“Well,” said Wayne, “although my foundation is hosting the event, I regret I’ll be unable to attend. But I trust the rest of you will enjoy yourselves. Thank you all for coming.”
He turned to Pamela. “Good day, Doctor.”
She grabbed him by the sleeve, unable to contain her anger any longer. “Tell me,” she rasped. “Would you warm faster to my pleas if I looked more like Miss January here?” With a jerk of her head, she indicated the lovely Julie Madison.
Wayne didn’t answer. He just took his arm back and moved away, trailed by the press. Pamela glared at him.
Suddenly, she had an idea. Maybe she’d just picked the wrong event to crash—and also the wrong way to crash it.
But she’d rectify that error soon enough.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Freeze remembered it as if it were yesterday.
As he watched, Victor Fries and his wife Nora turned to one another on their wedding altar. Looked into each other’s eyes. And kissed.
It was a deep, passionate kiss, much to the embarrassment of the presiding clergyman. But they didn’t care. They were in love.
Abruptly, the scene switched. Fries and his wife were playing with a puppy in a field somewhere. Upstate New York, he thought—or was it New Hampshire? It was the height of summer, judging by the brightness of the light and the cut of their clothes.
What was the dog’s name again? He thought for a moment. Sunshine? Sunspot? Something like that. It was getting harder and harder for Freeze to remember such things.
His old self got up and left the video frame for a moment, grinning like a Cheshire cat. When he came back, he was still grinning. He handed Nora something. A long, slender jewelry box.
Her eyes grew wide as she opened it. “Oh, Victor,” she said, “it’s beautiful. I can’t believe you—”
At a loss for words, she held the contents up for the camera. It was a snowflake necklace, made of platinum and diamonds—the same one she wore in her icy tomb.
Nora placed the chain around her neck, closed her eyes, and basked in the warm, summer sun. It glinted in her hair, striking highlights. The dog leaped suddenly into her lap, probably wondering why she’d stopped paying attention to it.
In the video, Victor Fries put his arms around his wife. “Beautiful,” he agreed. “But not half as beautiful as you are.”
What’s more, he still thought that. Still believed it with all the soul he had left. Even in her frozen state, Nora was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.
“ ’Scuse me, Chief.”
Freeze turned and saw Frosty standing behind him. As usual, his aide looked tentative, apologetic.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” said Frosty, “but I got something here you might want to see.”
He held out a newspaper clipping.
Without a word, Freeze lifted his gun and fired. In a flash, Frosty had frozen solid, still grasping the clipping.
“I hate it when people talk during the movie,” he muttered.
Then he turned back to the video screen. He and Nora were on a sailboat now. A white sailboat on a painfully blue sea. The wind was in her hair and she was laughing, and he could see the snowflake pendant sparkle in the hollow at the base of her throat.
His lip began to quiver ever so slightly. It wasn’t fair, he told himself. It wasn’t fair at all. For someone so lovely and full of energy to be stricken with such a disease . . .
Suddenly, Freeze couldn’t take it anymore. Lifting his cryo-gun, he aimed it at the screen and fired. The sailing trip exploded into a hundred flying shards of light.
He whispered to the smoking, sparking ruin of the monitor. “One more diamond, my love. One more.”
Freeze got up and began to walk away. Then he noticed the newspaper clipping in Frosty’s frozen hand. Breaking the paper off, he read it.
It said Bruce Wayne, the filthy-rich philanthropist, was donating a diamond to the Flower Ball that evening. Nodding, Freeze crumpled the paper in his gloved hand.
A diamond, he thought. How convenient. He could almost taste his wife’s lips again beneath his own.
Inside the Gotham Botanical Gardens, an immense glass greenhouse set atop the roof of a mighty skyscraper, a hanging banner that read GOTHAM CHARITY FLOWER BALL blotted out the stars overhead. A giant beast mask covered the entrance to the place, so every guest who entered had to do so through the beast’s mouth.
Drummers were pounding on conga drums, and all the guests were dressed as flowers—all except two, that is. And those two were dressed as gorillas who romped and cavorted about the room as if they were real.
