PAST LIVES
Part Eight
That was it. That was our plan. Get the enemies together and kick their asses. I liked that - it would save me from dying of boredom. Talking just wasn't my thing.
Over the following days we practiced, studied, planned and practiced some more. I had a natural skill with weapons, but my main advantage was my genetically enhanced speed and strength and my martial arts skills. Or it had been, until I found myself with a sword in my hand.
Kate's hunch had been right: we were both extremely professional in swordplay, although she had never used one before and I had only used one a couple of times when training with my mother. Kate and I swung the swords like two experienced warriors - just like Xena - and the ringing of steel became as normal a sound in the Clock Tower as lightning and winds with the strength of hurricanes.
Barbara and I made a point of touching base with each other every day, so we wouldn't end up hurting again. We talked and shared plans and ideas with each other, but it wasn't until the night before the showdown I finally realized something. It was a frightening thought and that was probably why it hadn't occurred to me before: it scared me shitless.
"Barbara", I said as we were preparing to go to bed.
"Uhum?" she said, brushing her teeth in the bathroom. She looked at me in the mirror with an arched eyebrow.
God - how can I love someone so much? I thought and forgot what I was about for a moment. Then, because the realization was connected with my love for her, I instantly remembered. I let her finish brushing her teeth and we returned to her bedroom - our bedroom - at the Clock Tower.
"You wanted to talk about something?"
I did. I didn't know how to bring it up, so I went straight ahead - as always. "You don't expect to survive, do you?" I said in a strained voice.
She gasped softly and reached for me, instantly seeing and wanting to soothe my pain. "Helena..."
"I suddenly realized..." I said, again fighting to find the right words. "I suddenly remembered when you were so afraid, that day..." That day only two weeks ago - although it felt like a lifetime - when she fell down in the arena and I carried her to her bedroom. There had been real fear in her eyes then, real fear for me to soothe. But I had been scared too and she had needed to care for me. I had not seen that fear since. I knew it wasn't because she hid it from me, but because she had come to terms with what she thought would be her fate. "Your talk about marriage and..."
"No", she said immediately, sternly, and put a finger to my lips. Her eyes didn't let go of mine. "No, don't think that. I plan for the future because I'm going to do everything I can to survive. Everything - do you hear me?"
I nodded. It wasn't wise to challenge her when she talked like that.
"Yes, I believe there is a possibility that I will die. I don't rule that out. There is always a possibility that I will die, doing what we are doing - but this time is different. This time I don't know what we are facing and the only thing we do know is that I died the last time we faced it. I wasn't strong enough to defeat him then and I don't know if I am now. But..." She caressed my cheek. "I am resolved to survive. I am resolved to marry you. Remember what Nan Rover said? She said we should envision our dreams and they would come true. Well, that's what I'm doing - I'm envisioning."
I took a deep breath. "But, Barbara..."
"No 'buts'."
"I feel helpless", I said. "I wish there was something I could do, but there isn't... This is for you and Dick alone and I..." I almost sobbed. "I can't stand losing you again."
"Hush, kitten", she said softly and kissed me. When she pulled back she dried the tears off my cheeks. "The more my powers grow the more I remember that life, so long ago and far away. It was my decision to invite you to my bed that night. All the blame was mine; none of it fell on you. Not the death of the Emperor's family, or mine. I invited you - I let you come to me..."
"But if I had resisted... If I had been strong and..." I swallowed. Could I have denied her? Would I ever be able to deny her, in any lifetime? "I couldn't save you from the fire and then I lost Dinah. Dick took her away from me, because... because I wasn't worthy anymore."
"He did what he thought was right", Barbara said. "We all do, one way or another. In this life you are a hero. In this life you are worthy. And you will remain worthy. I trust you fully."
"I failed..." I whispered.
"We all did", she said. "I failed the most. I failed you... I never let you know until the very end that I loved you."
"I remember", I said, still whispering. Flames licking the interior of the temple, burning, burning... Barbara, the priestess, turning from the flames towards me. "I love you..." Her last words as she stepped into the flames.
"I think that's why it is so important to me now that I'm allowed to show you my love. Helena..." Barbara smiled softly at me.
"Yeah?"
"Let go of the past. All of it. We are here and now. And we will prevail." She kissed me and leaned forward, whispering in my ear. "And if we die I will find you again. I will always find you."
Then she kissed me again and I forgot everything else, but her hands and lips and oh, so lovely, naked skin...
Part Nine
We crossed the bridge to the island just before twilight: Kate and Nightwing rode on his bike; Batgirl rode her own and Ladyhawk rode with me. We had been nervous the whole day that Snake would turn up and snatch Dinah from the Clock Tower, but nothing had happened. Kate had said the other girls had last been seen at twilight, so Snake was bound to turn up soon. And the Joker probably already waited for us at the closed down factory.
When we arrived at the grey area and parked our bikes by the fence surrounding the massive steel building there was a low, humming noise from inside.
"He has started up the machines", Barbara said.
"The Joker?" Kate asked, walking towards her. They stood together and watched the dark building looming straight before us while Dick and I kept an eye on Dinah. Both Kate and I carried long swords at our sides.
"Yes."
I made a face. "It will be hell on my sensitive ears", I said. Batgirl turned around and grinned at me.
"It makes you a better fighter when you are in pain, kitten."
"Shall we?" Nightwing went forward with Ladyhawk at his side.
Batgirl nodded with a grim face. "Lets", she said frostily.
We entered the factory through a small steel backdoor; it closed behind us with a thundering sound and we stopped to look around, crouching in the shadows.
We had visited the factory before, just as Barbara had planned, and I remembered the dark and the damp smell, but at that moment it also smelt of heated metal, of tar and oil and burning flames. The noise was already deafening even though we hadn't entered the main working area yet.
"Why did he do this?" Ladyhawk asked; it was hardly audible over the din.
"To distract us", Kate answered. The sword hung at her side, but she held a gun in her hands. She looked like a real cop - except for the sword.
"To amuse himself", Nightwing added.
"Come on", Batgirl said and waved at us. We followed her, hiding in the shadows. We knew where we were heading: to one of the main halls, where a large area of the floor would be cleared and it would be difficult for Snake to hide if he wanted Dinah. The downside was that the Joker or his men could more easily take a shot at us.
"I feel their presence", Ladyhawk said. "I think they know we're here."
Batgirl only nodded.
Dinah had wanted to use her rollerblades that night, but both Barbara and I had objected. We knew she was a professional roller, who could do more tricks than the best of them - flipping in the air, running up and down stairs as if on flat ground - but the factory wasn't a place for rollerblades and one mistake could cost her her life.
Ordinarily we would have split up, but with Snake on his way we needed to stick together to protect Ladyhawk. I knew she hated being the cause of all this mess, but she handled herself well. Again I was amazed at her composure. I hadn't had half her maturity at her age, only concerning myself with boys and clothes.
Suddenly a gunshot echoed and we took cover. The bullet hit the floor a few feet ahead of Batgirl. It had hardly hit the floor before one of her batarangs left her hand, then another. The black stars swirled in the air with a speed impossible to follow. I couldn't see what Batgirl was aiming at, as there was a tower of steel-barrels in my way, but I imagined one of the batarangs hit its target as we heard a low scream of pain and then the sound of ringing metal. The shooter must have dropped his gun and it must have fallen down some stairs, because the ringing went on for a while. Batgirl threw another batarang, catching one of the others as it came back down to her.
"He's out", she whispered, waving us forward. "Huntress - his gun..."
"Here, use these..." Kate handed me a couple of hand-cuffs and I nodded. I moved quickly and silently towards the stairs behind the steel-barrels where a slender built man was laying head down, with his arms spread. I emptied his gun and threw away the magazine, before I cuffed the unconscious man to a steel-pipe at the foot of the stairs. Judging by the bump on the side of his forehead he'd be out for a while.
