Batman: No Man's Land Read online

  The fact was that the Batman didn’t know what to do anymore, and once again, the despair that had consumed him after the declaration of NML threatened to pull him down.

  * * * * *

  Two-Face was pacing in the office, gesturing wildly, moving the coin back and forth in his hands. The TallyMan had backed away, giving his boss room to rant.

  —tried to kill me in my own home he came into my own home and tied me to the bed he could have killed me he’s lost his mind, he’s—

  And here the Batman lost the next couple of sentences as Two-Face turned away from the window, making further lip-reading, for the moment, impossible. TallyMan was nodding, trying to appease him, then moving quickly, almost like a spider, out of the way, as Two-Face approached the wall. The Batman watched as Two-Face revealed a safe secured behind the painting there, trying to calculate the combination as Two-Face spun the dial. Then the safe was open and Two-Face was removing stacks of bills, mostly hundreds from what the Batman could see.

  Odd, he thought. Money in the NML. Why?

  Two-Face had turned, stacking the money on the desk, and once more the Batman could read his lips.

  —ective Montoya and if he thinks he can do that he doesn’t understand what’s going on here how there are some things a man can’t stand I’ll show him…

  He had turned away again.

  Montoya, the Batman thought. Detective Third Class Renee Montoya, member of the GCPD’s Major Crimes Unit, the division tasked with handling “extreme” crimes, normally those committed by the lunatic fringe. Crimes committed by men like Harvey, or Joker, or Mr. Freeze.

  Two-Face was continuing to remove bills from the safe, TallyMan helping.

  Six weeks before Black Monday, the Batman had encountered Montoya and Two-Face in the rubble. It had been shortly after the quake, just before the National Guard had arrived, and looters had been running wild through the streets. The Batman had stumbled upon a group of citizens in Spanish Burnley who had mobilized their own grassroots rescue effort, moving from building to building, attempting to dig out those people still trapped. Montoya had been one of them, along with her brother. Two-Face had been helping, as well.

  He’d been on one of his rare runs of “good heads,” it seemed.

  When the Batman arrived Harvey had panicked, defaulting to a coin toss, trying to determine if he should run or fight. Harvey had made it as far as the actual toss when Montoya had taken the coin from the air. She had completely ignored the Batman’s presence then, focused entirely on Harvey. Somehow she had managed to convince him the toss hadn’t been called for, that there was no decision to be made. She had convinced Two-Face to continue helping the rescue effort.

  Batman had backed away then, still watching, warily. While Montoya seemed to have him under control, Batman knew that Harvey was dangerously unpredictable.

  Yet that night, finished with their work, Harvey had voluntarily surrendered himself to Montoya. And she had brought him back to Arkham herself.

  Batman had to admit, considering it now, that he’d never seen anything like it.

  Two-Face had closed the safe, was moving back to the desk, still talking, this time faster. The coin made a silver streak along his knuckles as he rolled it over his fingers again and again.

  … be that way, if he’s here. . . should be. . . can’t keep us apart then can he…

  The TallyMan spoke.

  He should have arrived by now . . . if he’s as good as they say it’s already been done.

  Two-Face’s grin was sinister.

  Good . . .good he tries to break a deal with us he keeps me from seeing the woman I love…

  Batman, for a moment, thought he’d read that wrong.

  But Two-Face repeated it.

  … she’s stolen my heart. I’m in love and he knows that and he’ll pay for keeping us apart he’ll pay for everything…

  The last woman Harvey Dent had loved was dead, Batman knew. The last woman Harvey Dent had loved was his wife, Gilda.

  … pay for it, never forget what he did after cane does Gordon she and I can be together and…

  It was almost a literal shock, the mention of the name, and Batman lowered the binoculars quickly, stowing them back in his belt as he dropped out of his perch, his mind already snapping the pieces of the puzzle together. The money, the haste, the snippets of conversation. The fire last night in Robinson Park. Why Robinson Park, he wondered; why Robinson Park, of course, the reservoir. The only open area in the city, the only viable target for a parachute drop, and it would have to have been the reservoir because any drop would have been high altitude, low opening, a HALO drop, demanding not only a large target zone but one that could lessen the impact of landing.

