by Greg Cox
MacDougal Lane, Gotham City, 1918
“I’m going to burn!”
The terrified rummy burst into flames. The iron tub turned into a funeral pyre. Percy’s hand blistered from the brief contact. Holding it up before his eyes, he screamed as his fingers caught fire like a Hand of Glory…
* * *
Percy awoke abruptly in the dark, his heart pounding. The smell of burning flesh lingered in his nose and throat. It seemed to cling to him. He reached for his hand, just to assure himself that it wasn’t actually ablaze.
“Percy!” Lydia said, her voice very close. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
It took him a moment to shake off the nightmare and realize where he was, sitting up beside Lydia in the second-floor bedroom of the row house. Moonlight coming through the curtains provided the only illumination at this late hour. Tangled sheets covered his lower body, while his torso felt drenched in sweat. He took a deep breath to steady himself.
“It’s nothing, darling,” he dissembled. “Just a bad dream.”
Would that it were so!
“Please, Percy, don’t lie to me.” She nestled closer to him in the dark. “Something terrible is troubling you, although you try to hide it. I can see it in your eyes, and in the dark circles beneath them. I can even see it in your recent letters to me. They’re different somehow from the letters you once sent. You think you are putting on a happy face, holding back whatever is tormenting you, but your fear, your sorrow can be read between every line. Your words frighten me for what they try so hard not to say.”
My letters? Panic gripped him. How much had he inadvertently revealed in his missives? He had been writing her near daily while cloistered away in his laboratory, slaving over his elixir. Had he been as circumspect as he should have been, about the situation that weighed down upon him?
“The letters!” he hissed. “Tell me they are safe. That no one can ever find them.” That their love affair might be exposed was of no great concern to him. Margaret already knew. So likely did others of their set. Even Alan Wayne had already voiced his suspicions.
No, it was the ghastly possibility that he might have somehow betrayed the Court’s secrets. That terrified him—for Lydia’s sake. The Talons were nothing if not zealous when it came to guarding the Court’s privacy.
Speak not a whispered word of them…
“I promise you, Percy, the letters are well hidden,” she said reassuringly. “They are quite safe from prying eyes.”
“Good, good.” He prayed she was correct. “You have no idea of the possible repercussions should they fall into the wrong hands.”
“Then tell me, Percy. Let there be no secrets between us. I can’t bear to see you suffering without even knowing the reason why.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking,” he said. “If you knew what I’ve done…”
“I would still love you.” She wrapped her arms around him and rested her head against his chest. “I have no illusions about the world, Percy. Be we rich or poor, man or woman, the world can be a cruel place that forces hard choices upon us all.” That elicited a deep sigh. “I know you, Percy, so I know that whatever you’ve done, you surely felt you had no choice in the matter. You would not do evil unless you were compelled to do so. Please, share your troubles with me. Let me ease them if I can.”
He looked down at her. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could make out the lovely angel he knew so well. The temptation was overwhelming. His guilt was crushing him, consuming him from within, and he was desperate for relief. In truth, he should not even be with Lydia tonight. He should be working downstairs in his lab, except that he had needed the comfort of her arms to get him through another night.
“Talk to me, Percy. Don’t lock me out.”
Her pleas were irresistible.
“What do you know,” he began, “about the Court of Owls?”
* * *
He told her everything, from his involvement with the Court to the nature of his experiments, to the fiery after-effects of his elixir and the horrific death of his ill-fated test subject. When he was done, he turned his face away from her, grateful for the darkness. He couldn’t bear to face her.
“What you must think of me…”
She reached out for him.
“My poor Percy, I had no idea. How you have suffered.” She grasped his chin and turned his face back toward hers. In the dim lighting, he saw nothing but sympathy in her divine countenance. Her eyes shimmered damply. “Don’t you see? You are as much a victim of the Owls as that wretched soul in your basement. You didn’t choose any of this.”