As I straightened another man came running at me from the stairs. He seemed to come out of nowhere from the shadows and he aimed a high kick at me. I moved aside and felt his foot graze my shoulder, before I smashed him in the face. He fell hard on his back on the stairs and remained motionless.
"Alright, Huntress?" Batgirl asked in the intercom.
"Idiot man, did he really think that would work? Why didn't he just aim at me?"
I heard Batgirl chuckle in my ear. "Men", she said pointedly.
"I heard that!" Nightwing interrupted. "Don't judge us all by one idiot..."
"Would a dozen do?" Kate asked with a soft laugh; she had borrowed spare intercom jewellery from Barbara.
Nightwing sighed exaggeratedly as we moved on.
We slipped ahead in the dark for at least five more minutes without anything happening. The noise and the smell from the machines was all around us; thumping engines, blazing fires, the grinding of metal against metal... And the shadows, the steel of the interior and the concrete floor.
Then suddenly, to our surprise, we found a dead guy on the floor. He was lying on his back beneath a ledge several feet up, leading to an open vault. There were no stairs nearby.
"He's all... blue", Ladyhawk remarked, noting the guys face. "What do you think happened? Did he fall down?" She looked up at the ledge. A gun was lying discarded a few inches away from her feet.
"He's dead..." Kate said. She had knelt and taken the pulse.
"I could have told you that", I said dryly. If the guy's blue face hadn't told me, the fact that his neck was broken would have.
Kate shook her head. "Look at these marks..." She lifted his arms and showed us dark, twisting bruises. "It's like something crushed him to death."
"Crushed?" Ladyhawk said. "You mean, like an elephant stepping on him?"
I looked at her. "Where do you get it all from?" I asked, genuinely amazed. "How would they get an Elephant in here?"
"It was just a metaphor", Ladyhawk said, shrugging.
Kate made a face. "No, more like a snake hugging him to death, crushing each bone in his body."
"He's here." Batgirl looked around with a cautious glance. "And he doesn't like to share his prey..."
Good for us, bad for the Joker, I thought as we moved on, with even more caution this time. Best if he wasn't here at all...
A few minutes later we became witnesses to what had killed the guy beneath the ledge. I had seen a few strange things since I was introduced to the meta-community, but this was by far the most disgusting. On the other hand - I had never really liked snakes.
Two of the Jokers men had been guarding a smaller hall with only one machine. There were two doors: the one we had entered and the one we needed to pass to get to our destination. The machine was a large, bulky thing with a mouth and pointy looking teeth of steel, but it was turned off. On the machine one of the guys was lying with open mouth and dim eyes staring into the beyond. The other guy was at that moment being crushed to death by a human snake.
The meta-human, Snake, was winded precisely like a boa constrictor around the Joker's lackey, slowly crushing each bone in his body. The man was immobile, staring ahead with glazed eyes as the human snake wound itself another time around his body - this time around the face. A few moments later the man's body relaxed, went limp and sagged in the embrace of its enemy.
"Elastic guy", Ladyhawk mumbled. "Like Mr. Fantastic..."
There was nothing fantastic about this creature - it was only immensely gross - as it let go of the dead body and pulled together its own lengthened body. It grew limbs; arms and legs and feet as we watched in stunned silence, until a perfect human stood between us and the door we needed to exit.
The man smiled at us - a smirk, making his eyes glisten. He had yellow, staring eyes - the pupil a black slit, not much different from my own eyes. But there was maliciousness in his expression I had never experienced before; it went straight to my bone and chilled me.
"You have come", he said in a low, hoarse voice, whispering. An extremely long tongue slid out between his teeth and went back in again. He only looked at Dinah, who stood between Kate and I.
In the next moment the snake man was hurled across the room where he hit the farthest wall.
"Run!" Batgirl shouted.
I wanted to turn around and fight the man Ladyhawk had thrown into the wall, but Batgirl grabbed me and pushed me ahead of her - after Dinah.
"Ba...!" I caught myself - I had almost shouted her name.
"I'm coming!" she assured me. "Go!"
Kate went first. She quickly checked the outer hall and waved at us to follow. Batgirl followed behind, closing the door right in front of Snake.
With his powers I expected him to blast open the steel door to come after us, but at first nothing happened as we cautiously moved along the hall, keeping an eye out for the Joker.
"Look!" Ladyhawk whispered and pointed.
I turned to look and noticed something moving beneath the door, at the two inches wide opening between the door and the floor. It was Snake; like his namesake he had flattened himself to the floor and was sliding through. I grimaced. I didn't know why this meta-human disgusted me so - it probably had something to do with the bizarreness of it: at the same time it was a slithering beast it kept its human face intact. It made it all so... macabre.
"Come on", I said, gently pushing Dinah forward.
The hall was large, with several entrances on the ground floor. It was empty except for high piles of large paper boxes in every corner; double piles reaching almost to the ledge running along two walls above us. The ledge was on the short wall behind us and on the longer wall to the left of us. The ledge was protected by a steel railing and had two entrances, one on each wall. A steel stairway was leading up to it right behind Batgirl, who moved ahead of us.
The staircase made me remember that song... Stairway to heaven. I wondered if that was where we were heading...
"Back to the wall", Batgirl ordered; Ladyhawk, Kate and I followed her advice. Above us I heard someone on the ledge and in the next moment I saw three thugs with machine guns moving on the ledge on the wall to the left. Above us I heard cackling laughter, which I remembered from a visit to Arkam Asylum. The Joker had arrived.
"Welcome - to the arena of Death", the Joker said in a distinguished voice; the pitch was slightly off. Only Batgirl could see him, as she was the only one standing far enough out on the floor. Nightwing kept an eye on Snake, who was slithering his way out beneath the door.
"I thought I'd be the one welcoming you, since I invited you here", Batgirl said mockingly.
"Batgirl..." Nightwing said lowly. She didn't turn her head to take her eyes off the Joker, but she knew what Nightwing indicated: Snake was out of the room. I saw him crack his neck to get it into place and then he looked at us and grinned.
"Cover us!" Batgirl called out to the rest of us and Ladyhawk, Kate and I ran up the stairs. On the ledge on the other wall the three thugs aimed at us all.
"No!" The Joker called. "Not yet!"
What happened to Snake I couldn't tell. Ladyhawk shot her blue energy-spheres at the three thugs on the other ledge as we rushed up the stairs. Two of them ducked to safety behind the doorframe, as the third toppled screaming over the ledge.
When we reached the ledge the Joker was gone. Four thugs with guns greeted us. I whirled about and knocked the gun out of the nearest guy's hands.
"There's ten, including Shadow" I heard Batgirl say.
"Thanks."
"I need to get to the Joker!" Ladyhawk called as she kicked the gun out of another thug's hands. At her side Kate shot one in the arm and then in the leg, to prevent him from running off.
The fourth aimed and took a shot at Ladyhawk, but in an instant the bluish force field was around her and the bullet melted away. I took care not to touch the force field - it would be ironic if that killed me.
The force field went down almost instantly again and the gun was pulled from the thug's hands by an invisible force.
"You've seen something?" I asked and threw one of our opponents over the railing. Another one followed quickly - courtesy of Kate, who'd seemed to remember she didn't need a gun in a close up fight.
"Maybe, but it was too flashy - I couldn't get hold of it... Bottles and a ticking watch..."
Hell, a bomb!
"Right", I said determined. "Let's get these out of the way..."
At the same moment a loud bang was heard - a thundering almost splitting my skull - followed by sudden lightning out of nowhere. Fucking hell! I thought and watched as Batgirl and Nightwing stood hand in hand facing Snake. The man was spitting at them, but was still smirking.
