by Greg Cox
It all made sense, in a perversely poetic way.
Lydia was the inferno of which Percy had spoken—and the instrument of his long-delayed revenge. Her lambent gaze swept over the battle-scarred chamber. She appeared disoriented at first, likely baffled by her own resurrection and her bizarre new surroundings, but then her eyes registered the shattered remains of the Great Owl, the larger pieces of which were still recognizable.
Her expression darkened. Rage contorted her lovely features, which appeared strangely impervious to the flames rising from her skin. A single word escaped her sizzling lips.
“Owls.”
She turned toward Vincent, whose composure evaporated before the heat of her wrath. Instead of the key to the future that he had been searching for, the past had risen up in search of revenge. Perspiration ran down his face. Panic filled his voice.
“Stay away from me! You’re supposed to be dead, damn it!”
He emptied his gun into her, but the bullets had no effect. If anything, she appeared to be even more immoveable than the usual Talon. Batman marveled at the way her flesh remained intact beneath the flames, as though it was healing as fast as—or perhaps faster—than it burned. Was she in constant pain, he wondered, or had her nerves been deadened?
He had plenty of questions, but they would have to wait. No longer forced to dodge Vincent’s gunfire, he sprinted toward the pedestal.
“Stop her!” the Owl screamed at whomever might be listening. He flung his empty firearm. She cringed instinctively, but batted it away with ease. He stumbled off the pedestal into the fountain, splashing through the filthy water.
“Put her back in her grave—”
She jumped from the sarcophagus with startling speed and grace. Flames trailed behind her like the tail of a comet. Steam billowed, but instead of dousing her fire, the filmy water boiled at her touch as she caught hold of him. Clouds of scalding vapor obscured the view, but Batman could dimly make out Vincent thrashing in Lydia’s red-hot embrace. The man had time for one agonized scream before he burst into flames. Vincent lit up like a bonfire, burning to death in a matter of moments.
As had his unlucky test subjects.
Batman grimaced. He had wanted to take Vincent alive, make him face trial for his crimes, but Lydia had dealt out her own fire-and-brimstone brand of retribution. Batman didn’t approve, but he couldn’t deny that it was justice of a sort. The Burning Sickness had claimed a fitting victim for once.
Hopefully the final one.
“The hell!” the modern Talon raged. Still hanging from the ceiling he reacted furiously to Vincent’s death. “You killed him, you crazy bitch! You killed a member of the Court!” His metal claws slashed furiously at the rope binding his legs, and he was heedless of the wounds he inflicted on his own flesh. The shredded cable gave way and the assassin plunged downward, crashing to the floor with bone-crunching impact.
Batman braced himself for a rematch. The vintage Talon was recovering, too. His scalp wound no longer bled, although his hood was torn and his goggles smeared with gore. Shaking his head to clear it, he tossed away the goggles and tugged off his hood, revealing the face of a man who had “died” more than a century earlier.
His pallid flesh was corpse-gray, with blue veins visible beneath his skin stretched too tightly over his skull. A monk-like rim of snowy white fuzz ran around his otherwise bald pate. Crooked yellow teeth had never known the benefits of modern dentistry. Gray eyes, streaked with blue traceries, widened at the sight of the burning woman in the fountain. He peered past the flames at the features beneath them.
A look of awe swept over his ghoulish countenance.
“I’ll be damned,” he said. “We meet again.”
Talk about going from the frying pan to the fire, Batman thought. Between the Talons and Lydia’s fiery rebirth, it was unclear who posed the greater threat. Was Lydia the enemy of his enemy, or a danger to all concerned? Vengeance, like fire, could blaze out of control, consuming the guilty and the innocent alike.
“Holy crap!” Batgirl leaped down from a heap of busted statuary to stand at his back, staring in shocked amazement at Lydia in all her pyrotechnic glory. “Just when I thought I’d seen everything Gotham could throw at us…”
“Vincent’s men?” he asked.
