Mirror Master kicked the door open and charged in, armed for bear, mirror gun out, loaded and aimed forward. He was met with gunfire. A bullet ricocheted off the wall behind him, and he saw the glittering blue of an energy beam coming just in time to duck under it.
I trailed in awkwardly behind, unarmed, poking my head through the threshold just to get a look at what was going on, ready to run. When the first bullets hit, I immediately ducked back out and plastered my back against the wall, cowering outside the door.
There was another tremendous crash, a roar of shattered glass that drowned out the high-pitched whirr of energy weapons and bang of gunshots. I only really had a view down the cellar stairs, and not into the room itself, not from my vantage point by the door, but Mirror Master ducked low, going into a slide down the damn stairs, returning fire into the room whilst using the bannister as sparse cover. The bannister saved him, a bullet embedded into it a moment later, and he raised some kind of silvery, sheer shield that looked like a mirror that appeared in thin air for him to hide behind once he reached the bottom of the stairs and that cover ran out.
"What the hell's going on down there?" I called down to Mirror, cursing my inability to see round corners, but still not being willing to wander into a bloody firefight
"Just them two! Freeze 'n Penguin, must've been got already!" He replied, as another beam of blue energy crashed into his shield, ice creeping over it. Yeah, that was those two shooting, alright.
"No other demons or anything?"
He shot his gun into the floor, peered into it. I could see a little bit through the mirror he'd made, was he looking out of the reflection from one of the lights in the ceiling?
"Nope!" he called back, shouting over the sound of another blast of Freeze Ray, before crying out in fright as a bullet came out of the portal he'd made in the floor.
"Shit!" He cursed, quickly closing it. Penguin getting clever, good on him!
"Or maybe they're bloody shooting us 'cause you went in guns blazing. Cease fire, dammit!"
Mirror went still, reloading, staying in cover, but not fighting. I don't know if they thought we'd left or were up to something, but the return fire stopped after a few moments, and I took the opportunity to dash for Mirror's cover. I didn't even glimpse over the room to get a sense of what was going on, too busy scrambling for my life and hoping the sudden movement didn't get me shot, but I figured now I was properly inside, I could at least try to hold a conversation.
"Cease fire! It's us, it's us! Freeze, Penguin, it's just you two?"
There was a pause, and at the very least the gunfire didn't resume as soon as I spoke. Eventually Penguin called over to me
"John? Hell're you doing with him? Oi knew The Rogues would bloody turn on us eventually, but y-"
"We didn't turn on you, mate! There's a demon loose, maybe a bunch! We heard crashes, the hell are you doing in here?"
He at least had the decency to sound vaguely embarrassed. He rubbed the back of his neck as he replied "...Why don't you come on out, John. Both've you, even."
"...And you aren't gonna shoot me?"
"No we're not gonna fucking shoot you!" He hissed, which was… good enough for me.
I stood up, hands in the air, to look over the scene.
Two of the big shelves of wine had been upended, pulled away from the wall and tossed onto the floor. A sticky pool coated almost the entire floor, deep enough for some of the shattered glass to be floating in it, the whole place reeked of it.
Penguin looked like he'd been pouring the stuff over himself, he was coated, soaked to the bone, sticky and soggy. Freeze at least was mostly untouched. They were using the shelves as improvised cover, had piled them up like barricades.
I was suddenly very aware of that little explosive burning a hole on my pocket. It was the… how many'th brick on the far wall, I was supposed to plant this?
Was it even worth doing that, as a favour to somebody who might well be a demon, by now?
Mirror was still hiding behind the cover, but I kicked him gently and he scrambled to his feet. Neither of us got frozen into statues or shot to bits.
"So… peace?" I tried, and got a pair of flat stares right back at me.
"Not until we know why you came down here guns blazing." Freeze kept his gun aimed level at us. Penguin did too, aiming his umbrella, which I knew doubled as a gun. His aim was shaky, though. Level might be the wrong word for it.
"There's a demon on the bleeding loose and we heard crashing, we thought you were in fucking trouble!"
