Chapter Six: He was Blinded
Doctor Cain Adamson knew the precise moment that the call was answered as he watched Bane grow still, his fingers curled into loose fists.
The voice was the same tone as it had been nearly eight years before.
"What need forces your hand to call me after toppling the demoness and forging a new life for yourself?"
Bane clenched his teeth until his jaw popped at the sound of Hess al Ghul's raspy voice.
From the first whisper of Hess's voice, Bane was transported back to the last time he'd been face to face with Ra's al Ghul's twin brother.
Ra's and Hess had shared a womb and fought for control even amidst the warm amniotic fluid. They fought for the lion's share of their mother's nutrition that she sent them with everything she ate, drank, and breathed.
Hess was born grasping Ra's ankle, his fetal fingers tightly clutching onto his brother's newborn flesh.
The brothers had risen in rank within The League of Shadows, each formidable in their own right.
Hess claimed their immortality to have begun earlier than Ra's decried.
Hess stated he'd been there to urge the construction of The Tower of Babel.
That'd he'd convinced the unwashed masses to challenge the God of the Heavens, he bragged he was the reason that mortals were instilled with fear, why they were confused and scattered in flocks.
When Ra's had been killed by The Batman, Hess had grieved the required period of time according to ancient text while planning to take up the mantle of control his brother had held.
Hess had been furious, filled with righteous hellfire when Talia had taken up place at the helm, his rage had fallen on deaf ears as everyone else had bent the knee in penitence.
He had retreated, licked his wounds, and stewed in the darkness.
Seven nights and eight days of hiking, exclusively nourished by tea made from the blue flowers, he'd mediated above a precarious ice fall and the answers had come.
Hess had hatched a plan to stage a coup, to kill his niece, to skewer the Demoness and crucify her, present her to those that were loyal, force them to pledge fealty to him.
He'd drawn a number of men to his side, one feared what would happen if the coup failed and had whispered the plans of Hess's uprising into Bane's ear.
Bane foiled the coup in glorious fashion, slaughtering the men that supported Hess.
Talia had ordered Bane to allow her uncle to live.
She respected what he'd attempted and now he would forever recognize his failure as she had him branded as a traitor, exiled with three days provisions, if the mountains took him into their arms, then so be it.
Hess had turned to Bane, his face unrecognizable from being beaten, the words were slurred from his bruised and bleeding lips. "You'll see I was right; you'll see you need to cleave yourself free of the Demoness before you take her life."
Death had passed him over, spared him.
He'd made it to a nomadic camp, people that didn't ask questions, merely welcomed him.
They cleaned away the blood, bandaged his broken body and nourished him back to health, he traveled with them for a time, gathering his strength from where he'd flown too close to the sun, burned up into ash like the great phoenix.
He would rise again with another faction of men, staying under the radar, working behind the scenes where the worst crimes against humanity occurred. He had women in his flock, their bellies swollen with close to full term pregnancies the babies already sold for every kind of nefarious purpose imaginable, from culinary to sexual and everything in between.
Hess had reemerged from the sands to become known as The Grey Scorpion, his belly barely scraping roads made of silk, traversing webs of darkness, all while reveling in the evolution of immortality and the capacity of human depravities.
He'd never taken his attention away from following Talia's activities with The League of Shadows. He had eyes embedded in the bedrock of Talia's organization, had ears that captured the fumbling of a magazine into a gun and whispers not meant for others.
Hess had sent Bane a wreath when news of Talia's death had saturated the inner workings of humanity's underbelly, back room deals and places where everything had a price.
Bane had come home on two occasions to find Anja ecstatic about the gift basket that had been delivered via courier, only her signature required.
The baskets had been overflowing with delectable pastries, rich cheeses and unctuous fig jam on square rye crackers boasting glistening chunks of pink Himalayan sea salt and cracked peppercorns.
The woven baskets had arrived in concert with the birth of each child.
"What has warranted this call?" Hess rasped before issuing a harsh cough, bringing Bane to the present.
"I have lost something valuable," Bane answered after a long pause.
"Was it fulfilling as you took the life of the Demoness?" asked rhetorically before adding. "Why turn to me for your lost article?"
A small smile pulled at the corners of Bane's lips, it had felt good to depress the button that had blown Talia's cranial seams apart, spilled grey matter into her glorious fall of hair as Blake's cock had been buried to the hilt inside of her.
