Justice League of America - Batman: The Stone King by Alan Grant (best english novels to read .txt) 📗

off his shoulder, and lashed out with a foot to scatter the small band nipping at his ankles. His costume was Kevlar-lined, impervious to inflictions such as rat bites. His cowl and mask protected his face, and gauntlets covered his hands. But the rats were present in such numbers, it would be only a matter of time before they bore him to the ground and found their way through his defenses.

He squeezed the touch-sensitive barrel of the pen-light he still carried in his other hand, and saw for the first time the peril that he faced. Thousands of rats were streaming down the tunnel-side ledges toward him, a living river with murderous intent. And there, directing them in their charge, was the surreal figure of the Ratcatcher.

Otis Flannegan's head and face were covered by a gas mask, its rubber hose snaking down to the oxygen canister fixed to his belt. He wore fisherman's rubber wading boots that came up to his thighs, and a gun butt jutted from the holster around his waist. In his left hand he carried a powerful work lamp; as he switched it on, the sewer was flooded with bright light.

"This is my domain, Batman," the Ratcatcher exclaimed, and Batman could hear the mania that lay beneath the man's words. "And my little friends do not like intruders."

As Ratcatcher's eerie whistle sounded again, Batman pulled his bola from a pouch in one long-practiced gesture. Holding it in the center, where its three leather cords were joined, he whirled it at full speed in front of him, careful to keep it low. The trio of half-pound lead weights at the end of the leather rope sang in the foul sewer air.

Rat after rat dropped like stones as the spinning weights thudded into them, breaking bones and crushing skulls. But still the others came on, oblivious to pain and death as they strove to obey their master's orders.

Batman knew he couldn't keep this up for long. Spinning the bola in front of him, he inched his way toward his sonic emitter that lay in the muck.

Once, Otis Flannegan had been the official Gotham City ratcatcher, employed by the Sanitation Department. For years he had more or less lived in the sewers, punctuating his mass poisonings of rats with bizarre attempts to turn them into his pets.

It was during one of his rare outings aboveground that Flannegan had run into trouble. Not used to alcohol, he'd gotten drunk and somehow found himself involved in a street brawl. A man had died, and Flannegan exchanged one dark home for another when the judge sentenced him to fifteen years in Blackgate Island penitentiary.

After a short while, his "pets" helped him escape from prison. Consumed with thoughts of vengeance, Flannegan had kidnapped several of the people responsible for his incarceration: the policeman who'd arrested him, the witnesses against him in court, even the judge who'd handed down the sentence.

For months Flannegan kept them locked up in a subterranean cell, feeding them scraps, constantly taunting them, making them pay for the indignities they'd heaped upon him. He'd have kept them there until they rotted and died, had it not been for Batman's intervention.

The vigilante found Ratcatcher's secret jail, freed the prisoners, and sent the miscreant back to Blackgate. Ever since, Ratcatcher hated Batman with a passion that dwarfed everything else in his life, except love of his rats.

He'd last escaped during the Cataclysm, when Gotham was hit by an earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale. Half of downtown had collapsed, whole blocks had sunk into the ground, and the map of the city changed forever.

Flannegan had managed to stay on the loose ever since, an uncatchable fugitive in the subterranean domain he had made his own.

"That's right, boys!" Ratcatcher laughed as his rat packs threw themselves at Batman and his whirling bola. "You'll have him in a minute. Bite him! Rip him! Kill him!"

The high-pitched whistle sounded again, and Batman risked a glance behind him. Hundreds more rats were scuttling from their holes and hideouts, scampering over the pitted surface of the brickwork, running along the narrow walkway to attack from the rear.

No way I can hold them all back, Batman realized. Phosphor grenades might blind them, but I'd need hundreds to be rid of them all. There's only one thing to do . . .

Without warning, Batman dived full-length onto the walkway. For an instant, the surprised rats drew back–and that was all the time the Dark Knight needed. Even as the rodents surged forward again, Batman's hand closed around the sonic emitter in the stream, and his thumb pressed down hard on the trigger.

The sound was so high-pitched, Batman himself couldn't hear it. But he could see its effect on the rats as it assaulted their sensitive hearing: many of them screamed, a high, keening noise that grated on Batman's senses. Then they broke formation, turned, and ran as fast as they could to put distance between themselves and the source of their pain.

Like some modem-day Pied Piper of Hamelin, Ratcatcher blew desperately on his whistle. But his rodent friends could no longer hear him over the high-frequency cacophony that was jangling their nervous systems.

Batman rolled to his feet, leaving the sonic emitter where it lay, still dispensing its inaudible whine. He knew the real problem wasn't the rats. It was Ratcatcher.

Knowing that his scheme was foiled, Flannegan had turned tail and was about to flee into the maze of tunnels. The bola whirled in Batman's hand for a final time. He sent it spinning through the air, its weights wrapping themselves around Flannegan's ankles and bringing him down heavily to the sewer floor.

Ratcatcher sprawled in the muck, jabbering frantically, his voice muffled by his sinister gas mask. "Boys! Boys, don't leave me now!"

"Too late," Batman growled. "Your 'boys' are long gone."

Ratcatcher tried to scramble to his feet, but Batman's foot sent him face first into the disgusting slurry that ran down the center of the sewer. Batman grabbed