The Mercer Recovery Annex appeared behind the pillars of the elevated tracks like a building Gotham had tried to forget without managing to make it disappear.
Three floors of dark brick, a newer wing added to one side, and windows protected by bars on the ground floor. Only a few white letters remained on the old sign above the entrance. MERCER RECO... ANN... The rest had been consumed by time, damp, and lack of money, three forces more reliable than most municipal departments.
Pierce slowed before the final intersection. The emergency lights remained off, but blue reflections from the vehicles already in position intermittently slid across the wet pillars. Two GCPD cars occupied the opposite sidewalk, far enough from the building not to announce an intervention to anyone watching from a window. An ambulance waited behind an old warehouse, its engine running.
I checked my weapon out of habit without drawing it from the holster. My cheekbone remained sensitive beneath the swollen skin, and my right knee protested whenever I shifted my weight too quickly, but several hours had passed since the rooftop. The pain was not incapacitating. Batman knew how to strike, better than almost every man I had fought, but he did not possess the force of a nine-millimeter bullet or that of the things Frank had already absorbed in my place.
Frank had reassembled during the drive, first as an uneven presence behind my perceptions, then with his usual cohesion. The electrical discharge had disrupted him more than it had truly injured him. Four hours of rest, calm fusion, and energy drawn from my own body had been enough to make his voice clear and his movements stable.
"You're still limping a little," he observed, with that trace of amusement he always recovered along with his voice.
"I'm protecting my knee. That is not the same thing," I replied, irritated that he was right.
"That is exactly the definition of a slight limp," he insisted, satisfied to have regained enough clarity to contradict me again.
I did not answer. He had recovered enough cohesion to begin being right about irritating things again. It was reassuring.
Pierce parked behind Gordon's car and switched off the engine. She did not immediately unfasten her seat belt. Her hands remained on the steering wheel while she studied the building through the windshield.
"Before we get out, I am going to ask this once," she said, professional even in the concern she refused to show any other way. "Are you capable of going inside, running if necessary, and holding your weapon without your arm deciding to stop at the wrong moment?"
There was nothing maternal in the phrasing. Nor was she looking for an excuse to leave me inside the car. She wanted to know whether her partner was operational before entrusting part of the intervention to him.
I moved the fingers of my left hand. The stiffness caused by the electrical discharge had almost disappeared.
"My knee hurts, my ribs are sensitive, and my face looks worse than it is," I answered, choosing an inventory over denial because she would detect any lie within a second. "I can operate."
Pierce finally turned her head toward me. She examined my face for several seconds, not to determine whether I was lying about the pain, but to judge how I was presenting it.
"And if that changes inside?" she insisted without loosening her grip on the wheel.
"I tell you," I promised.
"Preferably before you fall," she specified, with just enough dryness for me to understand she was only half joking.
"That was my intention."
She did not smile. The joke was too small to repair anything and too natural to deserve punishment.
"You stay with me," she continued, with the firmness of someone who had repeated these rules inside her head throughout the drive. "You do not pursue Batman, you do not leave the operation because you recognize something, and you tell me what you believe you are seeing before you act, except in the event of an immediate threat. Our objective is Elise Navarro."
She spoke without anger, but every rule came directly from the previous night. I had no reason to pretend otherwise.
"Understood," I said, and this time I truly meant it.
Pierce held my gaze for one additional second.
"I am going to choose to believe that word means something today," she said without mockery, as though extending credit she was not certain she owed me.
She opened her door.
I got out at the same time.
This time, I remained beside her.
Gordon waited beneath the awning of a closed store, his raincoat replaced by a shorter, more practical jacket. Bullock stood near him, a ballistic vest over his wrinkled shirt. Two uniformed officers watched the main entrance of the Mercer Annex from behind a van.
Gordon looked at my cheekbone before immediately returning his attention to the building.
"The rear team is in position. No exit observed since the first units arrived," he announced in the neutral voice he reserved for verified facts.
Pierce approached the fence. The exterior camera was positioned above a side gate. Its housing hung slightly, held by a single screw.
"Was it torn off?" she asked, already nearly certain it had not been.
Bullock shook his head.
"Opened with a tool. Power disconnected, cable intact," he said. "Whoever did it can probably repair it faster than the city department," he added, with the reluctant admiration of a cop recognizing good work from someone he was not supposed to appreciate.
Batman.
He had not destroyed the camera. He had merely removed the one thing capable of retaining usable evidence of his passage.
Pierce examined the building.
"The order?" she asked.
"Signed while you were driving," Gordon answered in the tone of someone who had anticipated the question. "Entry limited to locating Navarro and Zsasz, with seizure of items in plain view connected to the kidnapping. But even without it, we have exigent circumstances."
He recited the facts without consulting his notebook. Elise leaving the terminal with a man strongly resembling Victor Zsasz. Her phone switched off. Movement toward the East End. Property still linked to a family trust. The message from his source. The disabled camera.
Pierce nodded.
"You maintain the perimeter. Bullock covers the rear with two officers. I go in with Beaumont and Officers Keller and Ruiz. A second team follows at a distance and secures rooms after we pass. Nobody separates without orders."
Bullock looked at the building.
"And the bat?" he asked, half worried and half amused by the idea of encountering him during the intervention.
"He is not our objective," Pierce said decisively.
Her gaze briefly passed over me before returning to Gordon.
"If your men see him, they monitor his movements, but nobody abandons the search for Elise to chase him. We already have enough people to save inside this building."
Gordon tightened the strap of his vest.
"He knows she is inside. He will not do anything that deliberately places her in danger," he said with the tired certainty of someone who had already argued the point with himself several times that night.
Pierce took the time to turn her head completely toward him.
"I hope he remembers that she comes before Zsasz, before his investigation, and before his need to be the one who finds him," she said without attempting to soften a criticism directed as much at Batman as at Gordon.
Gordon did not answer immediately. He had defended Batman through much of the night, but the possible presence of a blade against a woman's throat made certainty less comfortable.
"He knows," he finally said, without much conviction.
Pierce checked the time.
"Then we will try not to depend entirely on that," she concluded.
We crossed the street.
The main entrance of the Mercer Annex was locked, but the service door beneath the disabled camera was no longer secured. The lock showed no sign of forced entry. Batman had opened it cleanly and closed it without fully engaging the latch.
Ruiz pushed the door with the tip of his weapon.
The smell reached us before we crossed the threshold. Damp, dust, mold, and a trace of old disinfectant embedded in the walls. The scent of a place that had once claimed to make people healthier before being abandoned long enough to become sick itself.
