by Alan Grant
A dozen dubs thudded into her simultaneously. Still trying to fight back, Wonder Woman fell to her knees, snarling defiance. But a second wave of blows rained down on her, coming in from all angles, bombarding her with blinding pain.
Her vision seemed to fill with stars, before darkness mercifully claimed her.
Only the Flash's reaction had been swift enough when the light-column swelled.
He'd moved back instinctively, but at superspeed, so the expanding light barely touched him before he lost his footing and fell off the pyramid's top course. He hit the sloping side once, rolled, and crashed heavily to the second course ten feet below.
Cursing beneath his breath, ignoring the pain that flared in his left ankle, the Flash scrambled back to his feet and looked up. No column of light. No Justice League members.
Nothing at all.
The moon was blanketed by a black mass of clouds, and not a beam of light broke through. The Flash stretched a tentative hand toward where he figured the up-sloping pyramid wall should be. There was nothing there.
This is absurd! The Fastest Man Alive, hamstrung like a blind animal!
He started to walk to the end of the course, but before he'd even completed the first step, a sudden thought struck him. He paused, stooping to feel for the ground before him with his hand. Nothing. Anxiety growing within him, he turned around and repeated the maneuver. Nothing behind him either.
It was as if he were perched on the tip of a narrow stone plinth. The only solid ground was beneath his feet, and around him absolutely nothing but thin air. Unlike Superman and Wonder Woman, Flash couldn't fly. It was a talent he'd never missed, because when you were as fast as he was it was no problem to go anywhere in the world on foot. Granted, he could manipulate the molecules of his body to keep him hovering in the air. But as far as he could tell, he was standing on the only solid ground. Where the hell could he hover to?
He'd have given almost anything to have heard Martian Manhunter's voice inside his head, telling him exactly what was going on. As a member of the Justice League, you got used to doing things as a team. It was only when team dynamics stalled that you realized how dependent you'd become.
The Flash squatted on his haunches, feeling despair creep over him. Whoever had laid this trap couldn't have made a better one for the Scarlet Speedster.
Even as the light had flared out to swallow them, Batman had cursed himself for making a mistake. He knew that the previous night's encounter had been some sort of testing ground for the heroes. He should have known they'd be targets!
Now he found himself alone in the strange blue-green fog, with neither sight nor sound of his companions. His mind raced, sifting through the possibilities: he might have been transported to another location, even another dimension. This might all be an illusion, the work of some warped master conjuror. Or maybe it was the others who had been transported elsewhere. . . .
Batman had faced hundreds of villains over the years, each with his own weird and twisted power. He'd learned long since to accept nothing at face value, and to question everything. He riffled through the files of his memory, but found no name connected with this type of modus operandi.
What was that?
A shiver of fear ran through him like a jolt of electricity, jamming his senses. Had he heard a rustling around his feet? Was he just imagining the cool, slimy touch of something like a tentacle, wrapping itself around his boots? He wore infrared lenses in his mask, but even with enhanced vision he could see nothing except the all-pervading mist.
He kicked out with a foot, and encountered nothing. Just his imagination–though that fact itself caused him to worry. Batman wasn't in the habit of imagining things.
Something he couldn't see brushed against his cowl. He heard a dry, chattering voice whispering like an insect in his ear, a long stream of savage blasphemies and murderous threats. Despite himself, a small knot of terror was growing in the pit of his gut.
How could he fight what he couldn't see? How could he resist an enemy who didn't seem to even exist? How could anyone deal with disembodied voices?
The whispers in his ear became more insistent, leering obscenely, describing in sickening detail what was going to happen to him.
We'ttcutoutyourheartandfeedittoyourfriends! We'llripoff yourlimbs!We'llsuckthemarrowfromyourbones!
Suddenly panic-stricken, Batman pulled a handful of tiny concussion grenades from his Utility Belt. Tossing them underhand, he sent them scattering in front of him like a handful of corn seed. There was a five-second delayed fuse on each, and he pulled his cape over his head as he turned his back to wait for the explosions.
