Batman: No Man's Land Page 6
Right now, as far as Montoya could tell, the garden had a long way to go before it would ever yield fruit.
She ran her metal spoon around the can a final time, licking it off. She set the can aside, then used the edge of a bandanna to clean the spoon before stowing it back in her inside pocket. She heard the end of it clink against the silver half-dollar in her pocket, the one she had taken from Two-Face just weeks before the No Man’s Land was declared. For an instant her mind wandered to him, the man who was, somewhere beneath the scarring and insanity, still Harvey Dent. She didn’t understand why he’d given her the coin, and she understood less why she kept it. As currency it was useless, not even a real half-dollar, but instead a gag coin, double-headed. One of the sides had been defaced, scraped and burnt, turned into what Two-Face called “the bad side.” The other held the representation of Liberty.
“I want you to come with me tonight,” Gordon was saying, and his voice pulled her attention back. “I want to cross into the Demonz territory, see if we can get the ball rolling.”
“Me, sir?”
Gordon nodded, still looking at his garden, as if expecting it to bloom before his eyes.
“Don’t you want to take Pettit?” Montoya asked. “Don’t you think he’d be better for this than I would?”
“Bill’s excellent in a fight, absolutely. But he’s not very subtle, and we need to make certain this doesn’t get traced back to us. Wouldn’t do to have the Demonz and LoBoys uniting to take us on.”
“Still…”
He looked at her, those blue eyes that were almost gray and always made her think of her own father. “I’m not going to take Sarah. If it goes wrong, that would be the entire command structure gone, and I won’t risk that. I can’t take Foley for obvious reasons. And Bullock, well… he’s never been the quietest soul on the force.”
Montoya tried not to laugh. Calling Harvey Bullock quiet was like calling him refined. An out-and-out lie.
“We’ll leave from the Kelso Blockade at midnight,” Gordon said, rising.
“Yes, sir,” Montoya said, and then she was alone in the garden again.
After a second, she took the badge off her jacket, examining it. She blew a breath on the gold metal, polished it against the leg of her jeans.
Then she put it in her jacket pocket.
She wouldn’t wear it tonight.
THREE
THE GIRL ORACLE HAD NAMED CASSANDRA was looking at the map in her hand, trying to determine where, exactly, she now stood in Gotham City. Most of the street signs were long gone, and block—counting, her personal tactic, only worked if she could absolutely concentrate. She supposed it was her own failing, that if she had lived in Gotham long enough, even if she had lived here before the quake, she would know the city better. As it was, she had slipped in Just prior to the detonations on Black Monday, sneaking past the blockades and barely making it off the Brown Bridge before it had blown sky-high.
She had come to Gotham because, honestly, she felt it was the safest place for her.
She frowned down at the map one last time, then resolved she must be somewhere on the Upper East Side, and since that was where Oracle wanted her to be, she relaxed.
“Black Mask is up there, somewhere,” Oracle had told her that morning. “See if you can locate him, find out what he’s up to.”
Simple enough, Cassandra thought.
She continued north, working along the sides of the quake-damaged buildings, waiting for the sun to finish its descent. She could smell a fire burning somewhere, pungent, and voices ahead of her in the distance. She lowered into a crouch, moving from shadow to shadow, just as her father had taught her, feet silent on the broken concrete and asphalt.
The voices were getting louder, and then one of them shouted.
She heard a woman scream, and Cassandra stopped dead, both her hands coming to her ears, cupping them with palms out. She turned her head slowly, trying to locate the source, and then the scream came again, louder, terrified, and Cassandra got a bearing and began to run. The broken ground was uneven and could be tricky, and twice during her first weeks in the NML she had almost twisted her ankles. But that was months ago now, and she had long since adapted—again, as her father had taught her—learning to use the ground to her advantage. She was certain she could now run faster than ever.
