The Campbell Chronicles

Chapter 11

James Gordon, Police Commissioner of Gotham City PD, stood in the cell of the Joker, a flickering light reflecting off his glasses as a cigarette dangled from his mouth. The skeleton of the mass murderer lay at his feet; the pale skin stretched across the bones stood out starkly against the concrete floor.

"Is it true?" A gruff voice asked.

"I would ask how you got in here, but you're you," Gordon replied without turning around. "We're still waiting on the DNA results, but the fingerprints match."

Batman, Gotham City's premier vigilante, stepped up beside Gordon, brushing against his beige trench coat, "how did this happen?"

Gordon shrugged, "I don't know, but the body of a guard named Thomas Dickerson was found in his cell, a sharpened toothbrush in his temple."

"Honestly," he shook his head, "I'm just glad it's over. I'm glad the people of my city don't have to worry about this madman anymore."

Batman knelt, his black Cape pooling around him, "It could be a trick."

Gordon glanced at the man, who he considered a friend despite his criminal activity.

He was 6'2" tall with broad shoulders and defined muscles that strained against the gray material of his suit. Sometimes, Gordon could make out blue eyes when the light hit his cowl just right.

He wore dark gray, almost black armor that covered his body. His feet were adorned with black boots and gloves with blades decorating the forearms and hands.

A cowl covered his face.

Two pointed ears rose from the cowl, and a stylized bat splayed across his chest.

"I hope to everything holy you're wrong," Gordon pulled the cigarette from his mouth and placed it in a bag and stuck the bag in his pocket, "There are times at night I still wake up to his laughter and see all the bodies of his victims."

Gordon turned and began walking out of the room. "I'll keep the guards away for a few more minutes, but you need to be gone soon." He glanced over his shoulder, a single blue eye-locking on the Caped Crusader. "If you're going to take anything, make sure it's not missed."

Batman stared at his friend, taking in the hunched shoulders of his 5'8" frame and the premature gray in his red hair. A thick mustache and glasses drew attention away from the heavy lines on his face.

He wore a beige overcoat, white button-down shirt, khakis, and Brown loafers. When he moved, a brown shoulder holster was briefly visible.

"You know me better than that, Jim."

"I do, but it never hurts to remind you."

As Jim's footsteps faded, Batman picked up the green hair strewn across the floor and let it fall from his fingers.

Pressing a hand to his left ear, he waited a moment before speaking, "Hey, Zatanna, I need you in Gotham. Yeah, there is a case that I want you to look at."

"All right," picking up some of the hair again, he placed it in a small bag and slipped it into one of the black pouches on his utility belt, "I'll meet you when you arrive."

–XX –

Two hours later, Batman knelt on the rooftop of an alley a block from the Gotham City morgue. Suddenly, an oval-shaped blue portal opened in the alley, creating long shadows on the brick buildings that made it up.

The woman below was 5'7" tall with pale skin, long black hair, and blue eyes. A white blouse and black suit jacket showed off the contours of her narrow waist. Fishnet leggings hugged curvy legs.

The portal winked out, and high-heeled footsteps echoed around the alley as the woman searched for him, her blue eyes glowing in the darkness. Slowly, her head tilted back as her eyes fixed upon him. A flirtatious smile curled her ruby-red lips, "Are you going to stay up there all night, Bruce?"

Jumping down into the alley, Batman glared at her from behind his cowl. "Zatanna, while working, I would appreciate it if you would call me Batman."

Zatanna flicked her hand dismissively, "Unless someone else's around, I'm going to call you by your name; we've known each other too long for me to do otherwise." Her eyes scanned him up and down, "Now, you don't call for help unless it's important, so why am I here?"

Staring at her, Bruce Wayne, billionaire Playboy who moonlighted as a bat to fight criminals, reached into a pouch on his utility belt and pulled out the hairs he had taken from the Joker's cell. "I need you to tell me if these have traces of the supernatural."

Taking the bag, Zatanna poured the hairs out on her hands. Her muttered words echoed through the alley as the hairs lifted into the air and glowed a rust red, the color of dried blood. The black-haired woman glanced at Bruce, all playfulness gone from her face. "Whoever these are from has been touched by something dark; where did you get them?"

"Apparently, the Joker's dead; I got these hairs from his cell at Arkham."

Zatanna raised an eyebrow, "Apparently?"

"He's faked his death before," Bruce grunted.

Zatanna stared at the man before her. She knew Bruce and the Joker had a complicated relationship. Secretly, she believed he would give up being Batman if something happened to the Joker. Then again, he may have seen the Joker as a kindred spirit, his opposite in Gotham City's dark world. Maybe that's why he never killed him.

"I can't tell you more without seeing the body."

"We can't get back into Arkham."

"Can't or won't."

"I can't risk your magic damaging the body in the cell in case they needed to track the Joker down, but there was a guard in the cell with Joker; his name was Thomas Dickerson."

Zatanna's eyes narrowed, "Are you saying that the Joker was more valuable than Thomas Dickerson?"

