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“Through The Looking Glass”
Thomas Wayne, God rest his soul, was many things. As a staunch pillar of the community, he was generous with his time and wealth and was well respected for it, to the extent that he's as fondly and widely remembered as many Presidents of this country, at least in Gotham. He was also never less than a kind and loving parent to a son who didn’t always appreciate or understand him at the time.
I understand him now. First and foremost, Thomas Wayne – my father – was a hero.
Gotham City at night is a wretched, rabid beast like the nest of starving rats in your cellar or the slow advance of a spider on your bare skin as you sleep. When it rains it’s the tears of orphaned children that fall, and the streets and alleyways run black with sorrow. People think that I do what I do because I believe I can somehow stem the tide, but they’re wrong. I know that however hard and long I fight, the misery soaked into all this stone and brick and glass will one day overwhelm me; I know this yet I struggle on with the all the grim and silent determination of a drowning man who refuses to concede and allow the sharks to take him, piece by bloody piece. This I learned from him.
My father worked miracles. He saved lives. He was a doctor – a surgeon – and every day, with skilful, deliberate hands, he stitched together torn flesh and melded broken bone. Sometimes he'd come home and tell us about it, my mother and I, if the details of a case were of interest rather than gruesome. I wish I could say that I'd somehow let him know how proud I was of him, but I was a child, even more at odds with my confused emotions than all those around me of similar age. Perhaps he understood all the same.
I actually recall little of the details about his work at the hospital. I learned later, from his peers, that he was a man who was forthright with his opinions but also morally unshakable; unlike many other doctors in other establishments at that time, he treated every patient alike, regardless of the color of their skin or if they were poor, or if their interests were covered by medical insurance. His confidence, in himself and his abilities, were as resolute as his ethics. He was a man who stubbornly refused to be derailed by any obstacle.
However, when all was said and done, there was one adversary against which he never triumphed and something I do remember is how those defeats weighed upon his heart. Every hero has his foil, after all, and for my father that enemy was cancer. Cancer claimed both his own parents, a grandfather and grandmother I never knew. I can imagine how that must have haunted him, driven him – believe me, I truly can. Sometimes he would achieve a certain measure of success, of course; tumors would be removed and remission encouraged. But more often the growths would be too severe to counter or, once cut away, would return, black and insidious. And every defeat would wound him, rusting away at the secret iron part of him that everyone so admired.
Until, one night, he was taken from me by a petty criminal’s bullet.
What happened to my father, and my mother, was the genesis for what I became. But who I am…that stems from who he was. I'm a different kind of surgeon and Gotham is my only patient. I can keep this city healthy in most respects, but just like him I'm faced with a cancer that's vile and relentless, an illness I struggle to keep in check every night. This cancer has many faces: one a stitched sackcloth with ragged holes cut away for black, empty eyes, reeking of sodden straw; another scarred down to wretched blood and bone on its left side, whilst the right is ashen and haunted; still another with flesh drained of pigment, eyes wild with tiny pinpricks for pupils, a livid mouth stretched impossibly wide into a perpetual, sadistic grin. And so many more besides.
These creatures, no longer human in my eyes, are the stuff of nightmares. They do more than feed on innocence, they infect it like cankers…and no matter how many times I hack them away, they just keep coming back. They're the disease and I'm the closest thing to a cure.
Ultimately, I know that I'm not enough. They'll win, one day. But just like my father, I’ll keep on fighting until the bitter end – however suddenly and tragically that end may come.
A horsefly, a dragonfly and a butterfly. How well do you know your children’s literature?
In Lewis Carroll’s Through The Looking Glass, young Alice finds herself in a forest having a conversation with a giant gnat who proceeds to question the human practice of arbitrarily naming every new species it discovers. To highlight this perceived absurdity, the gnat reveals that in the world beyond the Looking Glass a simple horsefly is instead a rocking horse-fly, a dragonfly is a snapdragon-fly and a butterfly is a bread-and-butter-fly. Earlier tonight, at St. Jude’s Church, specimens of these three insects were discovered in a blood-soaked ciborium close to two mutilated bodies – an identifier, left behind by the killer, presumably for my benefit.
The two corpses had also been decapitated, a second reference to consolidate my assumptions about the first, this one relating to Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland. Off with their heads, indeed.
