Batman: The Salem Protocol #7

“It’s a rental,” Black Canary said in response to Jason’s whistle. “Not exactly a Ferrari, but—” She broke off.

The younger man had already ensconced himself in the front passenger seat of the candy apple red Ford Mustang. He raised an eyebrow at Roy. “What’re you waiting for?” He demanded. “Back seat’s all yours.” He flashed Dinah a cocky smile. “Maybe when all this is over, you and me can go for a bit of… private action.”

Dinah’s answering grin was even broader. “If you clear it with my husband, first. He’ll probably give you a…” She glanced at Roy. “A one hundred sixty-five-yard head start?”

“One seventy-nine,” Roy corrected. “He’ll have the arrow nocked and ready at the one sixty-five mark, though. Up to that point, he’ll probably still be deciding whether to use a wood, fiberglass, or aluminum carbon shaft.” He frowned. “And then there’s the issue about whether to use a normal broadhead, something with a barbed tip… on second thought, he might go right to the ‘special’ arrows.” He glanced at Jay. “Did you want to be standing near another Lazarus pit?” He asked solicitously. “I mean, just to be on the safe side?”

Jason stared at Roy as though trying to figure out whether the other man was joking. After a moment, he turned around again and nonchalantly fastened his seatbelt. He didn’t utter another word until they were almost out of Bristol.

“Who are you dressing up as this time?” Roy asked.

Jason twisted as far as the seatbelt would allow him to look behind him. “What?”

“C’mon, you’ve been Robin, Red Hood, Nightwing… I’m surprised you didn’t grab a bat-suit while you were in the cave.” His voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. “Or did you just want to get into Batgirl’s ti—”

Dinah slammed on the breaks, nearly pitching Roy forward into the passenger headrest. “If you don’t pipe down back there, I’m driving back to the manor and leaving you there.”

Jason snickered. Dinah turned to him. “As for you…”

“Me? I was just sitting here, minding my own business when he—”

Dinah massaged her temples. “I don’t believe this. Lian shows more maturity than the both of you put together. I’m only going to say this once. Roy, lay off. Jason, calm down. Both of you… grow up!” Her tone snapped them both to attention. “This is Bat business. This is League business. This is not the time to be horsing around.” She looked at Roy. “You already know what’s at stake, and you,” she turned to Jason, “probably have a good idea. We can use your help, but not if the both of you are—”

“He started—”

“Well, DON’T finish it!” She took another breath. “Roy, behave. And get your seatbelt on.”

A faint but audible click was the only response to her directives. Dinah nodded to herself and started driving once more. After a moment, Roy asked, “So, kid? What’s your code name? I mean, if I happen to see Hatter sneaking up on you with a customized fedora, how would you like me to shout out to warn you?”

The younger man thought for a minute. “You might as well call me ‘Jay’,” he said.

“Jay? You mean like… Blue Jay? Green Jay? White-collared Jay? Nah, you’re not planning on the priesthood, are you?”

The youth glowered. “Just ‘Jay.’ Hey, It’s still going with a bird theme,” he added defensively. A pause. “It’ll do until I come up with something else.”

“Oh? You looking?”

“I don’t know.” The smirk was out of his voice. “There are…” He started to say something, but caught himself. “Look. Stuff happened to me last year. If I tell you everything, you’ll think maybe bringing me to Arkham is a good idea even if Batman isn’t there. Hell, I started trying to write stuff down, thinking it might be easier to tell Bruce in a letter and I thought I ought to be committed. Just… you know how they say you should be careful what you wish for?”

“Yup,” Roy’s reflection nodded in the rearview mirror.

“They’re right.”

Roy was silent for a few moments. Then… “This wouldn’t have anything to do with what happened when you and Donna went looking for Ray Palmer?”

Jason wondered whether Roy had actually heard his jaw drop open.

The archer grinned. “She and I do chat every now and then, you know.”