“Running scared, aside from the ones I tossed into the sewers. Guess they didn’t bargain on a flaming angel of death toasting their boss.” She shot him a worried look. “Joanna?”
Before he could answer, Joanna staggered around the side of the fountain, emerging from the outer fringes of the steam. She winced with every movement, and was slimed from her fall into the water, but she was still very much alive, thanks to the bullet-resistant Kevlar vest beneath her jacket. Batman had fitted her with the vest back at the bunker, dipping into his supplies there. The vest was state of the art, employing the same patented Wayne Industries tech built into his Bat-Suit. Only her glasses were broken.
“Lydia?”
She was transfixed by her flaming double, who threw Vincent’s charred and smoldering remains aside. Lydia emerged from the boiling fountain like a volcanic Venus, burning brighter than before. Marble tiles cracked and crumbled beneath the intense heat of her tread. The flames licking her body were edging from red to orange as her temperature increased. She was getting hotter by the moment.
Before he could react, Joanna approached her.
“You don’t know me,” she said, moving cautiously, “but I know you. I know about you and Percy, how they stole your happiness…”
“Joanna, get away from her!” Batman moved toward them. “Whatever kinship you’re feeling for her, it’s not safe. We don’t know what she’s capable of!”
Behind him, the Talons were on the move again. Seeing them, Batgirl unleashed a couple of flash-bangs, and pulled out a Batarang.
“I’ve got this! Take care of Joanna!”
As he had expected, Lydia’s blazing features displayed no sign of understanding or recognition—only indiscriminate rage. Howling in pain and fury she lunged at her descendent, unaware of the blood tie between them. Flaming fingers reached out. No bulletproof vest could save Joanna this time.
“Leave her alone!”
Batman shoved the young woman out of the way, getting between her and Lydia. A canister of flame-retardant foam was in his hand, and he let loose the spray, repelling her for a moment. She blinked and sputtered, swiping angrily at the clinging foam.
“Get Joanna away from here!” he told Batgirl. “I mean it this time!”
“No argument!”
She lobbed a last couple of flash-bangs at the Talons, then darted forward to take control of Joanna. Shaken by her near-incineration, the young woman put up no resistance as they hurried toward the nearest exit. They were preceded by the remainder of Vincent’s men, who were dragging their more battered cronies along with them. Batman counted on Batgirl to protect Joanna from any random assailants.
Now he had to buy them time to get clear of the Labyrinth.
The foam had been devised to combat the fiercest blazes, but it failed to extinguish Lydia’s perpetual combustion, bubbling and boiling away from her as she came at Batman. He grabbed each of her wrists to keep her at arm’s length, and instantly felt the intense heat through his fire-resistant gloves. Hissing and sizzling in frustration, she strained to reach him as he braced his boots against the floor.
Layers of Nomex insulation kept him from being incinerated, but his palms already felt like they were bare against the flames. He had to fight the urge to let go of her wrists—it was like gripping hot glass or metal. He wasn’t going to be able to hold her back for long.
“Lydia! Listen to me! I’m not your enemy!”
Their faces and bodies only a few feet apart, they continued to grapple. Her crazed, vengeful expression bore no resemblance to the serene and elegant countenance that graced her many likenesses throughout the city. He barely recognized her as the same woman who peacefully adorned his mother
’s favorite garden, back at the Manor. Could he still get through to that woman, or had she been burned away entirely, leaving only an inferno in her place?
“Think!” he said. “Remember who you were! You’re Lydia Doyle. You brought beauty to Gotham. You loved and were loved!”
His words seemed as ineffective as the foam. She spat in his face, the hot saliva blistering his exposed chin. Her flames had gone entirely orange now, infiltrated with traces of yellow. Raw hatred fueled the fire in her eyes. Crackling flames filled her mouth, distorting her speech.
“Talon!” she roared. “TALON!”
“No!” Batman’s menacing appearance was working against him. He couldn’t blame her for mistaking him for some new and exotic assassin. His burnt chin stung like hell. His hands were screaming at him to let go. “Listen to me. I’m not a Talon. I’m not with the Court of Owls. I want to help you!”