"Yeah, sue me for trying to bloody help." Mirror rolled his eyes, all but pouting in jilted annoyance. "Just go shooting without even thinking, it'll be just fine, aye."
"If that was the attitude you had employed in Gotham, Mirror Master, things would have gone a lot-"
"Hoh-kay! Mirror, you said you wouldn't start a fight." I pointed a finger at him, vaulting the light-shield and striding into the room, taking over the situation before that… escalated. "Freeze, you too. We're here on business, right? Penguin, the fuck are you doing in here?"
My eyes went to the toppled shelves. His did too. I went and knelt next to them, on the off chance they weren't actual wine or something. Nope, pure as could be. So much for my first theory, that they were looking for the demon blood supply.
"What? It's a party! We were havin' fun! And it got out of hand, and…" He looked embarrassed, swaying drunkenly on the spot.
"This idiot almost crushed himself. He is lucky I was there. Again."
"Killjoy!" Penguin waved his umbrella around wildly, and even Freeze winced a little as the firing line passed over him, even as he stood there, stoic as a statue, arms folded.
"Better than kill-you." He drawled, accent slipping in a little. "I am not sure you're even in a fit state to negotiate with Harry. And I did not come here to babysit."
"Ah, oi've got smelling salts for that, and a change of clothes. A shower and oi'll be fine, The Rogues'll be in there hours ye-" He stopped when he remembered Mirror Master was in the room. Mirror cleared his throat meaningfully.
"How long've you been out?" He pointed the umbrella at Mirror, accusingly. "How'd negotiations go, tell me or-"
I put a hand on Penguin's shoulder, gently, calmingly. Best to break this news nice and kind. "Negotiations are off, mate. Harry Cooper's dead. Shapeshifting demon, invited us all here to try to subvert as many villains as possible. We, uh… we dunno who's taken, Cold's freezing up the exits 'til I can test everybody."
That made him actually lower the gun. He put the end against the floor, leaning on it like a walking cane, as he took it in.
"That could be a problem. How many? And who's in charge've this place, now, that Len man?" He asked, speaking slowly, and only once he'd processed the news.
"You can't seriously be considering trying to go through with the deal?" I said, staring in shock at him
"We have 'im at a disadvantage!" He went from quiet and contemplative back to bombastic in an instant, waving his arms about. "Think of how low his prices'll go once he realises his boss is dead, doubly if we imply it was our good selves what did it!" He paced on the spot a moment before wheeling on Freeze, all signs of drunkenness gone. Faked, I suspected. "Freeze, new plan, we find Len. Where is he?"
"Hold up! He's playin' poker with our lads, last I checked." Mirror answered, not so wisely when he could've just slipped away first. "And if anybody's gonna cut a deal with him first, it's us."
"...So it's a race, then? To whoever's first to let him know what happened to his boss." Penguin narrowed his eyes at Mirror, and both of them froze. He placed his hand over his mirror-gun in its holder, ready to quickdraw, portal out. It was… tense. And I took the opportunity to slip towards the back of the room, trying to remember the instructions.
Eighth, I think it was. Eighth brick. On the left. Mirror and Penguin preened at each other, as I leaned all casual against the wall, back over that brick. There was a little hole there, a leftover from construction where they'd put a peg or a strut or something in. I'm not a construction worker, I'm not sure on the details, but it's not an uncommon sight, even if it was a… worryingly precise fit in size and shape for the little pill-sized explosive Trickster had given me.
"It doesn't even matter if you do get there first. You really think your captain can outbid me? He's not even the best freeze-ray maker in the building, there's no way he can beat us on bankroll."
"Don't need to if he never even hears yer offer, mucker! Go on, run. I'll have 'im in a pocket dimension for negotiating before you've bounced yer fat arse all the way up those stairs."
The two were absorbed in their argument, but… Freeze was not. He was looking my way.
I had the pill in my hand. My body was between him and the hole, he couldn't see what I was doing, could he?
He was staring right at me. Studying me. He shook his head, just slowly, inside that little fishbowl helmet of his.
Could he see me?