"Come on!" Kate said sternly. "They'll handle this."
I hesitated, held back by fear of losing Barbara, but then gave in. In one, fluid motion I turned around and rushed out the door, closely followed by Ladyhawk and Kate.
"Left", Ladyhawk said immediately. We had reached another ledge, steel enforced and suspended in the air by thick wires fastened in the dark ceiling high above us. It split in three sections: straight ahead, to the right and to the left. We turned left, chasing the three thugs we could see. The Joker was nowhere to be seen.
Below us there was another hall - filled with working machines: one of them was a massive oven with flames licking the air. Someone pointed a machinegun at us from the floor, but Ladyhawk threw an energy ball at him, knocking him unconscious. The three guys ahead of us disappeared through a door.
"I go first", I said when we reached it, kicking the door open. It swung back and revealed a man with a machine gun pointing straight at me.
Shit...
I would have been dead if it hadn't been for Dinah and her sudden ability to create protecting force fields; the bullets disappeared into it with a sizzling sound. And then Kate was there and forcefully kicked the guys ass. He fell over - unconscious - and Dinah let go of the force field around me.
We stood in a short corridor, with stairs running up and down beside us.
"Thanks for clearing the way, Huntress", Ladyhawk said with a grin.
"Damn", I said softly. "Thanks..."
"You're welcome. Come on - I think he's close..."
I only noticed the slight blur out of the corner of my eye. At first I wondered if I had damaged my eye, before the realization hit me with full force.
"Down!" I screamed and threw myself at Ladyhawk. In the next moment I was hit full force in my face by an invisible fist. This must be my karma for hitting Dick... I later remembered thinking.
"The neutralizer!" Kate called as my back hit the wall beside the door.
"Got it!" Ladyhawk called back. "Where is he?"
"Can't see what's there - hiding, hiding..." The Joker's voice was close to me. Again I noticed the blur and this time I had time to duck.
"Look out!" Ladyhawk directed the small, crystalline device Oracle had constructed at the blur in front of us. A thin ray, like a laser, shot through the air. "Shit - missed him..."
"Bye, bye! Bye and gone..."
Ladyhawk was punched in the chest by the blur and stumbled backwards. As she reached out to steady herself the neutralizer was knocked from her hand.
"Force field!" I yelled, but it was already up. In the next moment the Joker was visible, standing outside the force field with a gun in his hand. His face was powdered white and his mouth was extremely large and red.
"Shiny things", he said, eying the force field. I wished he would reach out to touch it, but he didn't. "Shiny little things..." He looked at the neutralizer in his hand, smiled and threw it on the floor, where he stepped hard on it. It smashed to pieces.
"Huntress, I've seen the bomb", Ladyhawk said with urgency. "It's here - on the roof! And I don't think there's much time."
The Joker looked up and pointed the gun at us, but he didn't shoot.
"He can't hear us, right?" I asked, remembering when Dinah had first demonstrated her ability for us.
Ladyhawk shook her head. "No."
The Joker went on babbling about what he was going to do to us, how he had a surprise for us and Barbara Gordon. I only listened with half an ear to his manic babbling.
"Will the force field move with us if we move?" I asked.
"I think so..."
"Let's move, then!"
As one we moved towards the Joker, and when the force field forced him backwards up the stairs he cut his babbling and looked affronted at us.
"Run!" Kate called and we ran after him. He slipped and fell on the stairs, but scrambled to his feet - swearing and threatening us, before he turned around and fled up the remains of the stairs.
"Let him run!" I called as the Joker disappeared behind a door to the right. "We need to get to the roof..."
"I think I know where we are", Kate said, looking about her; there was a red sign by the door letting us know which staircase and which floor we were on.
"Me too", Ladyhawk said. "If we turn left, down the stairs on the other corridor and through the room with the concrete blender there's a door that will take us to a ladder..."
"Let's move", I said again.
Ladyhawk dropped the force field and we moved in the direction she had indicated, which was opposite to the way the Joker had escaped.
We reached a room of medium size, equipped with a fire extinguisher, some iron stakes, shovels and a large drum, rolling about it's own axis, filled with concrete. Behind the concrete blender the concrete floor had been damaged. There had been a large, gaping whole the last time we visited the place - but now it was filled with wet concrete.
"The door!" Ladyhawk pointed towards the exit behind the wet floor. "We can't reach it!"
"It will dry up", I said, realizing two things. One: that the slightest delay could be fatal if we didn't reach the bomb on time - and two: that the wet concrete had very recently been applied to the floor; whoever had done it couldn't be far off.
Then Ladyhawk spun around. "Look out!" she called. "We're not alone..."
In the next moment the shadows on the walls disengaged, moved away from the wall and took the shape of a man. The man held a knife in his hand and he thrust it against Kate.
Kate skipped aside, but the man quickly held out a leg and she stumbled across it - almost falling down into the wet concrete. She caught herself at the last minute, grabbing hold of Shadow - our latest assailant. It wouldn't surprise me if he had been with the Joker in the staircase, lurking about in the shadows and waiting to prevent us from reaching the bomb.
Reeves - the name I had learnt from Barbara was Shadow's real name - smirked at Kate and thrust the knife towards her a second time. This time she wasn't able to avoid it as cleanly as before. I saw the stern resolution in her face when she steeled herself to meet the shining blade.
In the next moment there was a sudden movement: the whole building shook in a thunderous explosion, as if caught in an earthquake. Shadow lost his balance and missed Kate by an inch, while she almost toppled on to him.
"What the fuck...?" Barbara...! I thought as I struggled to stay on my feet. By my side Ladyhawk grabbed hold of one of the iron stakes to lean on it.
The building steadied itself and everything went calm. Kate and Shadow moved at the same time; Kate to kick the knife out of his hand and Shadow to take the time to disappear.
"Scum!" Kate called out as she missed him by the fraction of a heartbeat.
We all looked about the room while the concrete blender continued to roll around, creating an annoyingly loud noise.
Ladyhawk had armed herself with the iron-rod and intensely looked about for any signs of moving shadows. Kate had loosened the small flashlight from her belt that Oracle had provided us with to fight Shadow.
Before I knew it Shadow was suddenly by my side, this time coming for me with the knife. I twisted away just at the right time and threw a punch at him, but he was gone before I had a chance to reach him.
"Lights!" Ladyhawk called and pulled out her own flashlight. She and Kate shone at me and the light was so bright almost all shadows faded to the background, disappearing. There were a few sharp shadows left and they all led to the still wet concrete floor.
"Hold!" I lifted a hand. "Kate - wait!" I looked about me; there were no shadows close to me and none close to Ladyhawk. "Now!" I called and lit my own bright-light device and directed it toward Kate. "Don't move!" I demanded and we waited. A few silent heartbeats went by and we stood immobile. Then suddenly there was a movement beneath the wet concrete, like when a shark swims close to the surface without showing itself.
"Light the floor!" I commanded and we turned our flashlights towards the wet concrete; it kept on moving, twisting - like some kind of insect beneath someone's skin. When the movement broke through the surface a loud, angry growl could be heard. The concrete moved and slithered and finally took the shape of a man.
"Hold the lights", I said. "Hold him..."
It took another few minutes of keeping the flashlights directed at the floor, and at the moving statue rising from it, before the concrete stiffened. Shadow was now trapped in concrete - a statue with an ugly face, with a mouth opened to a silent, everlasting scream. He was completely covered in dried concrete - a grotesque statue, with arms raised in either anger or in a plea towards the ceiling. Towards the gods.
Shadow - Reeves - would never walk among the living again; he had suffocated to death. A horrible end, even for him.
