactly getting banged up in Bruce's office, on the underside of his desk.
"...never should have let it go on for as long as it did! I don't know why..." Dick.
"...deserved the time to process and grieve..." Bruce.
"...spoiling her. Treat her like an adult." Dick's words were the last that Ceecily caught before the recording completely cut off, transmitting a warning of lost signal. She frowned.
"That's strange."
She didn't have time to ponder the mysterious lost signal for long. Just a few minutes later, the door to the gym swung open. Dick was standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest.
"Suit up. Both of you," he ordered. He leaned against the open door, holding it for the two younger teens as they got to our feet. As they filed past him, Dick grabbed Cecily by the arm. She paused, letting Tim go on ahead to the Batcave as she turned to Dick expectantly. He pressed something into her hand before letting go of her arm. Cecily looked at her closed fist, and then back up at Dick. He raised his eyebrows at her.
"Don't screw this up."
Without waiting for a response he turned to follow Tim. She glanced at his retreating figure and then back at her closed fist. The shape and weight of the device was familiar to her, and she was wholly unsurprised when she opened her fingers to see the bug she'd planted in Bruce's office sitting on her palm.
MOUNT JUSTICE
January 4, 20:00 EST
"It's all hands on deck," Nightwing said from the front of the mission room. He'd explained what the League had deduced a couple days ago, that a group of aliens known as Kroloteans had invaded Earth, and had been taking humans as hostages. "The League and the Team will hit all fourteen Krolotean Zeta locations simultaneously. Your priorities are to destroy all Zeta Tubes or platforms and search for any humans the aliens may have abducted. As always, Mal is Ops Manager, coordinating from here."
"Come on, Alpha Squad." Echo heard Lagoon Boy mutter under his breath.
"Wonder Girl," Nightwing continued. "You and I are Alpha." The blonde girl grinned widely, pumping her fist excitedly. "Assignment, Philadelphia." He went to assign Batgirl, Bumblebee, and Wolf to Beta Squad, where they'd check out Vlatavastok. He turned to the four remaining members: Robin, Lagoon Boy, Blue Beetle, and Echo. "You four are Gamma. Prep the BioShip. You're headed to New Orleans."
"Cool," Echo said, grinning. "Love New Orleans. Can we hit Bourbon Street if we finish early?" Nightwing gave her a disapproving look.
"Gamma always gets the soft gigs," Lagoon Boy muttered, turning away to head to the bay. Blue Beetle followed him, but Nighwing called Echo and Robin back.
"Tim. You'll be running Gamma."
"Me?" Robin shot Echo a surprised look, and then looked back at Nightwing. "Dick - I've never led a squad before."
"Making this a good opportunity to get your feet wet as a field leader."
"Because it's Gamma, and you're not expecting trouble?" Robin asked, his eyes narrowing. "Or because we're stretched thin and you have no choice?" Nightwing shook his head.
"Just don't die, okay?" He cast a look at Echo. "And no unnecessary risks to the squad. That's an order. Echo - I don't care what they find. You're staying on the BioShip." Her mouth fell open. "You want to be on a Team mission? These are your orders. Take them or leave them."
"Yeah, well, I'm leaving them," she replied icily. Echo glanced at Robin. His eyes were wide. "Let me know if you guys run into trouble, I'll Zeta over. But this is a waste of my time."
She stalked across the mission room, heading towards the Zeta Tubes. Nightwing called after her, his voice furious, but she ignored him. She keyed in the Zeta Location on the touchscreen, but before Echo could step in to the transporter, Nightwing was grabbing her arm.
"Cecily." Nightwing appeared behind her. When she glanced back the room was empty save the two of them. "Where do you think you're going?"
"You clearly don't need me here, nor do you want me." She turned towards him, wrenching her arm from his grasp. His face was stone cold. "You brought me back," Echo reminded him in a low voice. "I was happy where I was. If you're not gonna let me do anything, you should have left me alone."