Reception occupied a large rectangular space. A laminated wooden counter separated the entrance from former offices. Chairs bolted to the floor formed two rows beneath faded posters about addiction, depression, and suicide prevention. One promised that asking for help was never weakness. A damp stain had erased half the smiling face accompanying the sentence.
The emergency lights still worked. A greenish strip ran along the ceiling, insufficient to make the place welcoming but bright enough to outline the doors and main corridors.
Pierce raised two fingers. Keller took the left, Ruiz the right. I remained slightly behind her, covering the center.
Frank separated from me.
His form emerged without difficulty, invisible to everyone else, dark uniform and gaze already fixed on the partitions.
"I'll remain within range," he said with the seriousness he always reserved for instructions he considered useful.
"No physical action except in an emergency," I repeated, more to convince myself than him.
He looked at me.
"I still remember the discussion in the restroom," he said, with the mixture of irony and reproach he reserved for our tactical disagreements.
"I prefer clarifying."
"And I prefer knowing you learned something," he answered with the quiet satisfaction of someone certain he had the last word. "We are both demanding."
He passed through the counter before I found an answer.
We advanced through the main wing. The dust retained several sets of footprints. Some probably belonged to the few maintenance workers. Others were more recent. A narrow sole, a work shoe, and the broader imprint of a boot fitted with a rigid heel.
Batman.
A new electrical cable ran down one wall to a power strip. An almost empty bottle of water rested beside a door. Its expiration date fell within the current year. Farther along, a modern bulb had been screwed into the middle of a row of dead fluorescent tubes.
The building was not merely in use.
Someone had chosen which parts of it to keep alive.
Frank passed through a door on our left, then returned abruptly.
"I hear a woman. West wing. Rapid breathing, sobbing," he announced, his voice suddenly tense with urgency.
I could not turn his perception into an order without something else.
I raised my fist and indicated the western corridor. Pierce looked at me.
"What?" she asked, alerted more by my gesture than by a sound she had not yet heard.
A faint noise did come from that direction. A broken inhalation, then a muffled sob.
"I hear someone," I said, unable to explain further without revealing Frank.
Pierce tilted her head slightly.
The sound returned.
We advanced slowly. The doors in the west wing still bore plaques reading CONSULTATION 1, CONSULTATION 2, and FAMILY ROOM. The sound appeared to come from the end of the corridor, behind a partially open door.
Pierce signaled Ruiz to cover the angle while Keller approached the handle. The sob began again, followed by a dry cough.
Then the same inhalation.
The same duration.
The same small click of the tongue at the end.
I placed one hand on Keller's shoulder before he opened the door.
"Wait," I said, the certainty that something was wrong already stronger than my ability to explain it.
Pierce turned toward me.
"What do you have?" she asked without impatience, but without detouring either.
I listened again. The sequence repeated after exactly the same interval. Same cough, same sob, same interrupted breath.
"It isn't live," I said, having mentally counted the seconds between repetitions.
Pierce remained motionless until the next return. Her gaze slid toward an old intercom grille fixed above the door.
"Recording," she confirmed.
Ruiz carefully moved around the wall. Behind the grille, a recent wire connected to a small digital player hidden inside a junction box. The recording restarted every twenty-seven seconds.
Keller tightened his jaw.
"He wanted to draw us here," he said, anger cutting through his professional calm.
"He wanted to draw whoever entered first," Pierce corrected. "Batman probably checked this wing as well. We do not assume he identified the decoy before us."
She did not need to explain why. When you heard a woman crying inside a building where a missing person might be having her throat cut, you checked. Even if you were Batman.
Pierce indicated the door.
"We open it. Slowly."
The room contained no one.
Only a sermon.
A medical mannequin had been installed inside an armchair, its legs crossed and an open magazine between its plastic hands. Around it, dozens of photographs covered the wall. Passengers on a train. A cashier behind her counter. A man sleeping on a bus. A mother holding her child's hand outside a school. Couples inside a restaurant, each absorbed by a separate phone.
Nobody looked at the camera.
Nobody knew they had been watched.
Some images were circled with a black line. Others bore a date. A few were crossed out, though I could not yet know whether that marked a victim, an abandoned person, or merely an idea that no longer interested Zsasz.
A sentence had been written on the wall in marker:
THEY CALL IT LIVING BECAUSE THEY FEAR THE WORD DEAD.
The writing was regular, almost elegant. It did not resemble a provocation left to waste police time. It was a declaration of faith.
Pierce quickly examined the photographs.
"Wide shots from the entrance, then nobody touches anything," she ordered with the professional restraint of someone refusing to let the setting have its intended effect on her. "The secondary team will secure the room."
Keller looked at the mannequin.
"He really believes he is helping these people," he said, unsettled despite his years on the job.
I stared at the photographs. The care given to their organization, the way the mannequin had been positioned, the message written high enough to be read immediately.
"Yes."
My answer came out colder than I intended.
"That is what makes him dangerous. He expects neither money, forgiveness, nor recognition. He believes he is fulfilling an obligation."
Pierce returned her attention to the corridor.
"Then let's find Elise before he finishes his work," she said, refusing to allow the scene to remain inside our minds any longer than necessary.
We left the room.
Frank was already moving beyond us. He crossed two partitions, disappeared beneath the floor, then returned through the corridor ceiling. His face was tighter.
"The plans are wrong. There is another level beneath the northern section. A staircase behind a wall near the old therapy office," he said without attempting to conceal his concern.
"Did you find Elise?" I asked, the question leaving faster than I intended.
"Three presences. One seated and nearly motionless. Another moving around her. The third moving near a wall," he answered cautiously, aware I would transform every word into certainty if I allowed myself.
Elise.
Zsasz.
Batman.
Probably.
Frank's range and the thickness of the structure did not give him a perfect view. He had perceived bodies, movements, muffled sounds. Not a complete scene.
We reached the old therapy office. The plans displayed on Pierce's tablet showed only a storage area behind the north wall.
Yet an old plaque screwed near the ceiling still bore an arrow: THERAPY B.
The arrow pointed toward a metal cabinet.
I approached without touching it. Recent marks scratched the linoleum around the cabinet's feet. An electrical cable disappeared behind it. When I placed my palm against the wall, I felt a faint current of cold air pass between two panels.
"There is an empty space behind this," I said, my palm still against the wall, more surprised than I should have been after everything we had already found inside the building.
Pierce checked the plan.
"There should not be," she said with the precise irritation of someone who disliked reality contradicting an official document.
I tapped gently with my knuckles. The sound changed in the center of the wall. Solid along the sides, hollower in the middle.
Ruiz examined the cabinet.
"It has been moved several times," he observed.
Pierce put away the tablet.
