Bruce looked up the stairwell. He didn’t need his heat tech to see that two Nightwalkers were running down toward him, their boots echoing on the metal steps. As he went, he took out the small, round bomb from his backpack. He ran to meet them, jumping up the steps two at a time. As he reached the top of the first flight, he threw the bomb against the wall as hard as he could.
An ear-ringingboomrang out in the stairwell. Smoke exploded from the bomb and surged up in the blink of an eye, engulfing everything in near pitch-black. Bruce had the sudden unnerving feeling that he was back inside his mansion when the Nightwalkers’leader had vanished in a cloud of smoke. Bewildered shouts came from the Nightwalkers on the upper flights. Through his shades, Bruce could still see the grid outline of the stairs and the heat signals of his attackers. One of them fired shots, each one looking like a faint red-gold burst. He darted up through the smoke like a ghost.
Halfway up the second flight, he came face to face with the first Nightwalker.
The man opened his mouth in a shout, raising his weapon. But it was too late. Bruce struck him viciously in the side of his jaw. The blow hit true; the man’s limbs sagged instantly. Bruce caught him before he hit the ground, then set him down, limp and slumped, against the stair railings. He continued up.
Two more Nightwalkers came into view. Bruce darted to the floor as the first one fired at him, sending bullets whizzing past his shoulder.Don’t think, just move.He caught the first by his legs and sent him careening backward. The second flung her elbow at him, aiming for his neck—but Bruce spun out of the way as another round of bullets chipped against the wall. He vanished into the gloom of smoke before the two could turn back on him.
A voice suddenly rang out over the hall’s speaker system. It was a voice Bruce recognized, and for an instant, he paused on the stairs.
“Stop.” It was Madeleine.She was here after all.“Turn back now, or you risk the hostages’ lives.”
Her words sent fury coursing through Bruce’s blood. Perhaps she had been the Nightwalkers’ boss all along.When you target my friends,he thought,it is always a fight involving me.He hesitated for a split second—what if they really started killing the hostages?I’m running out of time.He narrowed his eyes and continued his sprint up the stairwell.
Another Nightwalker sprang into view, but Bruce had seen her coming from afar and was ready. He lashed out before she could open fire—his knee caught her hard in the ribs, and she went down with a hoarse cry. His boots clanged against the steps.
Finally, he reached the top of the stairs. He kicked the stairwell door open and emerged onto the curving lobby of the concert hall’s balcony level. His boots hit the carpet. With his shades, he saw through the walls to where the concert chamber itself was at the end of the curving hall. The hostages were there. Bruce broke into a run again. As he went, he tapped his ear.
Alfred’s voice came on. “The police are in,” he said. “Through the opening you made.”
Bruce started to reply, but he never got the chance. At that moment, the door leading to the concert chamber’s balcony swung open, bringing Bruce to a skidding halt.
Madeleine.
She stood with a gun in her hand. It was strange to see her without a glass barrier to divide them, as if she had walked right out of some alternate reality and into his. She looked entirely different from how he remembered her in Arkham Asylum. Gone was her white prison jumpsuit. She now dressed from head to toe in dark blue, military-grade clothes—steel-toed boots, gun holsters at her wide belt, a long-sleeved shirt behind her bulletproof vest. Her hands were hidden under black leather gloves. Her long hair was tied tightly up into a high bun.
How many versions of her was he going to meet? Her eyes no longer contained that familiar, mysterious, playful look. There was nothing amused about her—this was not the girl who stretched like a languid dancer, who pressed a slender finger to her lips to tease him, who curled up into a tight ball on her bed or wrapped her arms around her knees. This was the real Madeleine, cold and hard and made of steel. Someone capable of committing three murders.
“Who are you?” she said, pointing her gun directly at him.
How could he have ever felt for this girl? She was a complete stranger now—maybe she had always been a stranger, and he had never known anything about her. Would he die at her hands tonight? Would she sleep soundly after doing it?
None of that mattered. She had Dianne and Lucius, and he wasn’t leaving tonight without them. He took a steady step forward.
The corners of her lips turned up, and she straightened, tilting her head at him in her familiar, mocking way. “Ah,” she said. “You.”
She’d figured out his identity from his gait. As sharp as ever. She shifted her gun away from him and straight toward the concert chamber door. At the same time, the door swung open, revealing a Nightwalker dragging a struggling person with him. Bruce’s heart stopped.
It was Dianne. She fought against the arm wrapped around her neck, her face a livid portrait of both terror and rage, but the Nightwalker hung tightly on.
The Nightwalker was Richard Price.
Bruce was so startled to see his former friend’s face that he nearly called out before remembering that no one was supposed to know he was here.Richard?A member of the Nightwalkers?
Behind Richard’s menacing expression, though, was raw fear. And in that second, as Bruce met his eyes, he realized that Richard was just as terrified of being here as Dianne. As Bruce himself.
Madeleine aimed her gun at Dianne’s head. “Don’t move any closer,” she commanded Bruce.
He froze, glaring at Richard. “Let her go,” he snapped, his voice coming out distorted.
Richard seemed to make a move, as if he almost wanted to do what Bruce said—but Madeleine gestured once at him with her gun. He immediately went back to doing what he was told. His eyes seemed red at the corners, like he’d been crying.
Madeleine nodded at Bruce’s backpack. “Toss your toys over. Now.”
Bruce met Dianne’s frightened dark eyes. She didn’t seem to know who he was, but she tried shaking her head, bravely telling him not to do it. He pushed the straps off his shoulders and flung the backpack to Madeleine. She caught it neatly, then slung it over her shoulder.
“Thanks,” she said. Then her eyes darted to somewhere behind Bruce, and she gave an almost imperceptible nod.
