"Yeah thanks. No, there's nothing else. Bye."
So the phones were out at Wellesley Hall. Running hands through the spiked peak of dark hair that topped his head. Tim Drake tried not to panic. He and Alfred had disembarked at London's Heathrow airport scant minutes before, and already the mystery had deepened. Once he had accepted the fact that Dick was missing -really- missing and not just wrapped up in some case- he had talked Alfred into a quick trip to his former charge's New York City digs where they had discovered the letter from Robert Wellesley. With nothing better to go on, he had taken that as the starting point of his investigation and tried to call the Englishman from the states before they left. Then the line had been busy.
Now it was dead.
Glancing back at Alfred where he waited near the rental car, he tried to smile reassuringly. The ex-patriot didn't approve of this impromptu visit to his native land. For one thing, they hadn't been able to get Bruce's permission. And for another, he questioned Tim's compulsion, comparing his unfounded insistence that "Master Richard" was in trouble to the likelihood of scientifically proving the existence of the Loch Ness monster. The boy frowned and shoved his hands deep in his pockets. He couldn't help it. He knew Dick was in danger. He would explain it to Bruce somehow- later. Even though he had left Gotham unguarded.... At least he wasn't taking any chances... not in Gotham anyway...
Yeah, right. Bruce would buy that. More likely he'd ask for the suit back. Still, it didn't matter. Nothing mattered but Dick's safety. Sometimes you just had to go with your instincts.
Returning to the car, he nodded at Alfred and then hopped in. Unexpectedly the steering wheel caught him in the chest and he winced, as much at his own stupidity as the pain.
"Are we preparing to drive today, Master Timothy?"
Chagrined, the boy slipped into the passenger seat -on the left side in the Country- and said, "No, thank you, Jeeves. Just warming the seat for you."
Alfred slid into place, his face carefully neutral.
"How kind."
At least once during the day he was held captive, Nightwing battled his way toward consciousness, and even though his eyes remained closed, he was certain he was awake, for sights and sounds assailed his ears. Curiously, he was able to see the vast army of whispering willows that filled the grotto he was walking through, their shifting silhouettes cast by the light of a pale circular moon, and he was marginally aware of a distant howling, like the mating cry of a companionless wolf. Enraptured, he moved forward, his booted feet sinking deep into the dew wet grass, until he came abreast a great standing stone. The wind rose suddenly as he halted, blowing raven bangs so they brushed his eyelids, and as he hesitated, a voice called his name. Inexorably drawn by something he could only identify as a primal need, he pressed forward until his bare hands rested against the monolith's mottled skin. It was cold.
Cold as the skin of a dead man. Cold as the icy shard that speared his spine as his eyes opened to show him a crimson tide that ran as from an open wound. He blinked and looked again only to realize that the blood was his, and that it was his life ebbing away, pouring out in a living river that rushed headlong toward the stream that whispered and beckoned nearby.
And just beyond the looming rock, a dark figure hovered, ebon against the bloated moon. Demon eyes gleamed and a blue-black blade dripping blood rose high above his head. He stepped back and looked up to meet a different set of eyes. Hard. Pitiless.
"You have failed me," the Batman said, his voice cold as the touch of the stream. Cold as a dead man's skin.
"How dare you die!" The blade came down and Nightwing screamed.
A guard stirred. Passing a shaking hand over his eyes, he rose and examined his prisoner. The American was still unconscious, but moaned deep in the throes of a narcotic night-terror. He could almost find it in his heart to pity him.
Almost. But then he remembered the honor that would be his the following night and a smile lit his face.
The gods moved in mysterious ways.
The ancient hinges creaked as the great oaken doors opened onto a wild night. Rain pounded, casting slim missiles of wet earth onto the flagstone walk, and the wind rattled the multi-paned windows as though it would tear them apart to reach the dry warm world inside the ancient priory. A slight teenager stood silhouetted against the intermittent lightning strikes, his black hair plastered to pale cheeks, water dripping from his inappropriately thin clothing. His teeth were chattering.
The man-servant who had opened the door regarded the pathetic creature dispassionately. When at last he spoke, his tone was indifferent. "May I help you?" "My car broke down," the boy began, seeking shelter beneath the eaves, "I've been walking for nearly an hour." He sniffed and asked politely, "Do you have a phone I could use?"