Sobbing, he embraced her, profoundly grateful for her forgiveness and compassion, although uncertain if he deserved it. He had accepted his place in the Court for close to his entire life, turning a blind eye to its darker aspects. He had known about the Talons and their purpose, but had chosen to look the other way, assuming they had nothing to do with him personally. Indeed, he reflected with bitter irony, it was not too long ago that he had offered to dispatch a Talon on Lydia’s behalf, to deal with that relentless playboy, Billy Draper.
Percy could not claim ignorance of the Court’s true nature. He was complicit in its sinister workings.
“What am I to do, Lydia?” he asked. “I can’t abide this anymore. I’ve changed. You’ve changed me, starting with the effect you had on my art. It’s no coincidence that my career has thrived since you came into my life. Before I met you, my work was technically adept, but lacking in warmth and heart. Then you awakened my humanity. Raised by Owls, I had always accepted that life was essentially a harsh Darwinian competition between the haves and have-nots, predators and prey. That it was simply the natural order of things, but now…”
His voice trailed off. Margaret had been right when she’d accused Lydia of softening his heart. She was only mistaken in failing to see what a blessing it was.
“Let’s flee, Percy,” she said. “Run away from Gotham, from the Owls, all of this. We can build a new life somewhere else, together.”
He shook his head. “It’s an enticing dream, but it’s impossible. The Court of Owls does not tolerate betrayal, or loose ends. The Talons would hunt us down wherever we went.” He breathed deeply as he accepted the reality of their circumstances. “There is only one way forward. I must labor tirelessly to give the Court what they want—a perfected version of the elixir, free of its terrible side effects, so that no one else will have to suffer what that poor bastard endured. No more deaths, no more burnings.”
“Can you do it, Percy? Find a solution?”
“I have to,” he replied. “There’s no other choice.” His spirits rose slightly as he saw a light ahead. “Who knows? Perhaps I can use the formula as a bargaining chip to secure a divorce from Margaret, and my discreet retirement from the Court. Then we can buy our freedom, and be together at last!”
The van skidded to a halt in front of Gotham Central Terminal. It was the morning rush, and a flood of commuters poured out of the station onto the streets.
Rough hands seized Ronnie Kellogg, then shoved him out of the van onto the crowded sidewalk. The scruffy-looking teenager threw up his hands to break his fall, but he still hit the pavement hard, scraping his knees and palms. Startled pedestrians gasped or cursed at him, depending on how personally inconvenient they found his spill.
His abraded skin stung, but Ronnie barely noticed the pain. Scrapes and bruises were the very least of his worries. He didn’t even look at his raw, red palms as he scrambled to his feet. He saw worse things ahead.
His worn and rumpled clothing had seen better days. A military-surplus jacket, fraying jeans, and a faded black tee featuring an obscure metal band he’d never heard of made him look like just another street kid, down on his luck. He was flushed and sweating, his soggy black bangs plastered to his brow as if he’d just had a bucket dumped over his head. The morning light hurt his throbbing, bloodshot eyes, but closing them was worse.
Then all he sa
w was what was coming next.
Steam rising from his skin. Filling his mouth and lungs…
His head felt like it was already on fire, deep inside his skull. The searing pain was greater than any headache he had ever known. Was it just his imagination or could he already smell himself burning?
His brain boiling over inside his skull. His entire body lighting up like a torch…
Ronnie wanted to think he was just seeing things, that the serum was causing him to hallucinate, but he could see too clearly what was coming. Desperate to escape the nightmarish fate bearing down on him, he staggered into the train station. He pushed through the exiting crowds like a salmon fighting its way upstream. His ragged attire and obvious distress helped clear a path through the throng, which parted rather than come into contact with him. They had no idea what a smart idea that was.
His skin igniting.
His flesh turning to ash.