But the guests weren’t the only ones in disguise, Batman reflected. He himself was dressed as an employee of the gardens in a loose, brown jumpsuit. The same for Robin. And each was wearing a disguise that would have stood up even to the closest scrutiny, thanks to Alfred’s well-earned cunning at theatrical makeup.
As a publicity ploy, the Flower Ball had invited Batman and Robin to attend the party through an ad in the Gotham Gazette. But of course, they hadn’t responded to the invitation.
Batman didn’t like to show himself in public places, preferring to remain a creature of uncertain reality—an urban legend of sorts. If he was never pinned down, never defined, that legend could continue to grow. It could insinuate itself into the dark heart of the city.
So when he confronted a bunch of hoods in a lonely alley, it wasn’t a man they faced. It was whatever they imagined him to be—and that was usually far more terrifying than anything he could become in truth.
Still, Batman couldn’t have avoided the ball entirely. Not if he hoped to close the trap he’d laid as Bruce Wayne.
“You think Freeze will take the bait?” asked Robin, sotto voce.
“He’ll be here,” Batman asserted. “He won’t be able to resist.”
Up on the stage, the president of the Gotham Botanical Club came out alongside the infamous Gossip Gerty. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “Gerty and I would like to welcome you to the gem of our evening.”
Heeding their cue, two armed guards emerged from behind a curtain bearing a cushioned velvet pallet. In the center of the pallet, suspended from a silver chain, lay a perfect, grapefruit-size diamond.
The crowd murmured its admiration for the gem. But Batman paid no attention to it. He was looking around, checking the crowd, wondering when Freeze would make his move.
“The famed Heart of Isis,” said Gerty, “on loan from the collection of my close personal friend, Bruce Wayne.”
The president of the Botanical Club gestured gracefully and several women stepped forward, all dressed as flowers. Each one was more strikingly beautiful than her predecessor.
“Tonight,” he said, “on auction, an opportunity to dine with one of our fabulous flowers—the famed diamond draped around her neck.”
“Ooo,” said Gerty, “look at all these luscious lovelies. Let’s start the bidding, shall we?”
A man in the audience called out, “Ten thousand for Chrysanthemum.”
“Twenty thousand for Lilac,” yelled another.
“Thirty thousand for Rose.”
But Gerty wasn’t impressed, apparently. “Come on, boys,” she roared at them. “Show some gusto!”
At the top of the stairs, one of the two gorillas was beating the drums all of a sudden. Batman’s jaw clenched. Where were the drummers?
As he pondered the question, the other gorilla began to remove her costume. First, her paws. Then the gorilla head. And so on.
Until a vision of loveliness stepped out of the costume—a creature more beautiful than any Batman had seen before or was likely to see again. She was wearing a skintight costume that appeared to be made of leaves.
Green boots and mask. Magenta hair . . . ? And the greenest eyes one could imagine. So green, in fact, they seemed to glow.
“Gorilla my dreams,” Robin sighed.
The woman in green lifted her gloved hands, each one filled with a
pile of sparkling dust, and blew it over the startled attendees. With agonizing slowness, the dust spun out in intricate fairy-tale spirals, curling its way through the crowd.
A moment later, everyone seemed spellbound, mesmerized. Languidly, she leaned back—and fell. But her fall was broken by the arms of several jungle-clad men on the ballroom floor.
As if on command, the men knelt—and she sauntered over a bridge made of their backs, through the parting crowd, toward the stage. The president of the Botanical Club looked on as she approached, openmouthed with awe.
“Hi, there,” said the woman, lifting the man’s chin with a slender forefinger. She winked at him.
“And, er, you are . . . ?” he sputtered.
“Poison,” she said, smiling. “Poison Ivy.”
Poison Ivy, Batman thought, trying to focus on her features. But it wasn’t easy. He felt like a man who had drunk a quart of love potion.
Like everyone else, he had been swept up in a rush of devotion for the woman he could neither shake nor comprehend. If she’d asked him to swim an ocean for her, it would’ve been difficult to refuse.