"The phone is out," the servant replied, "you will have to seek aid elsewhere. My Master-"
The youth's face drained of what little color it had left. His blue lips quivered and he seemed to sway. "You don't have a phone? I thought such a large house...even out here..."
"I did not say we had no phone. I said, it is out of service. You will have to go elsewhere." The butler frowned and his icy blue eyes narrowed, "Aren't you a bit young to be driving alone?"
If the boy heard the question, he ignored it. Tears welled up in his eyes and ran down his cheeks mixing with the rain as he protested meekly, "But you have to help me. I can't ... I don't even know the way back ..." A spasm ran the length of his thin frame, his eyes rolled up in his head, and seconds later he fell to the ground; a cold, wet, unavoidable heap.
Gwillam Morgan stared at the small still form and for just a moment, contemplated closing the door. The he sighed and yelled.
"Mrs. Morgan!"
The boy awoke to the scent of bay leaves and the comfort of several thick woolen blankets that , while they itched, were blessedly warm. He might have pretended to faint, but the rain and the cold night had been all too real. Stifling a sneeze, he shifted in the arm chair, freeing his hands just as a small stout woman bustled into the stone and brick kitchen humming an unfamiliar air.
"Oh, and are you awake then, lad?" she asked, stooping to ruffle his unruly hair. "We thought perhaps you'd gone to sleep for good."
"NoI mean, yes, thank you, Ma'am. I feel better now." He started to throw off the coverlets and rise, but she held him back.
"Do you now? And what exactly was a child of your tender years doing out alone in such a storm? The car was broken down, my Gwillam said. Surely you can't drive?"
"My servant was driving," Tim extemporized, "we had an accident. I was thrown out of the car and must have wandered away. I got lost. I didn't know where I was until I saw your lights and then there was that awful man at the door-"
"Gwillam?" she laughed. "He couldn't turn away a stray dog. He just looks fierce. Besides, we have two lads of our own not far from your age." She handed him a bowl of the rich thick soup and a silver spoon. "He's gone to look for your vehicle. He should be back soon."
Tim accepted the bowl, but tried again. "My servant will be worried sick-"
"And sick it is you'll be if you don't take a moment to work off a bit of the chill you've taken. Eat hearty or-" She paused as a light chime sounded. "What now?" She sighed and rubbed fat hands on her apron. "That'll be the Master. I'll have to see to his needs. You stay put, young man."
"Yes, Ma'am."
The boy waited until she was out of sight and then made certain his backpack had been carried in with him. After that, he pressed his miniature wrist-communicator and whispered, "You there, Alfred?"
The man-servant's voice came through, clearly relieved. "Master Tim, you've been quite a while."
"Long story. First I thought the butler was going to leave me on the stoop and then I was handed over to a woman who thinks I'm her surrogate son. You better give me an hour more." He looked around and found a convenient spot to slip the soup into. His stomach was empty and it smelled great, but he had to get moving. "As soon as I know anything. I'll call back."
"And Master Dick?" There was real concern in his voice. "Any news?"
"No sign yet, but I'm hopeful-" He heard the heavy footsteps accompanied by a cheerful whistle. "Gotta go, Tim out."
Mrs. Morgan bustled into the kitchen. She seemed disheartened.
"Trouble, Ma'am?" Tim asked dutifully, thinking perhaps he would learn something.
"Nothing you need bother about, lad. The Master is in a bit of a snit today, that's all. He hadn't expected visitors. He's in a hurry to be away and my Gwillam hasn't returned yet." She said nothing more, as if that cryptic statement explained everything, but went back to preparing the food for the coming day.
"So he doesn't want me here," Tim thought, "let's see if the little lost boy can get anything else from the obliging Mrs. Morgan." But how? If she'd just ask the right question-
"And what brought you out in such a storm, lad?"
Tim smiled secretly. Bingo!
"I was looking for my brother," he lied easily, even though he knew it to be true in spirit if not in blood. "I was told he came this way. He went to college with Sir Robert Wellesley and was going to visit him." Dropping the spoon into the empty bowl, he remarked innocently, "Maybe you've seen him? He looks a lot like me: black hair, blue eyes. About five foot eleven. He's American too. His name is Dick Grayson."
"Oh, my!" she said, her plump hands flying to her face, "You mean that handsome young man who was visiting here the night of the robbery? But lad, he's been gone since Wednesday. He packed his bags, sudden-like, and then vanished into the night. The Master thought-" She caught herself and fell silent.