The first grenade went off with a wet sound like a razor slicing through flesh. The second emitted horrible, high-pitched laughter. The others exploded in a series of small pops, followed by a redoubling of the odious voices hissing in his ears.
The knot of terror pulsed within him, quickly turning into a hideous dread that seemed to penetrate every pore of his body. Beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead. His heart raced, and his hands felt clammy. He was going to die here–horribly and painfully. He knew it with a certainty that was almost physical in its intensity.
A thin sliver of logic slipped between his terrors. Fear is a gift, he reminded himself. Fear is a message from the subconscious mind. Fear is a warning.
Yet there was nothing here to be wary of, just a strange blue-green mist. Voices in his ears might be uncomfortable and unsettling, but on their own they couldn't harm him.
Then why do I feel terrified?
Of course! The answer struck him with the force of a hurricane. This wasn't his own fear, his own terror, his own dread. This was being imposed on him, forced on him by some external source. Something, or someone, was tampering with his feelings, manipulating them, trying to drive him crazy!
Thinking the thought was enough to bootstrap him momentarily out of the fugue. Almost immediately, he felt the knot of terror reseed itself in his stomach. Whatever his enemy was, it wasn't giving up. He had to take action and extricate himself from this madness.
It was impossible to get any sort of bearings within the all-encompassing mist. Batman had no option but to entrust himself to his own earlier observations–to assume that his unconscious mind had noticed, and filed away, everything it could about the pyramid.
Trusting himself completely, Batman suddenly took three strides forward and dived headfirst off the summit.
The blue-green mist remained where it was as his body burst through it into the darkness of night. He tucked his head into his chest, bringing both hands up to break his fall an instant before he struck the pyramid's sloping side. He somersaulted once, then his feet hit the next course down.
Unable to check his momentum, he plunged over the side of the second course. This time he wasn't so lucky, landing awkwardly and rolling down the slope only half in control. His head struck against a knob of protruding granite, half dazing him.
In daylight he might have been able to make it to the foot of the pyramid. In darkness, even with his night lenses, it was an invitation to death or serious injury.
The trees!
A vivid picture of the stand of cottonwoods growing almost at right angles out of the bank below flashed into his mind. Batman didn't hesitate. As his feet hit the third course down, he launched himself out into thin air.
One second–two–and for a moment he thought he'd blown it.
Then branches whipped against his face and chest, snapping under his weight, carrying him with them as they plunged down toward the ground.
He landed with a bone-jarring thud on soft grass and soil. He lay there for a moment, breathing deeply, regaining his composure. Leaning against the tree trunk for support, he hauled himself shakily upright and looked around.
The turquoise fog had disappeared.
His fellow Justice Leaguers had disappeared.
And the Gotham Pyramid was no longer there.
CHAPTER 6
Dialogue with a Madman
Gotham County, October 28
The dechromed black Rolls Royce's six-liter engine purred as the sleek car cleaved the darkness, heading for the lights of Gotham City.
"Where to, sir?" In the soft leather driving seat, Bruce Wayne's English butler, Alfred Pennyworth, kept a watchful eye on the speedometer set in the walnut dash. It wouldn't do to be stopped by an overzealous highway patrol officer. Not tonight. Not with the cargo he was carrying. "The Batcave?"
Reclining in the car's spacious rear, Batman thought for a moment. He'd already used the Rolls's built-in computer to send a message to all of the Justice League's reserve members, informing them of what had happened. Many were absent on personal business, but the others were now placed on high alert. "No," he said at last. "Take me to Arkham Asylum."
Alfred raised one eyebrow askance, but voiced no question. "Very well, sir," he agreed, in his rich English tones. Obviously his master was deep in thought. When the time came for Alfred's opinion, Batman would ask.
