Where did he get the gun? She should have been watching Max, not arguing with Bruce. Corn dog—
She stopped herself. That was Selina Kyle’s thinking. That was her past. For better or worse, Catwoman would have to face the gun.
She sauntered toward him.
“You killed me,” she said demurely, “Batman killed me, The Penguin killed me. Three lives down. Got enough bullets to finish me off?”
“One way to find out,” Max replied. He squeezed the trigger.
One bullet hit her arm. Another ripped into her thigh.
She kept on walking. She pulled off her hood.
“Four, five,” she remarked. “Still alive.”
She was bleeding, but she couldn’t feel it.
She pulled out her stun gun. She was going to finish this if it was the last thing she would ever do.
Selina had been shot. Twice.
Batman pulled off his own mask, trying to stanch the blood on his wounded neck. He told himself it wasn’t much more than a flesh wound. No matter how bad it was, he had to stop Max before he killed Selina.
He tried to get to his feet, but he was too dizzy.
“Selina—” he managed, “please stop.”
Max fired again, hitting her other leg. She kept on coming. He shot one more time, blowing away the barrel of her weapon. Sparks flew from what remained in her hand.
She kept on walking, a little shakier now.
“Six, seven,” she managed, “all good girls go to—”
Max aimed at her chest and pulled the trigger. No more bullets.
“Hmm,” Selina remarked casually, “two lives left. Think I’ll save one for next Christmas. Meantime, how about a kiss, Santy Claus?”
The once-powerful Max Shreck was actively whimpering by now. He stepped back, knocking against the generator.
Selina placed the stun gun in her mouth like some electronic pacifier, then grabbed Max, hugging him close.
“What are you—” Max screamed.
She leaned her head forward as if to kiss him as she drove her talons into the generator’s open fuse box. Both their bodies jumped as the electricity arced through them.
Bruce managed to stand as the two others were lost beneath a shower of sparks.
Commissioner Gordon looked out over Gotham Plaza. It was a happy scene for Christmas Eve, as all the stolen children were matched up with their anxious parents, with the help of the police and some mayoral aides. And, of course, the services of Batman.
It had been a strange night. Only a few minutes before, reports had come through about groups of penguins wandering around sporting strange helmets and carrying weapons. But the patrol cars hadn’t been able to find a thing. Probably somebody’s idea of a joke. It was amazing what Christmas brought out in some people.
The lights dimmed all around them. Were they going to have a blackout? For some reason, the Batsignal blinked to life in the sky for an instant, then was gone.
The lights came back, and this time, the Christmas tree lights came on as well. Parents and children cheered.
Gordon frowned. They had almost lost power in all of Gotham City.
Could Max Shreck have been right about his crazy power plant scheme?
Gordon would be glad when this Christmas Eve was over.
Bruce heard a high scream of joy come from beneath the sparks. The cry sounded like a cat.
He stumbled forward. He saw a body on the floor.
“Se-li-na Kyle,” he called. There was no answer.
He moved forward, through the rising mist that formed when the sparks hit the surrounding mist. There was only one body here, and that belonged to Max Shreck. He was quite dead.
He took a step away. The generator had stopped. Somehow, the lights were still working, but the air-conditioning was gone. It was getting hotter in here by the minute.
He turned as he heard a voice behind him.
“Gotta crank the A.C. Stuffy in here.”
It was The Penguin, risen from the sewers.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The Penguin looked terrible.
His soiled clothing was soaked and torn, his face and hands bleeding. He supported himself by using two umbrellas as crutches. He seemed to be sweating, too, as he struggled over to the air conditioner, not even aware that someone else was present.
The generator explosion had ignited some of the upper parts of the display. Fiery rubble fell from above. The Penguin dodged the flaming debris as he tossed away one umbrella to free a flipper. He fiddled with the dials on a singed air conditioner. It didn’t respond; it was as dead as the generator.
He turned and saw Batman.
“Without the mask,” he croaked, “you’re drop-dead handsome.” He grunted as he raised his umbrella. “So drop dead.”