"Come on!" Ladyhawk urged and put away her flash light. She moved toward the entrance and pulled the door open. Kate and I followed.
The door revealed a steel ledge on the outside of the massive building - and a steel ladder. Ladyhawk didn't hesitate; she swung her leg around the ladder and began ascending. I followed her and then Kate followed me.
"Barbara?" I softly called through the intercom, but there was no answer. I refused to let that scare me, she and Dick were probably just too busy facing Snake to answer. Fuck! Don't die on me, don't die...
When we reached the roof we were greeted by an unpleasant surprise.
"Fuck", I whispered as I stood in front of the massive explosives rigged on the rooftop. The whole area in front of us held explosives connected to each other by thin wires, but also to shining bottles containing a yellowish liquid.
"The bomb setting the whole thing off should be near a fan - one of those large drums..." Ladyhawk said and scanned the area. "I saw it when the Joker hit me in the chest."
"There", Kate said and pointed to the right of us, by the edge of the roof not far off.
"What are those bottles?" Ladyhawk asked as we warily hurried towards the drum.
"Probably something poisonous", Kate explained. "Barbara told me that the chemicals stolen at that lab last week, when mixed together would produce a highly corrosive toxin. When the explosives goes off..."
"And with the wind..." I said, feeling the brisk breeze from the sea. It blew in across the island and moved towards the city of Gotham. "It would spread with the wind across the city..."
"We must stop it from happening. Should we phone Reese?" Kate said and picked up her cell phone.
"No time", Ladyhawk said in a voice that chilled me. I turned to Dinah and followed her gaze: she had found the bomb.
"Oh, my..." Kate said.
"Fucking hell", I said and stared at the red, shining numbers on the display attached to the bomb. It had less than two minutes left.
"What should we do? One wrong move trying to disarm the thing and the whole building could explode..."
"Anyone who have some hidden knowledge about disarming bombs from a previous life?" I asked with an arched eyebrow, although I felt a slow dread creeping up on me.
"Oracle always guides Nightwing and me through things like this", Ladyhawk said, looking down at the bomb. "But I guess..."
"Guys - we need to do something", Kate said. "Think!"
"Easy for you to say!" I snapped.
"Stop it", Ladyhawk said and raised her arms above her head. "I need to concentrate." And she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. In only a few seconds a bluish shimmer began to gleam around our feet. The shimmer grew until it reached our knees, our thighs, our waist... The force field didn't contain us this time, but instead it enveloped the entire roof. We stood on the edge of it, looking at the energy spreading out like a huge, shining blanket. The energy rose until it contained the roof in a shining, half bubble.
"Dinah", I whispered as I noticed the perspiration on her face.
"I... must do... it", the girl whispered with pale lips. "The city..."
I reached for her and tried to lend her some of my strength by touching her; Kate did the same, putting a hand on her shoulder. In the next moment the whole roof exploded.
The explosion shook the whole building, just like the previous earthquake. Kate and I supported Ladyhawk so she wouldn't fall.
The force field held; within it an explosion of fire and smoke rose, tainting the clearness of the blue energy.
"By all the gods", I whispered, seeing Dinah holding back such an amount of destruction. She went down on one knee, still with Kate and I by her side. The smoke and the fire raged within the force field, but now on a smaller scale.
"I... I have it now", Ladyhawk said with difficulty. "I... have it under... control..."
"You are doing fine", I said and squeezed her shoulder.
It took another moment, but then the fires died down and the smoke gave way to a brownish cloud. Ladyhawk struggled to her feat.
"I... must..." she said and raised her arms without explanation of what she needed to do. Soon we found out ourselves as the force field began shrinking: the bluish light and the brownish smoke within it were drawn together, tighter and tighter. In the end - after how long neither of us could say afterwards - the force field was small enough to contain a three year old child. It was almost black now, with toxic content.
"What on earth shall we do with it?" Kate whispered. "We can't let it go - it would spread and still be toxic.
"The sea - we could dump it in the sea", I suggested.
"That would be illegal dumping of toxic waste", Ladyhawk said, sounding strained. I didn't know if she meant it as a joke or not.
"I know. The oven - it's running, thanks to the Joker", Kate said. "Remember? We passed it on our way before. It's huge and would probably burn away everything."
"Probably? What if it doesn't? What if it makes it worse? Or even explodes again?"
"I'll contain it", Ladyhawk said.
"Are you sure? It could be..." I silenced as Dinah's eyes gave me a pointed look. "Oh, yeah - right. What you just did was... Um." I paused. "Let's go, then. Let's get rid of this and find the Joker. Then we need to check up on..." I didn't say it and I didn't need to. Kate and Ladyhawk looked as worried as I felt. Don't die, I thought. Please, Barbara - don't leave me.
* * * * *
One look at Snake and I forgot everything else around me. The man's smirking made me want to smash his face with my bare fist, which surprised me: I wasn't usually so vengeful - it was generally Huntress who couldn't hold her temper. Something about Snake must have ticked me off and I knew it wasn't his crimes - it was something about the way he held himself and something in that smug smile that was plastered on his face. It made me sick.
"Are you with me?" I asked Nightwing and moved a step forward. Behind me I heard Huntress and the rest climb the stairs. "There're only ten, including Shadow", I told Huntress on the intercom, before I pushed her from my conscience; if she said something I didn't hear it.
"I'm here", Nightwing said.
Snake had been moving towards us, slowly at first, but now he attacked in a rush: he bared his teeth at us and pulled his arms close to his side.
"Now!" I called and raised my arms. At my side Nightwing did the same and we called upon the elements as we had done so long ago - in a different world, in a different time.
When we first begun practicing it had been dreadful; neither Dick nor I had been able to consciously draw forth the power we knew we had within us. In the end we had to begin to provoke each other to get angry enough to channel the power we'd had in our past lives as priestess and priest. When we had done that a few times it finally had been easier and when I faced Snake I hardly had to think about what I was doing: I cleared my mind and pictured myself as the priestess I had been, standing in front of an altar in a deep temple and calling upon the essence of fire and air. I only had to be that priestess in my mind to get the elements to obey me.
To create fire and lightning out of the smallest particles was a... thrill. To call forth and have fire flame all around you, to direct lightning and command the winds - it was power... It filled me with a sense of power I had never felt before, and it was exhilarating.
I called upon that power and let lightning flash forth, at the same time Dick created a thunderous noise and both of us directed strong winds against Snake. He withstood the winds, but tumbled and fell several feet backwards as the thunder echoed around us and the lightning struck him in the chest.
Snake lay motionless for a few moments on the concrete floor and Nightwing and I exchanged a silent glance. Then the man moved, picked himself up, shook himself and dusted himself off before he again turned to look at us with a grin.
"Is that the best you can do?" he asked disdainfully.
"Again!" Nightwing called and we raised our arms. Lightning and thunder and heavy winds were thrown at Snake, but this time he evaded our attacks.
"Is that the best you can do?" he laughed at us with a hissing, frightful laughter. "Is that your best? I will show you what to fear!"
Snake raised his arms into the air, summoning whatever powers were his in an unknown language.
"Barbara - can you hear me?" Dick asked in my head - he didn't use his intercom, I could hear him directly in my head, through some sort of telepathy.
"Loud and clear!" I send back at him.
"Now, when he's busy!"
Snake looked at us with a strange, yellowish stare and smiled. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he had the time I invoked a lightning bolt that went straight from my hands and struck him in his chest. Snake was thrown across the room and hit the wall beside the door he had crawled under before. Unfortunately he didn't loose consciousness this time.
"You shouldn't have done that", he said as he rose and cracked his neck from side to side. "You pissed me off royally this time..."
At least I had wiped that smug smirk off his face.