"Of course not! But I may need the body to track him down if the Joker is still alive."

Zatanna stared at him for a long moment; some part of her didn't believe him. The Joker had taken so many lives, and no one, not the city or Batman, had taken the final solution to stop him, "Fine, do you want me to teleport us to the morgue, or are we taking your car?" She nodded at the long black vehicle sitting at the mouth of the alley.

Bruce glanced at his car and then at Zatanna. While part of him wanted to take his car to maintain control, he realized it would be faster if Zatanna teleported them to the morgue. "Can you get us in without being caught?"

Zatanna snorted as a ring of blue energy appeared around her. "Who do you think I am?" With another strange word, the duo vanished in a flash of light and a rush of air.

–XX –

They appeared in a cool room as sparks of electricity danced around the video cameras in the corners.

Waving the smell of burnt plastic away from his face, Bruce glanced at the destroyed cameras, "You're not exactly subtle."

"I am a stage magician, and you seem to be in a hurry," Zatanna said, her back to him, as she stared at a wall of metal cabinets. "Which one of these contains Dickerson?"

Moving into the office behind him, Bruce removed a flash drive from his utility belt and plugged it into the computer. After a few minutes of typing, he removed the flash drive and exited the room. Making his way over to cabinet 13, he grabbed the handle and paused, glancing at Zatanna, "He's in this one."

Zatanna rolled her eyes, "I gathered that."

Ignoring her, Bruce pulled the door open, grabbed the metal slab inside, and slowly walked backward.

Zatanna gently pulled back the sheet as the slab clicked into place.

After looking him over briefly, Zatanna turned to Bruce, "Mr. Dickerson was possessed?"

"How can you tell?"

Zatanna raised his hand, revealing mangled fingertips, "this kind of damage is done when the body is contorted into unnatural shapes, but honestly, that could be overlooked." She pointed to the yellow powder at the corner of his eyes and mouth, "This is one of the real telltale signs."

Bruce dabbed his finger along the powder and sniffed, "Sulfur."

"A byproduct left behind when a demon exits a host. If the host were still alive, the body would flush it out within a few days, and you would never be able to tell. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, the Joker attacked Dickerson." She pointed to the bloody hole in his temple.

"There's also this," she opened Dickerson's mouth, revealing the blackened melted teeth, "the human soul gives off some energy that protects the body, but with a dead host, the demon will wear at the body. This was done by the heat generated from the demon as it left Dickerson."

Zatanna covered Dickerson with the sheets while Bruce pushed the slab back into the cabinet. Once it was shut, Zatanna teleported them back to the alley with a muttered word.

–XX –

Bruce turned and began walking back to his car. "So," Zatanna began, "what are we doing now?"

Bruce glanced at her, "We?"

"Demons are my forte; you'll need my help."

"I'll call you when I've tracked them down."

"And how are you going to do that? Wait for more bodies to show up?"

When he reached the car, Bruce walked around to the driver's side and paused, "How do you suggest we find them?"

Zatanna held up a melted tooth, "like calls to like, and this is saturated with his energy. We can use it to summon him, but I suggest having backup in case something goes wrong."

Bruce opened the door to his car. "I don't like bringing more people in on this. This is my city; it's my place to protect."

Zatanna dropped the tooth on the passenger seat. "It's up to you. If you change your mind, I'll contact people I know. In the meantime," she said, holding up a piece of the Joker's hair. "I'll use the energy here and see if I can tell where they've been."

Without saying another word, Bruce left, the engine of his long, narrow black car shattering the silence of the night.

Zatanna watched him go, dread settling in her stomach. She hated dealing with demons. Images of her father's body engulfed in flames flash through her mind. Her heart went out to Dickerson; he deserved justice.

His last emotions had been terror and a deep fear of Arkham.

A narrow face with luminescent white eyes had been the last thing Dickerson's conscious mind had seen.

She turned away, a portal opening in front of her, but whoever this demon was, he definitely went to Arkham for the Joker. The question is why. What did the Joker have that a resident of hell would want?

–XX –

Amanda Waller entered her home, dropping her purse on the table beside the door. Walking down the hallway, she flipped on the light in her living room and froze as she saw a man in a grey bodysuit sitting in one of her white leather chairs.

"Hello, Waller," he greeted, rising to his feet.

"Harbinger, what the hell are you doing here?"

"You've been spreading the word through the underworld that you want to hire me, and you asked me why I'm here?"

Waller stared at the three red claw marks that decorated his hood as her hand drifted toward her gun, "I don't like people entering my home unannounced."

"And I don't like people making my job harder, so why don't you tell me about this job so I can leave."

Releasing a breath through her nose, Waller forcibly moved her hand away from her gun, "Something escaped from the Cadmus facility after killing a guard; I want you to bring me its body."

Harbinger turned away and walked toward the window. "That sounds like your problem. I don't take those kinds of jobs."

"The creature drained the life force of the head of security, leaving behind nothing but a pile of ashes."

Harbinger paused.

"I need some ashes or a piece of clothes from the victim."

Waller's lips twitched, "Done."