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

under the weight of falling timber, and John Consody's lifeless body lay sprawled next to it.

Tonight, faith had not been enough.

Batman barked into the radio microphone that was stitched into the lining of his cowl. He knew that wherever Jim Gordon was, the message would be relayed to him. Emergency services would be there as fast as Gordon could rouse them.

A loud shriek cut across the babble of noise as the metal bands that once supported a plaster sculpture of Christ gave way. It toppled sideways slowly, directly toward a half-dozen caretakers who were trying to maneuver their patients' wheelchairs among the debris.

Batman ran toward the sculpture, throwing himself feetfirst in a double-footed dropkick that squarely connected with its heavy supporting strut. The falling statue twisted in the air as Batman's momentum altered its trajectory. It missed the small group by less than a yard as it crashed to the floor.

A fire extinguisher hung from a bracket on the cathedral wall. Batman wrenched it free and broke its seal, directing a jet of thick foam at the base of the column still playing over the altar.

The foam vaporized instantly. If anything, the energy column swelled rather than shrank.

Realizing it was futile, Batman hurled the metal extinguisher casing into the beam; it too was vaporized.

Now the pillar of energy was swirling above his head like a living thing. Shielding his eyes with his hand, Batman glanced directly into the beam–and felt as if he'd been punched in the gut. A figure was forming in the light, a human shape with a bloodstained torso and golden horns growing from its head.

What was this? And how was he going to stop it?

He slid two small metallic spheres from his Utility Belt and weighed them in his hand. He gazed back up at the shifting bull-headed figure in the pillar and felt his blood run cold as its red-glazed eyes swiveled to skewer him.

Batman's heart began to pound. Needles of fear lanced through his mind. Every nerve ending in his body jangled as a black hole of terror opened up at the very core of his being, threatening to suck him in.

Somehow, the bull-headed figure was laying bare the fears that Batman knew and accepted–and it was amplifying them, till they threatened to overwhelm him.

Batman shook his head violently, trying to deflect the malevolence that engulfed him. There was a moment of respite, and Batman seized it. He lobbed the two small spheres with unerring accuracy into the center of the light column.

The phosphor grenades exploded with a flash that lit up the entire cathedral. Just as suddenly, the bull-headed figure seemed to dissolve as the energy column twisted, then buckled.

As suddenly as it had appeared, it withdrew into the altar and vanished completely.

An eerie silence filled the church, broken only by sobbing and the cries of the injured. In the distance, Batman could hear the sound of approaching sirens. Jim Gordon had received his message.

The Dark Knight bent to help a woman trapped by broken pews. As he pulled her to her feet, mercifully uninjured, the vision of the bull-headed figure seemed to linger. What was it? Why had it done this?

When he returned for the Ratcatcher, half an hour later, he still had no answers to his questions.

"This is Rayne Taylor, reporting from Gotham Cathedral, where at least a dozen people have died in a freak tragedy . . ."

Cassandra stared hard at her radio, mentally challenging the reporter's statement. She had never owned a television, because she suspected its subtle electrical fields might disrupt her empathic abilities. But she always listened to the late news on the radio before retiring for the night.

She didn't need to hear the names of the dead to know that Raymond Marcus was among them. Her vision had come true.

Her heart heavy, she switched off the radio and sat down on a window seat, staring out at the lights of the city. Sometimes she wished she'd never inherited her grandmother's talents. Empathy could be more of a curse than a comfort.

She sat there for a long time, dazed and numb, before the tears came and she found herself crying for a man who would never find his miracle.

CHAPTER 4

Brief encounters

Boston, October 27

An evening shower of rain had cleansed the city, washing off the day's dirt and freshening the air. The manicured lawns of the mansions on Thurber Avenue had turned a deeper shade of green, mottled by dead leaves the rain had stripped from the trees.

Princess Diana of Themyscira, daughter of Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons, stood in the bay window of Ambassador Wester's house, watching a large black-and-white cat as it patrolled the moonlit, tree-studded garden. Behind Diana, a small diplomatic party was in full swing, a murmuring babble of voices backed by quiet jazz music from a state-of-the-art sound system.

The men wore tuxedos and the women were expensively and fashionably dressed, but Diana didn't feel out of place in her red, blue, and gold costume. Silver bracelets given to her by the gods themselves glinted on her wrists, and a golden lasso was slung from her belt.

Her peripheral vision caught a flash of color moving through the trees near the foot of the sweeping gravel drive that led up to the million-dollar house. Diana frowned. A moving spark of blue light? What could that be?

"You are bored with our company, Princess? Or do I call you Wonder Woman?"

Diana half turned, her long, thick, black hair swinging against her bare shoulders. Sergei Vasily, the billionaire Russian businessman in whose honor the party was being held, stood close behind her. His steely eyes and slim mustache gave his face a distinguished look, but Diana wasn't fooled; she'd heard the stories about this man and his ultraviolent clashes with the gangs of the Moscow Mafia. Somehow, Vasily had always come out on top.

"Your choice, Mr. Vasily." Diana's voice was deep and rich. "And how could I possibly be bored by some of the most