Batman Arkham Knight (6 page)

“Why are you, in all of Gotham City, immune to my fear toxins?”
Scarecrow’s voice continued to drone inside of his cowl, still complaining to his unknown companion.
“What is your secret? Tell me now.”

Batman drove his fist into the closest merc’s face, shattering his nose. The man yelped with pain as his blood splattered in all directions, looking far worse than the damage actually caused. Perfect. His first strike was designed to elicit a moment of terror that would give the others pause, if only for a moment. And with the numbers against him, he needed every advantage he could take.

“Do you want me to dissect you? Do you want me to make your death, and the deaths of your loved ones, painful? You know you can relieve them of their agony. Tell me how you resist my power. Tell me now!”

Who the hell is he talking to?
Batman grabbed the stairwell handrail and used it for leverage. He spun and smashed his foot into another merc. The man fell back, tumbling down the stairs, crashing into the landing below.

He didn’t get up.

Through his comm Batman heard another voice. A woman’s, and instantly he knew.

“My plants are eternal, Scarecrow. Nature has been with us from the very beginning, and will outlast us all. There is no poison made by man that she cannot resist, and then provide to me, her very own beloved daughter.”

Poison Ivy. Scarecrow was trying to intimidate Poison Ivy.

Fat chance.

As Pamela Isley, she was one of the world’s foremost environmental terrorists, targeting anyone who caused eco-damage to the planet. It was never certain if Ivy was insane, though, or operating on a different level than everyone else. But Scarecrow didn’t have a chance in hell of scaring someone who believed herself to be the living incarnation of Mother Nature.

Batman drove his elbow into the gut of another merc, but the man refused to fall. As Batman grabbed the merc’s arm and prepared to elbow him again, two more thugs ran up the stairs toward them, pistols in hand. They opened fire, not caring if they killed their own man as long as they offed the Batman, as well.

He reacted instinctively, twisting the merc aside to narrowly avoid the bullets and tossed him back, away from harm. Then, in a single, fluid move, Batman somersaulted down the stairwell, slamming into them both.

The fight is taking too long
, he realized. Every delay meant more of Scarecrow’s men would join in.

“Unless you tell me what I want, I will see your forest burned to the ground. Your plants will cry out in agony. I will make certain you watch all of them die. Or tell me what I want to know and I will make their deaths swift and painless.”

“Then there’s nothing left to talk about,”
Ivy replied, and her voice rose.
“You have declared war on planet Earth. May she have pity on whatever has replaced your soul.”

Batman slammed past the final merc and pushed open the door to the penthouse floor. There was another soldier inside. The guard stared, realizing that somehow Batman had made it past the others. Then he opened fire.

Batman dove to the floor and spun, his legs slammed into the man, toppling him. He dropped his gun as he fell, then scrambled to retrieve it, but Batman was already there. He kicked the gun aside, then turned to the merc, now both weaponless and powerless. The thug held up his hands to surrender.

“First smart thing you’ve done today,” Batman said as he drove a fist into the man’s face. The merc crumbled unconscious to the floor. “Unfortunately for you, you still have a lot to answer for.”

There was only one apartment on the penthouse floor. Batman sprayed the lock with explosive gel, then detonated it, causing it to erupt with a muffled impact.

“Oracle, I’m inside,” he said. “What are you seeing?”

“Picking up two heat signatures… no. Make that one. The second one has left the apartment.”

“He didn’t come this way. There must be a back door.”

“There is. It’s a hidden stairwell. According to the building’s blueprints it connects to a panic room behind the bedroom.”

“Panic room? Okay, this may add another wrinkle. Can you find out if the apartment belongs to Scarecrow, or someone else. If it’s Crane, there’s no telling how many hidden traps he’s built in.”

“Checking now, but it could take a few minutes to hack into the city housing plans. By the way, according to the news, my father and his men rounded up Victor Zsasz and Hugo Strange. They were attempting to blow up Gotham Central Station. They failed.”

“Good for your dad. We need every victory we can get. And speaking of your father…”

“Not again, Bruce. This city needs me. Hell, you need me.”

