Wayne of Gotham (30 page)

Big Eddie was long on moxie but short on brains. He had been pushed around all night and wanted some payback.

He raised his 9 mm Browning out of his coat pocket thinking he was fast enough to take some pansy doctor.

He was wrong.

H
arold's camera missed it.

The gunshot went off just as the camera was coming up to his eye. Harold swore as he jammed his finger down on the trigger and the Bell and Howell began to whir once more.

“Damn!” Ryder exclaimed. “That's Thomas Wayne!”

Here was the bat-costumed socialite driving Edward “Big Eddie” Cronkle down to his knees. The man's forearm was bent at an impossible angle, the radius and the ulna both snapping as Wayne held the arm with both hands and broke it over his knee. A semiautomatic handgun tumbled from the big thug's hand, clattering across the floor.

Through the camera's lens, Harold saw Salvatore grabbing the bat costume from behind and trying to pin his arms, but the masked and caped figure was a demon unleashed. He planted both feet on the ground and kicked so hard that Salvatore bent backward. They both fell hard against the floor. The remaining hitmen of the Moxon gang reached in for the manic doctor, trying to drag him off Salvatore.

One flew upward from the pack, his head snapped back as he fell like a broken doll to the floor. Suddenly it appeared the costume-clad dervish was standing upright, surrounded by the gangsters, his fists engaging the circle of them in a frantic melee. The panicked mobsters were scrambling in the brawl. The masked vigilante blocked a punch while ducking another. He drove his booted foot down the length of one man's chin, who howled in pain just before the costumed bat slammed his fist down like a hammer across the man's jaw, sending him sprawling in silence.

The camera continued to whir …

The human bat caught Lewis Moxon as he was trying to open the doors. He turned him around as he struck. The back of Lewis's head bounded off the door behind him and he slumped to the ground.

Twenty-six … twenty-seven … twenty-eight.

Click. Ryder released the camera trigger.

He watched the man he knew was Thomas Wayne open the doors of the ballroom, the breeze from the hall billowing his cape behind him as he stepped through. Harold cursed again, because he was still winding the camera.

But he managed to twist the close-up lens into place on the turret in time to catch the reaction of Miss Martha Kane in her red flapper dress as she stood among her stunned guests and watched the caped hero depart. It was adoration and wonder.

He released the trigger. The camera stopped with a sudden click.

“Now
that's
news!” he sighed.

T
homas Wayne looked up from his work. Julius Moxon was out cold on the couch—gratefully—but Thomas had taken care of most of the critical damage and managed to stabilize him.

“He's mine, Thomas,” said the familiar voice behind him.

Thomas turned, looking up from where he knelt in the library.

“You might have just asked me to borrow the costume,” Thomas said casually. “It looks terrible on you.”

“Step out of the way, Thomas,” Disciple said. “You're not the problem that needs fixing.”

“And just how are you going to fix this … problem, Denholm?” Thomas asked, standing up and facing the man in his costume. The wound from earlier was bleeding again, and he was limping slightly from a second, fresh wound. His blood was dripping onto the carpet.

“You don't fix cancer,” Disciple sneered. “You destroy it.”

“You kill it,” Thomas amended.

“That's right,” Denholm smiled beneath the old-fashioned mask.

“And what about Dr. Richter?” Thomas asked. “Is that why he died?”

“He was a Nazi, Thomas!” Disciple snarled. “He worked the experimental medical branch for the SS. He did the most unspeakable things imaginable to other human beings, all under the cover of discredited science and a society darker than hell itself. Then when justice was about to fall on him, he made a deal with our government—our military intelligence—to be repatriated to these good ol' United States under some secret deal called ‘Paperclip.' Now all the torture, the hideous pain, the drawn-out murders he oversaw are supposed to be forgiven and forgotten because he might have carried some piece of knowledge with him to a well-deserved grave? We watched him—Fate, Chanteuse, the Reaper, and I—and we heard his excuses and his lies, but we knew him for who he was at his heart, Thomas … We knew who he had been and that he would never change.”

“He was trying to help you,” Thomas said quietly.

“He was trying to get
published,
” Disciple spat the words. “He was trying to erase his past by burying the stinking, rotting corpses and who he really was under a pretty linoleum floor bathed in Spic and Span and polished with Aerowax!”

“He had a family,” Thomas shouted back. “A wife and daughters who cared about him.”

“And what of the men he tortured to death in his experiments?” Disciple shot back. “Did they not also have wives and little kiddies? And don't tell me that he was only following orders or that he just didn't
know
what he was doing was destroying civilization because … because …”

Disciple looked up, his eyes bright and shining behind the mask and rapture reflected in his sudden smile.

“I see it clearly now,” Disciple muttered. “You're so right, Thomas. It's not just the Julius Moxons, but those who empower him … They, too, are guilty. Moxon has to die, of course, but now I see it's not enough. They all have to die … every last one of them … before the city will be clean. Why, I'll bet half the people at this party alone are profiting from Julius Moxon's deals. They'll have to die, too, the corrupt upper class. Then the city will be clean, then—”

“What about Martha?” Thomas asked quietly.

“It would be better for her to be cured just as I have been cured.”

“What about me, Denholm?” Thomas said, standing up and backing slowly toward the open French doors.

“You? You're the one who opened my eyes, Thomas,” the Disciple said. “I'm your disciple.”