"We push it. No sudden movements," she ordered.
The four of us shifted the cabinet by several inches. A flat handle appeared behind it, almost entirely covered in paint. The concealed door opened toward us.
A staircase descended into darkness.
The air rising from it was warmer and carried the smell of metal, dust, and stagnant damp.
Pierce checked her weapon.
"The order covers the search for Navarro in every part of the building. We descend. Keller takes point to the first landing. Beaumont behind me. Ruiz closes."
She looked at me before entering the staircase.
I understood what she was checking.
I remained behind her.
The concrete steps were narrow. A metal railing ran along the right wall, cold and damp beneath my fingers. A fan turned somewhere below, producing a constant rumbling that swallowed sound.
Frank passed ahead of Keller. He descended partly through the wall, watching the spaces outside our field of vision.
"Stop," I said, sharper than intended.
Keller froze one step lower. Pierce turned her head.
Frank pointed toward the floor. An almost transparent line crossed the staircase at ankle height. I had to change my angle slightly to catch its reflection beneath the bare bulb.
"Fishing line," I murmured.
Keller crouched. The line connected to several metal cans suspended behind a pipe. If someone advanced normally, they would collapse onto the steps and alert the entire basement.
Not an explosive.
Something simpler.
The kind of trap taking advantage of an armed team's natural tendency to search for the most spectacular threat.
Ruiz disabled the line.
Farther below, a fire door appeared wedged open. Frank passed through the panel, then returned.
"Blade behind it. Fixed to the wall. It reaches face height if someone pushes the door fully open," he warned, his voice revealing that he disliked the precision of the trap as much as I did.
I then noticed the thin wire connecting the handle to a small steel rod. I showed it to Pierce. Keller cut the device before we passed through the door.
Zsasz understood the reflexes of a team.
Or he understood human beings well enough to know fear made them predictable.
The fan's rumbling still covered voices, but as we advanced through the technical corridor, words began to appear between the vibrations.
A man's voice.
Calm.
Almost gentle.
"You have carried this long enough. It is not failure to finally put down the weight."
Pierce raised her fist.
We approached the final door.
Frank passed through it.
His gaze immediately fixed on me.
"Elise in the center. Razor against her throat. Zsasz behind her. Batman on the left, near the mirror. He is waiting for an angle," he said, each word delivered with the cold precision he reserved for situations where one mistake from me could cost a life.
I relayed only what I could justify.
"A male voice. He is speaking to someone. We assume Elise is inside the room," I said, carefully choosing what I could say without revealing how I knew.
Pierce nodded. She signaled Keller and Ruiz to remain in cover near the corridor, then gently placed one hand on the handle.
The door was unlocked.
Zsasz knew we were coming.
The group therapy room was larger than I expected. Four pillars supported the low ceiling. Chairs still formed a circle around a metal table. An old observation mirror occupied almost the entire west wall, blackened by the absence of light behind it. Pipes ran across the ceiling between several fluorescent tubes, only every second one working.
Elise Navarro sat at the center of the room.
Her red coat remained closed. Her bag rested beside the chair, carefully positioned as though she were waiting for an appointment to begin. An empty cup had been placed between her hands, which were tied beneath the armrests. Her ankles were secured to the chair legs with white restraints.
A small cut crossed her left forearm.
A thin stream of blood had run to her wrist.
Victor Zsasz stood behind her.
He was thinner than in the photographs, but nothing about his body appeared weak. His shoulders and arms formed lean, maintained lines. He wore dark trousers, work boots, and a white tank top stained with sweat, dust, and dried blood. Scars covered his bare arms in uneven groups of five, some almost white, others thick and still red.
In his right hand, he held a straight razor against Elise's throat.
Batman stood near the mirror, half absorbed by shadow. He had reached the room before us but had not found an opening that would not immediately place the victim in danger.
Elise's eyes met mine, then Pierce's. Her breathing accelerated. The blade pressed slightly into her skin.
Zsasz did not look at us like intruders.
His expression carried deep, almost compassionate sadness.
"Do not come closer," he said softly, with the infinite patience of a man certain he had all the time in the world. "She has already been afraid for too long. You would only prolong what she is enduring."
Pierce kept her weapon pointed toward the ground, visible but not aimed directly at him.
"My name is Naomi Pierce," she said, her voice as even as if she were negotiating any other dispute. "The woman in front of you is Elise Navarro. Move the razor away from her throat, and we can speak without her risking death during the conversation."
Zsasz lowered his eyes toward Elise. His face relaxed slightly, like a doctor observing an agitated patient.
"You see a woman who must be saved. I see a woman exhausted by repeating the same actions, carrying the same expectations, and pretending tomorrow will give meaning to yesterday. She does not know it yet. That is why I must help her."
Elise inhaled too quickly.
"I don't want to die."
Her voice broke on the final word.
Zsasz leaned slightly toward her, with the infuriating gentleness of a preacher convinced he possessed the only truth that mattered.
"Fear belongs to the body. It always speaks louder when silence approaches. You do not need to obey it."
Pierce advanced half a step.
"Elise, look at me," she said, with quiet authority leaving no room for doubt. "Not him. Me."
Elise's gaze trembled before fixing on her.
"You are alive. You are afraid because you want to remain alive. Nothing in what you feel proves he is right. It proves only that you are still here with us."
Zsasz slowly raised his head.
"You are asking her to return to her exhaustion because her fear reassures you," he said with the quiet certainty of someone who genuinely believed he was exposing a lie.
"I am asking her to choose for herself what she wants to do with her life," Pierce replied without raising her voice.
"Choices are the most elegant bars of the cage. She was taught to call that freedom."
His voice contained no anger. He was not even trying to convince Pierce so he could escape. He preached because he believed we all suffered from the same illness and he alone had accepted the cure.
I studied his posture. Slightly more weight on his right leg. Left shoulder held back. A second weapon might be hidden inside his sleeve or near his hip.
Batman remained motionless near the mirror.
Frank moved along the wall behind Zsasz.
Invisible.
Silent.
In position.
Pierce continued speaking to Elise.
"Can you feel your feet?"
The question seemed to surprise Zsasz. He looked at the restraints.
Elise swallowed with difficulty.
"Yes."
"Both?"
"Yes."
"Can you move your toes?"
Elise made an almost imperceptible movement inside her shoes.
"A little."
Pierce nodded as though she were only assessing blood circulation.
"Good. Keep both soles against the floor. Do not push. Not yet."
Zsasz looked back at her.
"You are preparing her return to suffering the way others prepare a recovery."
"I am making sure she has not lost sensation in her legs. You tied her ankles too tightly."