The scream sounded a final time, and Cassandra came around the corner of a shattered diner, turning to an alley, leaving the shadows and then stopping short even as the sound died.
She had expected a victim, a fight, a conflict.
What she saw she knew instantly as a trap, and it made a sudden heat of shame burn her cheeks.
The woman who had been screaming was at the end of the alley, wrapped in layers of rags, torn blankets tied around a jacket, all to keep out the cold. Late thirties, white, and mean looking, and it wasn’t just the fact that she was holding a composite bow drawn back and ready to put its arrow in Cassandra’s chest that was the alarming thing. The woman’s face was a mass of scars, lines visible in the dusk, puffy skin that looked alternately lacerated and burnt. The woman’s mouth itself looked as if it had been cut, blackened scabs that shone with fresh blood at both sides.
From behind her, Cassandra heard movement out of the rubble, at least three people, and none of them so stupid as to be within striking distance.
“Dinner time,” the scarred woman said, and she loosed the arrow.
Cassandra went down, letting her left leg take her weight as she spun to see the men behind her. Three of them, all with faces carved up like the woman’s, all dressed in the same fashion. The arrow sliced the air over her head, hitting the chest of the man who had stood behind her.
The other two men were moving up on her, and she knew, could almost feel, where the woman at the end of the alley was nocking another arrow.
Using her left leg, Cassandra sprang up, high, going into the kick intuitively, and the heel of her foot connected with the jaw of the nearest man. Still in the jump she twisted from her hips, bringing her right leg up and around, pinwheeling in the air and feeling her other foot connect with the remaining man. The contact rushed along the bone, a solid strike, and she went back down, hands out, over, springing up again facing the end of the alley in time to hear the woman with the bow scream once more.
Another figure was in the alley, now, between them, cloaked in a purple that in the shadow turned to black. Cassandra found her balance instantly, returning to ready, arms up, pulling another breath through her nose. The figure turned and beyond her, on the ground, the woman with the bow was clutching at her hand.
Through the back of the woman’s palm, Cassandra saw the spike of metal, wet with blood.
The cloaked figure absently kicked at the woman, catching her in the stomach, and Cassandra’s own gut trembled. She moved her mouth, wanting to make the figure stop, but already it was over. Now the figure was moving forward, and Cassandra suddenly recognized her, remembering the pictures that Oracle had shown her only a week before. The masks, Oracle had called them, trying to stress their obvious importance. And this was one of them, Cassandra remembered, one of the bad ones, according to Oracle.
“Criminal,” Oracle had warned. “Stay away from her.”
The figure stopped in front of her, cape billowing back, and Cassandra’s eyes flicked to the glint of the cross at the woman’s throat.
“There’ll be more of them,” the Huntress said. “They stick close together, in packs. Follow me.”
Huntress went past, ignoring the men on the ground, the one with the arrow in his chest already visibly dead. Cassandra followed her out of the alley, across the street. Huntress knew how to run on the broken ground, too, she noted, leading the way through rubble and shadow to a building, cracked but still standing. The sun had finally set, and the sky was turning almost the same shade as the Huntress’s costume.
Sheltered, in shadow, Huntress turned to look at her.
“Injured?”
Cassandra shook her head.
“Need a moment? Catch your breath?”
Cassandra shook her head once more, then opened her mouth. She tried for “thank you,” one of the phrases that Oracle had been teaching her, but managed only a broken croak and squeak.
Behind the mask, Huntress’s eyes widened slightly. “Did they cut you? Are you all right?”
Cassandra put the fingers of her right hand over her mouth, trying to show that it wasn’t that she didn’t want to speak, but that she didn’t know how. For a moment, Huntress stared at her, and then Cassandra saw her make the connection.
“You’re mute?”
It was more complicated than that, but Cassandra nodded, knowing that it would be nearly impossible to explain the how and the why. And even if she could explain those two things, she would have to explain the rest, the darkness of it all, and the evil, and she didn’t want to tell anyone that. Not ever.