“Barbara, I agree. Oracle is indispensible—but you can be my eyes and ears from anywhere. All Oracle needs is her computers and a Wi-Fi connection.”

“I’m staying, Bruce,”
Barbara said.
“Please don’t insult me by asking again.”

“I won’t. But if we can’t stop Scarecrow, and if he unleashes his toxins, this city is done for. If the worst happens…”

“Bruce, we’ll just have to make sure it won’t. And we’ll do that together.”

“Are you prepared for your father’s wrath when he finds out?”

“I think I’d rather face Scarecrow than him. But yeah, if he finds out.”

“You won’t have to do it alone. I’ll have your back.”

“Never doubted that,”
she replied.
“Ahhh. Okay. Just hacked into the city files, so now it’s a matter of systematically going through them. I’ll get back to you as soon as I root out the intel. Be safe. Oracle out.”

Batman entered the penthouse suite. A long wood-paneled foyer led to the living room, which was spacious and beautifully appointed with antiques that were old when the Victorian age was still young. Intricately carved wooden tables depicting foxes and hounds made Batman think of an eighteenth-century English hunt scene.

The tables flanked a large, plush couch with curved armrests and lion’s-claw feet. Whoever lived here obviously enjoyed hunting. Scarecrow had never shown any inclination as an antiques connoisseur, but anything was possible.

The expansive chamber held four more couches, each set up with facing chairs, creating a series of small sitting areas ideal for simultaneous conversations. Stunning stained-glass lamps—the real thing, rather than knock-offs—sat on each table. Wayne Manor was equally beautifully decorated with irreplaceable antiques, but they had been bought by Bruce Wayne’s mother and hadn’t been changed or added to since their murders. He always had more on his mind than house decoration.

“Batman.”
Barbara Gordon’s voice pulled him from his thoughts.
“The apartment is owned by Dr. Frank Adams and his wife Tatjana. They left for a month-long vacation less than a week ago.”

“Good. That means Scarecrow is a very recent addition. He probably hasn’t had time to set up many traps.”

“Or he thought he’d only be using the place for a short while, and didn’t take the time.”

“Either way it makes my job a bit easier. Thanks.”

He made it through the living room and found himself facing another long corridor with rooms branching off it on both sides. The heat signature came from a room at the end of the corridor, so he didn’t bother looking into any of the others. He was there for a reason, and it wasn’t a tour.

The door was locked—it was the only one that wasn’t already wide open. He could blow it off its hinges but decided not to cause any unnecessary damage. Instead he removed a pick from a pouch pocket, inserted it in the keyhole, and jiggled it until he heard the lock click into place.

The door opened and he stopped in surprise. He’d expected more antiques, but the room was devoid of furniture—it was empty, except for a half-dozen large steel-bar cages, six feet tall by four feet wide. They were one-person prison cells, and the bars were thick enough to hold in an elephant.

It was overkill.

Only one cell held a prisoner.

Poison Ivy.

Ivy was draped with a vine that disappeared out a shattered window on the far side of the room. She was petting the plant, humming to it, and it seemed to vibrate with every stroke. The scene was so intimate that he hesitated, but then moved quickly to the cage lock. She gave no indication that she noticed him until he swung the door open.

“I could have escaped without your help, you know,” she said, still petting the throbbing vine. “Nature won’t be contained when she doesn’t want to be. By the way, what are you doing here?”

“Why did Scarecrow lock you up?”

“What? No hello?” She frowned in mock indignation. “You’re getting rude in your old age.”

“Ivy, I asked you a question,” he replied. “Please answer it.”

“And what if I don’t want to?” she said, smiling seductively.

He stared at the vine sensually twisting around her arm and waist. “Do not make me repeat myself,” he said, anger edging into his voice. Batman didn’t know if plants understood human language, but it looked to him as if the vine suddenly shrank. It pulled away from its host, and disappeared back outside the window.

Ivy’s smile turned to an expression of anger.