"Happy living in your dead parents apartment, drinking and smoking by yourself?" Nightwing's voice was derisive, scathing. "If that's true maybe I shouldn't have bothered."
"You have no idea what I was doing last year," Echo told him quietly. "So shut up about my life. Preferably forever." Nightwing shook his head.
"Your ability to make everything about yourself will never cease to amaze me." His voice was low and annoyed again, and Echo realized again that she was dealing with a somewhat different Dick Grayson than she'd been familiar with ten months ago. "But you're right. You'll be more useful on patrol." Echo felt faintly like she'd been tricked, that this was somehow the outcome Nightwing had been hoping for.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Echo said sarcastically, whipping her head around. She stepped into the Zeta Tube, watching Nightwing through narrowed eyes as it powered up around her. "Good luck out there. Dick."
ARKHAM ISLAND
January 5, 03:31 EST
Warden Quincy Sharp was not a nervous man. He couldn't afford to be, not in his line of work. The prisoners at Arkham could smell fear the way sharks could blood.
That being said, he was feeling quite unnerved at the moment.
"Warden Sharp."
The man spun around, his eyes falling on the figure that had materialized on the other end of the roof. Her voice was warped, sounding creaky and hollow. The logical part of his brain knew that it was a voice modulator, used by many vigilantes, but the superstitious part of him felt that it was just one more point in the column of this figure being less than human.
The Arkham Ghost. Rumors spread by staff and prisoners alike whispered that seeing her drove people insane; the prime example being Harley Quinn, who'd reported having conversations with a woman that could walk through walls and had a gaping pit for a mouth. The conversations happened while Quinn had worked at Arkham as a doctor before falling in with Joker. All who had seen her, guards and prisoners alike, described a feeling of impending doom, a creeping dread that crawled over the person's entire body.
That's why the police called her the Harbinger.
Sharp really hoped those rumors were wrong.
"We had a deal," the Harbinger said, advancing slowly. The creature's face was shrouded by a hood, too far away for Sharp to see if it really had a pit for a mouth like Quinn claimed. Sharp suppressed a shudder, his stomach turning over.
"I know."
"You help me, I help you..." the Harbinger dropped from the lip of the roof to land lightly in front of the Warden, just far enough away to appear non-threatening. It didn't work. "Everyone's happy."
"The prisoners are talking," Sharp said, trying to keep his voice steady. Whoever or whatever this thing was, he didn't doubt she could sense fear the way a patient could.
"They're not the only ones." Dread coiled low in Sharp's gut. "Why are you telling the police I might have been incarcerated in Arkham between 2012 and last year? Why are you pulling patient files?" The Harbinger stepped closer to the Warden. He was getting dizzy.
"I'll stop," he gasped. "I'll shut it down. I promise."
"I'll hold you to that." The Harbinger had turned away from the Warden now, but as she turned back, she stepped into the moonlight.
Its face was contorted, unearthly looking. Its eyes were large and dark, blank of all expression and its mouth - oh god - the gaping blackness, a never ending pit. Sharp was shaking by now, fear of this unknown thing coursing through this veins.
"Do you know what it means when you hear a banshee scream, Warden?"
Now the creature's voice was rising up and down as it spoke, a horrible wail emitting from its gaping mouth. Warden Strange took a step back, not realizing how close he was to the edge of the roof. He slipped on the slick surface and stumbled backwards, his legs hitting the end of the roof. He gasped, toppling backwards as he fought to correct his center of gravity. For a terrible moment he thought he was going to fall over, but he managed to wheel his arms forward at the last moment, collapsing in front of the Harbinger.
The wail crawled through his very bones, and he clasped his hands over his ears in a desparate attempt to block out the terrible noise.
"It means someone's about to die." The creaky voice of the creature spoke again, and the wail broke off just as suddenly as it started.
Sharp dropped his hands from his ears, gasping for breath as he fought to stop shaking.
When he finally looked up, the Harbinger was gone.