Nightwing

April Tovar walked home singing the new Pink song to herself in her head. She had walked home from her classes at Bludhaven Community College the same way every night for nearly a year. Tonight would have been a good night to take a detour.

April crossed the small bridge in the park that led to the front gate of her apartment complex. A small rabbit startled her by bounding from the bushes to her right and crossed in front of her at a heart-pounding rate. “Get a hold of yourself, April,” she said out loud. April shook her head and started to walk again when she heard a footstep behind her.

April whirled around to see a man standing right behind her on the edge of the bridge, his body and face were scarred horribly, and he held a large knife in his right hand. “Hello my dear,” he said and raised the knife up high over his head. “So good to see you.”

The knife came down and plunged deep into April’s chest; she barely made a scream as she felt her life leave her body. Mr. Zsasz smiled as he held her head in his left hand as she died; he kissed her forehead and laid her on the cold concrete sidewalk in the park. He raised his knife up again and made a slash across his abdomen, marking yet another kill, and the end to his excitement for the night. Zsasz was a man who could never feel any emotion unless he was in the midst of a kill; then and only then could he feel “something”.

Zsasz walked off with April’s purse, looking for her keys. He would stay the night in her apartment and plan the things he would do to Nightwing when he was ready for his revenge.

“How many days off?” Barbara Gordon asked again.

“Eight more days, then I go back to patrol,” said a smiling Dick Grayson. He stood in Babs’ doorway with a fist full of flowers and two duffle bags over his shoulder. “They wanted to give me time to unwind after the big Blockbuster bust, although with so many officers injured or killed during the last few weeks I was surprised Chief Redhorn pushed this thing through. Anyway, I thought this would be a good time for us to…you know…spend some quality time?” As he spoke he watched Babs’ face go from shock to serious in a moment. “I could stay with Bruce if you think this is too much too fast.”

Babs’ smiled and shook her head. “Dick, I think,” she looked into his face, “I think it would be alright if you stayed here a few days. Just don’t think I can take a break from my job for eight whole days straight, alright?”

Dick’s smile came back, “Deal.” He handed her the flowers and kissed her. He could convince her to take time off later, after he was settled in the clock tower, and this really was a lot better than staying with Bruce.

Chief Redhorn smoked his cigar and puffed the smoke cloud out the window of his third floor office. Things had moved pretty fast the last couple of weeks, officers killed left and right, evidence turning up showing Blockbuster as responsible, the raid on the mansion, the rookie getting the actual collar of Desmond himself. Redhorn felt like his future had been pulled out from under him. The deals he had made with Desmond would have eventually made him a very rich man; now he had to rebuild allegiances with whoever moved in and took over the gangs of Bludhaven. He was back to square one.

He threw out the used cigar and turned to his desk where he saw the file of the man responsible, Dick Grayson. He looked to the front of the desk where Mac Arnot was seated, the man who convinced Redhorn to bring in Grayson. Without Mac’s insistence, Grayson would never have worn a badge as a police officer in this city and Redhorn would still have a bright future.

“Mac, I think its time we made a couple of personnel changes,” he said as he sat at the desk.

To his credit, Mac Arnot was not easily intimidated, but since his near murder at the hands of Blockbuster’s henchmen he had been on edge a little, and right now he was fidgeting like mad. He couldn’t tell if Redhorn wanted to kill him, fire him, or promote him.

“You know that I had some dealings with Mr. Desmond,” Redhorn said. “Hell Mac, you were my liaison to the big guy. Now with him in the prison hospital we need to know who is moving into the leadership roll with the gangs. Then we need to get in bed with the new guys and get in quick before they decide it best to try and take me out and get some pushover in power with the department. You know what happens if something happens to me, right, Mac?”

“You lose power and I lose power,” Mac said.

“That’s right, Mac. So I put my ear to the street and I hear Munoz is making a big play for power out there. He might get it, too, since he’s got guns, drugs, connections, and a hell of a lot of men. But he doesn’t like me. And he don’t like you.” Redhorn lit another cigar.

“That’s too bad for him,” Mac said and moved in his chair, trying to find a comfortable position. “I guess if he wants to play ball then he better learn to like me real damn quick, right Chief?”

Redhorn smiled and blew out a big ‘O’ with his smoke. “No, Mac, it means if I want to play ball then I need a new lead off hitter.”

“But Chief!” Mac yelled, almost getting out of his chair. “I’ve been loyal to you since I got here! Screw those Puerto Ricans, we can do business, give me another chance!” Mac felt a something small touch the back of his head. “Oh no,” he said softly. The gun went off blowing the back of Mac Arnot’s head away. His dead body slumped out of the chair.

“Messy work,” Redhorn said as he watched the tall dark haired woman smile and walk to the couch in the office. She was gorgeous with her long legs leading up to her black skirt and red silk top, and her long curly hair bouncing around her shoulders. “Welcome aboard, Inspector Shay.”

All his tricks had failed him. She had seen through every single disguised plan. No matter what he tried he was foiled at every turn. Yet still Dick Grayson knew that sooner or later he would hit on something that would make Barbara leave that damn computer set up and join him on a real vacation, if only for one day or night.

“Babs, come on,” he pleaded. Dick was wearing a formal black and white tuxedo and in his hands he held a size 7 LBD from the well-known designer Garvani. “Tonight is the fundraiser for the Wayne Foundation’s Make A Dream Charity. This is for a great cause and one night won’t hurt you. I even got you the perfect outfit.”

Barbara Gordon looked past her display screen at the sad puppy dog face Grayson was giving her and felt her heart melt. “Okay, Pain in the Ass Wonder, you win, just for tonight, AND we come right back after the dinner, AND you get off my case the last three days you are here about going out when I want to stay inside!”

