"Poor bastard, who could've done this to him?" Wildcat says as he kneels down next to the shriveled remains of what I'm guessing was a member of the League Of Assassins back when his blood was still on the inside. The outfit he's wearing looks like a cross between body armor and a ninja costume, reminding me a bit of the ones the League of Shadows wore in Batman Begins. Wildcat reaches out, his fingers touching the sagging skin on the jaw. "Christ, it's only just started to decay! He doesn't look like this from decomposition, someone drained him like a darn juicebox! Any ideas?"
I don't bother answering at first, as I'm still too busy staring at the gaping wound on the throat, and trying to stomp down on the creeping dread rising in my chest, because fuck fuck fuuuuck, this is not good. This isn't like Doctor Deaths science project grabbing defenceless people off the streets, this is a goddamned League assassin, and anyone, or anything that can kill one of those, especially by doing this to them, isn't someone I want to tangle with, especially not in a bunch of dark, abandoned tunnels.
"Flagg?" Widlcat asks again "Come on, snap out of it, kid, this would be a bad time to zone out."
"Sorry, just really wasn't expecting to see a dead guy here, at least not in this state" I answer, shaking my head to focus back on the task at hand. "I could make a few guesses who could make a throat wound like that, but the blood draining is a new one on me."
My best guess... well, only guess really, would be a vampire, but the only vampire I can remember Batman fighting was that guy in the red Klansman outfit, which was super early on, and naturally, in one of the stories I haven't read. However, I do also remember Dracula showing up in that Elseworld comic, which I really, REALLY hope isn't going to happen here too, because if it's Dracula who snacked on this guy, we're in some real fucking trouble.
"Tell me about it, the mosquitos in Gotham can get pretty darn nasty in the summer, but they're usually not this bad." Wildcat says as he reaches down and closes the eyes of the body, much to my surprise, before getting back to his feet. "Couldn't have been a pleasant way to die, the least we could do was give him some dignity in death. Come on, help me move him out of the doorway"
"Fair enough" I shrug and move to help as we pull the body from the open door, putting it by the side of the brick wall on the outside. "Keep your guard up, we still don't know who did this, they might still be down here..."
"Well, we're not going to find out just standing around out here. Let's take a look, shall we?" Wildcat presses himself to the side of the half-open door, and slowly begins to push it open, allowing us to peer inside. However, even with the unpleasant surprise we found by the entrance, it still doesn't quite prepare me for what's waiting for us inside.
"Jesus christ, what happened down here..?"
I don't have an answer for him, as I find myself staring at the carnage beyond the door. Inside, the entrance opens up into a large chamber, seemingly carved out of the rockface itself rather than reinforced with bricks and tile like the tunnels. The only construction I can see are several metal girders on the walls that stretches up towards the cavern ceiling. There's an eerie, green glow that just barely illuminates the chamber, which seems to be eminating from a chasm in the middle of the floor. The jagged edges of the chasm makes it hard to see what's actually inside it, but my attention is instead drawn towards the handful of dark shapes that litter the floor around it. It's too dark inside the chamber to see many details, especially from a distance, but even in the gloom, I can tell that they're bodies, in the same horrific shape as the one we found by the door. One lies impaled on his own sword, his arm stretched towards the chasm like he'd tried to drag himself inside in his last moments, only to be skewered by whoever did this. Another lies slumped in a heap against the far wall, a streak of dried blood smeared across it, like the body was thrown against the rockface.
That's when I notice the sound coming from inside. The first thing that pops into my mind is that it's the noise of the metal girders settling, only to quickly realise what it actually is.
"Is..is someone crying?"
"Dear god, someone's still alive in there!" Wildcat says, and slowly begins to creep in through the open door, carefully looking around to make sure there's no further unpleasant surprises hiding in the shadows. "Come on, Flagg, we gotta help this guy..."
I follow closely behind as we move into the chamber itself, following the whimpering sobs. Whoever is making the sound seems to have noticed us, as it suddenly increases in volume, mixing with half-formed words.
"O-h... g-g-g-o-d.... p-puh-please... pl-please..." The voice chokes out, and a shape in the corner of the room shuffles slightly. As we get closer, it turns out to be another League assassin, dressed in the same armor as the others, though unlike his unfortunate allies, he hasn't been reduced to a husk yet. Not that he's in much better shape, his face is in tatters, with wounds like clawmarks having slashed him to ribbons. One eye is either missing or just outright ruined, the socket a bleeding, gaping wound, and while his throat hasn't been mauled, there's a prominent bite mark on the side of his neck, still leaking fresh blood. A pair of long daggers have been shoved through his shoulders, pinning him to the wall, and rendering his arms useless.