Their employer-employee relationship was a public display, a mask to conceal their mutual respect and genuine friendship. Trained at one of England's finest colleges, Alfred Pennyworth was an ex-actor and combat medic who turned to domestic service when his father died. He made the perfect butler for the Waynes, a model of efficiency and a walking encyclopedia on all things social and domestic.
Alfred also made the perfect aide for Bruce Wayne's alter ego, the Batman. He was discreet, honest, hardworking, and reliable. He was a talented actor who taught an eager Bruce everything he knew about disguise. And he could keep a secret.
When Alfred had first discovered that his young master aimed to lead a double existence, he'd been appalled. Little more than a teenager, Bruce would be inviting all manner of violence and danger into his life. When rational discussion failed to dissuade Bruce from his self-appointed task, Alfred took the only decision a man of honor could.
He became the Batman's entrusted aide.
When the vigilante was on patrol, Alfred manned the control console in the cavern buried deep under Wayne Manor. He did the research that different cases called for. And he was a sounding board, as well as a fountain of good advice.
As with Batman himself, what started as a part-time interest soon became a full-time vocation. Alfred knew that, with every villain Batman put behind bars, with every innocent victim he saved, Bruce Wayne was atoning for his own parents' death. It became Alfred's mission in life to help his young master in any way he could.
Bruce never knew where the older man found the time–or energy–to keep Wayne Manor, the family's sprawling mansion, in order too.
Now, Batman's mind was racing. He had used his satellite phone's secure line to call Alfred immediately after he'd recovered from his ordeal at the pyramid. Wonder Woman and the others were gone, spirited away, perhaps captured or dead. The pyramid itself had disappeared as if it had never existed, like a hologram without its light source.
The Justice League had faced a being of immense power, and Batman didn't have a single solid clue as to its purpose or motivation.
Over and over, he reviewed the events of the past few nights. Was there anything that jarred? Anything that sat uneasily with the normal flow of events?
Just about everything!
No matter how hard he thought, or what angle he approached it from, Batman always came up with a big fat zero.
There were only two possible clues that might lead him somewhere, and both of them were pretty tenuous. First, the history of the pyramid might shed some light. No doubt Alfred would be happy to do some research on it, or on similar ones found elsewhere.
And second, there was fear. Batman had rarely experienced that kind of terrified dread before. Perhaps only once, when as a child it had really sunk home that his parents were never coming back. That he was alone in the world. Forever.
He knew of only one man–apart from himself–who specialized in fear.
Professor Jonathan Crane, a.k.a. the Scarecrow.
Arkham Asylum, the home for the criminally insane, stood on a wooded hillside several miles outside Gotham City center. High brick walls topped with razor wire kept unwelcome intruders out, and would-be fugitives in.
Its crowstepped gables and Gothic turrets rose above the beeches and elms, scraping at the sky like fingers silhouetted against the moon. Here and there windows were lit, backlighting the thick metal bars that guarded them. Dozens of gargoyles brooded at the corners of the roof, their fierce glares and bared fangs designed to keep all evil at bay.
In that, the gargoyles had failed. Arkham Asylum housed more evil than all other penitentiaries and institutions in North America combined. Its rambling corridors and Victorian rooms were home-away-from-home to archvillains such as the Joker, Two-Face, and the brutal Killer Croc. At any one time, it might be expected to have Clayface, the toxic Poison Ivy, and the Ventriloquist and his dummy Scarface within its somber walls.
As Alfred guided the Rolls Royce around a bend in the road that ran past the asylum grounds, the sunroof whispered open and Batman exited. There was a brief sense of a shadow swooping upward, of black scalloped wings taking to the air.
The car continued on its way without slowing, making for the little-known back roads that would take it to Wayne Manor. Alfred had some research to do.
In the branches of a tree that overhung the road, Batman briefly paused to consider his route. His nightscope brought the hundred-year-old building into focus.
He saw the stooped shape of Jeremiah Arkham passing a window, making his long night rounds. Batman had a lot of reasons to criticize Jeremiah–especially over security lapses–but he knew that the asylum owner cared deeply for his charges. He genuinely wanted to make some of the most evil people in the world well again.