I didn't have the guts to take the risk, not close. I watched the little argument calmly as I palmed the pill. Better wait for another opportunity.
I finished just in time for the end of the show, and the start of a little standoff between my two new villain friends.
"C'mon, you're a mobster with a gun, not a real villain. The hell even if yuir power, obesity? Cash don't count." Mirror Master leered. Penguin rolled his eyes, apparently sick of the whole charade.
"My power's bein' rich enough to do this." He retorted, jerking his head to Freeze, who calmly, slowly, deliberately giving Mirror time to react, unholstered his freeze ray…
And Mirror Master opened a mirror-portal in the floor and vanished into it. The lights started speaking in his voice, echoing after he was gone
"See you later, mucker! Try not to give yourself a cardiac on those stairs, yeah?"
Penguin didn't move to follow. Instead he just waited for the echoing laughter to stop, then let out a one-note chuckle of his own. "Idiot. Well, that got rid've him at least."
I pushed off the wall, staring at the spot on the ground Mirror, and his portal, used to be before letting out a raucous laugh. "Oh! Oh, man, is that what that was about! You little shit! So, wait, you ain't interested in trying to negotiate with- Len really is probably in charge of Harry's whole outfit, now, which makes him de-facto owner of all that shit you're trying to buy, right?"
"So?" Freeze rapped his knuckles against the wall, his armour making a metallic clink against cold rock. "Why bother? There is a demon loose, they will be busy and chaotic. We saw Trickster go into this basement with Len. The plan is to steal everything without paying a cent." He stared at me after that, then towards the walls. "We have been struggling to figure out which wall we would need to knock out, we think the south one but aren't sure, and we'd make noise doing it. Choosing the wrong one would give others the chance to act."
It hit me like a lightning bolt when he said that. It- it WAS the south wall, wasn't it? That was why Trickster wanted it bloody blown out, wasn't it? He'd seen! There was a trove of weapons and meds behind the south wall, and… and now I was one of the only two who knew.
He saw my face. Paused a moment, considered me… and totally misread it.
"No, not the south? I saw you talking with Trickster. We will try north, then."
Penguin nudged him, studying me, muttering "Now now, best not be hasty. If you think he knows, then- John! My good friend, are we not good friends? Oi think we are, felt a kinship since we first met back in the Iceberg Lounge. Be a friend." He leant forward onto his umbrella, resting his hands on the umbrella and his chin on his hands, as he leered
"Tell us what Trickster said to you?"
I had two choices, in that moment.
No, wait, make that three.
One, tell the truth. Penguin really was the least awful of the old monsters in Gotham, and we got along well, even if we weren't quite the allies he always seemed to assume we were because we shared a British heritage
Two, deny everything, say Trickster just talked nonsense at me and pissed off. The safe option, it'd keep me out of trouble, wouldn't really be implicitly taking a side between Penguin and The Rogues. And I really, really had no reason to get between them.
Or three, spin a lie, plant the bomb, integrate myself into the Rogues, and fuck Penguin over.
I made a snap decision. Fast enough I only realised why I'd make it a second after.
"Sorry mate, he told me fuck-all. Kept cracking knock-knock jokes and insinuating he knew something he didn't like we hadn't all seen him going into this damn basement." I shrugged, projecting innocence.
Here's the thing I'd just realised.
Only reason I was hanging around was because Cold has frozen us all in, I was playing along with him and looking for an escape, but…
I was holding a damn bomb, wasn't I?
Screw waiting around and playing along, I can just blow a hole in the bloody wall.
"Fine, we'll keep up with the south 'un, then." Penguin grunted, tapping the tip of the umbrella across it, listening out for hollow sounds. He didn't get any. "Look, do us a favour, eh? Keep the Rogues busy another hour or three. I'm playing drunk and keeping watch whilst Freeze seeps ice into the cracks in the walls, expanding and cracking it. Quietest way to break it down. We'll cut you in on a share of the loot, eh? To the tune of, oh, I don't know, a couple million?"
What was it Mirror had said earlier? Oh, yeah.
Can't spend cash if you're dead.