Fuck, how is this guy even alive?!
Wildcat rushes up to him, kneeling down to get a closer look. The assassin begins sobbing harder, his remaining eye darting wildly around the room as he notices us "Christ, this guy is in bad shape. Flagg, get over here, we need one of your potions and fast!"
"Oh-oh god please.... puh-please, y-you gotta h-help me!" The man chokes out, and Wildcat places both hands on the side of his face, keeping his head steady.
"It's okay, you're going to be okay, just calm down!" He says, trying to comfort the dying man as I kneel down beside him, shrugging my backpack off and quickly rummaging around for the potion. "Stay focused, alright? Can you tell us what happened down here? Who did this to you?"
"It wuh-was... he s-said his name w-was B-b-..."
"Yes? What was it?"
"B-buh... Ba-Barl-"
A sudden whooshing sound behind us is the only warning we get before something strikes the dying man right in the forehead, sending out a spurt of blood and cutting his words off mid-sentence!
"FUCK!!" I nearly catapult backwards, the potion bottle falling from my hand and rolling away into the shadows as I fall on my back, scooting backwards through pure reflex. Wildcat also startles, though not nearly as badly as I did, before twirling around and jumping back to his feet in one motion, fists raised.
"Son of a- Flagg, get up, we got company!"
I clumsily scramble back up, taking a second look at the now-dead assassin, a metallic glint from his forehead revealing what hit him.
A shuriken.
There's a nearly soundless thump as a dark shape drops down from somewhere above us, the dim glow from the pit showing a humanoid figure as it slowly stands up. As the figure steps closer, I can see it's a man with shortly cropped black hair, and a strangely pasty, clammy complexion on his skin. He's dressed in the same armor as the bodies in the chamber, including the splatters of dried blood, but I'm getting the distinct feeling that most of it isn't his own. The hilt of a sword sticks out over one of his shoulders, and a bandolier of shurikens stretch across his chest.
Even worse is the nasty-looking bite mark that stretches across the side of his neck. The League assassin grins a savage smile, flashing a pair of glistening white fangs in his upper jaw, the brightness of his teeth contrasting starkly to the red still smeared around his mouth.
His eyes, though. His eyes are by far the worst. They're a noxious yellow, like something diseased and rotting, that seems to glow in the shadows cast from the light of the Pit.
"How very fortunate. I was worried I'd be getting low on food, my last meal wasn't going to last much longer." The vampire says in a cold, low voice, a bloodless tongue darting out between his lips to lap at the blood still staining his face. "I know The Master told me to kill anyone intruding, but I don't think he'll mind if I keep you alive for a while to make sure your blood stays fresh..."
Jesus christ, he stinks, I can smell him from all the way over here. It's not just the blood either, there's something else beneath that, like rancid meat.
"I'm guessing The Master in question isn't Ra's Al Ghul?" I ask, trying not to gag from the stench "Because even for him, putting a vampire in charge of one of his hideouts would be overkill."
The vampire raises an eyebrow at my remark "Very interesting, there aren't a lot of people who know about the existance of my... former master. But you'd be right in your guess, human. I now serve a far greater being than the withering relic that is Ra's Al Ghul and his feeble claim to immortality. My Master has already conquered death, and he was generous enough to share that gift with me!"
"And the rest of your friends didn't make the cut?" Wildcat says, pointing a thumb at the dead man behind us. The vampire merely grins wider.
"My master only needed one guardian for his new Lazarus Pit. My former brothers served his purposes in other ways..."
Goddamnit, I wish the rules for killing vampires weren't so inconsistent. Is this one of the universes where they die from sunlight or not? I guess it doesn't matter, since sunlight is a bit impractical considering our location, and I don't have any spells to mimic it. Fresh out of garlic too. Screw it, I'll set him on fire and chop his head off, that ought to do it.
Something occurs to me "Hey, wait, if both you and the guy who turned you are already immortal, what does he need with a Lazarus Pit? It's not like he needs to be brought back to life again."
The vampire chuckles "Ah, typical mortal, stumble over a miracle cure and all you can think to do with it is cure the common cold. The Lazarus Pit is a natural spring of alchemical wonder, do you truly think that bringing the recently dead back to life is all it's capable of?"
...hate to say it, but the undead monstrosity has a point there.
"It hardly matters though, my task isn't to satisfy your curiosity, and you'd have no use for the answers anyway" The vampire steps forward, swiftly pulling his sword from it's scabbard as he walks. "I think I'll start with the old man first, just to sate the worst of my thirst..."
"Better freaks than you have tried, bloodsucker!" Wildcat quips back, cracking his knuckles in anticipation "Ain't no Universal Horror reject going to put me out to pasture. Let's dance!"