Jason relaxed visibly. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess it does. See, there was this one Earth we ended up on where after I… died… Bruce… lost it and killed the Joker…”

“What the hell…?” Dinah muttered. The Maserati parked on the shoulder of the road looked a bit too familiar. As did the woman standing next to it, peering frantically over the low metal fence that served as a guard rail between the Aparo Expressway and the drop to the river below.

“Oh no,” Jason groaned. “Don’t stop, Blondie. Just keep driving.”

“Popinjay has a point,” Roy chimed in. “We don’t have time for this. Hey. Where’s Demonbrat?”

Dinah took a deep breath. “Well,” she said, “I’ve never exactly tried to pass myself off as any kind of detective,” she pulled onto the shoulder behind Talia, ignoring her passengers’ protests, “but most people don’t stop in the middle of the highway to admire the landscape.” She opened her door and stepped cautiously over to the rail.

“Hey.” She said quietly.

Talia turned to face her, a desperate hope flickering in her eyes. “You have him?” The hope died almost immediately. “He is not with you,” she stated. “Of course not,” she continued, speaking more to herself than to Dinah. “You are only just arriving on the scene and he,” she pointed down the incline, “is several miles ahead of us and likely halfway to that… that madhouse by now.” She hugged herself, closed her eyes, and began to sniffle. “He wants to help his father,” she wept.

“Damien?”

“Of course, Damien, you simpering hussy!” Behind the tears, Dinah saw rage glisten. Talia continued. “He flung himself out of the car and onto the roof of a passing truck.” She shook her head. “He sees this as some… some… sirah. Or a tale out of the Arabian Nights. He has no idea of the sort of monsters that await in the asylum.”

“But you do,” Roy said coldly. “If you didn’t know it before, you must have figured it out after your father’s stint in that place. And you still helped set this whole thing in motion. Not such a brilliant scheme now that your son’s caught up in it, is it?”

“I told you,” she hissed, “I am trying to help you!”

“Yeah?” Roy snorted. “Do me a favor, then? Switch sides! We’ll do better that way.”

Talia flinched. “Please,” she whispered, “I beg you. Don’t leave me bereft of both my son and he whom I had hoped to make my husband. Not both on the same day. You,” she dabbed at her eyes with a linen handkerchief, “you claim to be heroes. You’re supposed to render aid, not… not berate m-m-me.”

“We’ll help,” Dinah said firmly. Over Jason’s disgusted protest, she added, “we can’t turn our backs on a ten-year-old wandering around Arkham.”

Roy observed the exchange with a bemused smile. “I’m beginning to see why you left this business,” he remarked to Jay. His eyes met Dinah’s. He sighed heavily. “Guess the kid can’t help who his relatives are. And it’s not like we weren’t headed there in the first place.” He turned back to Talia. “Were you going to come along, too? Or were you just going to wring your hands and tremble in the parking lot?”

Two spots of color rose to her cheeks as she drew herself up and lifted her chin. “I shall follow your vehicle in my own. I am his mother, after all. Who else would he heed?”

Jason began to laugh. “Lady,” he said, “do you really think this latest stunt of his counts as ‘heeding’ you?” He snorted. “And please don’t try and say that you didn’t tell him not to jump, so it doesn’t count. Face it, Talia, he’s out of control. Believe me. I know.”

“Jay,” Dinah said, “that’s enough. Get back in the car. You too, Red Arrow. We’ve got to get moving.” She smiled sweetly at Talia. “Try not to tailgate. When I get nervous, well… I’d hate to think what my canary cry could do to your windshield.”

A short while earlier…

He’d timed it perfectly. By the time his mother registered that the car door had opened, Damien had been out of the vehicle, scaling the guardrail. By the time she’d been able to stop the car and retrace her path, he’d been over the fence and atop one of the slow-moving supply boats that traversed the Sprang. He’d studied the maps of his father’s city well enough to know that Mersey Island, where the asylum stood, was situated at the western mouth of the Sprang, where it flowed into the Gotham River. It had been simplicity itself to locate a westbound barge and leap aboard unnoticed. And then, to slip off the craft as it passed within striking distance of Mersey.