Bugger me, was I really snubbing my nose at a couple million quid?
"Done." I lied, a grin gleaming on my lips. "I'll see if I can't get some answers out of trickster for you too, eh? Next group I'm meant to be checking are their little poker circle, too."
"Well go on, then! Mush, mush!" Penguin shooed me out, and I stumbled back, almost tripping over one of the bottles scattered all over the floor. "Before Master Mirror gets suspicious."
"Mirror Master" I corrected, rolling my eyes.
"Yes, him. Go! We'll still be here. Though not for too much longer."
I went to the stairs, clambering up, but paused a moment at the threshold. I had one more question to ask, before I went and pissed off.
"Hey, once you have the loot, what's your plan to escape the ice prison, anyway?"
Mister Freeze looked almost offended at the question. And then he laughed, saying "I have ways around anything that hack does, Constantine. Now go. This work is delicate."
He knelt down next to the wall, pressing the freeze ray against the very crack I'd been meant to plant the bomb in.
And I slipped out the door, and went looking for somewhere much better to plant the thing instead.
—
I found a nice spot on the outer wall. An air-con unit. I had no faith in even a metahuman made bomb blowing a hole through Cold's bloody supernatural ice walls, I doubted it'd melt like regular ice for starters, but there was no way he'd reinforced the walls like he had doors and windows, and air con units are vents to the outside by definition, the wall was probably thinner here, right? I'm not an engineer, but it was the best guess I had.
Just one problem. I didn't have a detonator, and I didn't want to be close enough to poke it with a stick like I'd need to to set it off manually.
Make that two problems.
Somebody else saw me set it up.
She was stood by the bannister overlooking the main hall. Staring at me. This was the first I'd seen her since Harry had outed himself, and the image of Mandragora's mangled body was still fresh in my mind.
She looked like herself. She'd cut the hem of her dress up to her knees, probably to keep it from getting in the way while she ran about, but otherwise looked just like before. Normal, human. I couldn't sense foul energies coming from her either, but I wasn't terribly sure that I would. Not without a ritual to test her with, and I only had half the ingredients, still needed to scavenge the rest.
So we had a little standoff. She was dozens of metres away, I'd have to yell to talk so she'd hear, but our eyes still met. She was tense. Scared?
I tried calling out anyway. "Helena? Helena, that you?"
There was a long, long silence before she gave me a slow nod.
"Come on down, let's talk! There's a demon running loose, dunno if you noticed!"
I took a step towards her, and she bolted. Turned tails and ran to the left, down one of the corridors. I was miles from her, but… fuck, there's only so much mansion in here. There were plenty of doors but most only led to one room, a dead end.
I broke into a sprint. I was already panting by the top of the stairs, there were a lot of them and I was out of shape, but it seemed she hadn't done the smart thing and ducked into the first door she passed by, I got up just in time to see a door slamming shut to the left, near the end of the corridor. I went to follow. Had her now, that one was one of the upstairs dining rooms, a dead end!
I threw the door open, pausing just a moment to dodge to the side as an arrow flew past my shoulder and impacted the door behind me.
And then a second, about three seconds after.
Tripwire attached to the door attached to a crossbow, and a second one on a time delay. I'd learned well from the lessons she's given me, a while back. Probably you were meant to dodge the first, then get confident and come back out only to get nailed by the second.
I poked my head into the room, wary of a third fired by the real Huntress, and-
She was gone?
My first thought was she was hiding behind the door to clobber me, but she wasn't. Ceiling? No. Hiding in a closet like this was a damn horror movie? No.
There was no steaming pile of skin so she hadn't shapeshifted into like, an ant, and scurried under the furniture. There were windows but it looked like Captain Cold had already been through here, they were frozen shut.
The place was a fairly simple dining room, candle-lit, fancy, long table with chairs getting increasingly posh and plush and gilded until you reached the one at the head of the table which was literally engraved in gold. Again, subtle symbolism was not Harry Cooper's strong point.
And empty of bloody Huntresses! Where the fuck'd she go?