Zsasz lowered his eyes toward the restraints. A slight irritation crossed his face, not because she accused him of cruelty, but because she suggested he might have caused Elise unnecessary pain.
The reaction confirmed something important.
He wanted to be perceived as gentle.
As necessary.
As a man taking upon himself a terrible duty to spare others from the awareness of fulfilling it.
I decided to keep him in that position.
"You once believed you owned something," I said, deliberately pulling him out of his role as preacher and returning him to the man he had been.
His gaze turned toward me.
"A company, a fortune, a family. Then your parents died, your company collapsed, and you lost everything you believed you had built. You decided your pain explained everyone's life."
The razor did not move, but his hand tightened slightly.
"I lost nothing."
His voice remained calm.
"You can only lose what belongs to you. My parents, my money, the names on buildings, and the men who stood when I entered a room were only attachments. They helped me avoid seeing."
"And the Iceberg Lounge opened your eyes?" I asked, deliberately searching for the fracture in his speech.
A change crossed his face.
Not hatred.
Almost gratitude.
"Oswald Cobblepot provided the final service money could still purchase. He freed me from the illusion that it represented protection. Every wager stripped away another layer of lies. At the end, nothing remained between me and the truth."
"Then you went to the bridge," I said directly, refusing to give him the comfort of euphemism.
Elise kept her eyes on Pierce. Her breathing remained rapid, but more regular.
Zsasz tilted his head slightly.
"I still believed my death had to be a choice. Even then, I remained imprisoned by pride."
"Howard Bell attacked you," I said, closely watching how he reacted to the specific name.
The name produced the first genuine emotion in his gaze. Not remorse. A form of tenderness.
"He was hungry. He was afraid. He held a knife because he had been taught violence could push death away for several hours. When I looked at him, I saw we were identical. Two bodies standing above a void, pretending the direction of the fall mattered."
"You killed him."
"I freed him."
The sentence came without hesitation.
"He stopped me from jumping. I offered him what he did not possess the strength to ask for. He was the first who no longer needed to struggle."
Elise closed her eyes.
Pierce spoke immediately, her voice suddenly more urgent.
"Open them, Elise. Stay with me."
She obeyed.
Zsasz gently placed his thumb against the cut on her forearm.
"She has nothing to fear from me," he said, with a tenderness that made the sentence more frightening than a direct threat. "She has already received her promise."
Pierce looked at the cut, then at the scars on Zsasz's arms.
"What promise?" she asked, her voice perfectly stable despite what she had clearly just understood.
"An honest union."
He smiled slightly at Elise, without joy or visible threat.
"The living swear to remain together while knowing time will separate them. They call it love because they cannot bear admitting every promise is temporary. The blade does not lie. It opens a passage neither fear nor time can close."
His thumb moved across one of his own scars.
"Each of them left me a wedding band. I offered one in return. They are no longer alone. I carry them, and when a scar pulls beneath my skin, I know they still speak to me."
The secondary cuts.
Those the first medical examiners had classified as defensive wounds, hesitation marks, or accidents.
They were none of those things.
They were part of the ceremony.
Pierce understood at the same moment. Her gaze fixed for a fraction of a second on Elise's forearm, then returned to her face.
"Elise, can you still feel both feet?"
"Yes."
"Good. Slowly draw your left foot toward you. Not much. Only enough for your heel to be beneath the edge of the chair."
Zsasz watched the movement.
"You want her to fall," he said, his voice suddenly losing all gentleness.
The razor tightened.
A thin red line appeared across Elise's neck.
Keller moved behind us. Pierce raised one hand slightly without taking her eyes off Zsasz.
"I want to prevent her from losing the use of her leg," she answered steadily. "You said you wanted to spare her suffering. The restraints are cutting off her circulation."
Zsasz looked at her ankles. He wanted to believe Pierce because the accusation directly touched the image he held of himself.
Elise trembled.
Pierce continued, her voice softer.
"You are doing exactly what you need to do. You are listening to me, you are breathing, and you are still here with us. Nobody in this room considers you dead."
The final word reached Zsasz.
His gaze rose toward Pierce with the wounded expression of someone convinced he had been unfairly misunderstood.
"She was dead before I met her. At the terminal, she repeated the same movements, checked the same time, spoke about the same work and the same return home. She was already imprisoned inside tomorrow. I was the first person to ask whether she truly wanted to continue."
"You did not let her answer," I said, feeling that I had found the fracture he did not want to reveal.
Zsasz turned farther toward me.
The movement was slight, but the razor changed angle.
"She would have answered with the words she was taught," he replied.
"Then why do you need her to look at you?" I asked.
He froze.
I continued before he could return his attention to Elise.
"If she is already dead, if her choice has no value, and if you truly seek only to free her, why have you been speaking to her this entire time? Why did you place the chair at the center of the room? Why do you need her to understand what you are doing?"
His expression lost some of its gentleness.
Not because I had insulted him.
Because I had touched the need hidden beneath his sermon.
He did not only want to kill.
He wanted recognition as a savior.
"Because nobody should cross the final threshold alone," he answered.
"No. Because you need a witness," I said, with the quiet certainty that I had finally reached what he refused to acknowledge.
His hand tightened.
Pierce inhaled.
"Elise."
The victim fixed her gaze on her.
Pierce said her name a second time.
"Elise."
She pushed with her legs.
The chair tipped toward the left.
The movement pulled her shoulder and forced Zsasz to shift his weight to keep the blade against her throat.
Batman threw his batarang.
The projectile struck Zsasz's wrist with a dry crack. The razor left Elise's skin and spun through the air.
Frank materialized behind him at the same moment.
His foot struck Zsasz in the lower back, just above the hip.
The combination of the batarang, the chair's movement, and the invisible blow threw Zsasz forward. He fell to his knees, his hands reaching toward the floor.
Pierce rushed toward Elise.
She looked at neither Batman nor Zsasz. She seized the back of the chair while Keller grabbed one armrest. Together, they pulled Elise out of the center of the room.
Batman moved toward Zsasz.
I remained one second behind.
That position gave me a wider view than his.
Zsasz was on his knees, leaning forward. His right hand touched the floor. The left dropped toward his boot.
A black handle appeared.
The knife emerged by several inches.
Pierce and Elise remained within range of one desperate movement. Batman approached from the side, close enough to become a target himself.
I drew my weapon.
I did not have time to construct a perfect shot. Zsasz's shoulder was the only mass clearly visible without Pierce, Elise, or Batman in the line. I placed the front sight on the upper section of his torso.
"Drop the knife!" I shouted, already knowing he would not obey.
He continued drawing the blade.
I pulled the trigger.