  Two-Face hadn’t said “cane,” Batman knew, already in motion, snapping out his grapnel and line, then jumping before the end was even anchored, heading west toward TriCorner. Two-Face had said “Cain” and everything made perfect sense now.

  It didn’t matter that Jim Gordon and he hadn’t spoken for five months, and it didn’t matter that, from all he had heard, Gordon considered him more an enemy than a friend.

  What mattered was that David Cain was in Gotham City, and that David Cain was one of the most revered and precise contract assassins in the world. What mattered was that, for whatever twisted reasons in Harvey Dent’s brain, Two-Face had managed to hire David Cain to murder James Gordon.

  And if Cain was already in the city, there was a good chance that the Batman would be too late to do a damn thing about it.

  * * * * *

  “You know who he is, don’t you.” Gordon asked. “I need you to tell me. Who killed one of my men today, who tried to shoot me?”

  Cassandra looked helplessly from the Commissioner to his daughter, past the faces of the concerned Blue Boys who were now gathered in Oracle’s apartment.

  No, not Oracle, stop thinking like that, Cassandra told herself. Barbara. When her father is here, she’s Barbara.

  Cassandra reached for the sketch pad that had held her lessons from early that morning, and Barbara nodded, handing it over and giving her the pea. Cassandra worked quickly, drawing the circle and then blacking it in, leaving the negative space in the shape of a serpent’s head. She heard the Commissioner talking to the other Blue Boys there, telling them to see if they could find a translator, and to double the guards at the perimeter. Cassandra wanted to tell him it wouldn’t work, that it didn’t matter. She hoped the picture would explain all that.

  Finished, she handed the pen back to Barbara, then held the pad up so Commissioner Gordon could see the drawing. He took the pad, pushing his glasses up against his forehead to look at the picture clearly, and then sighed.

  Cassandra could see he didn’t get it.

  Gordon replaced his glasses and dropped the pad back on the coffee table, saying, “We’re getting nowhere with this. All we can do for now—”

  “Dad,” Barbara said, taking the pad up again. “I recognize this. I know what this is.”

  “And?”

  “It’s the mark of Cain. Interpol circulated a flier about two years ago….”

  “Cain? David Cain?”

  “Yes.”

  One of the Blue Boys, the Latina, moved closer to the Commissioner, dropping her voice. “If that’s true, sir, we need to move you to a secure location as soon as possible.”

  “Hold on, Renee,” Gordon said, taking the pad back from Barbara and then turning once more to Cassandra. He tapped the picture. “Cain has no compunctions about killing women or children or teenaged girls. Why didn’t he shoot you?”

  Cassandra looked at the picture, then at Gordon. Then she looked at the coffee table, folding her arms across her chest.

  “You know him,” Gordon said. “Don’t you.”

  She nodded.

  “How?”

  Cassandra blew out a long breath. With her right index finger she pointed at Gordon. Then she pointed at Barbara. Then she pointed at the pad, still in Gordo
n’s hand. Finally, she indicated herself.

  Barbara’s voice was just above a whisper. “You’re his daughter?”

  Cassandra nodded and couldn’t look at any of them, avoiding their eyes. It didn’t matter; she could feel the stares, the heat and accusation in them. It didn’t matter that she had never wanted to be like her father. It didn’t matter that there had never been any choice. She was a killer, too, and try as she might, she had never been able to escape that.

  Not even in the No Man’s Land.

  She heard the Latina speak again, the one Gordon called Renee “Sir, if Cain’s been hired to kill you, he won’t stop until he finds you.”

  “He won’t have to find me. He killed Donnelly this morning in front of this damn building. We’re going to find him.”

