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

Asylum housed more evil than all other penitentiaries and institutions in North America combined. Its rambling corridors and Victorian rooms were home-away-from-home to archvillains such as the Joker, Two-Face, and the brutal Killer Croc. At any one time, it might be expected to have Clayface, the toxic Poison Ivy, and the Ventriloquist and his dummy Scarface within its somber walls.

As Alfred guided the Rolls Royce around a bend in the road that ran past the asylum grounds, the sunroof whispered open and Batman exited. There was a brief sense of a shadow swooping upward, of black scalloped wings taking to the air.

The car continued on its way without slowing, making for the little-known back roads that would take it to Wayne Manor. Alfred had some research to do.

In the branches of a tree that overhung the road, Batman briefly paused to consider his route. His nightscope brought the hundred-year-old building into focus.

He saw the stooped shape of Jeremiah Arkham passing a window, making his long night rounds. Batman had a lot of reasons to criticize Jeremiah–especially over security lapses–but he knew that the asylum owner cared deeply for his charges. He genuinely wanted to make some of the most evil people in the world well again.

Until he succeeded, Batman would be there to pick up the pieces.

As Jeremiah passed, Batman made a snap decision, then moved into action. He swarmed up into the higher branches until they became too thin to bear his weight. A bat-line carried a grapnel to a main branch of the ancient elm that stood opposite the one he was situated in, and he swung across the road twenty feet from the ground.

Batman knew the location of every closed-circuit TV camera in the grounds, and timed his passage to coincide with their swiveling lenses. Two permanent security guards patrolled the gardens and woods with German shepherd dogs. Batman waited patiently till they'd stopped to share a cigarette and a joke before he moved again.

Twenty seconds later he was seeking handholds on ivy stems thicker than his wrists, as he clambered up the asylum wall.

Built as a private house around the same time as Wayne Manor, the asylum was a product of a bygone age, when media magnates and railroad tycoons vied with one another to build the most luxurious palace for their families. No expense had been spared, vast fortunes had been spent. But whereas the Waynes had gone from strength to strength, the family that built Arkham had lost its wealth and been forced to sell its palace.

Now, both buildings hid their innermost secrets from the world of man.

Batman stepped off the spreading ivy that encased half the frontage, onto a foot-wide ledge that ran along the third-floor level. Back to the wall, he moved swiftly along it until he came to a darkened, bar-covered window. He rapped loudly with his knuckles. No reaction.

He rapped again, and this time was rewarded by a strange, strangled sound, "Hrraaao," like a cross between a laugh and a death rattle. The sound of a very disturbed man.

Inside the bars, the leaded glass windowpane swung open.

"Clancy?" The voice was sibilant and menacing. "Is that you, my trusted lieutenant?"

"Afraid not, Scarecrow. I busted Clancy three nights ago. He's sweating in a holding cell on Blackgate Island."

Batman moved so Scarecrow could see his cowl. The sight brought an immediate howl of dismay as Scarecrow physically recoiled. "Hraiii!"

Moonlight streamed between the bars, enabling Batman to see the figure inside. The body seemed stooped and twisted, yet still tall and with a wiry strength. It was enclosed in a costume made from burlap, with sticks of straw jutting from the cuffs at wrist and ankle. A sackcloth hood covered the head, topped by a ridiculous floppy hat. The eyes that blazed out from slits in the hood were the eyes of a madman, not the eyes of respected university professor Jonathan Crane.

Jeremiah Arkham believed in allowing his charges to live out their fantasies. That way, he was more likely to gain their trust. He'd discovered long ago that forcing them to wear asylum drabs provoked more trauma than it was worth.

"Come to gloat, have you?" Scarecrow hissed accusingly. "After all, you put me here." The crooked body straightened, and Scarecrow went on contemptuously. "Despite the fact I'm not insane. You're the one who's crazy!"

Batman was silent, letting the villain unburden his unhinged venom. He needed Scarecrow in a good mood.

"Look at you," Scarecrow went on scathingly. "You dress like a bat. You fly around at night. You hide your face behind a mask. Isn't that insane?"

"Far from it." Batman shrugged. "I'm not the one who left two security guards crippled by fear gas. It wasn't me who condemned their families to a lifetime of misery."

"Collateral damage," Scarecrow replied loftily. "There's always fallout when a repressed society tries to smother the creativity of its true individuals. Those guards stood between me and my destiny."

"You mean the Assyrian clay tablets you stole? You think books are worth more than life?"

"Books are worth more than anything," Scarecrow returned, his long skinny arms wrapping themselves around his body in a strange hug that seemed to reassure him. "Books are the repository of all knowledge. Books are more precious than gold!"

Batman adjusted his stance on the ledge, leaning in closer to the villain. "I haven't come here to argue with you, Crane."

Scarecrow bristled. "Professor Crane is out," he announced coldly. "Scarecrow is in."

As a child, Jonathan Crane had been severely traumatized by a flock of birds. Perhaps his vivid imagination had been fired by some illicit viewing of the Hitchcock movie, or perhaps he really had been attacked. No one but him would ever know. For years he'd hidden his growing psychosis from the world, until it had erupted one day in the psychology class he taught at Gotham University.

The good professor turned a gun on his students–purely to illustrate a point, of course. The university authorities didn't see things the same way. His foolishness cost Crane his