People screaming…
“Stay away from me!” he croaked, his throat and tongue drying up. “It’s not safe!” Feverishly he stumbled down a flight of steps onto the main floor of the terminal, which resembled the interior of a particularly busy anthill, with streams of Gothamites flowing toward the exits with practiced precision—aside from the occasional tourist gumming up the works.
A mural on the domed ceiling depicted a dancing, toga-clad woman whose slender limbs aligned with the four points of the compass. Electronic signs displayed ever-changing lists of departure times and gates, but Ronnie didn’t care about those. Boarding a train wouldn’t save him. He only wished he had time to get as far from the city as possible.
It was too late for that.
Sweat dripped into his eyes. Compared to the chilly weather outside, the interior of the station felt like an oven. It was all he could do to keep from stripping his clothes off in search of relief. Panting, he scanned his surroundings, looking for… what? First aid? An infirmary? Police? No one could save him now, but maybe he could still point a finger at his killers while there was still time. Keep other folks from falling into the same hell.
The lab, he thought. I need to warn people about the lab.
He’d been blindfolded in the van, and had no idea where the lab was located, but the world needed to know that it existed. What was being done there. Those smirking sons of bitches had to be stopped. They couldn’t get away with this, they couldn’t keep destroying lives, burning up hopes and dreams and futures.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
I’m only nineteen…
Agony stabbed through his brain like a red-hot poker. His eyes felt like burning coals. The images came faster and faster, superimposed over his regular sight, even when his eyes were wide open and bulging from their sockets. Hallucinatory flames licked at the periphery of his vision, obscuring his view. Peering through the blaze, he spotted a uniformed police officer keeping watching over the station floor.
Ronnie quickened his pace, cutting through the mob to reach the cop before—
A look of horror on the policewoman’s face.
A flaming corpse lying at her feet.
The smell of burning flesh…
The cop looked bored, but not for much longer. Ronnie rushed toward her, running out of time. He waved his arms to get her attention. His hands looked dry and cracked already, like kindling.
“Please! I have to tell you something!”
His mouth was so dry he could barely get the words out. His hot breath burned its way up from his lungs, scalding his throat. The searing heat in his brain made it hard to think. Steam rose from his skin. It filled his mouth and nostrils.
Oh, crap, he thought. It’s happening.
“Whoa, kid! Are you okay?” the cop said. Wariness warred with concern on her face. Horror contorted her face. She reached instinctively for the baton at her belt. She backed away from the burning corpse. Anxious commuters glanced at Ronnie, clustering to see what was up. Screams erupted and people ran in panic. “Just take it easy and tell me what the matter is.”
The gap between now and the next shrank at a terrifying rate, catching up with what he couldn’t stop seeing. He wasn’t going to make it, he realized. The future was now.
“They did this to me, they—”
He screamed in agony as his brain caught fire. His eyeballs melted and he thrashed wildly in the middle of the station, bursting into flames before the eyes of both the cop and commuters. The crackle cut off his screams as his hair and skin and clothing ignited. Ronnie’s remains blazed brightly as they collapsed onto the scuffed, tile floor of Gotham Central Terminal. Smoke rose toward the dancing goddess on the ceiling, like a sacrificial offering. Horror contorted the police officer’s face as she backed away from the burning corpse. Tourists and Gothamites alike screamed and ran in panic from the ghastly scene.
Just like Ronnie had seen.
Lower Gotham, Gotham City, 1918
…the work proceeds apace. There are many setbacks and disappointments, but I comfort myself with the certainty that each day brings us closer to freedom and happiness.
Take care, my eternal muse, and know that you are never far from my thoughts.
With love,
Percy
“As you are never far from mine,” Lydia whispered to her lonely apartment as she reread Percy’s latest letter, over and over again. Summer was approaching. Weeks had passed since his tearful confession, and she had seen little of him. Sequestered as he was in his laboratory, searching for the solution to their problems, she had only their correspondence to comfort her as she waited for the day they could be together again.
“I miss you terribly.”