What she wanted was to forget it all, actually;
“I haven’t seen you before,” Huntress was saying. “Not in this neighborhood, at least. Are you lost?”
Cassandra shook her head, pulling out the map. She pointed at the section of Old Gotham, just below the Diamond District.
Huntress misunderstood. “No, no, you’re up here, now, see?” With a gloved finger, she indicated the street they were on.
Cassandra nodded, quickly replacing the map in her pocket, then turning to face Huntress again. She thought for a moment, then presented both hands, palms up. She looked at Huntress, smiling, then brought her hands together, lacing the fingers.
“You’re welcome,” Huntress said.
Cassandra grinned.
“But it looked like you didn’t really need my help,” Huntress amended. “You need a place to stay for the night? I know some safe spots. I’ve been protecting a block just east of here. There’s warmth and shelter and food there, if you’d like.”
The offer was tempting. It would be nice to be warm for a little while, and she was hungry, hadn’t eaten since that morning, when Oracle had made her a bowl of instant oatmeal. Cassandra started to nod, and then she balked.
Criminal. Stay away from her.
Huntress was looking at her with an almost maternal concern now, and it surprised Cassandra, the sudden softness in the eyes behind the mask. But it didn’t matter. It wasn’t enough.
Oracle was counting on her. Find Black Mask, that was the job. Cassandra had to do the job, and then, maybe, she could think about being warm and fed.
Cassandra shook her head.
The softness Cassandra thought she’d seen in the Huntress’s eyes vanished like vapor. Then Huntress was looking again at the ruined street, ready to return to business.
“Remember, only one block east of here,” Huntress said softly. “That’s where you’ll find me. Come back if you need anything.”
Cassandra nodded, and then Huntress moved past her, out of the shadow and into the newly forming night.
“Take care of yourself, kid,” Huntress said.
Cassandra moved her mouth to try the words, really pushing the air past her sore and stripped vocal cords, feeling the clumsy shuffle of her tongue against the back of her teeth and on the roof of her mouth. She shut her eyes for an instant, to concentrate, to make the extra effort.
“Guh byh-eeee,” she managed, the words coming out as if written on thin tissue and dropped onto a bonfire, crackling into nothingness almost immediately.
But Huntress was already gone, and Cassandra closed her mouth, knowing that no one had heard her at all.
FOUR
MONTOYA WAS AFRAID THE COMMISSIONER would say something about her not wearing the badge, but when they met at midnight on the Kelso Blockade, Gordon hardly seemed to notice. He gave her a grin, thanked her for coming, then handed over two cans of spray paint.
“Demonz is red, LoBoys is gold,” Gordon said. “Make sure you know which is which.”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“Good. You armed?”
“I’ve got my Glock, sir. Two shots left.”
Gordon grunted and rummaged through his coat pockets, then handed over another seven 9mm bullets, which he dropped into Montoya’s hand. “Don’t use them all in one place,” he said mildly.
Montoya took the rounds, surprised, then set about loading her pistol, asking, “Where did you find these? I thought we’d used up all of the nines
“Pettit,” Gordon said. “Don’t know where he keeps finding them. He presented me with almost a hundred rounds of .38 and 9 millimeter before the meeting this morning.”
Montoya nodded, not truly listening, as she slipped the magazine back into her gun and chambered her first round. Loaded, she set the safety, holstered the gun, and turned her attention expectantly back to Gordon.
“Badge,” Gordon said. “Where’s your shield, Detective?”
Montoya swallowed. “Thought it… thought it would be best if I didn’t wear it tonight, sir. It didn’t feel right.”
Gordon studied her for several long seconds, apparently considering her answer. “Fair. Hopefully you’ll put it back on come morning.”
“That’s my plan, sir.”
“All right. Let’s go.”
