Batman: No Man's Land Read online

  Then she threw it at the mirror. The glass shattered, pieces broken yet still sticking in the frame, and her reflection broke, too.

  Montoya sat on the bed and put her head in her hands, fighting the urge to cry.

  They had sold their souls.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Go away,” she said, then realized she’d spoken in Spanish, and repeated it in English.

  “Renee? It’s Chris. You okay in there?”

  “I’m okay, Sergeant.”

  “Heard glass breaking.” The door opened a fraction, and Sergeant Weir stuck her blond head through the opening, concern stretched over her face. “Whoa. What happened to your mirror?”

  “I broke it.”

  Weir pushed the door open farther. “You want to talk about it?”

  I’d love to talk about it, Montoya thought. But I can’t say a word, because I told the Commissioner I trusted him, and he trusts me, and he is my boss, and he is in charge, and so, no, I can’t say a damn thing.

  “Not really,” Montoya said.

  “You want to be alone?”

  “Not really.”

  Weir chuckled, then came in and sat on the bed beside her. Montoya watched while her broken reflection was joined by pieces of the other woman’s face.

  “Nice job on the mirror,” Weir said. “Think you can afford the seven years’ bad luck?”

  “Way my luck is running right now, it’d be an improvement.”

  “Oh, it can’t be that bad.”

  “We’re in the No Man’s Land, remember? How good can it be?”

  Weir shifted her weight slightly. “It’s life, you know. Just harder now. But it’s not all bad.”

  Her tone made Montoya shift from looking at Weir’s reflection to look at Weir herself. The sergeant made a kind of half-laugh from her throat.

  “What?” Montoya asked.

  Weir hesitated. “You can’t tell anyone.”

  Oh, Christ, Montoya thought. What is it about me? Either I’m keeping secrets that I want no part of, or I’m being flirted with by a horribly disfigured lunatic who wants to be my boyfriend.

  “I’m pregnant,” Weir said.

  Renee thought her jaw was flapping in the breeze.

  Weir laughed. “Yeah, that’s kind of how I reacted.”

  “You’re what?”

  “Preggers. Knocked up. Bun in the oven. Family way. Me.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Pretty sure. Thought I’d been eating bad food or something, that’s why I kept throwing up, but… I’m so late now, and I’m starting to …” She looked at Montoya. “I’m pretty sure.”

  “I don’t know if I should say congratulations or I’m sorry, Chris…”

  “Yeah, it’s a hell of a thing. Life, like I said.”

  “Can I ask…”

  “Andy.”

  “Andy DeFilippis?”

  Weir arched an eyebrow. “You don’t approve?”

  “Did I say that? I didn’t say that.”

  “Then what was that tone, there, that shocked tone?”

  “Never figured you’d go for a rookie.”

  “I’m in love with him,” Weir said, explaining.

  “That would do it; How long… I mean, when do you think you’re due?”

  “November, 1 think.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah. You can’t tell anyone, Renee. I haven’t even told Andy yet, and… it’s just going to make things so complicated. I mean, where do you go to get prenatal care in the NML?”

  “We’ve got to get you to Dr. Thompkins.”

  “I was thinking the same thing. Maybe by the end of the week.”

  The thought struck Renee hard. “Tomorrow night, where are you posted tomorrow night?”

  “The Clock Tower.”

  “Good. Stay there, okay? Make sure you stay on that post.”

  “Why?”

  Montoya shook her head. “Just trust me, please, Chris. Things are going to get hairy tomorrow night … you and Andy, you should both pull duty at the Clock Tower, all right?”

  Weir cocked her head, curiosity and concern wrestling on her brow for a couple of seconds.

  “Please,” Montoya urged. “Trust me.”

  “Okay, tomorrow night I’ll be at the Clock Tower,” Weir said. “Wish you’d tell me why it’s so important, though.”

  “Give it twenty-four hours, you’ll find out.”