"Now - tremble before me!"
In the next instant, before Dick or I had time to react, the earth moved under our feet. The whole building shook and trembled and I was thrown to the floor. Nightwing managed to stay on his feet and as the disruption continued he and Snake rushed against each other.
"Dick!" I called inwardly, the second before the two men clashed together.
Nightwing ducked beneath Snake's fists and managed to land a blow that threw the other man to the floor. The shaking subsided and I rushed to my feet.
"Dick - together! Now!" I reached for Nightwing and he took my hands. Snake rolled around on the floor, spitting at us.
"Now!" Dick called within me.
Dick and I joined powers as we had practiced; I felt his presence within me - strong and powerful. I opened myself to him and his powers flowed into me - just like mine did into him. Together we created an electric charge that shimmered in the room - a sphere of energies consuming everything standing in its way: it was a raging fire, of ice and white energy.
"Take this - you son of a bitch!" Nightwing called as we let loose our powers and directed it at Snake.
Snake threw back his head - laughing. "You are children! Babies - you won't stop me. I have my Master behind me." He raised his arms against the ceiling, calling: "Master, Master - come now to me!"
In the next instant the fire we had directed at him hit him with full force and he screamed. The bluish flames licked his skin and set his dark hair on fire. His scream was a shriek of pain and rage. We heard him call for his Master with the last of his breath, before there was nothing but a pile of bones and ashes left of him.
I let go of Dick's hand and lowered my other hand. "Is he gone? That was easy..." I said, a little stunned.
"A little too easy", Nightwing said.
We looked around us, waiting for Snake to suddenly come back to life - as if in a bad B-horror movie.
"What, or who, do you reckon is his Master...?" Nightwing asked cautiously. Then he silenced, as his eyes fell on what I was watching.
By the door leading to the room where Snake had left a couple of the Joker's guys crushed to death there stood an older woman. She was a little hunched back, with grey tresses in her mass of black, unruly hair. It was too far to estimate the color of her eyes, but she stared at Nightwing and me across the floor. She didn't say anything - she just stood there, unmoving.
My first thought was: What the hell is a nice old lady doing here? But then, as she watched us, I suddenly remembered something.
"Oh, dear..." I whispered.
"Old lady", Nightwing said, moving slightly forward. "You shouldn't be here..."
"Dick", I said softly and he turned to look at me with silent surprise in his eyes. "We forgot about the priest..." I said. At first he looked confused, but then he remembered and I noticed confusion turn to realization in his look.
"Oh, shit!" he said softly.
At the same moment darkness was upon us. Not a darkness caused by the turning off of lamps and lights in a room, but darkness void of spiritual light, of humanity; of joy, laughter and love. It filled the entire hall - a swirling vortex of dark energy claiming every, tiny aspect of light in the room and we stood in it: in this sinister, deadly, shining darkness.
At the centre of the dark there was a flickering light: a sickening green color growing in size and shape. It seemed to be a portal - swirling like the darkness around us. And in this portal, out from the hellish, green light, came a man. He moved like a shadow against the surrounding darkness - against the green light - and as he stepped forward Nightwing and I stepped back.
I felt a fear I had never experienced before - it chilled my heart, my bone and my very soul. I knew I was going to die as I watched the shadow of a man move towards us. I had died once before, facing this darkness. Beside me I knew Dick, too, trembled with fear.
Rising behind the man, a phantom-image against the green light and the darkness, was the shape of a large snake: a cobra the size of an ancient dinosaur. It wasn't a solid image - darkness and smoke and fire held it together. And it wasn't a living snake, but it was the very essence of the man moving before us. That image was the true image of the shadow moving in the dark.
"I have come!" His voice hissed around us - filled us and made our bodies tremble with the sheer power of it. "I have come - and there is no goddess to save you now!"
If indeed ancient gods had walked the earth, this entity had been one of them. There was no questioning it. We are all going to die, I thought - not in fear, but with cold realization of the reality of our situation. Then I thought: Goddess...? And in a flash I understood what we must do. I turned to Dick.
"Dick? You know what we must do..."
He looked at me and then nodded slowly. "Yes."
That was all, but he held out his hands in front of him and I put the palm of my hands against his. We needed to hurry - and we needed to do it right the first time. As before we opened up to each other and let our powers fill us, flow back and forth between us. But this time, instead of directing it towards something, we let it build, and build within us. We began to glow; there was a shimmer about us - blue flames bursting out all around us, from our feet and rising higher and higher around and between us. We broke the contact with each other and stepped back a few steps. Our light cut through the darkness of the god that had come to conquer this world, but it wouldn't stop him. There was only one thing that would have the power to stop him.
Only gods could defeat other gods.
As the power between Dick and I grew stronger and brighter the hall in which we stood began trembling, it shook and shivered like a sinking old ship. We opened ourselves completely to each other and to our pasts and I felt Dick change - something within him seemed to grow; he expanded and become more than what he was. I felt the same happening to myself; I felt larger, as if I could contain the whole universe. The power between us swelled and burned - it would consume everything dead and decayed and it had been created for one purpose only.
"No!" The Cobra god called in pure rage, but it was too late. The old woman by the door had been overlooked and now she stepped into the flames - the consuming, transmuting fire of eternal life. Her head was thrown back and her arms flew out at her sides as she screamed. The blue flames completely embraced her - and it was all over in a second.
An old woman had stepped into the flames, but it was a goddess that was reborn in them.
"It's only by dying we can be born to eternal life", I heard a voice I remembered inside me.
And out from the flames stepped a younger woman, with dark skin and hair as black as ravens wings. Her eyes gleamed, black as a night strewn with sparkling stars. Behind her the flames died out as she lifted herself from the ground - straight up in the air. Around her, behind her, within her was the shape of her true form: the bat. It flapped its wings in eager anticipation of a fight. It was huge and black and around it stood a different kind of darkness: a darkness that was gentle as a summer night, beautiful as a night with glistening snow beneath the full moon.
"Thank you, my priestess, for bringing me back to life. Thank you, my priest", I heard within me. When I looked at Dick I noticed tears on his cheeks. He had taken off his mask and held it in his hands. I took off my mask and watched in silence as the two deities from an ancient time, from another world and another life, faced each other. The giant snake and the giant bat.
There had been a battle once. I remembered it well now. Some of us had died.
* * * * *
The walls in the hall shook as the two giant phantom images collided. The dark-skinned woman was still suspended in thin air - unmovable she stared at the dark shadow of the man standing in the centre of the hall. Neither of them moved, or even blinked, as the almost translucent shapes of the giant bat and the giant cobra crashed into each other. The cobra raised its head to strike at the bat, but the bat dived under its coils and aimed for its neck with its teeth. The cobra hissed and slithered away in another direction - the darkness followed them as they moved about the room.
I instinctively knew that if any one else entered the room the only thing they would see would be a man and a woman standing staring at each other - they wouldn't see what Dick and I saw: the battle between souls. The battle between what once had been - and maybe still was - a god and a goddess.
I couldn't say how long the fight went on. Dick and I were consumed by the battle and we stood by our goddess, strengthening her with our powers - sending them to her in shimmering waves of bluish flames. The Cobra god had been strengthened before by the murders his priest - Snake - had committed for his benefit. Our goddess was strong, but without our support she would have been defeated.
The phantom bat and the cobra fought on - the world trembled and darkness threatened to overwhelm us, but for Dick and I nothing outside that circle existed: only that man and that woman facing each other.
"I will prevail!"
The shadowy man's voice suddenly was heard like a loud thunder clap and the cobra raised its head to his voice.
"Your time has come, traitor!" the woman answered.
In the next moment both of them raised their arms into the air. A loud humming, or chanting, was heard.