He feared he was wasting his breath, but then her flaming brow wrinkled in confusion. She stopped pushing against him as her bewildered gaze dropped to the emblem on his chest. She gasped, as though she recognized it. She raised her eyes to meet his.
“The Bat?”
Startled by her query, it took him a moment to grasp how she could possibly know who he was. Then it hit him.
The elixir. Her visions of the future.
“That’s right,” he said, opening a bit of space between them. “You’ve seen me before, haven’t you? In your visions. You know who I am.”
“The Bat,” she said, nodding. “The enemy of the Owls.”
Her expression softened, revealing the face of the girl in the garden. He let go of her wrists and none too soon. If and when he survived this night, his hands were going to require first-aid and plenty of ice. The yellow in her flames faded back into the orange, but the cooling was negligible. He stepped away from her, to get some relief from the heat. Even from several feet away, it was like standing too near a bonfire.
“You can trust me,” he said. “You know that.”
“How sweet,” the modern Talon said. “And here I was hoping you’d take each other out, to save me the trouble.”
He pulled himself up from the floor. His fellow assassin also advanced on them, drawing his second sword from its scabbard. His cadaverous gray expression showed no emotion.
“Never count on fate to do your work for you,” he chided the younger assassin. “Life is seldom so generous.”
“Spare me the words of wisdom, old man.”
As soon as Lydia spied the Talons, her rage ignited once more, sending tendrils of yellow running across her form. She shoved past Batman, grazing him with her flames, as she charged at the unmasked assassin, her contemporary from days gone by.
“TALON!” she screeched.
Her blazing feet left scorched tracks across the floor. Marble couldn’t burn, but extreme heat caused it to crack and even crumble. In theory, she could actually destroy the Labyrinth, if she got hot enough.
When she got hot enough?
The younger assassin gave Batman no time to ponder. Leaving his antique counterpart to face Lydia’s wrath on his own, he pounced on the Dark Knight, slashing at the hero with his eponymous metal claws. Batman caught his right arm in a lock. The Talon drew back his left fist for a knock-out blow.
“Don’t think that ancient skank is going to save you,” he growled. “I’m finishing you, if it’s the last thing I do!”
“Are you insane?” Batman caught the Talon’s fist in his palm, sending a shock of pain through his hand. He retaliated with a right hook that sent the Talon reeling to the floor. “Don’t you see what’s happening? This is Percy Wright’s revenge on the Court… and Gotham! We’ve got a living inferno to bring under control.”
“Doesn’t settle the score between us,” the Talon said. “A member of the Court is dead because of your interference. Vincent Wright burned because you kept me from protecting him.” He kicked out at Batman’s leg with steel-toed boots, knocking the Dark Knight onto his back, then pounced with his claws extended. “It’s my duty to avenge him!”
There was no point in arguing with a fanatic. The sharpened points of the Talon’s claws came at his face, but he deflected them with his gauntlet before throwing his opponent off. Leaping to his feet, Batman raked the metal fins on his glove across the Talon’s face, drawing blood and cracking one of his goggles, then grunted in satisfaction. He didn’t have time for this fight, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy getting in his licks.
“That’s for all the people you helped burn.”
“More than worth it,” the Talon shot back. “You should have seen them go up in flames. It was a wonder to behold!”
* * *
Several yards away, across the rubble, the older Talon defended himself with his sword. Even a flaming angel of death, it appeared, instinctively avoided having a limb lopped off, but she remained intent on revenge.
Blazing like a funeral pyre she ducked and dodged, trying to get past the sword to burn him to a crisp. The Talon’s blade was a blur of motion, and she glared at him with unquenched fury. More and more yellow appeared in her flames, with hints of blue.
“You!” Her voice crackled like fire. “You were there, before!”
“So I was,” he said gravely. “Fancy meeting you again, Miss Doyle, so far past our own day and age. It’s not a reunion I ever anticipated, but here we are.” He chuckled, as though amused by such an unlikely twist of fate. “Funny that.”