The man I believe responsible for these murders is Jervis Tetch, more commonly known by the moniker the Mad Hatter. He's an old adversary who has become so unstable in the years we've crossed each other that he can no longer tell the difference between real life and that of Carroll’s fictions, and whose obsessions regularly prompt him to indulge in criminal activity, including kidnapping, slavery and murder. Which I sincerely doubt was what Carroll had in mind when he conceived of his character all those years ago, but there you go.
As is customary of the type, Tetch’s dysfunctional condition stems from basic childhood trauma. His physical abnormalities, caused mainly by pituitary dwarfism coupled with a measure of autistic retardation, resulted in an acute sense of alienation at a critical age, this much I know for fact. But the cause of his specific delusions remains a mystery. Did his fascination for the works of Lewis Carroll derive from an unrequited lust for a nameless blonde girl of his acquaintance, or did he develop an obsession with such a girl, and thereafter children in general, after reading the books? Whatever the trigger, the end product is a borderline paedophilic disorder borne more from manic fascination than an overtly sexual state. Like the majority of psychopaths he also exhibits excessive controlling tendencies, and it's this aspect of the Mad Hatter’s lunacy that renders him dangerous, although I never had him pegged as a ritualistic killer.
Regrettably, the massacre at St. Jude’s Church suggests that diagnosis is fatally flawed.
Tetch and the majority of his sorry ilk are creatures of habit. They're drawn back to Gotham like restless spirits, else they would've learned long before now not to continue to corrupt my city with their presence. One of my previous encounters with the Hatter took place in a dilapidated townhouse on the East Side, with deeds of ownership registered to one Charles Dodgson, this being the real name of Lewis Carroll. I've always known that the building in question belongs to Tetch and there's a high likelihood he's returned to this location, believing it a safely haven.
I'm not always right – intuition isn't completely reliable, even for me – and there's every chance I could spend the rest of the night searching for my quarry in vain. But, sometimes, I earn myself a slice of good fortune and tonight my instincts are on the money. Twenty minutes after leaving St. Jude's I'm staring down through a grimy skylight into the semi-darkness of the aforementioned townhouse across the city. There's a flicker of light down there, glimmering softly on the edge of what appears to be an antique armoire. Just a sliver, but it’s enough; according to my records this building should be deserted. It isn’t.
It could be vagrants seeking out a modicum of comfort. I don't think so, but I need to be sure. I fish a miniature radio receiver from a link in my belt and attach it to the glass of the skylight, then connect a loop of wire to a tiny microphone hook on the side of my mask, just below my right ear. I flick a switch then narrow my eyes and concentrate. I hear soft murmurings, scratching. Rats in the walls. The creaking of old wood. Listen.
I hear the faint tread of footsteps and the tremble of voices beneath all the ambient noise and glance down at the receiver. I press a button to lock onto the specific frequency showing on a small LED display and then gently nudge at a dial with a gloved fingertip. A delicate operation, this manipulation of no more than a couple of millimeters, combined with the patient application of the frequency modulation, reaps its reward: the hiss of background interference fades, whilst the distant voice clarifies and becomes recognizable.
I smile, slightly. That’s the Hatter, without a doubt.
I detach the radio apparatus and return it carefully to its belt slot. Then I operate the infrared display built into the eye slits of my mask so that the well of darkness into which I'm about to descend won't place me at a disadvantage. The technology at my disposal is often deceptively simple, but without it I'd be lost. This is a wild and colorful world, full of men and women who possess incredible powers, but I’m not one of them. I can’t fly, at super speeds or otherwise; I don't have enhanced strength, at least no more than standard weights and disciplines can grant me; I don’t have the benefit of alien artifacts or mythological origins. I'm a man, nothing more, nothing less. Perhaps, one day, that won’t be enough – but for tonight it should prove more than adequate.
I need to work fast now. I heard something else alongside the distinctive voice of Jervis Tetch through the radio wire: a small girl crying. Two hours ago she was part of a happy family and now she’s an orphan. I wonder if she’s aware of that fact. My smile contorts into a scowl and I feel a familiar rage threaten to overwhelm me. No, tonight I won’t need special powers to educate the Mad Hatter that he's crossed a very important line…
“You haven’t touched your tea, my dear,” the Hatter says, clicking his tongue in disapproval. “How rude…how inordinately rude!”
Across the table, five-year-old Amelie Christanval weeps uncontrollably, her large blue eyes shimmering with tears in the light of a dozen candles. The blonde wig that's been placed on her head is far too large and is slipping down her face but she can't reach up and push it away because her arms are bound by coarse rope, tied in the shape of a cross about her tiny chest. She's clad in a blue-and-white check dress, dirty with old stains which is also too big for her. Because she's Five. Years. Old.