The gunshot filled the room.
The bullet struck Zsasz in the left shoulder. His body turned beneath the impact, and the knife fell to the floor with a metallic sound.
Batman struck him before he could rise.
He controlled the uninjured arm, placed one knee between his shoulder blades, and moved his wounded hand away from any potential weapon.
I approached, pushed the knife out of reach with my foot, and removed my handcuffs.
Zsasz's white tank top quickly filled with a new red stain. He did not scream. His breathing had shortened, but his face retained a strange serenity.
"You were afraid," he murmured, as though offering me a compliment.
I seized his right wrist.
"Hands behind your back," I ordered, refusing to give him any reaction.
"You believed they would die, and for one moment you understood that fear decides in your place."
I closed the first cuff.
"Save your sermon for the interview," I said, my voice harder than I intended.
"I do not preach for myself," he replied, with regret that appeared almost sincere.
Batman held his shoulder against the floor while I recovered the second wrist. The movement caused more blood to spread across the tank top.
I locked the handcuffs and checked the double lock.
"That is always what preachers say," I replied.
Zsasz turned his head slightly toward me. His gaze contained neither hatred nor defiance.
Only pity.
Behind us, Pierce and Keller had returned the chair upright. Ruiz cut Elise's restraints without undoing the knots, preserving enough length for the technicians to analyze them. Elise now cried without trying to stop herself.
Pierce placed both hands around her face.
"Look at me," she said, with a gentleness sharply contrasting with the authority she had used against Zsasz. "The razor is gone. He cannot touch you anymore. You are leaving this room."
Elise tried to look toward Zsasz.
Pierce moved to block her view.
"Not him. Me. You did exactly what I asked. You created the opening. You helped us get you out."
"I made him fall?" Elise asked, her voice still trembling, visibly searching for something concrete to hold.
"You contributed to his fall," Pierce answered, choosing every word carefully.
The phrasing was accurate.
Not complete.
Frank had already disappeared into the wall again, ending his materialization before anyone could notice anything beyond Zsasz's sudden violent movement.
Batman stood when two police officers took his place over the suspect. His gaze passed over me, then Zsasz, and finally Elise.
No comment about the rooftop.
No word about Bruce Wayne.
The emergency had closed that space between us.
Pierce returned to the prisoner after entrusting Elise to Ruiz.
"Victor Elias Zsasz, you are under arrest for kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, assault with a weapon, and attempted murder. Additional charges may be added after examination of this scene and the previous cases."
She read his rights in a clear voice, ensuring he appeared sufficiently conscious despite the gunshot.
Zsasz watched her as though genuinely regretting her failure to understand.
"You are sending her back into her exhaustion. She will thank you because she is afraid to recognize what you denied her."
Pierce asked no question.
"Do you understand your rights?"
"I understand you call prolonging the illness justice."
"That is not an answer."
"Yes. I understand them."
She instructed the officers to begin the search.
They found a thin blade sewn into the lining of his trousers, a small knife attached beneath his belt, and an empty sheath fastened to his ankle. His right boot contained the knife I had seen. The left concealed another, shorter blade.
Zsasz had arranged them across his body like other people carried a wallet or keys.
The officers checked his clothing, sleeves, shoes, and hair. One quickly passed a light in front of his mouth. Zsasz opened his lips wide enough to reveal teeth stained with blood.
I noticed he kept his jaw slightly clenched when he closed it.
I attributed it to pain.
That mistake almost cost a life.
Batman had moved back toward the observation mirror. When I turned again, the shadow was empty.
He had left without announcement, without sharing what he had seen before we arrived, and without waiting for anyone to ask him to remain for the report.
Part of me wanted to follow him.
The warrant had not disappeared. The exit window probably was not far. With Frank, I could have checked the technical corridor within seconds.
Elise still sobbed near the door. Zsasz bled between two police officers. My holster had just held the weapon with which I shot a federal suspect, and the entire room needed to be documented before anyone turned the truth into a more comfortable version.
I remained.
Pierce looked up when Batman disappeared. Her gaze followed mine toward the corridor.
She said nothing.
She had seen the choice.
That was enough for now.
---
The technicians began by photographing the room before any more furniture was moved. Every blade received a number. The straight razor that had threatened Elise was recovered near the wall, its handle already bearing a small trace of blood.
The batarang had disappeared.
Batman had recovered it before leaving the room or while everyone watched Zsasz's wound. Another absence to record inside a scene already containing too many things that could not be cleanly explained.
Pierce insisted that the report mention the presence of a masked third party already at the location when we arrived. Gordon, when he joined us in the basement, did not attempt to convince her otherwise.
He examined the overturned chair, the blood on the floor, and the probable trajectory of my bullet.
"He disarmed the razor?" he asked.
"Yes," Pierce answered. "Then Zsasz drew a knife from his boot. Beaumont fired once."
Gordon examined the angle between Zsasz's position and Elise's.
"Clear line?"
"The only one," I answered. "Batman was entering from the right. Pierce and Navarro were on the left. The shoulder was the exposed section with nobody behind it."
Gordon nodded.
He did not congratulate me. A police shooting should not become a social achievement before the bullet had even been removed from the suspect.
"Your weapon will be taken under standard protocol," he said without apparent criticism.
"I know," I answered, and the action that followed felt more difficult than I expected.
I removed the magazine, ejected the cartridge from the chamber, and handed everything to the designated officer. He placed the weapon inside an evidence bag after recording its condition.
The action left me strangely naked.
Not vulnerable.
Incomplete.
Elise was taken into an old consultation room converted into a temporary treatment area. Paramedics examined the cut on her throat, the marks around her wrists, and the ritual incision on her forearm.
Pierce remained with her.
I stood several meters away, close enough to hear if she requested something, far enough not to turn her first moment of safety into another interview.
Elise spoke in fragments. Zsasz approached her at the terminal holding out a small pouch he claimed to have found near her bag. He read the name of her employer from her badge and claimed to know a former colleague at the agency.
He had not been aggressive.
He asked whether she liked her job.
Then whether she was happy.
Elise thought she had met a strange man, perhaps lonely. She followed him toward a secondary exit because he claimed to have left the genuinely lost object in his car.
The blade appeared only after they left the range of the main cameras.
"I should have understood," she murmured.
Pierce sat in front of her, not above her.
"No," she said firmly. "You should have been able to speak to a stranger without him kidnapping you. He chose to lie and threaten you. That is not a mistake you made."
Elise looked at the bandage around her forearm.
"He said he wanted to help me," she said, almost searching for a defense of the man who had terrorized her.
"I know."
"He believed it," she insisted.