“Deal!” he yelled out and handed her the dress.

Babs held the small article of cloth up in the air. “This won’t leave much to the imagination you know.”

“Really?” Dick said with an innocent look on his face. “I never noticed it was cut so low, guess that’s what you get for letting me do your shopping for you.”

Babs rolled her chair into her bedroom. “I’ll be out in twenty minutes, you keep your eyes and ears on that monitor and listen for Canary and make sure she gets all the info she needs on her case.”

“No problem. What’s she working on anyway?” he asked.

“Nothing too troubling,” Barbara said from the bedroom. “Some guy at the Phil Duncan Show received some threatening letters and Canary decided to check it out.”

“The Phil Duncan Show? Isn’t he that former shock jock that got his own talk show?”

“Yeah, if you can call it that, he usually just ridicules and yells at his guests. The guy is more disgusting than that Erratic Erik guy out of Arizona. Well, almost. Anyway, this guy has been getting threatening letters on a daily basis the last week about his yelling, not what he is saying, just the volume. The letters look to have been written by either a child or a madman.”

Dick half looked at the monitors as he tried to straighten his tie by looking at his reflection in the computer screen. “So you think it might be something one of us should be concerned over?” He glanced over and saw the icon for Madden 2006 on the screen. A quick game can’t hurt anything, he said to himself.

“You never know,” Babs yelled from the bathroom.

Black Canary sat perched in the rafters of the television studio, her eyes leaving Phil Duncan for only seconds at a time to scan the crowd and the immediate area for signs of trouble. The show itself had consisted of Duncan berating a woman for being fat, a man for being so short he felt he made an inadequate lover, and a woman who said she would never get breast implants because deep down all men preferred the natural feel over the plastic touch. Yeah, this was definitely a guy that needed to die; yet here she was, looking out for the “innocent”.

The show was coming to a close with Duncan giving his ‘Parting Punch’ when there was a scream from the backstage. Several security guards rushed past Duncan disrupting the taping. “What the hell is going on back there?” screamed Duncan.

Suddenly a man dressed in black leather came storming on the stage. A hard plastic white mask covered his face and his curly long black hair flew around like a mop as he ran at Duncan. If Dinah needed anymore of a clue that the man meant ill will towards Duncan then the long sharp blade in his right hand sealed the deal.

Canary swung down from the ceiling using her de-cel line. As she landed on the ground she let loose a roundhouse kick at the attacker’s face. The kick was blocked and the assailant moved at Canary with his blade. “Oracle, I need some info, who is this guy? You have a match yet?”

Canary’s request was met with total radio silence. “Hello, Oracle?” she said into the microphone that was attached to her suit’s collar. She parried a right hand and turned to see Duncan run to the safety of the studio security guards. The attacker was a good fighter, but Canary figured this fight wouldn’t take much longer, she just needed to focus.

The blade whipped in and out quickly, but Dinah blocked all the attacks and lured the assassin in close to her. She surprised him with a flurry of knee and palm strikes, succeeding in knocking his mask off his head.

Canary was ready to knock her opponent out when she stepped back in astonishment. His mouth was sewn shut and his pale skin looked like parchment that had yet to see the sun. He was a walking horror house. “My God,” she said aloud. “Murmur!”

Dinah finally recognized the man as Dr. Michael Amar, a killer who cut the tongues out of his victims during a killing spree some ten years ago. He was known as the killer who couldn’t stay silent, constantly shouting out in court how he had to silence his victims. During his imprisonment he cut his own tongue out and sewed his mouth shut so as to never incriminate himself again. He was freed from imprisonment during a riot at The Iron Heights facility in Keystone City during the winter. Obviously he was a harsh critic of the obnoxiously loud Phil Duncan.

The left foot of Murmur snapped forward and struck her in the nose, dazing her. He leapt on top of her and started to choke her with his hands. As Canary gagged and tried to pry his hands off of her he leaned in close to her face and made a horrible noise that sounded like he was hushing her in a movie theater. “Shhhhh…”

Canary gagged again and tried punching Murmur off of her, but he would not let go and she was unable to use her Canary Cry to save herself. She saw the room begin to fade.

If Murmur were still able to smile he would have. He came to kill a loud mouth talk show host, and instead he was killing the loudest voice on Earth. And to a man that was insane from constantly hearing voices and noise and chatter in his head there was nothing sweeter than silencing the Canary forever.

Dick Grayson waited patiently outside Babs’ bedroom door and when it opened he knew that the twenty minutes that turned into one hour was worth the wait. “Babs, you look gorgeous.”

“I hope you like it Grayson, it isn’t often I dress to kill like this,” she joked. She rolled her chair to the front door that led to the elevator in her building. “Before we go maybe I should check on Dinah one last time.”

Dick grabbed the back of her chair and pushed her out the door. “She’ll be fine, Babs; after all you said yourself this was an easy one. She’s Black Canary, I’m sure she has the situation under control.”

“You did watch the monitors and listened for her incoming messages, right?”

Dick saw the look she gave him and knew now was not the time to let her know he had been playing Madden Football on the computer. “Of course, she’s doing great! You know I bet by the time we get back she’ll have finished this case.” He closed the door behind them and locked it, not noticing the red flashing lights going off all over Oracle’s console.

After all, its only one night, he thought. What’s the worst that could happen?

As the door to Barbara’s apartment shut, the monitors in her computer room flashed the live feed from the Phil Duncan show. The camera zoomed in on Black Canary’s face as Murmur continued to choke the life from her, all in front of a live studio audience.

To Be Continued...

Next Issue: The fate of Black Canary…and the fallout of Dick’s one night out with Barbara.

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