"Brace yourselves, children..." I heard within me and in the next moment the world exploded in blinding light and sparkling, dark stars.
It was the last thing I remembered before drifting off and losing consciousness.
Part Ten
I didn't know how long I had been unconscious when I felt a soft lightness touching my cheek.
"Priestess..."
I knew that voice and opened my eyes. The darkness was gone and the hall was again filled with light from the naked lamps in the ceiling.
"My goddess", I mumbled weakly and struggled to sit up.
"You did well, my child", the woman before me said. Dick was lying beside me, still unconscious.
"He's... he's - gone?" My voice was hoarse.
"Yes - this time I defeated him. Thanks to you and my priest..." She glanced at Dick. "He will be fine", she added.
I rubbed my forehead. I felt different, more like my old self again. The power within me had subsided. It was still there, but not as strong anymore.
"You will soon forget the art of conjuring fire and commanding the winds." The woman - she seemed to be my own age, but I knew she was so much older - smiled softly at me. "Everything will be back to normal. Or, almost everything... I'll leave you a gift." She smiled again and I noticed a teasing sparkle in her gleaming eyes.
"What... happened, really?" I looked around, still struggling with the aftermath of the last collision between the bat and the cobra.
The woman - a goddess - nodded slowly. "I will tell you."
And she did. She filled in the blanks Dick and I had missed and I listened carefully; I would have to inform the others later. When she was finished I nodded thoughtfully.
"It was such a long time ago", I said, sadly.
"It was such a tragedy", she said and looked at me. "I gave you that night, you know. You mustn't blame yourself for that."
I gasped softly, staring at her.
"There was a prophesy. I never told you. It said: 'when the cat lies with the bat - the empire will fall'. I knew what had to come and I knew you could not have done anything to stop it. Loving the warrior that night saved your life - and hers. And thus... it saved mine."
"Yours?" I whispered.
"Yes." She smiled compassionately. "You died to preserve my life, just as Cobra's priest died to preserve his. Both of you sacrificed your blood and your lives according to an ancient ritual, which would ensure that neither my enemy nor I would die completely. We were left bound between worlds, until the time was right for us to finish our ancient battle. Thus we could return to this world, in this day and this age..."
I turned to where the bones and ashes that was all that was left of Snake still lay. "And his priest died before him this time - he won't be brought back again."
"No - he is truly gone, now. And if the Universe is merciful, he will never be reincarnated with so much power again, until he has learned humbleness and how to love anew."
I shook my head. "So much - so much we don't know and wouldn't understand about the ways of... the divine."
"We are all divine, in one way or another. That is all we need to remember, to return home." The goddess smiled softly and touched my cheek. "You gave your life for me - I will give you a gift."
And then, without warning, she leaned in to kiss me. It was no chaste kiss on the cheek, but she kissed me thoroughly - like only one other woman had kissed me before. Still, there was nothing sexual or remotely erotic about it - it just... was. It meant nothing, and it meant all - because she was a goddess.
When she pulled away from me I took a deep breath and looked at her. She smiled mildly, but also teasingly. I remembered her being that way, when I served her so many, many ages ago.
"I will leave you now..."
"Where...?" I had to clear my throat. "Where will you go?"
"I will live, and love, and die... as all humans do - and even some of us who are considered to be divine."
She nodded and turned away. The great bat suddenly loomed around her again - an invisible companion to anyone who wasn't a true seer. I knew that in a couple of days I wouldn't be able to see that bat anymore, if I was to meet the woman on the streets.
Then she was gone - and the bat with her.
I stared out into empty space for a few moments, contemplating the things she had said, what had happened and the kiss we had shared. I wondered if life would ever be the same again.
"Barbara?"
"Oh, Dick..." I said and turned towards him. "Are you alright?"
He rubbed the small of his neck. "Better than when Helena knocked me out." He looked up and around. "Are we dead and this is the version of hell where we are forced to live out our entire life dying again and again and again...?"
"Have some faith, will you", I said, grinning at him. He looked at me with wide eyes.
"We won?" He laughed. "Oh, God - let us never, ever have to go through that again", he said in earnest.
I shook my head. "I doubt we will."
"Although, I like my new powers..." He grinned at me and I had to laugh. I didn't want to disappoint him by reminding him that we would lose our powers again in a few days. We lived only one life at a time - we were not priest and priestess in this life and so those powers didn't belong to us. They weren't part of who we were in our present life.
"Marvellous", I said, faking Alfred's British accent.
"Although..." Dick's face grew serious and he paled as his gaze went to something on the ledge above us. "We are not quite done yet..."
I turned to look at what had caught his attention and felt my heart grow cold. My God! Oh, no - Wade!
The Joker stood at the ledge above us right beside the stairs, leaning on the railing. One hand held Wade around the neck, the other pointed a gun at Wade's temple. Wade stood unmoving with wide, frightened eyes. He was tied with his hands at his back and was gagged with duct tape across his mouth.
"I thought it best to have an extra insurance... Two are better than one", the Joker said, laughing. "Don't you think?" He cocked his head to one side and despite the ridiculous make-up I could see some similarities between him and his son. Again I was struck with sadness as I recalled the tragic events that had created a criminal like Patchy. He had only wanted to be loved...
But the Joker could never have loved his son. I had told Kate that I had caused the death of the two people the Joker loved in his life. I didn't believe it to be quite true that he had loved his son, although he and his lover Harley Quinn certainly would have created havoc around Gotham City if the two of them had been let lose together. No, the Joker loved the idea of loving something. He loved to pretend he was as normal as the next door neighbour and his family - living up to the traditional ideal of society: dog, car, house and loving his children. At the same time he would cause mayhem all around him - caring nothing for none of the above.
Patchy had been different. He still had something of his humanity intact. He was a lost soul, looking for approval and love. The Joker had left his soul behind a long time ago.
"Let him go, please", I said as I moved a step forward. I knew there was nothing I could say to the Joker to let go of Wade, but I wasn't going to provoke him.
"Love him, don't you?" The Joker laughed.
"I care for him, yes", I said.
"I've heard differently, since coming out from behind the bars... Wedding bells have been ringing..."
"Not anymore", I said and shook my head. "Let him go - it's me you want."
Wade made some inaudible noise and shook his head. I wasn't sure he had noticed Dick or my outfit yet. I fleetingly considered if he wondered what we were doing there, in the middle of nowhere.
"Yes..." The Joker grinned and leaned slightly forward over the railing, dragging Wade with him. "But I don't want to kill you - yet. You do know you have to suffer first."
"Well, kill him then and have it over with", Dick said angrily. The Joker turned his face towards him with an offended grimace.
"You I will deal with later, lawyer scum", he said disdainfully.
When the Joker's attention was engaged elsewhere I moved abruptly and embraced the power that was still active within me. I didn't dare direct such a powerful blast as I had against Snake earlier for fear of killing the Joker - who was only human, after all; and I had killed enough - but I focused the lightning at him nonetheless. It took him in the arm and threw him backwards with full force. He dropped the gun, which fell over the railing and down at the floor in front of Dick, but he pulled Wade with him in his fall. Wade hit the back of his head on the doorframe and collapsed, as the Joker struggled to remain on his feet.
In the next moment a much longed-for figure rushed out the door beside Wade.
"Huntress - the Joker!" I called. "Ladyhawk - you there? Protect Wade!"
Helena didn't hesitate for one second - she was out the door and aimed directly at the Joker. Kate followed closely and as the two of them dived for the villain Dinah enclosed Wade in a force-field.
In the next moment, just before Helena and Kate reached the Joker he disappeared in a blur.
"Damn!" I heard Helena's beloved voice call out.
"Look out!" Kate pointed at something further down the stairs, but I couldn't see anything.