The table is set, as ever, for a tea party. It's been set for a long time. The cake on the central platter, once a Victoria Sponge with fresh cream, is now black and oily with mold; it seems to move in the candlelight, but that's just the squirming of the maggots. The large teapot is encrusted with clotted webs with a nest of spiders clustered within. The tea that the Hatter has recently poured is thick and foul, the stagnant stink of it beneath Amelie’s nose causing her to retch. She can’t imagine letting something so disgusting pass her lips but her host isn’t inclined to give her the choice.
Jervis Tetch giggles and claps his hands together, then shuffles along the length of the table on his backside towards his guest. His body is small, that of a twelve-year-old, but his arms and legs are long and thin like an awkward youth. His velvet jacket is too big for his chest, warped by a slight hunch to his back, whilst the sleeves barely stretch past the elbow. His hair, russet brown streaked with swathes of dirty gray, is lank and knotted beneath the wide brim of a bizarre top hat that seems three size too large for his head but which perches quite happily upon his crown. His face is twisted, his eyes set too far apart across the bridge of a hooked nose, his lower jaw incorrectly aligned with an overhanging top lip. When he grins, as he does now, he reveals a muddle of odd, discolored teeth. When he leers, the pupils of his eyes shrink and the sickly greenish-yellow irises that remain swell like pus-filled boils.
I've heard it said that the Mad Hatter can be amusing, sort of strange but ultimately harmless. That's not true. He's a sick, sick man, and a dangerous one; he should not be underestimated.
“Once upon a time,” the Hatter whispers, “there was a naughty, naughty little girl who refused to drink her tea. Do you know what happened to her, my sweet? Do you know? Emilene! Emilene! That dreadful girl, she can’t be seen. She disappeared ‘tween trees of green…whatever happened to Emilene?”
“My name isn’t Emilene,” the tethered girl wails, kicking her legs helplessly. “It’s Amelie!”
“Oh, pish posh. Besides…”
The Hatter snatches out a hand and grabs her about the jowls. His fingers are long and tipped with sharp, cracked fingernails the color of sour milk. Amelie screams and chokes, her eyes bloating as the Hatter smiles, brokenly, his breathing ragged and wanton.
“I wasn’t singing about you,” he croons. “Your name is Alice. Now…be a good little bitch and drink your tea!”
And with that, he leans forward over the edge of the table and begins to lick wetly at her eyes with a mottled tongue…
…just as I emerge from the shadows, a black batarang in my clenched fist. I’m furious at this poor child’s plight but I learned long ago not to allow anger to consume me to the extent that I become careless. I tell myself that I needed the past few moments to study my environment, to ensure that the Hatter wasn’t prepared for me. I tell myself that this delay, momentary but likely enough to leave young Amelie plagued by nightmares for the rest of her life, was necessary and unavoidable. I wonder if Amelie could appreciate my sense of caution and I wonder at this cold logic that rules my heart that I can measure out lives and choices so dispassionately, like delicate grains of sand. What am I?
Amelie writhes in her bonds, screaming. The Mad Hatter’s hands are all over her and he's grunting like a hog in a pot. I grit my teeth and hurl the batarang with vicious strength…
…and I allow myself a dark flicker of satisfaction when the razor-edged metal bites home with a dull shuk! followed by the Hatter’s plaintive howl of pain. The villain rears back across the table, long limbs skittering like a wounded insect, his reflexive speed belying his clumsy stature. Still shrieking, he turns his head this way and that, both arms twisted behind his back and his hands scrabbling at the shard of silver protruding from between his misshapen shoulder blades. I see his eyes, wild and golden beneath the rim of his hat…and then he sees me.
And through the pain and the hate he smiles.
“Why, Batman, my old friend,” he breathes. “Twinkle, twinkle, little bat…et cetera, et cetera.”