"Yes," Pierce eventually said. "I think he believed it. That does not make what he did less real."
She then explained what would happen. The hospital, a call to someone close to her, the possibility of an interview later, with no obligation to immediately answer every question. Elise nodded without appearing to retain everything.
Pierce did not force her.
There would be time for the report.
The first task was returning something Zsasz had tried to take from her.
The right to choose the pace.
---
Zsasz was placed on a stretcher inside the former reception area.
His shoulder continued bleeding despite the pressure dressing. The bullet had probably remained in the tissue or struck his shoulder blade before deflecting. The team physician considered the wound serious but stable.
His wrists remained cuffed in front to allow access to the injured shoulder. A short chain connected the handcuffs to the stretcher frame. His ankles were restrained separately.
Two police officers stood less than one meter away.
After the blades discovered on him, nobody treated him like an ordinary patient.
It was not enough.
A paramedic named Colin Reeves approached carrying a new dressing. He needed to check circulation in the left arm and reinforce the bandage before transport.
Zsasz appeared calm. His face had paled, but his breathing remained controlled.
"Is Elise suffering?" he asked, with concern that seemed almost genuine.
Reeves did not answer. He cut the edge of the white tank top around the wound to prevent the fabric from sticking to the blood.
Zsasz tilted his head slightly.
"I did not want her to be afraid. Fear makes the passage more difficult."
"Keep your head straight," Reeves said. "Do not move."
I stood several steps away near Pierce and Gordon when I saw Zsasz's jaw move.
A tiny shift.
Something passed between his tongue and cheek.
The razor fragment appeared between his lips.
I understood a fraction of a second too late.
He allowed it to drop into his palm, trapped it between two fingers, and waited for Reeves to lean closer to inspect the rear of the dressing.
Then he struck.
The movement was short.
Almost gentle.
The blade crossed the side of the paramedic's neck.
Reeves stepped back with a strangled noise. Blood erupted between his fingers when he brought both hands to his throat.
For one second, the entire reception area froze.
Zsasz looked at the man the way he had looked at Elise.
With compassion.
"Do not struggle," he murmured. "I know you are afraid. It will pass."
I threw myself onto his arm.
My hand closed around his wrist against the stretcher frame. Frank reinforced my grip before he could strike again.
One officer tore the razor fragment from his fingers.
Pierce was already beside Reeves.
She seized a thick dressing from the tray and pressed it against the wound while a second paramedic supported his colleague.
"Pressure here. Hard. Do not release."
Reeves tried to breathe. The wet sound emerging from his throat erased every secondary noise in the room.
"Stay with me," Pierce ordered. "Look at me. You are still breathing. We are moving you now."
The second crew brought over a stretcher. Gordon pushed back the police officers beginning to gather around.
"Give them room!"
Reeves was transferred within seconds, a medical hand maintaining compression against his neck. Blood had run down his uniform and onto the reception floor.
He was still conscious when they pushed him toward the ambulance.
I did not know whether that would be enough.
Zsasz no longer resisted.
His gaze followed the stretcher with the serenity of a priest who had completed a rite.
I pressed his wrist harder against the metal.
"You were handcuffed, searched, and wounded," I said, unable to hide my anger. "He was trying to treat you."
Zsasz turned his eyes toward me.
"He was close enough for me to see his exhaustion," he answered, unshaken despite the bullet in his shoulder. "He was already carrying too many dead people."
My grip tightened.
Frank immediately spoke inside my mind.
"Malcolm."
One word.
Not an order.
A reminder.
I loosened my grip enough not to crush Zsasz's joint.
The officers added a second set of restraints. His arms were secured separately to the frame. A rigid facial shield was brought to limit access to his mouth, and the new search lasted much longer than the first.
Between his cheek and gum, they found a small strip of fabric that had probably protected his mouth from the blade. He had prepared the hiding place before we even arrived.
The blade was not an improvisation.
He had planned to remain dangerous after arrest.
Gordon looked at Reeves's blood on the floor.
"Arkham," he said, as though the word alone summarized everything he thought about the situation.
Pierce slowly stood. Her hands were stained despite the gloves.
"First, a secured hospital unit. Then psychiatric assessment, appearance before a judge, and a forensic decision," she stated methodically despite the blood on her gloves.
"An ordinary prison will not hold him," Gordon objected.
"I am not claiming otherwise. But we are not deciding his confinement in a lobby with blood on our shoes."
Gordon passed one hand over his face.
"He just cut a paramedic's throat while restrained on a stretcher," he said, his patience clearly exhausted.
"And that will add a fully documented charge, with witnesses, a recovered weapon, and images. We are going to use what he just did to keep him confined. Not invent a procedure because he frightens us."
Gordon's gaze dropped toward Zsasz.
"He does not frighten me."
I looked at the razor fragment inside its transparent bag.
"He should," I said.
Gordon did not answer.
Zsasz smiled slightly behind the shield being fitted over his face.
---
Pierce asked me to follow her into a former administrative office before Zsasz's departure.
The room contained only a table, two mismatched chairs, and a cabinet with its doors hanging open. A narrow window overlooked the rear courtyard. The ambulance lights cast regular red flashes through it.
Pierce closed the door.
Her movements were calm, but she had not yet removed the bloodstained gloves. She looked at them as though only now noticing their condition, then slowly removed them before discarding them inside a medical bag.
I remained standing near the table.
"Reeves?" I asked, the question leaving before I had even fully closed the door.
"Alive when they left. The blade missed the main carotid artery or did not completely open it. They cannot promise anything until the hospital."
She wiped a small trace of blood from her wrist.
"That is not why I brought you here," she said, and I immediately knew the rest of the conversation would be more difficult than the report on Reeves.
I already knew what was coming.
Frank materialized behind her, invisible, his face closed.
Pierce placed both hands on the table.
"When Batman threw his projectile, it struck Zsasz's right wrist. Elise was falling toward the left. The movement should have made him turn in place or step backward."
She looked up at me.
"He was thrown forward as though someone struck him in the back."
I did not answer.
"No police officer was behind him. Neither was Batman. And you were several meters away."
Her voice contained neither accusation nor wonder. She reconstructed a scene exactly as she would a bullet trajectory or a contradictory statement.
"I replayed the movement three times in my head while the technicians worked. The batarang is not enough. Elise's fall is not enough. So I am asking you directly. What struck Zsasz?"
I could have spoken about poor footing.
The chair's movement.
Surprise.
She had already considered those answers. I could see it in the way she waited without offering a convenient escape.
On the rooftop, she had asked me to show that her presence mattered before the end of an urgent decision.