  Cassandra raised her head, saw that Gordon had turned to the door, his hand already extended to take the knob. She went to her feet as fast as she could, past Barbara, cutting in front of him before he could pull the door open, blocking it with her body.

  “I understand what you’re trying to do.” Gordon turned to his daughter. “I need you to keep her here, Barbara. I don’t want her out there trying to shield me.”

  “Dad, I—”

  That was the last Cassandra heard, because by then she had opened the door herself, and was out in the hall, slamming it closed behind her. From her pocket she took her knife, popping the blade out with a press of the switch, and then jamming it into the lock. She pushed as hard as she could, then twisted, and the blade snapped, the tip remaining in the keyhole, jamming it shut. It wouldn’t hold them inside for long, if at all, but she needed some way to keep it closed, to keep Gordon and Renee and Barbara from coming out after her. They didn’t understand, they didn’t know Cain, they didn’t know how bad it could get, but Cassandra did and she wasn’t going to let Barbara Gordon lose her father. She wasn’t going to let that happen.

  She dropped the broken knife and turned, and he was there, in the hall, behind her, pistol in his hand.

  He didn’t lower the gun, just used his left hand to motion her out of the way, his right hand holding the pistol level and steady.

  Cassandra put her back to the door and shook her head, spreading her arms as if her weight alone could keep it shut.

  Her father opened fire, five shots back-to-back that she felt dance past her, into the door around her torso. From behind her, inside the apartment, she heard yelling and Gordon’s voice and the sounds of people diving for the floor. She heard no screams.

  It all seemed to slow down for her then as the adrenaline poured in, and she moved forward, slapping the gun from Cain’s grip. She was terrifying in her speed, and she knew that, because this was her strength, this was her language. These were the words her father had taught her, and she spoke fluently, her right leg snapping a kick that caught him in the middle, collapsing him double. Before he could straighten she had finished the sentence, a short burst uppercut that sent a spray of blood from her father’s mouth and one of his front teeth into the air.

  Cain reeled, staggering back from the blow, unable to get his guard up in time to block the flurry of blows sure to come.

  But nothing happened.

  Cassandra stopped, looking at the streaks of blood on her hand, remembering the other punch, the first one she had thrown almost a decade ago, the first time her father had urged her to speak.

  It had been at a party. He had put her in a pink dress. He had sent her to see the man in the office, the one surrounded by bodyguards. Her father had said he would be outside.

  He had told her to talk to the fat man behind the desk. No one would stop her, he had said. After all, she was just a ten-year-old girl in a pink dress. Not someone they should fear.

  Just talk to him, her father had said.

  So she had.

  She had put her ten-year-old fist through the fat man’s throat, and had been astonished at how, when she pulled it back, it was red and sticky and wet. The man had made noises, and so had the guards, and then the door had opened and her father was there and the red was on the walls and on the floors, and no one was moving. And her father was standing in the middle of the room and holding his arms open and smiling and she had known she had done just what he wanted. He was proud of her then.

  But all of these men were dead.

  Cassandra dropped her fist and looked at her father, so much older, his brown hair now silver, his smooth face now lined. He was still the man she had fled from all those years ago. He was still the man who killed.

  She looked at Cain and felt the scream building inside her, the rage and the terror and the hatred and she opened her mouth and let it out all at once.

  “Stop!” she screamed, feeling the tears splashing down her cheeks.

  Cain dropped the gun, eyes wide. “What did you…” he said. “Did you just … you … can speak?”

  She felt herself breathing wrong, too fast and too hard, her whole body shaking. She couldn’t make the tears stop, either.

  Cain reached out a hand, putting it in her hair, his stunned expression shifting to something closer to compassion. He whispered, “Can you … understand me?”

  She started to nod, then heard the door behind her cracking, the sound of a kick trying to bust it open, and her father’s eyes flicked away from her, hardening, and she saw everything returning, then. Cain wouldn’t stop, not even for his own child.