He pressed the handle. The top of the umbrella transformed itself into a whirling merry-go-round.
“Shit,” The Penguin muttered. “Picked the cute one. Heat’s gettin’ to me.”
He searched the floor for the other umbrella, the one with the bullets. It wasn’t there. He looked back up at Batman.
And saw that his adversary held the umbrella in one gloved hand.
The Penguin took a step away. “Hey. You—wouldn’t blow away an endangered bird—”
Batman raised the umbrella. He aimed straight between the Penguin’s eyes.
The birdman tugged at his collar. His face was turning a very unpleasant shade of red.
He turned, and started waddling away, his breathing heavy.
“You wouldn’t shoot me in the back,” he called over his shoulder, “would you?”
Batman followed The Penguin with the still-raised umbrella, ready to fire.
The birdman stumbled, but started forward again, toward the last few vestiges of ice at the edge of the moat.
“I’m overheated, is all—” he gasped. “I’ll murder you momentarily—”
He tugged at his collar, pulling it open.
“But first—a cool drink—”
He took a final step, then belly-flopped only a few inches from the last glistening chunk of ice at the water’s edge.
“—of ice water—” he managed.
His flipper reached forward for the ice, just out of reach.
The flipper fell.
And The Penguin was still.
Batman put down the deadly umbrella. He stopped and stared as four penguins, larger than their fellows—emperor penguins, he would guess—moved forward from the shadows. They surrounded the fallen birdman, and, with a singleness of purpose, reached down with their beaks and grabbed hold of The Penguin. All four lifted their heads, raising The Penguin like pallbearers at his funeral, then turned and bore him away, back into darkness.
Batman couldn’t tell anyone about this. They would never believe him.
He wasn’t even sure if he believed it himself.
All the lights were on in Gotham City.
The Christmas tree blinked merrily, and the Bat signal blinked back.
Carolers sang. Children laughed. It was almost Christmas.
Commissioner Gordon sighed, and looked to the mayor and his staff. He pointed at the flashing bat emblem in the sky.
“Think he’ll ever forgive us?”
The mayor shrugged. “Probably not. But he’ll always help us.”
Commissioner Gordon hoped so. For the sake of them all, he hoped so.
EPILOGUE
Alfred had come for him.
Battered and wounded, Bruce Wayne sat in the back of the Rolls-Royce. He stared out the window for a moment as the car passed the happy families that surrounded the tree in Gotham Plaza. But for all his hurts, and all the Christmas joy around him, he really couldn’t feel anything.
“I—” he said after a while, “I didn’t find her. Maybe—”
“Yes,” Alfred replied. “Maybe.”
Bruce looked at his butler, and his old friend. He knew, really, that Alfred didn’t believe that Selina had survived; t
hat he was only being kind to a grieving boss. Bruce had known Alfred too long to be fooled. Still, he appreciated the effort.
Alfred frowned as revelers blocked the way ahead. He turned down an alley, attempting to take a shortcut from the crowds.
“Well,” Alfred continued. “Come what may. Merry Christmas, Mr. Wayne.”
“Right,” Bruce replied, trying somehow to return the butler’s good wishes. “Sure. And ‘Peace on Earth, goodwill towards men.’ ”
What was that?
He thought he had heard a loud “meow.”
He turned to look out the back window, just in time to see a shadow dart from the street into the alley. He jumped from the still-moving car, and disappeared into the alley. He found the jet-black feline hiding amidst the cans. “Why, Miss Kitty,” he thought, “what are you doing out so late?” He tucked the cat in his arms and returned to Alfred and the Rolls.
Bruce shivered as he closed the car door behind him. “Goodwill towards men,” he had said?
“And women,” he added.
Alfred drove on in silence.
It is late on Christmas Eve, or maybe very early Christmas morning.
High above the buildings, projected against the clouds, the signal flashes, a bright yellow oval filled with the dark shape of a bat.
It fills all the night sky, and then it is gone.
Welcome to Gotham City.
Batman 2 - Batman Returns Page 15