“But I'm the worst of them all,” Thomas goaded. He had reached the door, the cool evening breeze cooling the sweat that pooled at his back. “I
paid
Richter's bills. I gave him the money that allowed him to do his experiments. And I've just operated on Julius Moxon here—willingly aided and abetted a known criminal, I think they call it. And now I'm going to
fix
you … Take away your purpose and your specialness and make you
common
once more. And when I do, I'll have
beaten
you, Denholm Sinclair … and the Disciple will be no more.”

Denholm howled in rage, lunging for him, but Thomas was prepared and leaped back onto the terrace.

Thomas started running. He could hear the Disciple charging after him as he crossed the lawn and bounded down into the ravine that lay between the two estates. He knew his old friend had been badly wounded in the gun battles earlier in the evening, but it did not appear to be slowing him down as much as Thomas had hoped.

What was I hoping for? That I could lead him away from Martha and the others? That I might find the forgiveness that Richter could never have
?

He had headed in the direction of the house, but now he knew he would never make it that far. Denholm would catch him climbing up the hill and that would be the end of him.

There was only one other place he could go where he might find a weapon against the monster he had helped create.

He hoped it was still there.

He hoped it still worked.

Kane Mansion / Bristol / 11:58 p.m. / Present Day

Batman could feel the life draining from the Batsuit. The response was getting more sluggish and there was more resistance to his own movement than there should have been. He could not break his bonds, nor could he manage to untangle himself from the bolts of silk, whose flexibility and strength caused his own weight to work against him.

He had to go up.

Batman gripped the silk and pulled with all his strength, moving upward from the slashing blades below that continued to put gashes in his Batsuit, shredding its integrity. Echo and Query continued their aerial dance around him, swooping in and trying to further wrap him up in their silken web. Batman backhanded Query on her next approach, sending her spinning and rolling downward until the silk wrapped around her waist arrested her tumbling fall. Batman continued to climb, dragging the crimson silk up with him as he did. He could see the long, black streaks of the Batsuit fluid staining the cloth that trailed down below him.

Automatic weapon fire erupted below, and bullets sprayed the ceiling just above him. He looked around quickly and found what was needed: the motorized hub of the mobile. Everything turned on this large mechanism bolted to the ceiling. Batman reached one of the crossbars of the mobile and pulled himself up. Echo grabbed hold of his booted foot, trying to drag him off the beam, but he kicked hard, sending her spinning off, too.

His father's voice continued through the hall.

“
… the guests had no idea what had actually happened. They all believed that I had been the one in the costume … that I had been the heroic figure who had defeated the Moxon gang and gone to apprehend Julius Moxon …”

Batman reached the central mechanism, pulling several small C-4 balls and remote detonators from his Utility Belt. He began pressing them next to the eight bolts that mounted the mechanism to the ceiling.

He had five of them in place when Echo and Query both pounced on him at once. Echo had his neck in a vice grip with her right arm. Query had attached herself to one of his legs and was trying to pry him free of his foothold on the crossbeam.

It will just have to be enough.

Batman looked away and triggered the explosives.

The small devices sheared off the bolt heads, peppering the front of his Batsuit. The reactive armor engaged but he could feel the impacts. The Batsuit was failing. The force had caused the plate to partially pull away from the ceiling. The sudden jolt and noise of the explosions took both Echo and Query by surprise, each loosening her grip. It was all Batman needed. He shook both the women off him and sent them tumbling down into the silk wrapped around their waists. When it grew taut, they rebounded slightly almost fifteen feet below the ceiling.

“
… the man I knew as Denholm Sinclair was now lost to me … certainly lost to Martha. He had become this abhorrent monster calling himself the Disciple and naming me as his inspiration and creator …”

Batman pulled himself up, gripping the bar with both hands. The Batsuit alarms were pinging in his ear. He swung his legs upward around the crossbar, planting his feet against the ceiling on either side of the damaged mount in an inverted squat, and then held tight to the bar as he pushed with his legs.

“
I knew he was going to kill Julius Moxon and once he was done with that he would return to the party and kill again … in my costume and in my guise …”

The mounting bracket groaned with the sudden load. The Batsuit alarm became more insistent.

Suddenly, the mount gave way, pulling a large plaster part of the ceiling down with it. The mobile, its multiple crossbeams, long silk bolts, Amanda, Echo, Query, and all the suspended mannequins came crashing downward onto the ballroom floor.

Batman barely managed to roll as he hit the floor, allowing the remaining power in his Batsuit to dissipate the energy of his fall. He turned on his feet only to find Query, Echo, and their swordsmen struggling to escape their own web. He stepped in among them, binding each where he found them in his zip ties and, when necessary, using his fist to explain why they shouldn't resist. All the while his father's voice resounded in the hall.

“
… So I made myself his next target. I could think of nothing else that might lure him away from the Kane Mansion. My original thought … so far as it went … was to lead him away from the Kane household and back to my own estate. Heaven knows there were plenty of weapons left behind by my father … but even with him badly wounded I could not get far enough ahead …”

He found Amanda among the mannequins. He pulled out a knife, cut her cables, and wrapped her in one of the red silks so that the Batsuit's fluid would not stain her. He picked her up, draped her over his shoulder, and turned to follow the sound of his father's voice.

It led him to the bandstand. There was a vintage Wollensak 1515 reel-to-reel tape recorder running seven-inch reels in long-play mode. A stack of weathered Scotch audio tape boxes were stacked next to the recorder, the top-most box open and empty. The tape machine itself was connected to a large speaker that was still sounding throughout the hall.