"There!" Dick said and rushed forward; in the next instant he fell backwards as if hit by an invisible force. I noticed a quick blur, a soft shimmer in the air right before me, but before I had time to reach for it, it was gone again.
Dick rushed to my side and we looked around, back to back, for any sign of the Joker.
"Look out!" Ladyhawk pointed in front of us and in the next instant the gun the Joker had dropped floated in thin air, right before the Joker became visible again. He aimed and shot at us.
"No!" I heard Helena scream before Dinah's force-field suddenly was in place.
God, I thought. Will I ever stop almost dying today?
"No! Don't!"
This time it was Dinah's upset voice I heard. The Joker didn't stop. He rushed towards Dick and I, wildly shooting. If he didn't slow down he would collide with us and that would be the end of him. If Dinah didn't let down the force-field that would make a killer out of her, however unwillingly.
I knew she would never risk letting down the force-field - any of the Joker's bullets could hit us. I also knew she couldn't hear us from within the force-field, so there was no use calling out to her.
"Dick..."
"I'm here." He moved quickly to take my hand.
I wasn't about to let Dinah be responsible for someone's death like that. It was one thing to cause someone's death in self-defense, another to kill someone when you didn't mean to.
Dick and I joined powers one more time. The strength of our combined forces cut through Dinah's force-field and we hurled ourselves at the Joker at the same time. One of his bullets grazed my shoulder, but not enough to slow me down. It was only a scratch.
The bullet would have taken me in the head if I hadn't dodged it and it was only later I would remember the odd sense of djP vu that had come over me as he pointed that gun at me, as if someplace deep within me - in a forgotten dream - I had experienced that scene before and felt the impact of a bullet hitting me.
"Down!" Dick yelled and crashed into the Joker at the same time as I kicked the gun from the Joker's hand. The Joker twisted himself free from Dick and then was gone again, disappeared in a blurry motion.
I quickly bent to pick up the gun. I emptied the magazine, but held on to the gun.
"Where the fuck is he?" Helena called from the ledge. She stood in front of Wade; the force-field was gone, but Wade still lay unconscious on the floor.
Kate swore as something hit her in the chest and she fell backwards at the top of the stairs.
"There!" she called and pointed at something blurry moving away from her, in the direction of the other door.
"Go!" I ordered and picked up my mask. Dick did the same and we put them on to conceal our faces. "Ladyhawk - stay here and guard Wade!"
"But..."
"No 'buts'."
I climbed the stairs followed by Nightwing and gestured towards the younger girl; Huntress and Kate were already in pursuit of the Joker.
"Protect the innocent", I said. Ladyhawk nodded and I followed Nightwing through the other door.
We reached an open ledge, high above a hall with working machines below us. The ledge split in three directions: left, right and straight forward. Huntress was on her way to the other side, using wires and thick chains holding up the air borne ledge to cross the area. There were other air borne ledges parallel to the one in front of us, all connected with wires and cables.
"He's on the middle ledge", Helena said in the intercom. And then I noticed it; the shimmering blur moving across the bridge, trying to reach the door on the other side.
The Joker's escape was cut short when Huntress reached the other side of the ledge and blocked the door.
The blur disappeared, but reappeared in a shimmer transforming the Joker back to a man. He looked around, grinned and then climbed the railing.
"Don't be a fool!" I called out to him.
"We will meet again, darling Ms Gordon", he called to me, grinning with his large, red mouth. He turned his attention to a cable hanging loosely in front of him and took the leap.
"No!" I called, because he couldn't see it from where he was standing - the view was hidden behind another steel construction: the cable he was aiming for wasn't fastened.
As the Joker caught the cable to swing himself from one air borne bridge to a ledge on his right the cable slid over the wire where it had been resting and fell with the Joker to the floor far below. The cable and the Joker hit the floor. The man lay motionless, with his neck at an awkward angle.
"Oh, God!" Kate whispered.
I nodded, but didn't say anything. Deep within me I knew it was over. Finally.
"We killed the Joker", Nightwing said, sounding a bit stunned.
I must let Bruce know, I thought. Then I raised my head and found myself looking across the bridge at Helena. She was looking right back at me.
"Is it over now, Barbara?" I heard her ask in my ear. I nodded.
"It is over", I said, to no one in particular.
* * * * *
I couldn't tell how relieved I was when I heard Barbara's word declaring the night's adventures over. Whatever had happened between her, Dick and Snake had ended with his death and our survival. Barbara wouldn't die this time. She would live and could continue to love me. That was all that mattered.
It wasn't until a couple of hours later I would get to hear the full story of what had happened that night, but before that we had some matters to deal with. Purely routine, but still...
After the bomb, and after the toxic waste had been disposed of in the large furnace - Dinah had successfully managed to enclose the chemical substance and the flames until the smoke was clear again and the poison disposed of - we had phoned Reese to let him know the Joker was at the island.
The police showed up shortly after the Joker's death, having thousands of questions which we couldn't answer truthfully without making them believe we were nuts - those were Dinah's words. Clever as always Batgirl already had thought of some plausible explanations about a gang-related showdown between criminals of Gotham. "With the Joker on the loose the old criminals were bound to feel threatened", she had told Reese. "They challenged him and this is the end result."
She didn't give any details about anything, but left it to them to draw their own conclusions. And Wade... Well, his memory was quite fussy when he woke up. All he could remember was that a short, ugly man had held a gun to his head and kidnapped him. The rest was a blur. He did have some vague memories of Barbara, but he figured that he had been dreaming - a left over from the drug-induced sleep they had forced upon him at the abduction. No one was going to dispute that.
We pretty much left the clean-up to the police. There wasn't really anything anyone of us could do, so we left rather quickly after the police's arrival.
After the return to the Clock Tower and our usual gathering in the kitchen around the table and the food Alfred had prepared for us - as always when we'd had a showdown with Gotham's criminals - Batgirl removed her mask and said in her Oracle voice: "Bummer - I know it's over, but I'm still concerned about the converter Patchy left for his father. We still don't know where it is. Batgirl let Reese know to look for a technical machine that could cause trouble for Gotham City, but it could be anywhere. My guess, though, is that he hid it in that building where Huntress and I confronted the robots a few months ago."
"Where you were held captive?" Dick said. "But that building was empty when the police arrived?"
"They didn't check it thoroughly - I bet there is a hidden room beneath the floor..."
I knew Oracle's bets always won out, so I wouldn't dispute her. Dick nodded too.
"Um, I don't think we have to worry about it", Dinah suddenly said, swallowing down her sandwich. "When I was close to the Joker I saw him in a vision smashing a complex machine to pieces. Could that be it?"
Kate frowned. "Why would he destroy something like that?"
"To prevent other criminals from using it", Barbara said and finally sat down to eat. She nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, that would probably be it. The Joker wouldn't risk someone getting stronger than him by stealing it from him. He was more paranoid in that regard than his son. Thanks, Dinah", she added with a smile to the girl. "You've done wonders tonight."
"Really", Kate agreed, looking at the girl who blushed at the compliments.
"Yeah", I agreed and Dinah looked at me.
"Does that mean you won't call me Sparrow anymore?" she asked hopefully. I grinned at her.
"Time will tell, princess. Time will tell", I said.
At that both Dinah and Kate turned to Barbara and Dick, reminded of the showdown with Snake. I glanced at Barbara.
"What did actually happen tonight?" Kate asked after a moment.
Dick and Oracle exchanged a look and finally Barbara nodded. She looked at us and took a deep breath before she told us about Snake and Cobra and the goddess.
"Wow", Dinah said, astonished, when Barbara was done. "She was a goddess?" She grinned. "I met a goddess?"
"An ber meta", I pointed out, feeling a bit jealous for some reason. "Not really a goddess..."