"So this is Wellesley Hall?" he added for effect before saying, "You can't mean Sir Robert thought Dick had anything to do with a robbery? He wouldn't-"
"Oh, no, lad," she lied kindly, putting on a bright front for him, "Sir Robert said he was very wealthy and wouldn't need to steal. He guessed something had unexpectedly come up. Gwillam said the young gentleman had an important call to make, but couldn't find his phone." She frowned and turned back to her work table, "The ones here haven't been in service since the break-in."
Cutting into a large head of cabbage with a vengeance, she went on to explain in detail how the Master's prize dagger had gone missing and how the Yard had come and asked them all a lot of impertinent questions. No, she hadn't seen anything. No, she hadn't heard anything. No, she couldn't imagine who would have done such a thing. There had only been herself and her husband and the Master's American friend here that night.
Tim thought furiously. Could the robbery have been connected with Dick's disappearance? He had to contact Alfred. Unfortunately, Mrs. Morgan was just warming to her subject.
What could he do to distract her?
"Mrs. Morgan ?" He interrupted her and employing his best little boy voice asked sweetly, "Could I please have some more soup? It was really good."
The constant flow of words stopped and a smile broke across her broad face like sunshine on a still lake. Wednesday night's excitement momentarily forgotten, she took the bowl from him and turned to lift the lid from a steaming kettle. "When my Davyd was a little boy, this potato chowder was his very favorite. You know, you remind Me-"
She had turned, steaming cup in hand, but the upholstered chair was empty and her unanticipated charge was gone.
Once out of the window, Tim had quickly scaled the side of the house and then peeling off his civilian guise, had assumed the identity of Robin, partner to the mysterious Batman. As the wind whipped through his hair, he drew in a deep breath, feeling the Kevlar sheathing expand and contract over his chest. He always felt more alive in the suit, and sometimes that frightened him. More often though, it exhilarated him as it did now.
"This is the life."
Ducking behind a trio of tall chimney stacks, he stashed his empty backpack and then peeled a dark-green glove back to expose his communicator. Ignoring the gentle rain that pelted his exposed skin, he used it to signal Alfred.
"Master Tim?"
"Robin," the youth corrected.
The man-servant didn't miss a beat. "Master Robin, I was about to contact you. I was, ah, forced to move several miles away from my last location. A rather human dog came to close to catching my scent for my liking. Unfortunately, I am not entirely certain where I am." He paused and then added as though embarrassed he had not asked it first, "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Alfred, although I think escaping Wellesley's Welsh housekeeper may rank up there with eluding the Joker or the Riddler. Then again, they can't cook."
"Pardon?" Alfred asked, bewildered.
Robin laughed. "Never mind. What is important is that I'm positive Dick was Here, or is here. There's something screwy going down. Wellesley definitely didn't want me around."
There was a moment of silence and then the familiar voice asked quietly, "And what are your plans?"
Tim frowned. He didn't have any yet. "I don't know. Maybe I'll-" Suddenly he fell silent. To the North, well beyond the out-building of the estate, a blaze had erupted. Several seconds later he heard the muffled sound of a blast. Quickly calculating the distance he figured it to be a quarter -or at most- half a mile away. "Did youu hear that, Alfred?"
The butler's voice shook. "No, but I can see it. Three, maybe four miles from here through thick woodlands. I can't be certain."
"I'm going to head for it."
"Master Robin... Tim. Need I remind you of your instructions-"
Robin swallowed. Bruce wouldn't like it, but Bruce wasn't here. Dick was and he was in trouble. "I gotta help, Alfred." After the butler's strange behavior and then Wellesley's. They had to be linked. "Meet you there. Robin out."
"Tim!" Alfred's concern echoed through the link.
Robin was gone.
Half a mile away and about ten minutes earlier, Nightwing had awakened, once again bound hand and foot. As his keen eyes adjusted, he realized he was no longer in the bowels of the Hall, but lay trussed like a calf on the bare wooden floor of an abandoned cottage. Long out of use, its windows were boarded shut, and dust and cobwebs clung tenaciously to every shadowed corner. Wishing to examine his surroundings more closely, he shifted his head sharply to the right and was surprised as his vision blurred yet again and an incredible wave of nausea swept over him. For a moment everything went black, but then the sensation passed and he could see again. From what little light filtered through the chinks in the window coverings, he could tell it had been hours since the dart struck him.
What had they hit him with?