Inside the basement, she built the rescue. She trusted my shot. She compressed a paramedic's throat while blood passed between her fingers.
Another evasion would not only protect Frank.
It would destroy what we had just begun to rebuild.
I took the risk.
"Me," I said, and the word felt both too simple and too heavy.
Pierce remained motionless.
"You were several meters away," she repeated, as though needing to hear it aloud to believe it.
"I know."
Her gaze changed slightly. Not fear. More intense concentration.
"Explain," she said without raising her voice, but without allowing me an escape either.
Frank looked toward the floor.
I chose every word carefully.
"I have an ability. Limited. I can exert force at short range without direct contact. A push, sometimes a sudden displacement."
Pierce stared at me.
"Telekinesis," she said, as though testing the word to see whether it could stand.
"That is the simplest term."
It was not entirely false.
Frank had applied physical force with no visible contact between my body and Zsasz. The lie lay in the source, not the effect.
Pierce stepped back half a pace and took hold of the nearest chair. She did not sit immediately. Her hand remained on the backrest.
"You are telling me you have a power," she said, her voice strangely flat, as though deliberately restraining every stronger reaction.
"Minor," I minimized.
"Do not reduce what you just told me before I have had time to understand it."
Her reaction made me close my mouth.
She finally sat.
"For how long?" she asked.
"Several years."
"Does the Bureau know?" she asked methodically, as though already compiling a list of everything she needed to verify.
"No."
"Did the New York police know?"
"No."
"Have you used it during operations?"
I looked toward the window.
"Yes," I admitted, unable to hold her gaze for that answer.
Pierce inhaled slowly.
"How many times?"
"I did not count them in that way. Not to manufacture an arrest or create evidence. To prevent someone from firing, move a threat, create an opportunity to save someone."
"You understand that distinction would not necessarily satisfy Internal Affairs?" she asked, almost regretfully.
"Yes."
"You physically influenced scenes without reporting it," she stated.
"Yes."
"And the reports?" she insisted.
"They describe what I personally did and what others could observe. I have never invented a weapon, moved evidence to make it more incriminating, or lied under oath about an observation."
Pierce pressed her lips together.
"What would you have written today?" she asked. "That Zsasz was destabilized by the projectile and the falling chair?"
"Both contributed."
"That is not what I asked," she interrupted.
I held her gaze.
"I would have written that he lost balance during the coordinated action," I admitted.
"Without specifying why," she said, though it was not truly a question.
"Without revealing something I cannot place inside a report without losing all control over my life."
She remained silent.
Frank stood near the cabinet with his arms crossed. He did not appear angry. Only concerned. The secret concerned him directly, even though I had replaced his existence with a simpler explanation.
Pierce passed one hand over her forehead.
"Why tell me now?" she asked, more tired than angry.
"Because you saw the official explanation was insufficient. Because you asked me directly. And because after the rooftop, you had every reason to believe I would continue deciding alone what my partner had the right to know."
She raised her eyes.
"You are not telling me everything," she said, with the quiet certainty of someone who knew how to recognize an incomplete confession.
There was no hesitation in the sentence.
I did not insult her with a denial.
"No."
"Telekinesis may not explain everything," she insisted.
"It explains Zsasz's fall."
"And the rest?" she repeated.
"The rest does not directly affect today's intervention."
Pierce gave a short laugh without amusement.
"You are still choosing the limits."
"Yes. But this time I am telling you they exist."
She stood and walked toward the window. In the courtyard, police officers finished preparing Zsasz's convoy.
"I should report this," she said, looking through the window rather than at me.
"I know."
"This is not only an administrative obligation. The Bureau needs to know about abilities that may affect an operation. My partners do not have the right to decide alone that an invisible force can enter a room without anyone knowing it exists."
"I know."
She turned abruptly.
"Stop saying you know as though that makes my decision easier," she snapped, the first genuine crack of irritation entering her voice.
I became silent.
Pierce placed both hands on her hips.
"What exactly are you asking me?"
"Not to tell anyone," I said, knowing how unfair the request was.
"Price?"
"No."
"Management?"
"No."
"Even in a sealed report?"
"No," I repeated, each refusal making my request harder to justify even to myself.
She looked at me as though the word might change if she waited long enough.
"Do you understand the position this places me in?" she asked.
"Yes," I said, and meant it.
Her expression hardened.
I corrected myself before she could criticize the answer.
"You just learned your partner possesses an undeclared ability he used during an operation. If you keep the secret, you risk your own career and responsibility. If you reveal it, you do what your position requires, but you hand me to an institution that will no longer see me only as an agent."
Pierce did not move.
I continued.
"They will examine every arrest of my career, including those where this ability played no part. They will contact my family. They will request tests, assessments, and demonstrations. I will stop being Malcolm Beaumont, FBI agent. I will become a file about what a human being can do from a distance."
Frank raised his eyes toward me.
"And I cannot guarantee the information will remain inside the Bureau. Not in a world where private laboratories, military departments, and people wealthy enough to purchase secrets already exist."
Pierce looked toward the closed door.
"Does your family know?" she asked.
"Part of it. Not everything."
"And your former partner?" she insisted.
"No."
She then understood what the answer represented.
"You trust me more than people you worked with for years?"
"I trust you enough to give you a dangerous truth because you asked the correct question and continuing to lie entirely would have destroyed our partnership. That is not the same thing as comfortable trust."
Pierce lowered her eyes.
"At least that is honest," she said, with something almost resembling relief.
She walked several steps through the room, then stopped in front of me.
"Show me," she said.
Frank straightened.
I looked around us. A stapler rested on the table.
I extended one hand slightly, more to give Pierce a visual focus than from necessity.
Frank pushed the object with his fingertips.
The stapler slid approximately six inches across the table.
Pierce stepped back half a pace.
Not from fear.
From reflex.
Her gaze moved from the object to my hand.
"Can you do more?" she asked, curiosity momentarily overcoming concern.
"Yes, but not indefinitely. The range is short. Stronger pushes exhaust me. I cannot lift a vehicle, control ten objects at once, or stop a bullet in flight."
Frank tilted his head slightly.
The phrasing was close enough to our limits to be useful without exposing him.
Pierce touched the stapler.
"And today?" she asked.
"I pushed Zsasz forward when Batman disarmed him."
"You could make him fall without touching him," she stated.
"Yes."
"And could you have moved the knife from his boot?"
The question surprised me.
"Perhaps. Not quickly enough to be certain he would not reach it anyway. The shot was more immediate and controllable from the angle I had."
Pierce slowly nodded. She was already analyzing the ability as an operational tool with limitations and risks rather than a miracle.
"These are my conditions," she announced, recovering her full professional seriousness.