  SEVENTEEN

  IT HAD STARTED EARLIER THAT NIGHT, WHEN Batgirl was alone in the pseudo-cave where she’d brought Black Mask nearly four weeks earlier, waiting for the Batman to return. The two-way radio set on the workbench had crackled, and then Oracle’s voice, computer synthesized and distorted, had broken out of the static.

  “Come in, Batman. Come in.”

  She’d taken the handset and answered, “Go ahead.” The pause had felt like ice was creeping out of the speaker, up the wire to the microphone in Batgirl’s hand.

  “Where is he?” Oracle had demanded.

  “Not here.”

  “When’s he due back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I have intel for him, he’s going to want to hear it ASAP.”

  “Whatever you need to tell him, you can tell me.” Oracle had laughed, the synthesized voice rocking along octaves. Batgirl wasn’t certain who, exactly, Oracle was. She’d heard some people speculate that there was no actual person who was Oracle, simply a group of people who forwarded information. Other theories were that it was an AI, or even a totally alien intelligence.

  But that laugh, it made Batgirl think that Oracle was just another human being, some man or woman in a room somewhere, just as human as the rest of them. And the laugh told her something else. It told her that Oracle didn’t like her at all.

  Not one little bit.

  “Cowl on a little too tight?” Oracle had said. “Brain needing a little more oxygen, maybe?”

  “You don’t like me,” Batgirl had said. “Don’t let it interfere with the job.”

  There had been the briefest of pauses, as if the computer generated voice on the other end was determining its answer, and then the voice said, “Of course I don’t like you. I know who you really are. Tell him to contact me. Oracle out.”

  The connection had gone dead, leaving Batgirl holding the handset, frustrated and a little frightened.

  If Oracle knew … then the Batman knew.

  Until that point it had been easy to indulge in the self-deception, to believe that she had done a good enough job at concealing her identity to keep the Batman from finding out who she really was. But Oracle changed that with a sentence, and Batgirl put the handset back in place, knowing that, certainly, she wasn’t fooling anyone except herself.

  Batman was a detective, after all, considered by some the World’s Greatest Detective, and even though Batgirl had been careful, she knew she hadn’t been careful enough. She wondered, if, in fact, she ever could have been.

  But the Batman hadn’t said anything about it, hadn’t challenged her or demanded an unmasking or a confession, none of it. As far as she could see, that meant he didn’t have a problem with her wearing the cowl or the symbol. If he did, he would have said something by now, right?

  It wasn’t much of a comfort, but it was enough for her to grasp and hold, and she had no intention of letting it go.

  She was good at this, she knew that. She was worthy of the Bat, had saved lives, had made a difference.

  And if Oracle didn’t like her, if Oracle wanted her out, well, Oracle could just lump it. The cape and cowl weren’t Oracle’s to bestow, and Batgirl wouldn’t part with them that easily.

  * * * * *

  She was still thinking about it when the Batman returned, entering the garage with a bare nod of the chin that acknowledged her presence, then moving to the workbench where he removed his belt and began checking his stores. She watched him for almost a minute without speaking, waiting for him to say something, anything, bu
t he didn’t.

  “Oracle called,” she finally said.

  “And?”

  “And apparently I’m not good enough to pass along whatever message he, she, or it had for you.”

  He replaced the belt on his waist, then began checking the pockets hidden in his cape. “She,” he said.

  “Well, then, she didn’t feel I could be trusted. Said she had intel. That’s all I know.”

  He crossed to the radio set silently, almost effortlessly. Sometimes, she would watch him move and just wonder at the precision of it all, how there was never anything wasted in any of his motions or gestures. He took the handset up and flipped two switches, and she heard the crackle of the speaker.

  The synthesized voice sparked from the speaker again. “Oracle.”

  “That was unprofessional.”

  “Don’t talk to me about professional. I know who she is.”

  “That’s irrelevant. You have intel for me?”

  There was a brief silence, as if Oracle was computing how to proceed. Batgirl almost smiled behind her mask. Maybe all her worry was for nothing. Maybe it didn’t matter to him at all.

  “One of my Eyes reported something down by City Hall,” Oracle said. “Confirmed via your new pal, Penguin. Two-Face is on the move.”