"But she was powerful", Dick said, pouring some tea. "They both were", he added thoughtfully.
"So - Snake was the priest and it was he who killed the girls in L.A.?" Kate asked. "He was Moonkiller?"
Barbara - or Oracle, more like it - nodded. "His skin was poisonous. The poison would paralyze his victims, so they couldn't resist. In that way he could hang up the girls and cut their throat. The poison would stay in the body for two or three days, lasting until the girls were drained of blood. The poison would also prevent the blood from coagulating. It had the same effect as that of leeches, making the blood flow freely. There would be no trace of it afterwards. Cobra - the higher meta-human, or the god - showered in the blood as it flowed from the girls. Because of his abilities he wouldn't leave a trace."
"And all this was in preparation for killing Dinah?" Kate said. Oracle nodded.
"Once the ritual of Ma'ahel had begun he wouldn't be able to interrupt it. And once the sixth girl had been killed the seventh must be his final victim: Dinah, in this case. The thing was, he didn't know who or were Dinah was..."
"But he knew you", Dick said, gesturing towards Kate.
"Me?" Kate said, looking shocked for the first time that I could remember.
"Snake was an ordinary meta-human to begin with, with no memories of his past life as a priest", Dick explained. "Then not quite a year ago he came across a man called Michael Boyd, here in Gotham, and all his memories from the previous reincarnation were restored. Boyd was obviously involved with us in that past life, one way or another, but he didn't remember it. Whatever past he and Snake shared, from the time they met all Snake could think about was how he would awaken his long sleeping Master again - the Cobra god. He went to L.A. to find a way to reawaken his Master, maybe through the help of some demons. I believe that's the reason he went to L.A." Dick shrugged. "What happened we don't know. The point is - he managed to reawaken Cobra."
"And in L.A. he found you", Barbara added, looking at Kate. "Neither Cobra nor Snake knew were to find Dinah, but..."
"Remembering me they thought I would lead them to her", Kate whispered with pale cheeks. "Oh, my god! That's just what I did!"
"Shit", I mumbled softly under my breath. "That's why they murdered one girl a month, to give Kate time to find Dinah, or lead them on the way."
"Well, yeah - and here we are", Barbara said, gesturing with both her hands.
"Well, I don't know about you", Dinah said and leaned back in her chair with a relieved look on her face. "But I'm sure glad I'm rid of those cops. Finally I can have a social life again!"
Endings
Two weeks after the showdown with the Joker and Cobra things were pretty much back to normal. Dinah had lost her ability to create force-fields - it had apparently been some kind of memory and talent from her past life. Dick and Barbara couldn't create thunder and lightning anymore and Kate was back to being an ordinary human without super-powers born of her memories as a warrior in a past life.
And I was pretty much as I had always been: an overgrown cat, according to Dinah. A lioness, according to my lover.
Barbara had given me an engagement ring - a simple band in white gold, with inscriptions on the outside, intertwined with an intricate pattern and tiny, tiny specks of blue stones, saying: Beyond the ends of time, my love. I loved it. I would have loved whatever she had given me, but I loved it because she had put in words what she felt for me - for everyone to see.
And on the inside of the ring - where no one would see it - there were the most exquisite carvings of a bat and a cat.
That day, two weeks after the Joker's death, I found Barbara practicing in the arena. In the replaced arena: the padding on the floor and on the walls had been replaced after the indoor rain Barbara and Dick had managed to create. She was practicing with her staff - doing only slow movements, as in a yoga or tai'chi style.
I stopped at the railing and looked down at her, loving the sight of her and knowing - finally knowing full heartedly - that I belonged to her and she to me. I could see her smile and knew she knew I was there.
"I know you're there", she said and it was my turn to smile. I swung my legs over the ledge and smoothly fell down to the floor below.
"Do you know when Kate will return to L.A.?" I asked as I moved forward. Barbara straightened her back and stretched a bit.
"I don't reckon she will", she said. "I think, the better question would be what alias to pick for her. We need a name - and you and Dinah seem so good at making up names." She grinned at me.
"I don't get it", I said with a frown. "Is she staying?"
"Oh, dear", Barbara said with a sigh and put away her staff. "You're cute, but sometimes you're really nave." She slid her arms around my neck and kissed me on the corner of my mouth. "Mmm, that's nice..."
We kissed for awhile and I forgot everything about Kate, but when Barbara let me go she resumed, as if we hadn't been interrupted: "I believe Kate and Dick has taken a fancy to each other."
"Huh? Oh! Oh, no - you don't mean...? Wow!" I shook my head. "No, I completely missed that."
"I figured", Barbara said dryly. Then she smiled sweetly at me, still with her arms around my neck. "I love you", she said simply and I blushed. She sometimes had this way about her - sweet and innocent like a young girl and when she looked at me that way I felt young and completely lost in her presence.
"Um, me too", I mumbled and she laughed at me.
"I have a surprise", she said and stepped back.
"If I had been a man I would have asked if you were pregnant", I said wryly; she almost glowed when I was looking at her.
"She left me a gift", she said. "I guess she didn't think it would fit a bat to be earth-bound."
I frowned. "Who? What do you mean?"
"The goddess - or whatever she was. Look."
Barbara spread her arms and closed her eyes. At first nothing happened, but then I suddenly became aware she was moving. Or not moving, exactly - she was hovering... She was hovering in the air!
"Oh, my... goddess", I whispered and almost sat down on the floor. Barbara opened her eyes and grinned at me.
"What do you think? Handy, don't you agree? I have been practicing a little, but it's quite difficult."
Barbara kept on rising into the air; she hung with her feet even with my waist.
"Fuck - I'm jealous", I said, a simple statement.
Barbara lowered herself and moved towards me with a soft smile.
"What about Dick?" I asked.
"I do think she left a gift for him too, but I don't know if it's the same." Barbara sat down and then lay herself flat on her back; I looked down at her. "Come", she said, smiling. "I can't carry you like Superman does with Lois - you would be dragged behind me, I suspect. But..." Her smile widened. "I can do this. Lie on top of me."
I hesitated, but then curiously did as she asked me.
"Feel..." she whispered and after a moment I felt it. We both lifted into the air.
"Oh, it's amazing", I grinned.
She laughed and her eyes sparkled in such a way that I just had to kiss her. As I did we fell back on the floor with a thud.
"Ups, sorry..." I said sheepishly.
"Some more practice is required", she said. "Oh, my back..."
I rolled off her in the same moment that Dinah entered the door by the ledge. She looked down at us.
"At it again, are you?" she said, faking sarcasm.
"Hey, sparrow", I said grinning, to hide the fact that she was making me blush with what she hinted at.
For a moment I thought the girl was going to put out her tongue at me, but she only sniffed and turned her attention to Barbara.
"I only came to tell you I'll be late tonight. I have a date." Dinah grinned and winked at us. "See ya!"
"What? Did she just say a date? Oh, God!"
Before I knew what was happening Barbara was up from the floor, running towards the stairs. What the fuck...? Someone's not ready to let her child grow up... I thought amusedly.
"Someone's not using her brains", I added loudly as an afterthought, calling after Barbara; laughing. "Fly, why don't you - batie?"
She stopped to look at me, then grinned and suddenly she was high in the air, aiming for the ledge and the door.
"Oh, shit..." I ducked my head as Barbara almost hit hers in the doorpost. Then I lost sight of her, but a second later I heard Dinah in the corridor above me.
"Barbara? Oh, my God - look out!"
Dinah's warning was followed by a loud crash and I hid my face in my hands, laughing so hard I could hardly stand on my legs.
All was well in the Clock Tower. Everything was back to normal.
As normal could be, when living a life like ours.