I did not answer.
"You warn me before an operation if you think you may need to use it. Not in front of the entire team. Me. You never manufacture evidence, never move an object to make it appear incriminating, and never testify that you physically observed something only this power revealed."
"Agreed."
"If its use could endanger an agent, witness, or victim, I decide whether the team continues."
That condition was more difficult.
"Depending on the situation," I attempted.
Pierce immediately shook her head.
"No. You just asked me to risk my career to keep your secret. You cannot simultaneously retain an absolute right of decision in the field."
I tightened my jaw.
She was right.
It was becoming an irritating pattern.
"Agreed. If the situation allows it, I inform you and you decide for the team. In the event of an immediate threat, I act to protect a life."
"Like any other use of force," she summarized.
"Yes."
Pierce watched me for a long time.
"I will not place it inside my report. The fall will be attributed to the combined actions of Elise, Batman's projectile, and Zsasz's loss of balance. That is not the complete truth, but it is not a complete fabrication."
She moved toward the door, then stopped.
"Do not make me regret this."
The sentence could have sounded like a threat.
It sounded more like a confession.
"I will do everything to make certain you don't."
"That is not a promise you can guarantee."
"No."
She placed her hand on the handle.
"Then at least make sure it does not become a stupid decision."
Pierce opened the door.
Frank waited until she had left before speaking.
"Minor telekinesis," he repeated, with a trace of irony unable to completely conceal his concern.
I looked at the stapler.
"It is easier to explain than a ghost reincarnated inside the body of his own past."
"I am not criticizing the choice," he said.
He approached the table.
"I am only realizing I have officially become a stapler movement."
"You also put a serial killer on his knees," I reminded him.
"Nobody will include that in the brochure."
His humor did not completely hide his concern.
"Are you angry with me?" I asked, the question costing more than I expected.
Frank remained silent for a moment.
"You did not give her my name. You gave her one piece of what we can do because continuing to hide everything had become dangerous. I do not know yet whether it was the correct decision."
He looked at the door through which Pierce had left.
"But she ran toward Elise without hesitation, and she put her hands on that paramedic's throat while everyone else was still trying to understand. There are worse people to trust with a piece of truth."
It was not enthusiastic approval.
It was worth more.
---
Zsasz left the Mercer Annex under reinforced escort.
A rigid shield covered his mouth and lower face. His arms were separately immobilized, his ankles restrained, and two armed police officers rode inside the medical vehicle.
His white tank top was now stained with his own blood, Reeves's blood, and the dust of the basement. He looked less like a preacher than a man dragged from the ruins of his own temple.
It changed nothing in his gaze.
When the stretcher passed near me, he turned his head slightly.
His eyes moved down toward my badge.
"You have spent your life learning how to keep the dead among you," he said behind the shield. His voice was muffled but still soft. "One day, you will become tired of struggling. On that day, you will understand I was never your enemy."
I did not give him the answer he wanted.
I checked the restraints around his wrists and asked the nearest police officer to inspect the facial shield one final time.
The doors closed.
The ambulance drove away beneath the elevated tracks.
Pierce came to stand beside me. She had changed her shirt after the attack on Reeves, but a small dark stain remained near her sleeve.
"The warrant against Batman remains active," she said.
I looked toward the street where he had disappeared.
"Yes."
"You saw him leave," she stated.
"Yes."
"And you remained."
I turned my head toward her.
Her expression carried no particular satisfaction. She was recording a fact, as she had recorded others throughout the day.
"Elise was still restrained. Zsasz needed to be secured. I had shot a suspect, and the scene needed to be preserved."
"All of those things were also true on the roof, in another form."
"I know."
Pierce raised one eyebrow slightly.
I corrected myself before she needed to ask.
"On the roof, I treated the warrant as though it canceled every other priority. Today, it had not disappeared. It was simply behind Elise, Zsasz, and the case."
She looked at the technicians entering the building with their cases.
"My report on the roof is not going to disappear either," she said.
"I am not asking it to."
"Good."
She kept her eyes on the Mercer Annex.
"One good decision does not erase a bad one."
"No. But it can prevent the next."
Pierce finally turned her head toward me.
"We'll see."
This time, the words did not resemble a condemnation.
More like a door left partially open.
---
It was almost eleven when I returned to my hotel room.
The Bureau had taken my weapon for the standard examination following the shooting. I carried a replacement issued by the local office, same model, same weight, no familiar marks on the grip. I placed it on the bedside table with my badge and telephone.
My white trench coat went over the back of a chair. Laurie would probably sense through the phone that I had damaged it again before I found the courage to tell her about the bullet, dust, blood, and fight on a roof.
I removed my jacket, loosened my tie, and checked the bathroom.
Empty.
The window.
Locked.
The closet.
Also empty, except for two plastic hangers that struck together when I opened it.
Frank appeared near the bed. His cohesion was almost perfect despite the blow delivered to Zsasz. A materialization lasting several seconds cost him little when he had several hours to recover.
"Are you going to tell her about the trench coat?" he asked with the mischievous curiosity he always displayed when Laurie was involved.
"I planned to wait until I was outside physical range."
"She is five foot three."
"Her height is not what concerns me."
Frank looked at the dark stain on the sleeve.
"She is going to ask whether you fought another man dressed like an animal," he predicted.
"Technically, Zsasz was not wearing a costume."
"I meant Batman."
I sat on the edge of the bed and removed my shoes. My knee was stiff but still stable. The events at the Mercer Annex had left more fatigue than new injuries.
"Pierce knows about the telekinesis," I said once I was seated.
"Pierce knows what she believes is telekinesis," Frank corrected.
"That is already a great deal."
"Yes."
He remained silent for several seconds.
"Do you trust her?" he asked after the silence.
I looked at the badge on the table.
"Enough to have taken the risk. Not enough to be unafraid I did."
Frank nodded.
"That is probably the normal form of trust," he observed.
"I never liked normal forms."
"You chose the wrong city to search for them."
The curtain moved.
Barely.
A breath of air passed through the room.
I raised my head.
The window I had checked several minutes earlier was no longer completely closed. The latch remained in position, but the frame had shifted just enough to allow a thin current of air inside.
Frank turned toward the dark corner near the wall.
A silhouette slowly separated from the shadows.
The black cape.
The ears of the mask.
Batman stood between the window and the only section of the room the bedside lamp did not fully illuminate.
I was not surprised he had found the hotel.
I was mostly irritated he had chosen to enter through the window after everything we had said about warrants, private property, and the right to decide alone where he could go.
My hand moved closer to the weapon on the table.
Batman stepped out of the shadows.
"We need to talk."