Bypassing the alarms had been child’s play. No, they’d been a child’s challenge. The security experts, apparently, had never thought that someone might try to break in to Arkham—and certainly not through an opening scarcely two and a half feet wide. It only took him a few minutes to remove the bars from the window. And it never occurred to him to wonder why no guard appeared to challenge him. He was a Son of the Bat and a Grandson of the Demon. Certainly, their talents were encoded in his blood and in his bones. As the panel of bars came away in his hand, Damien felt a rush of joy. So would all obstacles fall before him!

After ten minutes of reconnaissance, however, Damien had to admit that he’d encountered no obstacles. The halls were quiet. Perhaps ‘deserted’ was a better term. He’d expected to encounter doctors and orderlies, possibly hear the moaning and raving of the lunatics incarcerated here. But there was nothing.

He walked down a corridor with cells on either side of him, which had clear Plexiglas panels for doors. He cautiously pressed his face to one of them. The space beyond was empty. So were the others. For the first time, Damien felt a twinge of apprehension.

As he rounded the corner, he heard voices. Two of them. One male, one female. They seemed to be coming from a room labeled ‘staff lounge’.

“It’s excellent, Simon!” The woman was saying. “The likeness is superb.”

“Thank you, my dear,” the man replied. “I’d thought to bury him in it, but now I can see that it would be a waste. I’ll need to work on the voice, I think.” When the man spoke again, it was in a low-pitched, gravelly tone. “Is this better?”

Female laughter, and applause. Damien opened the door a crack and looked in. His father was there, in costume, along with the woman Mother called ‘his newest strumpet’. He was about to announce his presence, when he stopped. The strumpet had addressed him as ‘Simon’. That wasn’t his father’s name. Better, he resolved, to hide in the shadows and listen longer. Only a fool would charge in without understanding the situation. And he, Damien Al-Ghul was…

…Suddenly dangling in mid-air as a mighty hand clamped about his forearm and hoisted him high. A dank, earthy smell surrounded him, not unlike the inside of a potter’s workshop.

“Well, well, well,” a deep voice rumbled. “And just who do we have here?” His captor laughed. “I didn’t know we’d opened a children’s ward! Who are you!”

“Unhand me!” Damien snapped. “At once. Or my father shall make you pay!”

His captor laughed again. The hold on Damien’s arm tightened, and then, it seemed to spread until it immobilized him from wrist to shoulder. Even through his shirtsleeve, and especially on his bare forearm, the grip was icy, with a dampness that seemed to seep into his very pores. “Your father? Oh, that’s rich. I don’t see him anywhere around, kid. Do you?”

“Not yet,” Damien blustered. “But he will be. And when he arrives, you will pay for your temerity in laying hands on the son of Batman.”

All at once, the hand swung him around and he gazed, for the first time, at the face of the man who had so effortlessly subdued him. Only… it was no man. It was a vast behemoth of living clay! Damien opened his mouth to scream—and a muddy hand clamped itself over his lips. Cold fury overcame terror. This… creature… dared to lay hands on an Al-Ghul? Enraged, Damien bit into the hand. The clay flowed over and around his teeth, coating them and fusing them together. A ribbon of clay rippled out from either side of the gag and quickly ran behind Damien’s head, where the two ends met and merged. The clay dried instantly.

Clayface smiled a leering, toothless, grin. “That should keep you quiet until we need you to speak up,” he said. An arm reached over to pat the boy’s head. “Aw, don’t take it so hard,” he said as he wrapped Damien from neck to ankles in a clay cocoon. “If it makes you feel better, we want to see your daddy about as badly as you do. Why don’t we go into this room with my friends, here,” he pushed open the door to the lounge, “and we can wait for him together?”