  “Penguin’s paranoid,” the Batman said. “Two-Face is on his southern border.”

  “True, but my agent confirms that something is going on. Something about trial by combat. Two-Face brand justice, sounds like.”

  “When?”

  “Rumored for midnight.”

  “I’ll check it out.”

  There was another pause, and when Oracle spoke again, the words more than the tone took Batgirl by surprise.

  “You want to know what I think?” Oracle asked.

  “No.”

  “I think it’s a trap. Oracle out.”

  He replaced the handset, then moved to the doorway, looking out at the night. Batgirl rose.

  “Midnight. That gives us about two hours to prepare,” she said.

  “I’m going alone.”

  Batgirl almost bit back the response. He had all but validated her to Oracle. She knew that what he’d allowed her to overhear in that conversation might well be as close to approval as she was ever likely to get. But she didn’t imagine that Nightwing held his tongue when thinking that the Batman was about to make a mistake, and she knew she couldn’t either.

  “Oracle said it’s a trap.”

  “No, Oracle said she thought it was a trap. We don’t know.”

  “If it is a trap, you’re going to need backup.”

  He still hadn’t turned around, and his voice was low and even, his tone perfectly calm. “No. You stay here, protect our territory.”

  She thought, but didn’t say, that there were over sixty square blocks in their territory. How she was supposed to protect it all by herself, she had no idea. He wasn’t in the mood to listen to any questions from her anyway, she realized; he was already focusing on where he was headed and what he would do when he got there.

  “I’ll be back by dawn.”

  Batman stepped out onto the street. Batgirl followed him, and when she made it outside he’d produced his line and grapnel and was already hallway up the side of the wrecked building across from them.

  “I’m counting on you,” he said before he vanished. “Don’t let me down.”

  EIGHTEEN

  GARRETT DIDN’T KNOW THE WOMAN HE was supposed to kill. He’d only met her five minutes before, just inside the courthouse, where Two-Face had explained exactly what they were supposed to do, and how the plan was supposed to work.

  “It’s got to look good,” Two-Face warned. “Batman has to believe you’re going for her blood.”

  “Go for her blood, gotcha,” Garrett had said.

  Two-Face’s fist had come out suddenly, grabbing Garrett by a chunk of his hair. He had twisted his head back, forcing Garrett to look at him, directly into his bulging eye and his scarred, purple face.

  “No,” Two-Face had hissed. “Pretend to go for her blood. You actually hurt her, I’ll eat your liver, understand?”

  Garrett had tried to nod, but his range of motion had been severely limited by Two-Face’s grip. His intention had come across, though, and Garrett had been let go, told to grab a bat and a length of chain, and head on down to the arena. The woman had taken an old longsword that she needed both hands to swing. She’d also taken a collapsible baton, a small syringe, and a bottle of something that Penguin had given Garrett to give to Two-Face. Chloral something or other. Not dope, at least not dope as Garrett knew it.

  He didn’t do drugs anyway. They slowed him down.

  The arena wasn’t really an arena at all, just a big cleared circle out in front of the Gotham City Courthouse, ringed with oil drum fires and spectators. There were maybe thirty people gathered, none of them faces that Garrett recognized, though he knew some of the tags. A couple of the folks were pretty badly mutilated, former followers of Black Mask. There were a couple of Demonz, too, and some of the crew that had worked for Scarface before the Bat had taken him down

  The woman went into the arena, dragging the sword after her. Garrett liked watching her move. She was pretty, and clean, and on top of that, she had really nice red hair and these hazel eyes that sort of turned green sometimes when he got a close look at them. He wondered if she was Two-Face’s girl, or if maybe, after everything was over, he could ask her out.

  One of Two-Face’s crew, a guy calling himself TallyMan on account of how he kept a count of all the people he killed and who wore a pretty strange-looking hat, started shouting for everyone’s attention. Garrett tried to tune him out, watching the pretty red-haired girl. She didn’t look happy, and he tried smiling at her, and she saw him do it and scowled in return. It took Garrett another second to remember that they were pretending to fight, and that it had to look good, and that therefore he probably shouldn’t be smiling at her.

