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

beams lay here and there where they'd fallen, two of them on top of a row of smashed wooden pews. A Bible had fallen open among the debris, a poignant reminder that faith didn't always save, at least not in this world.

She stood for a moment at the top of the aisle leading up to the altar, bowing her head and making the sign of the cross above her heart.

Cassandra was no Christian. In fact, it was only a few centuries since the church would have burned her at the stake as a witch. But she had great respect for all religion. Humanity had always believed in something far greater than itself, something that was sensed rather than known: an order higher than mere mortals, where all the banalities of evil made sudden, perfect sense. Who was she to judge how they worshiped it?

Her head still slightly bowed, Cassandra walked down the aisle, footsteps echoing on the checkered tile floor. She was puzzled to see chalk scrawls on the floor, until she realized they were the outlines of bodies. She wondered which one marked where Raymond Marcus died, searching for his miracle.

Cassandra said a short, silent prayer that in death he would find relief from the pain that had plagued him in life.

Unsure what to do next, Cassandra looked around her. The ornately carved pulpit was little more than matchwood, and several of the cathedral's impressive stained-glass windows had been damaged beyond repair. A jagged hole gaped in the center of the altar recess–she remembered the radio announcer saying that a bolt of energy had come bursting up through the floor.

The altar table itself had been fragmented by the impact, barely recognizable slivers of wood lying everywhere.

She bent to pick up a short length of fractured wood, feeling a little guilty as she gingerly touched it.

Upon lifting it, she was immediately plunged into a vision of another world, as daylight turned into darkness.

Cassandra saw a street she didn't recognize, but knew from the buildings that it was someplace in Gotham. Indistinct crowds of people thronged the street, laughing and moving along in dancelike steps. A firecracker cartwheeled into the air, its bangs and crackles punctuated by the laughter of the crowd.

Now she could see the people more clearly. Every one of them wore a mask. Some were cheap plastic replicas of celebrities and presidents, while others bore the image of skulls, animals, and even characters from children's cartoons.

"Trick or treat?" she heard a young boy in a mask call out, and realized that this was Halloween. Witches' night. In olden times, it was a celebration of another year safe from evil. It was also when ordinary mortals had to take extraordinary steps to banish evil for the coming year.

The whole city seemed to be engaged in the street party. The sides of buildings were lit up with neon signs. Holograms depicting jack-o'-lanterns were projected in the air. Mobs of people streamed from all directions. Music boomed from the open doorways of a dozen bars and diners. A group of teenage girls wearing pop-star masks and carrying lit candles led an impromptu dance on the pavement, bringing traffic to a halt.

Suddenly a bearded student, his face made up to resemble a werewolf, pointed upward. Cassandra looked, and her blood turned to ice water in her veins.

Towering over the street, a thousand feet high, was the horned monster she'd seen in Raymond Marcus's tarot card.

Terrified, Cassandra tried to drop the fragment of wood she held. But her fingers were locked rigid around it, and try as she might she couldn't move them. The church interior was like a distant dream. Reality was now witness to the Halloween street party.

The music had magically halted. The dancing girls stood rooted to the spot, gazing up. The shrieks and laughter of the joyous crowd were silenced, and a grim oppression seemed to settle like a blanket on the whole street.

The massive figure moved for the first time, tilting its head downward to look at the silent figures on the street far below. A huge drop of blood slid from the creature's stained pelt, splashing over a group of people as it landed on the tarmac.

Its eyes blazed red, then cobalt blue . . . and all hell broke loose.

Jagged streaks of lightning leaped from the behemoth's eyes, striking a half-dozen different buildings. Huge chunks of masonry broke free, tumbling end over end, smashing to the ground amid the recent revelers. Cassandra saw the bearded student in the werewolf makeup fall, flattened by a billboard that had dropped from ten stories above.

The air was full of frightened screams, and the terrified crowd scattered in panic as the whole city began to crumble around them. Gaping holes yawned in the streets, swallowing a thousand people at a time. Flames leaped from several buildings as gas and electricity lines were severed.

Human blood ran through the gutters in surging rivulets.

"Ma'am?"

Suddenly, Cassandra was back in the cathedral. She was still on her knees, but the sliver of wood had fallen from her hand. Her heart was beating at an incredible rate, trapped in her frozen body. She couldn't see for the tears that filled her eyes.

"Are you all right, ma'am?" The young policeman stood behind her, his face concerned. Although they'd taught him how to handle situations like this at the police academy, somehow, it hadn't prepared him for the real thing. "You really shouldn't have come in. I . . . I'm sorry about your loss," he added, feeling totally inadequate.

In silence, Cassandra allowed him to take her arm and lead her back outside.

She had foretold Raymond Marcus's death. As if on cue, the man had died. Now she needed to find out what this vision meant . . . and how to prevent it from coming true.

There was only one man she knew who could help her. But first, she would have to find him.

The sun was a distant yellow disk, planet Earth invisible against its glare.

J'onn J'onzz