Placing her hand on the club president’s shoulder, Ivy gently pushed him into the background. “I’ll take it from here,” she told him.
Lifting the diamond, she put its chain around her neck. And no one stopped her. Not the audience, not the security guards . . . and not Batman. He was too fascinated with her beauty to move an inch, much less want to.
“Why bid for something as cold as ice when you can have a hothouse flower instead?” she asked. “Some lucky boy is going to hit the honey pot tonight. Whoever bids highest gets an evening of my precious company. I’ll bring everything you see here . . . plus everything you don’t. And most important of all,” she added seductively, “I’ll bring my imagination.”
The offer started a riot of responses. “Fifty thousand for Poison Ivy,” called one man.
“One hundred thousand for Poison Ivy,” cried another.
“One million,” shouted a third man. It took a moment for Batman to realize it was him.
Robin looked at him. In horror, thought the Dark Knight. His sidekick was no doubt aghast that Batman had joined in the bidding, caught up helplessly in Ivy’s spell.
Then, to Batman’s shock and dismay, the disguised Robin raised his voice as well. “Two million!” he yelled.
Batman whispered, “You don’t have two million.” Then, at the top of his lungs, he bid: “Three million!”
“I’ll borrow it from you,” the younger man told him.
“Four million!”
“From the janitors!” Ivy laughed, obviously entertained by the notion. “You two boys aren’t going to fight over little old me, are you?”
Batman glowered at Robin. He felt like an animal, fighting over the most desirable female in the pack. But he couldn’t help it. He wanted Ivy. Needed Ivy. And he would do anything to get her.
Then, out of nowhere, Gossip Gerty made a face and asked, “Is it me, or is it getting nippy in here?”
Suddenly, the teeth of the giant mask at the entrance exploded into fragments as a huge drill truck came smashing into the room—no doubt from an elevated bridge outside. There was no question about to whom the vehicle belonged. Freeze himself was standing atop the truck, backed dramatically by swirling mists, with his Icemen following close behind.
With a flourish, he drew his gun. “Did I use the wrong door again?” he bellowed.
Batman didn’t know what brought him out of his love-struck stupor—whether it was the abrupt drop in temperature or the triggering of instincts he’d honed since his parents’ deaths. Nor, at this point, did he have much time to figure it out.
Stripping off his janitor jumpsuit, which had been held together with Velcro, he reached into his Utility Belt for his Batarang. Before even he was aware of it, his reflexes took over and the thing was slicing through the air.
Freeze never saw it coming. It knocked his cryo-weapon out of his hand.
A moment later, Robin was revealed as well. And like Batman, he seemed to be free of Ivy’s enchantment. Together, they raced forward—
—and were engulfed in an opposing tide of Icemen.
Batman saw Freeze’s weapon land in the hands of an innocent guest. As the man tried to determine what to do with it, one of Freeze’s thugs rammed the guest from behind. The pistol went flying end over end.
By then, the Botanical Gardens’ security guards had boiled onto the scene. With an appropriate sense of urgency, they swamped Freeze.
“When technology fails,” the villain had time to shout, “resort to simple brute force!”
And with that as a battle cry, Freeze went into action. Moving with blinding speed for such a big man, he smashed guard after guard and whipped them into the midst of the frightened guests.
In the meantime, his pistol bounced from one person to another, guest to henchman and back again like a wildly fumbled football. Finally, a thug tipped the soaring gun back to Freeze.
And there was nothing Batman could do to prevent it. He was too busy trading blows with the Icemen.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the villain reach up and catch his hurtling weapon. “All right,” he roared. “Everyone . . . chill!”
But of course, no one did. They were too scared, too confused. So Freeze fired at them, turning several guests and more than a few exotic flower arrangements into ice sculptures.
Freeze considered his handiwork and grunted appreciatively. “I should’ve been a decorator,” he said. Then he started for the stage.
Across the room, Batman and his sidekick seemed to have their hands full with Freeze’s Icemen. As Freeze watched, Batman smashed one thug in the mouth while Robin felled another with a spinning sidekick. Then he ducked, sending a second Iceman crashing into a third.