  He tried to look mean.

  The TallyMan was getting really loud now, holding out one palm, and on it Garrett saw a single bullet, shining in the firelight, even a chance to win this wonderful, glorious, fully functional .45 caliber round, yes, ladies and gentlemen, that’s one-hundred-eighty-five grains of guaranteed justice,” the TallyMan was shouting. “Place your bets as tonight’s guilty party is tried in the impartial court of the Kingdom of Two-Face. For the prosecution, tonight, at six feet and four inches in height, two hundred and twenty pounds, Alexander Garrett!”

  The crowd applauded, and Garrett nodded and started to smile, then caught himself and scowled some more. The applause got louder.

  “And for the defense, at five feet and eight inches, weighing in at a whopping one hundred and forty pounds sopping wet, Isabella Cheranova!”

  The crowd began booing. Garrett heard someone shouting that the fix was in.

  TallyMan ignored the hoots and hollers, and continued. “Charged with theft of food, two counts, intent to subvert Two-Face’s authority, three counts, and finally, flight to avoid prosecution! A plea of not guilty having been entered, tonight’s trial may now begin!”

  The crowd roared, and Garrett took that as his cue to swing the bat. He started with a slow move, coming up, like he was going for her head, and she surprised him by turning in closer, so the blow went over her head. Then she was right in front of him, and before he’d realized what had happened, she’d put her knee in his stomach and caught him across the jaw with her forearm.

  Garrett staggered back, getting angry. Isabella had backed off, now holding the sword in both hands, head down and those pretty eyes of hers looked mean suddenly. It occurred to Garrett that maybe she hadn’t been listening when Two-Face had explained what was supposed to happen.

  He came at her again with the bat, faster this time, and she used the sword to parry the blow, then kicked him in the thigh, and Garrett felt the block of muscle on his right leg go numb for a second. He shouted out something his mothe
r told him he should never call a lady, then brought the chain down. She dived out of the way, and he followed with another swing of the chain, then a crisscross with the bat. She parried the second one, and it took her guard down, and Garrett cried out in triumph, whipping the chain around, catching the blade of her sword.

  With a sharp tug, he disarmed her.

  The crowd was going wild.

  Without a second thought, Garrett brought the bat up again and then down and then his whole arm went numb and he couldn’t keep his grip. Three small black metal bats were sticking into his forearm.

  He started to shout and turn, and then he felt a boot hitting his back and Garrett was on the broken concrete, sliding on the ground. He tried to get up but felt the boot move, pressing into his jaw and he swiveled his eyes furiously, looking up and seeing a portion of the black cape, the clawed hand.

  “That’s enough!” the Batman said, and then he came off Garrett’s head and grabbed Isabella. Garrett used both hands to get up; the one with the Batarangs in it hurt like hell but he tried anyway, hoping to grab the Bat by the cape or something, anything to keep him from getting away.

  But already he was gone, taking the pretty girl with him, rising into the night sky. He saw them land on the rooftop of the courthouse, wondered how he could get up there in time.

  Then he saw the Batman turn around, looking back down at them. Behind him, he saw Isabella moving, snapping out the collapsible baton.

  Then she hit the Batman over the head with it, and Garrett, having been there himself, recognized the way that the Batman fell.

  Out cold.

  * * * * *

  There were too many of them and it happened too quickly and Batgirl honestly didn’t know what she was supposed to do to stop them.

  She’d tried, though. For nearly an hour she’d tried, using the rooftops to keep pace with the scattered groups of Penguin’s men as they advanced northward, into Bat territory, into the territory that he had ordered her to protect only hours earlier. But for every group she stopped, there was another to replace it, and she’d gone through all the stores on her belt already, all of the smoke and all of the tear gas and all of the flash-bangs. She had personally taken down eleven of Penguin’s men by hand, and had the cuts and bruises to show for it, including one laceration that burned along her back every time she moved her left arm.