Her teddy bear, Percy the Second, kept her company as she occupied a couch in her modest apartment in Lower Gotham, only a short subway ride from the art studios and galleries that lay several blocks north. On this unusually warm day an open window let in a breeze, fluttering the curtains. The clip-clop of hoof beats, mingling with honking horns and the rumbling of automobiles, rose up from the street below. Gaslights fought back the night. The dazzling sparkle of the Exposition seemed very far away.
Sighing, she read the letter one last time before carefully folding it and placing it back into its envelope for safekeeping. Conscious of Percy’s warnings, she added it to the growing treasure trove of correspondence hidden away where no one would ever look to find them—tucked inside the bulging belly of the teddy bear.
The bear’s tawny mohair coat concealed the narrow slit she had cut in the toy’s back. Taking no chances, she assiduously stitched the slit shut as she did every night before returning Percy the Second to his accustomed place on her bedspread.
“Guard my secrets well, brave bear,” she told him. “I am relying on you.”
Yawning, she decided to turn in for the evening. She changed into her night things and was turning off the lights, one by one, when a loose floorboard—of which she had often complained to the landlord—creaked behind her.
She spun around to see a dreadful apparition standing between her and the open window. His owlish goggles and terrifying array of knives left no doubt as to his identity. The Talon stalked toward her remorselessly.
“Lydia Doyle, the Court of Owls demands your presence.”
“So the Burning Sickness is back in a big way,” Barbara said. “That’s, what, four victims so far?”
“That we know of,” Bruce said from his command center in the Batcave. Barbara’s worried visage occupied the central screen, while other monitors held grisly images of the latest fatality, who had combusted in Gotham Central Terminal earlier that morning.
Only a few hours had passed since the incident, so the full autopsy results weren’t yet available, but Gordon had already confirmed that the body was in the same state as the previous victims. At this point Bruce was less interested in the forensic evidence—which was becoming all too familiar—than in the choice of victims. He knew who was responsible. Now he needed to get out ahead of them before any mor
e charred bodies ended up in the morgue.
“But this is no sickness,” he continued, thinking aloud. “We know that spontaneous combustion is an unwanted side effect of some mysterious elixir concocted by Percy Wright a century ago, and that Wright’s heirs have been trying to eliminate that side effect ever since, occasionally experimenting on human subjects.”
“Hence the periodic outbreaks of ‘fever’ over the years,” Barbara agreed. “Which were actually nothing of the sort.”
“So it appears,” Bruce said. Bouncing ideas off Barbara helped him in his thought processes. A fresh point of view enabled him to approach a given problem from a different angle, often with positive results. “Those were failed experiments, generations of them.”
“Picking back up again today.” Barbara shook her head. “What do we know about this new victim?”
“Ronald Kellogg, age eighteen. Ran away from home a few years ago, been in and out of foster homes and youth shelters ever since, when not living on the streets.” He scanned the data. “No current address—at least none on record. Some minor run-ins with the law, but nothing serious. He’s the sort of marginalized individual who can easily fall through the cracks… like Joe Bava.”
That meant both the homeless man and the street kid had been judged as disposable. Yet why did Vincent and his forebears conduct their experiments on human subjects? Perhaps the effects of the elixir couldn’t be measured using test animals. That might imply an effect on cognition or speech.
“Any connection to Joanna or her studies?”
“Not that I can determine,” he replied. “Kellogg never attended Gotham University, never took a class from Professor Morse, and doesn’t seem to have been acquainted with Joanna or any of her associates. I even reached out to Claire Nesko, via Dick, and she didn’t recognize the name—not as a friend of Joanna, or Dennis Lewton.
“My working theory,” he continued, “is that we’re dealing with two different categories of victim: people connected to Joanna— like the professor and her boyfriend, who are being targeted for that reason, and people like Kellogg and Bava, who were simply test subjects. Guinea pigs.”