I stalked out of the room to throw a few other random doors in the hallway open, long as it was maybe I'd gotten the wrong one. Servant's bedroom? Empty. Upstairs kitchen? Empty. Other bedroom? Zilch. Huntress wasn't powered, right? She wasn't sandbagging away the ability to bloody teleport or walk through walls, was she? My mind whirled as I stalked the half, trying to figure out where the hell she'd gone. I started turning the first room, the dining hall over. Pulling back cabinets, tearing paintings off walls, anywhere she could have been hiding.
Until I found a little button hidden in the golden throne, the chair at the head of the table. It was hidden under the padding underneath the armrest, I really had to worm my finger in there to get to it.
Score one for my detective skills. I could just about guess what it did. Gave you the ability to walk through walls. Or more specifically…
I pressed it, and a large chunk of wall suddenly slid back. It wasn't quite silent, but it had that faint 'thwip' you hear on supermarket doors, nothing that would wake the neighbours.
Or alert people you'd finished dinner and decided to slip away to knob the maid through a secret door to her bedroom.
So that's where she'd gone, Huntress had ducked into here then left when I'd gone into the dining room. Probably walked right back out into the hallway and downstairs or somewhere, she could be anywhere in the building right now. Again.
I sat myself down on the golden throne, and took a little moment of satisfaction knowing how pissed Harry would be to think my butt would be the first to touch it after his death.
So Huntress, and thus probably the other demons, were probably using these things to sneak about. Only way to explain how they were staying stealthy in what was, all told, not that large a mansion, with a fairly central design where all hallways lead to the main hall anyway.
I wondered how many of these there were? I checked all the other chairs to see if any of the rest had buttons activating secret doors, and whilst none of the other chairs had one, the golden throne had one under the other armrest.
It opened to an empty room, no other exits I could see, secret or otherwise. I went outside to check and it was not accessible through the hallway, either.
The walls were dank brick, the floor stone. Bare of wallpaper or carpet.
There was a single bare bulb lighting the room on the ceiling, and a single chair in the middle of the room.
The chair was flecked with dried blood.
Okay. Secret torture room. Wonderful. So there were a lot of these, then. I didn't want to go searching the entire damn building for these halls, checking every room one by one, but how about the maid's quarters, then?
It seemed the lovely lady was popular! I went poking my fingernails under the seams in the wallpaper, uncovered another door to the next bedroom over and…
A flight of stairs? A spiral staircase heading downwards. That gave me rather a chill. I called a "Hello?" down the stairs, to no reply.
"Anybody down there? Supervillains, evil demons? Is this where all the staff are hiding? If you're staff, tell me, if you're demons, try to eat my face!"
Nobody called back, but I could hear voices from down there. Murmurs and whispering.
I waited at the top. Hoping, I don't know, that they were debating how to reply, or coming up, or that I'd get some kind of excuse not to go down there.
That Mirror Master would come up behind me and tell me I was desperately needed in the Poker Room or something. That Penguin'd broken into the secret vault early.
None of that happened, of course, just my bloody luck. Guess I was going down there, then.
Going down the spooky staircase to a place I could hear talking when there were absolutely monsters lurking about.
I am a very smart person, I assure you. Honest.
Very stupid one too, though.
I started going down slowly. Always peering ahead, around the corner. Couldn't see more than a foot down, the spiral was tight and steep enough I had to watch my step to keep from tripping, and couldn't see much past my face. I tried to keep my footfalls light and silent as I walked down, and down…
Down what felt, at least, like one floor. Down to a blank, brick wall. The murmuring was through here, heated discussion, laughter?
There was a button to the side, presumably one which opened the brick wall into a secret door. I pressed it, and with a quiet hiss, it opened.
There was a scream, a table toppled, and I found about half a dozen guns pointed in my face, before their owners blinked and blushed sheepishly and lowered them again.
"John? The hell're you doing hiding in the walls, mucker?"
Right, of course this was where I'd wound up. The door had opened into the bloody poker room, where until I'd interrupted and made him scream and topple it, Trickster had been in the middle of a very intense game slash negotiation with Len, conducted with about half the Rogues at point of bloody gun.