"You see more than most," Bane grunted.
"I see all," Hess corrected on an angry hiss.
"Time is of the essence," Bane stated, corralling his emotions.
"This missing thing has meaning to you?" Hess asked slowly, his words serpentine as they slithered through the crackly phone line.
"She's irreplaceable," Bane growled.
Bane hated himself for having to speak to Hess.
He damned every cell that had divided in the formation of his being.
Every ropy nerve fiber's ending vibrated with rage.
Bane's shame was louder.
He'd dismissed Hess from the immediacy because of Talia.
Bane eagerly detested Hess since the man held repugnance for Talia.
He'd squandered what he could've learned from Hess because he thought Talia loved him.
Bane could've found a reservoir of strength within Hess, a brother-in-arms, but he elevated Talia to higher heights than she deserved.
At night, when he was by himself, in the darkness, his true home, he'd pillow-smother those small voices that had warned him of Talia's duplicity.
He'd been blinded by his own eyes, his sight the ultimate saboteur. Bane had truly believed his heart only continued to beat because of Talia, that without her he was nothing.
Bane was humiliated at having to crawl back to the one man that would be able to find Anja above anyone else.
Hess's exile had made him stronger, an army so vast it competed with the stars but gave off no light.
The tiny tracking device he'd implanted under her supple flesh had somehow malfunctioned, the tiny device had ceased to work, and he'd not hurried to replace it.
Now he was left holding anguish, his tone taking on multiple shades of begging.
Hess let Bane marinate in the uncomfortable silence, his breathing, often accompanied by wheezing, was all that Bane could hear over the static in the poor connection.
"The price will be great," Hess finally rasped, attempting to chuckle dryly but ending up coughing before he spit a wet glob into a handkerchief.
"Name the price," Bane stated without hesitation.
Each second before Hess spoke was shards of glass in Bane's raw, wet wound.
"It might be more than you'll find agreeable, you'll find yourself further regretting your call to me," Hess belabored, taunting as he added. "I might demand a life, perhaps the child in your wife's belly."
Hess heard Bane wanting to demand how he knew of the unborn child as his voice grew harsher, strained. "I've always seen more than you, seen better in the dark."
"What is your price?" Bane growled; the words issued through tightly clenched teeth.
"Your penitence," Hess spit, "you will bow to me." He continued without compromise, "you will bow in the presence of the remaining members of the league of shadows, active and dormant. They will all come to a meeting place of my choosing and you will kiss the earth upon which I tread," he hissed.
Cain approached Bane as Hess was speaking, not concerned being so close to a man that was burning but not consumed.
Bane was able to take a breath, his lungs filling. The fresh wash of oxygenated cells allowed him to find a moment of clarity when Cain settled his hand on the muscular, rounded cap of Bane's shoulder.
A hand that had taken as many lives as it'd saved.
"Think hard brother," Cain warned.
"Find her, send as many needed through the meat grinder to find her," Bane said after a pause, a silence in which his gut was an agonizing epicenter of internal combustion.
"I will find her, I have 144K sets of eyes at my disposal," Hess said, adding after a coughing bout, "stay near this number."
Bane had called from an encrypted phone, but Hess was more educated in the ways of burning firewalls to the ground and finding those that were taken without their consent and those that wished to not be found.
After Bane ended the call, struggling to endure, not wanting to hear more, he turned towards Cain, "I need to return to the house, there are answers I'm missing."
Cain nodded, driving them both back to the well-insulated cabin where Madeline was reading to the children, a fire roaring, a bowl of popcorn perched on the brick hearth.
As the two men headed back towards the cabin, Cain focused on the finding the road in front of the hood, the conditions rapidly deteriorating, across the world, Anja rested fitfully, her lower back aching.
She moaned as she shifted again, adjusting one of the pillows behind her head, dropping her hands to her just swelling belly, closing her eyes, and sending her thoughts to the second heart that beat within her.
"I'm here, I'll keep you safe,: Anja whispered into the air around her, the fire had burned down to glowing embers, but she wasn't cold.
The growing fetus was warm inside her, she smoothed her hands in uneven circles around her rounded belly, humming a gentle song to her unborn child.
Her thoughts went to Bane and her children.