Freeze made a clicking sound with his tongue. Good help was hard to find, he mused, and climbed onto the stage—to face the woman in green who seemed to be running the show.
He didn’t know who she was, but she was wearing the diamond he wanted. That made her an object of great interest to him.
“Let me guess,” he said haughtily, dispassionately. “Plant Girl? Vine Lady? Miss Moss?”
The woman scowled. “Listen, Captain Cold. The suit, maybe, even though silver went out with the seventies. But those boots are unforgivable. What is it with you men, anyway?”
Freeze glanced at his adversaries. Slowly but surely, they were fighting their way toward the stage.
“I’d love to stand here all day and exchange fashion tips, but I’m pressed for time. So hand over the diamond, Garden Gal.” He pointed his weapon at her for emphasis. “Or I’ll turn you into mulch.”
The woman didn’t do what he asked. Instead, she reached into her belt pouch, pulled out a handful of dust, and blew it in his face. The dust swirled around his helmet—a result that seemed to perplex her.
“Pheromone dust,” he guessed. “Designed to heat a man’s blood—but it doesn’t work on the coldhearted.” He held out his gloved hand. “Now, if you please, the diamond . . .”
The woman sighed. “Well, if you insist,” she said. She handed over the priceless gem.
He nodded. “Clever little clover.”
Just then, one of Freeze’s men flew across the room, smashing into the back of the stage. He noticed.
“That’s my exit cue,” he told the woman.
And before she could react, he was racing for his drill truck.
Poison Ivy watched the man called Freeze leap into his vehicle. She had never seen anyone quite like him.
So good-looking, in a grotesque sort of way. So masculine. So fabulously . . . she sought the right word.
Elemental.
And she was something of an elemental herself, now wasn’t she?
A moment later, Batman and Robin—the self-proclaimed Gotham Guardians—raced after Freeze. But they didn’t stand a chance against Freeze and his men. At least, she hoped they
didn’t.
Abruptly, Ivy realized there was something in her hand. A souvenir, left there by Mr. Freeze. A tiny glass globe that said Welcome to Gotham. She shook the bauble and saw the tiny city within caught in the throes of an all-consuming blizzard.
“Eleven minutes to thaw them!” someone shouted. “That’s what Batman said, boys!”
Ivy turned and saw Police Commissioner Gordon standing near her. Normally, the commissioner was tough as nails, the glue that held the police force together. Or anyway, that’s what she had heard.
Right now, he was looking at her the way a man might be expected to look at the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen—no matter how levelheaded he was at other times. Almost shyly, the commissioner pushed his glasses back on his nose and approached her.
His eyes were drawn to the globe in her hand. “What’s that?” he asked.
She shrugged. “A gift from Mr. Freeze.”
Gordon’s demeanor turned a notch more serious. A notch more solicitous of her welfare. “Miss Ivy,” he said, “you’ve just met one of the most sinister men in Gotham.”
She gazed into the globe, where fake snow was piling up in great drifts. “That’s no man,” she breathed. “That’s a god.”
Gordon probably hadn’t heard her—and even if he had, he had more pressing matters to attend to. He moved off as Ivy’s fellow gorilla arrived on stage and removed his hot, stifling mask.
It was Bane, of course.
“Enough monkey business,” she told her henchman, glancing at the globe again despite herself. “We’ve got work to do.”
CHAPTER NINE
By the time Batman reached his Batmobile and Robin leaped onto his Redbird, Mr. Freeze had eked out a significant head start.
But to paraphrase a certain ex-ballplayer, it wasn’t over until the fat lady sang. And Batman wasn’t hearing any warbling just yet.
Perhaps half a mile up ahead, knifing its way through the darkness, Freeze’s drill truck led two similar vehicles over one of the interconnecting bridges that crisscrossed Gotham’s skyline. Gothamites veered their cars off the roadway ahead of the villain, desperate to get out of his way, but so far there hadn’t been any accidents.
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