Until he succeeded, Batman would be there to pick up the pieces.
As Jeremiah passed, Batman made a snap decision, then moved into action. He swarmed up into the higher branches until they became too thin to bear his weight. A bat-line carried a grapnel to a main branch of the ancient elm that stood opposite the one he was situated in, and he swung across the road twenty feet from the ground.
Batman knew the location of every closed-circuit TV camera in the grounds, and timed his passage to coincide with their swiveling lenses. Two permanent security guards patrolled the gardens and woods with German shepherd dogs. Batman waited patiently till they'd stopped to share a cigarette and a joke before he moved again.
Twenty seconds later he was seeking handholds on ivy stems thicker than his wrists, as he clambered up the asylum wall.
Built as a private house around the same time as Wayne Manor, the asylum was a product of a bygone age, when media magnates and railroad tycoons vied with one another to build the most luxurious palace for their families. No expense had been spared, vast fortunes had been spent. But whereas the Waynes had gone from strength to strength, the family that built Arkham had lost its wealth and been forced to sell its palace.
Now, both buildings hid their innermost secrets from the world of man.
Batman stepped off the spreading ivy that encased half the frontage, onto a foot-wide ledge that ran along the third-floor level. Back to the wall, he moved swiftly along it until he came to a darkened, bar-covered window. He rapped loudly with his knuckles. No reaction.
He rapped again, and this time was rewarded by a strange, strangled sound, "Hrraaao," like a cross between a laugh and a death rattle. The sound of a very disturbed man.
Inside the bars, the leaded glass windowpane swung open.
"Clancy?" The voice was sibilant and menacing. "Is that you, my trusted lieutenant?"
"Afraid not, Scarecrow. I busted Clancy three nights ago. He's sweating in a holding cell on Blackgate Island."
Batman moved so Scarecrow could see his cowl. The sight brought an immediate howl of dismay as Scarecrow physically recoiled. "Hraiii!"
Moonlight streamed between the bars, enabl
ing Batman to see the figure inside. The body seemed stooped and twisted, yet still tall and with a wiry strength. It was enclosed in a costume made from burlap, with sticks of straw jutting from the cuffs at wrist and ankle. A sackcloth hood covered the head, topped by a ridiculous floppy hat. The eyes that blazed out from slits in the hood were the eyes of a madman, not the eyes of respected university professor Jonathan Crane.
Jeremiah Arkham believed in allowing his charges to live out their fantasies. That way, he was more likely to gain their trust. He'd discovered long ago that forcing them to wear asylum drabs provoked more trauma than it was worth.
"Come to gloat, have you?" Scarecrow hissed accusingly. "After all, you put me here." The crooked body straightened, and Scarecrow went on contemptuously. "Despite the fact I'm not insane. You're the one who's crazy!"
Batman was silent, letting the villain unburden his unhinged venom. He needed Scarecrow in a good mood.
"Look at you," Scarecrow went on scathingly. "You dress like a bat. You fly around at night. You hide your face behind a mask. Isn't that insane?"
"Far from it." Batman shrugged. "I'm not the one who left two security guards crippled by fear gas. It wasn't me who condemned their families to a lifetime of misery."
"Collateral damage," Scarecrow replied loftily. "There's always fallout when a repressed society tries to smother the creativity of its true individuals. Those guards stood between me and my destiny."
"You mean the Assyrian clay tablets you stole? You think books are worth more than life?"
"Books are worth more than anything," Scarecrow returned, his long skinny arms wrapping themselves around his body in a strange hug that seemed to reassure him. "Books are the repository of all knowledge. Books are more precious than gold!"
Batman adjusted his stance on the ledge, leaning in closer to the villain. "I haven't come here to argue with you, Crane."
Scarecrow bristled. "Professor Crane is out," he announced coldly. "Scarecrow is in."