  And if Gordon came through that door, he wouldn’t live.

  Beyond her father’s shoulder, she saw a window, cracked but intact. She liked that window. She had watched the sun setting over the park from it.

  Her father was reaching for his gun again.

  Cassandra tensed, then exploded forward, pitching her shoulder into his stomach, throwing her arms around his waist. He was too big, too heavy for her to grab, but she could push, and she did, and together they hit the window hard, and as the glass shattered she kept pushing, felt him move back and up, over the edge, his hands coming down on her back, trying to break her away from him.

  Then they were in the air, falling with the shards, and Cassandra, for a moment, felt almost happy.

  “Stop,” she said.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  THE GUNSHOTS HAD WARNED HIM, AND Batman feared he wasn’t in time as he swung onto the sloped roof of the Clock Tower. He’d secured the line, taking the route he always used to reach Oracle’s control room, when the reports came. Five of them, almost too rapid, 10mm rounds, probably a Glock.

  He turned with the noise, tracking it back along the roof, the line in one hand, ready to use it to swing out, then back, planning to enter the hallway through the window he knew was there. He hit the edge and then heard the glass shattering, looked down to see the bodies falling away from beneath him.

  David Cain looked older, but just as he remembered him.

  The girl he had seen before, and noted as one of Oracle’s agents.

  He jumped headfirst after them, feeling the line sliding along his palm, calculating the angle. They were falling away from the building, which gave him room to maneuver, to play the line, and he felt the air rushing past him, snapping at his cape. With his free hand he deployed the second grapnel, firing it at the building opposite as he caught up to them. He dropped the first line and with that hand grabbed at the two bodies still locked together, taking a handful of Cain’s belt, hoping that the girl wouldn’t let go. The additional weight tore at his arm, made the muscles in his shoulder sing, and it blew his balance, causing him to yaw wildly.

  There was an available opening in the building, where the window had once been, but he knew there was no way he could get all three of them through it They were still at least twelve stories up, more than high enough to kill any of them in a straight plunge to the concrete, and so Batman twisted on the line, gritting his teeth and taking the impact on his back. The blow seemed to rattle through his bones, along his spine, and it snapped his head back, too, cracking it against the brick façade. He brough
t his feet up and behind him, then pushed away from the wall in another attempt to make the broken window, this time swinging around for a better approach. His other arm had stopped singing and was now screaming from the weight of the two people. When he was close enough, he twisted, trying to heave Cain and the girl into the building.

  It didn’t work out as planned.

  Cain pitched forward, but instead of going into the building, he stopped himself at the edge of the window, one hand holding himself in place, the other reaching to lift the girl, still hanging around his waist, into the room. But the girl looked up, and Batman saw in her eyes tears and fear.

  Then the girl unclasped her hands from Cain’s waist and continued her fall.

  Batman let go and followed, once again in free fall, pitching forward like an Olympic diver, reaching for the girl. He caught her wrist with one hand, snapping out the cape with his other. The air couldn’t fill it enough to stop them, but it allowed him to steer ever so slightly, and with three stories to spare they crashed through another window, breaking glass and wall, Batman trying to wrap himself around the girl, trying to shield her. He felt something tear into his leg, rolling as they fell into the room, and they hit the floor hard enough to drive the rest of his breath from his body.

  The girl hadn’t made a sound.

  Batman tried to move, and then there was another cracking, and the floor gave way beneath him; the weight of his body and the girl’s was too much, and they were falling again, crashing through drywall and floorboards and ductwork. The noise was sudden and terrible, and something hit his head again, and something else took what felt like a fair piece of meat out of his arm.

  They crashed through the floor and into the basement with a splash. The water, brackish and black, was deep and cold and took the rest of the energy from the fall, and Batman kicked up to the surface, looking immediately for the girl.

  She was already struggling out of the water, making for the spear of daylight visible above.