* * * * *
It was easier than either of them expected to cross from TriCorner into Old Gotham, and they slunk past the Demonz checkpoint on the Westward Bridge without noise or hesitation. They moved north another two blocks, shadowing one another from either side of the street, until they reached the outskirts of one of the many settled pockets in the territory. Demonz tags were painted at random intervals, each a stylized red “D” with a curved devil’s tail and horns, usually one every two blocks or so, sometimes more. Whenever Montoya spotted one she would stop, checking Gordon’s position, then the safety of the street. Then she’d produce her can of gold paint, the ball bearing inside it rattling with obvious noise. Two lines first, through the Demonz tag, and then beside it a quick, bold “LB” to implicate the LoBoys. The hiss of the paint flying under pressure sounded like a shout in her ears.
When they reached O’Neil Avenue, Gordon gestured to her from across the street, urging her out of the shadows. Cans concealed in her jacket, Montoya moved forward, and Gordon met her halfway. Side by side, they continued along the street.
“Nothing to be afraid of,” Gordon said. “Just two folks out for a stroll.”
“In the middle of the night in the middle of No Man’s Land,” Montoya said.
“They won’t notice. Trust me, they’ve got other things to worry about.”
They continued along O’Neil, deeper into the heart of Demonz territory. The tags here were farther apart. Every so often Montoya heard vague noises in the distance, sometimes movement from inside the buildings, sometimes the thread of voices tripping down from above. The night was clear, the half-moon bright, and small packets of snow shone white-blue along the ground, mounded against the broken pavement.
They fell into the shadows of larger buildings, turning along Brady, heading northeast now. In the gap between two fallen buildings Montoya saw the outline of the Clock Tower, still easily a mile or more away. Moonlight shone off the still intact stained glass on the giant clock face, and she felt herself grinning without realizing it.
“Can’t believe it’s still standing,” the detective whispered.
“Built by Wayne Enterprises,” Gordon said softly. “Turns out Wayne buildings were the only ones built earthquake proof.”
“Lucky for your daughter.”
The Commissioner nodded slightly, then stopped, and she heard him draw a deep breath through his nose. A fraction later she caught the scent, too: an open fire, the unmistakable odor of burnt paper. They slowed at the corner, peeking around to see the remains of the Gotham City Public Library main branch, a small mob gathered silently in front. The men and women stood in a large circle at the foot of the steps, warming themselves with a fire on the open ground. As Montoya looked, one of the men add
ed more fuel to the fire—they were burning books, and a sharp heaviness drove against her heart, suddenly, forcing her to look away.
“Makes my stomach turn, too,” Gordon whispered.
“We should stop them.”
“We can’t stop them. Not now. Maybe, when we’re here, when we control this land, maybe then.” Gordon settled his gaze on Montoya. “But right now it would only make us targets.”
She nodded.
“Come on, let’s find what we’re after and get out of here.”
* * * * *
It took another twenty minutes before they reached the border zone of the territories, Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, running north to the south end of Robinson Park, out of sight. Tags were becoming plentiful once more, and-they had to slow their progress, taking each as it came, methodical in the defacement. Montoya tried not to dwell on the irony, to think of how many teens she had busted while on the beat for doing exactly what she and the Commissioner did now.
At Twelfth and Schreck they found a large Demonz tag, almost six feet high.
“Border sign,” Montoya whispered.
“We do this one, then head back,” Gordon said. “That should get them riled.”
The relief surprised her, and Montoya nodded quickly, careful with her can. She drew the lines through the tag, feeling the nozzle on the spray can-digging into her index finger.
The light wouldn’t confirm it, but she was certain her fingertip was coated in the gold paint.
She had just finished painting the “B” in the LoBoys tag when she heard the voice.
“You two sure as hell don’t look like LoBoys.”
Montoya turned, saw that Gordon had already done the same, but both held off on going for their weapons. There was no point.
There were five of them, all men, the eldest no more than thirty, if that, though in the night light it was hard to tell.