“You will burn, Talon!” Lydia vowed. “Burn in Hell!”
“That may well be,” he replied, “but not just yet.”
“Run!” Batman shouted across the space that separated them. “Get out of here before she destroys you, too.” Indeed, a strategic retreat seemed his best option.
The Talon shook his head. He felt strangely calm.
“My doing. My responsibility,” he said ruefully. “My penance, perhaps.”
Without warning he charged forward, spearing Lydia in the stomach with his sword and driving her back into a high marble wall that had seen better days. She was pinned like a preserved insect mounted to a slice of cork. The blade sank hilt-deep into her burning flesh as he held her fast with no thought of his own safety. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him closer, as her infernal fury engulfed him.
Without uttering a sound, he died.
* * *
The younger Talon spared only a glance for his dying predecessor. He lashed out at Batman, delivering a backhanded swipe to the side of his head. The blow staggered him, giving the Talon a chance to slip behind him and toss him to the ground. He grabbed Batman’s cowl from behind and rammed his face into the rubble.
Cowl or no cowl, the impact dazed Batman, but he still managed to kick back at the Talon’s right knee, throwing him off-balance for a moment. He rolled over onto his back, the better to defend himself against his foe, who drove his good knee into Batman’s gut and seized Batman’s throat to hold him down. Only the reinforced steel gorget built into the neckpiece kept his throat and larynx from being crushed by the preternaturally powerful grip.
“No more sparring,” the killer vowed. “No more stalemates. This ends tonight!”
Couldn’t agree more.
Across the chamber, the elder Talon was charcoal. His carbonized remains fell away from his angel of death, who remained pinned to the wall by his sword, which was glowing red-hot as though newly forged. She thrashed violently, howling like a demon as she took hold of the hilt and struggled to free herself.
The wall behind her cracked and flaked as the outer layers heated up faster than its interior, causing random fragments to fall away. Powdered stone rained down on Lydia as she painfully pulled the molten sword from her midriff, then stumbled away from the crumbling wall. She spotted Batman wrestling with his opponent, who had one fist around Batman’s throat and the other one poised to slash downward. Lydia lurched toward them, shouting over the crackling of her own flames.
“All Talons must
burn!”
The threat distracted the Talon, who glanced in her direction. The lapse in attention cost him as Batman delivered a punch to the man’s jaw. It knocked him backward and away, enabling Batman to regain his feet and kick the Talon squarely in the chest. The blow propelled the Talon across the floor and away from Lydia, so that she found Batman blocking her approach to their common enemy.
“Leave him to me!” he said to her. “I’ll see that he faces justice.”
“Fire is justice,” she responded. “The inferno is justice!”
There was a sound behind him, and he turned his back on her. The enraged assassin was moving again, closing in—presumably for the kill. Batman was almost impressed by the Talon’s work ethic. The assassin wanted to defeat his foe more than he wanted to escape death by fire.
“Give it up, you brainwashed lunatic,” Batman growled. “I’m trying to save you!”
“I don’t need a Bat to protect me,” the man replied. “The Court of Owls demands that I rip you to shreds.” His own anger burning almost as hot as Lydia’s, the Talon swung a clawed hand wildly. Batman easily dodged the intemperate attack, let the Talon’s momentum carry the killer past him, then grabbed him by the shoulders and flung him across the room into a wall.
The same wall to which Lydia had been nailed only moments before. The crumbling wall that trembled noticeably at the collision, just as Batman had anticipated. The Talon bounced off the towering stone slab onto the floor, landing in a heap amidst the fresh debris.
Wait for it, Batman thought.
The Talon clambered to his feet.
There it is.
Batman fired his grapnel gun directly at his foe, who was lined up perfectly. The titanium grappling hook, designed to drill into steel and concrete buildings, pierced the Talon entirely before embedding itself in the wall behind him. The assassin glanced down at the taut cable stretching between him and Batman, pain mixed with bewilderment.