“You
are
rude.” She exited her prison and walked to the room’s balcony, stepping outside into the night, where she breathed deeply of the cool air. “Ask any plant and they’ll tell you that it’s so much better to be outside than cooped up in a human’s apartment.” She leaned over the edge, and he followed her gaze. They watched her vine retract back to ground level, then she turned to Batman, once again smiling.

“You see? You scared her away. You know you’re no better than him. He threatened my children, too.” From atop the balcony railing, Ivy picked up a small potted plant that looked as if it hadn’t been watered in the week the home owners had been away. It was limp and pale. She tenderly gave it a playful kiss and it reacted, growing from a sagging stub, circling her arm and briefly grazing her lips, returning her kiss.

“Ivy…” She nodded, and they headed back into the cell room, then out to the hall.

“All right,” Ivy said. “You’re a tough man, but you’ve never been a mean one.” She stopped and looked up at him. “You want to know about Scarecrow? Well, it started with a meeting.”

“What meeting?”

“Don’t be so impatient. Stories, like plants, need to grow and can’t be rushed. Take it easy and smell the roses. You’d be surprised how much you can learn from them.”

“Ivy, time is running out. If Scarecrow wins, Gotham City will die, your plants will die, and I won’t be able to save them.”

He could see her face contort, as if she was trying to understand his words. Finally, she gave him another smile.

“Yes, of course. Now, he
is
a mean man, and I believe he’d slaughter all life if given the chance—plant, animal, and human. Anyway, the meeting. Everyone was there. Penguin, Two-Face, Riddler. Even poor Harley. That dear dimwit actually believed she had a chance at a life with her… Puddin’, but then of course,
whoosh
. He gets himself toasted, roasted, and finally mulched. She was bereft of her usual élan.”

“Ivy. The meeting.”

“Right. Of course. The meeting. Scarecrow said he had a plan. That together we could take you out, and Gotham City would be ours.”

“Over my dead body.”

“I believe that was the idea.” Her smile turned sly. “The old notions are still the best, you know.”

The small potted plant was still growing. Thorns emerged from its stems. The once-tiny flower was no longer cute. It looked as if one wrong word would send it on the attack.

“Anyway, I told him I wasn’t interested in his pathetic human games. I mean, how could destroying a city—even one as life-stifling as Gotham City—help my plants?”

“And his response?”

“Well, if he had one, I never heard it. All I remember after that moment is blackness, then waking up in that room, in that cell. He came and babbled some insanity at me, then heard something—probably you—and fled. I sat there trying to formulate a plan when you interrupted.” Her look was coy. “You know the timing between the two of us has never been good.”

“That’s everything?” he demanded brusquely.

Ivy looked like she was trying to give him an answer as she walked from the room, still carrying the potted plant. She made her way to the elevator, humming again along the way, pausing before each dying plant in the apartment, taking a moment to revive it.

“Ivy,” he said, “I asked if that was everything.”

The elevator door beeped, and a moment later its door slid open.

“Pretty much. I told him it was a shame for him that his vile toxin had no effect on me. I seem to remember that he didn’t laugh very much at all. Hmmm. Do you think that’s why he did what he did to me?”

She paused, pinched a small piece from the plant, then set the pot on the floor. She stepped inside the elevator and pressed a button. He moved to follow as the elevator door began to slide shut again. Ivy smiled and blew him a kiss.

The potted plant’s stem grew longer, erupting upward and circling Batman, squeezing his chest, pressing in harder and harder until he could no longer breathe.

“Nature always wins.”

He was gasping for air as the plant yanked him back, out of the elevator.

And then the doors closed.

* * *

“Will he ever learn?” Ivy looked at the cutting in her hand. She stroked it, and it quivered with life. Muzak played as the small car descended to the lobby. Plants loved this music, and so did she. Its quiet rhythms seemed to put her at ease, and with the myriad stresses in her life, she welcomed whatever calm could be found.

The car jerked to a stop as it reached the first floor. She waited for the doors to slide open again. Next stop for her was the botanical gardens. Those gardens truly scared Scarecrow; so where better to go to produce even more of her toxin repellant?

The door opened, and Ivy gasped. Batman stood directly outside, dead plant growth strewn across the ground, lifeless brown vines dripping off him.