I know the layout of this building, including the location of all the exits even without the aid of infrared. The Hatter isn’t going anywhere. Amelie is sobbing pitifully now, likely as scared of me as she is of him. The air is musty and pungent with the smell of the strange, hallucinogenic herbs that the Hatter likes to smoke in a large, wooden pipe. He’s giggling, amidst the whimpering and clapping his hands together in glee. Twinkle, twinkle, little bat, how I wonder where you’re at. I know it all by rote, we’ve danced this dance so many times before. I—
I hear a skittering close to my ear and I turn, briefly, to see a large, black rat scurrying across a wooden beam overhead, its eyes catching like ghost fire in the surreal wash of the infrared. Stupid. I once believed my father to be immortal because heroes never die; I was wrong. One day I’ll insinuate myself into the concerns of lunatics and, due to some oversight, I won’t emerge on the other side. Maybe that'll be my fate tonight. The Hatter observes my distraction and is more than capable of taking advantage. He leaps sideways with a cackle, disappearing into the gloom. I hear the sound of his scuttling footsteps and I curse my uncustomary lapse as I take off in pursuit.
I remember this townhouse from my previous visit here. Back then the walls were lined with pictures – oil paintings, etchings, photographs – of young girls. Simple poses, nothing particularly unsavory but deeply unsettling nonetheless when viewed one after another. It was the first time that I truly began to understand how fractured Tetch’s psyche was and how, despite his odd appearance and whimsical mannerisms, he was just as dangerous as any of my other more extreme adversaries. Once the Hatter had been incarcerated in Arkham following that encounter I returned here and removed all those pictures by hand. Now the walls of the corridors I pass through are bare in the gloom, but the ghost of those images somehow still remains, as if the essence of them has seeped into wood and brick. I won’t allow myself to imagine what might have happened to Amelie Christanval if I hadn't come here.
I know how the Hatter will try to escape through a fire door at the back of a dusty, stinking kitchen. He’s quick and nimble, typically more so than me, but in this instance the wound I inflicted upon him slows him down. I catch him as he scrambles across a filthy worktop, the back of his jacket wet with blood and his breathing labored. I snatch at him and he whirls, face livid. In his right hand he's holding a bread knife and he stabs the point towards my face with a bird-like squawk. I deflect his blow then grab his arm just below the wrist and twist. He screams and the knife pops from his hand.
He spits obscenities at me and attempts to kick his way free, but I yank on his arm again to pull him off balance. Then I slam a punch into his gut and slap him across the face with the back of my hand, sending him flying into a rack of dirty pans and skillets. He crashes to the floor with a grunt, his hat askew, and metal implements raining down all about him with an unholy clatter. I move forward and tread on his throat, pinning him to the floor. His face remains sick with rage, but I know that the fight's already draining from him. The batarang wedged in his back is likely digging in ever deeper as he writhes beneath me, but I've no intention of relenting.
I could kill him if I wanted to. Here, now. No one would know. Few would care. And through that one, simple act, he'd never harm anyone ever again.
You might be surprised how many times I've thought these thoughts in my life.
“Why?” I ask, my voice hushed. “Everything you did in that church, to those people and then the painstaking manufacture of the crime scene. All just to take this girl? To lead me to you?”
The Hatter scowls up at me, barely able to breathe, his nails scrabbling at my boot beneath his jaw. “Mad,” he hisses, eyes bulging. “We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad. You must be, or—”
“Enough with the quotes!” I snap, pressing down harder until I elicit a scream. “Tell me. This isn’t the way you do things, Tetch.”
“Don’t…don’t know…what you’re talking about…”
I open my mouth to speak again, prepared to pursue this interrogation until I receive satisfactory answers…but then something occurs to me and I just stare down at him, my blood running cold. I listen, not only to what he’s saying…but to my own words. Foolish…so foolish. A double bluff; simple, yet effective. I should know better than this. It’s just that the clues that led me here – the insects in the chalice – were subtle and obscure enough to cloud my judgment, to make me believe it was true.
“You didn’t kill them,” I say, dismayed with myself. “You weren’t even there, were you? So how did you get the girl?”
“Alice…?”
“Her name isn’t Alice,” I hiss. “Now answer me.”
The Hatter gurgles, his face now wretched. “A…gift.”
“From who?”
“Don’t…know.” He stares up at me on the verge of passing out. I release him, quivering with fury, but it is too late. He slumps into unconsciousness with a stark rattle in the back of his bruised throat, leaving me to glare helplessly down at his body. The silence all around me is broken only by the distant wailing of young Amelie Christanval, now an orphan, lost and lonely in a terrible world.
A gift. From the real killer.
I think of the murders in the church and something that made little sense at the time: the fact that numbers had been savagely carved into their torsos. One and two. Now, suddenly, I think I understand.
Somebody out there has decided to play a game. It started tonight. And it won’t end until I end it.
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To Be Continued...
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