"Are you safe?" Anja asked as she opened her eyes, no one there to soothe her fears, comfort her, no carrier pigeon was due with a message around its leg.
"Annalisa, are nightmares waking you up?"
"Sebastian, my sweet boy, has your sister made you cry again?"
"My love," Anja whispered, shivering as she thought of Bane, how the touch of his hands had changed from the moment she met him until the moment she was ripped away from him.
"Are you on your way my love?"
Her questions went unanswered until her voice broke, and she began to softly sob, consciously trying to keep her suffering to herself.
Babagorl had slipped out when Anja had managed to find longer chunks of sleep, she'd gone straight back to her father, nestling close to Jericho's side as he sat in front of a large fire, examining the ring that he'd taken from Anja.
He knew nothing about the dying man that gave his last bits of life to moisten his parched throat with the tepid camel's milk in trade for the brilliant, bejeweled ring.
The man who Bane had served his last meal had been one of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people that traveled from near and far to view the body of a recently passed holy woman.
The woman's frame was diminutive in death, tiny and frail as she laid on the stone altar, surrounded by plumerias in varying colors of pink, orange, white and yellow.
It was believed the woman had seen the face of God and had not died.
She was a healer to some, an adviser to others and a fraud to a handful.
The man had joined the long procession for the viewing, when it was his turn, he had dropped his eyes.
Not in penitence or humility but rather for his eyes to fall on the glorious ring around the dead woman's withered finger, the skin looked bone dry.
The ring was priceless.
Heavy from the sheer weight of the gemstones.
He dropped to his knees as he issued a loud wail.
Everyone around was empathetic, thought he was lost in the throes of being so close to God, the tiny corpse had that effect on many and his behavior created no attention, in fact, his behavior was seemingly infectious.
He was soon joined on the dusty earth by men who cried out to the frail remains dressed in glorious veils of satin and silk.
The man glommed onto the distracting grief surrounding him and inches closer to the shriveled cadaver, the features drawn tightly together in death, the shrouds obscured the skin that was stained a deep purple from lividity.
He rose up, bringing himself eye level with the holy corpse, the righteous woman who was adorned in wealth upon death, her dead hand inches from the tip of his nose.
He was able to yank the ring free of her finger, the ring slid easily from the stiff digit.
The man's heart leapt into his throat, the riches piling up as he withdrew from the place of worship, away from the dead woman who'd spoken with God.
Someone had seen him and shouted before he was free of the mourners, spectators and those that came to defame the dead.
Heads turned toward the thief who'd masqueraded as the sad, who'd pretended to be one who had lost something.
Tears dried on the faces of those whose hearts hurt, the feelings of grief turned to daggers of hatred for the man who dared steal from the holy corpse's hand.
He was mobbed by a handful of people and somehow was able to escape. It wasn't because of the cries he gave, the curses or because the dead holy woman was looking out for him.
He was just lucky to get out of the house of someone's idea of a God.
His luck at escaping hadn't extended past providing him an exit. In the tussling with the mourners, he'd sustained traumatic injuries to his abdomen that were fatal.
He knew as he ran that his life was leaving his body, he looked down at the blood that left his body, not stopped by his hand clasped to his belly, the blood was close to black in color, he was bleeding from deep inside.
He'd slumped against a crumbling wall, the sun beating down on him, baking his blood to a rusty brown as it poured from his body.
He'd looked up when a shadow fell over him, finding Bane blocking out the sun.
He'd reached out with his bloody hands, begging for the pouch of wetness that Bane held, anything for his parched throat and dried lips, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.
He wanted one comfort before he went into death.
He gladly passed Bane the stolen ring, draining the sack of camel's milk before the last of his life drained away and his heart stopped beating.
Around the roaring fire, Jericho hugged Babagorl tighter to his side as he stared down at the ring.
The ring had more diamonds than initially seen, so many of the jewels were obscured in blood. The thicker bits of viscera had embedded themselves, distorting the beauty.
Jericho looked across the fire to the tent that held Anja and then back to the ring that he'd ripped off her finger. The dazzling jewels sparkled under the flickering flames; the facets brilliant, seductive.
Jericho wanted to understand the meaning and value Anja held for the formidable man who'd assisted Talia slaughter his village, alter his future, and birth deep hatred within him.