Closing his eyes, he braced himself and rolled quickly into a sitting position. After waiting a moment for his head to clear, he looked about, seeking a means of escape. It was difficult to see. Other than the constricted rays of the waning moor, only a single slim taper illuminated the sparsely furnished room. Shivering and disoriented, he almost missed the package wrapped in brown paper and tied with string nestled close beside the broken leg of an overturned stool.
It was ticking.
His heart in his throat, Robin flew through the tightly interlaced trees surrounding the estate. He hadn't known Bruce or Dick long and yet it seemed he had known them all of his life. From the day he had attended the circus and unexpectedly watched Dick's parents plunge to their deaths, to the day he had tracked him down after Jason Todd's untimely demise to tell him the Batman needed him, needed Robin, he had watched and loved them. He believed in their mission, understood their passion and their pain, and now he shared them as well. Bruce -the Batman- had chosen him to take on the mantle of Robin after he had deduced their secret identities and saved them from a duel death at the hands of their old enemy, Two-Face. Bruce trusted him. And now, here he was, disobeying orders -or at least reinterpreting them just as Jason had. But it was necessary! He knew it. Bruce would just have to understand.
Clinging to a branch, he paused to draw a breath and suppressed a shudder. Jason -the one who died- had probably thought the same thing.
Five minutes before Robin's moment of introspection, his predecessor ,now known to the world as Nightwing, had felt the first ripple of panic. Fighting it, he closed his eyes and ears against its source -the doleful ticking of a small timing device- and sought to draw upon the inner strength his lengthy training had bequeathed him. Several minutes later, sweat rolling down his fevered cheeks, he gave up. Bruce had always warned him that drugs would alter that essential balance, the one needed to banish pain and fear in even the most extreme circumstances, and so he had stayed far away from them. It was a shame his mentor had forgotten to tell him what to do when the hand that drove the needle home belonged to someone else.
Concentrating instead on his bonds, he realized with triumph that he had been restrained by an amateur. His hands were bound free of his torso; his feet tied independently. In less than a minute he could be free. Then and only then would he worry about the gift wrapped like a piece of butcher's meat that someone had left him. Nightwing winced. Bad choice of words.
Moments later, utilizing the sharp broken corner of a table, he cut the cord between his ankles and regained his feet. Quickly looking about, he realized he was trapped. Strips of wood crisscrossed every access, substantially secured by nails the size of small daggers. A wicked smile flashed across his handsome face. So much the better.
He felt like breaking something.
Glancing at the poorly concealed bomb, he decided there was nothing he could do about it. It would simply have to fulfill its natural function and explode.
Tongues of fire kissed the dried and rotting timbers of an old caretaker's cottage as Robin hesitated high in the shadowy trees that fringed the clearing, unexpectedly mesmerized by their feral beauty. Without warning, a portion of the roof caved in with a sound like a clap of thunder. Startled into action, he moved swiftly, alighting silently several feet in front of a door battered a weathered green. Smoke rolled out from under it and the paint curled from the extreme heat.
It must have been an inferno inside.
Dropping to his knees he took a second to examine the ground before the small cottage. Someone had passed this way recently, two men, carrying a heavy load. His blue eyes went to the structure that blazed before him as yet another section of the roofing caved in, fueling the fire below. If Dick was inside-
"No," he whispered to himself, horrified at the prospect. He knew Dick was a pro. He'd survived the machinations of the Riddler, the Joker and countless others. He couldn't be dead...
but Jason was dead.
Bile rising in his throat, he headed for the smoldering door and kicked in what was left of it, Kevlar boots shielding his tender skin. He quickly surveyed the flaming interior of the cottage, but realized with a sinking feeling that even if Dick was inside, he wouldn't have been able to tell.
Passing a gloved hand through black hair dripping with sweat, he pivoted and called desperately, "Dick? Dick? Are you here!" The Batman would have chided him, said he was unnecessarily placing himself in danger, but he didn't care. This was for real. Life and death.
Some things even the best training couldn't overcome.
Deep in the heart of the wood Nightwing paused. He cocked his head, certain his ears had discerned a sound that was human rather than elemental in nature. Someone was nearby. He knew he should run -it was probably his captors- but he found he could do little more than hug the bole of a large gnarled oak and wait for his sense of balance to return. His brain was dull. His perceptions distorted. The wind was withering and even though the intermittent rain had ceased, he was thoroughly soaked and chilled to the bone. He found it hard to believe this nightmare was for real, and knew that disbelief born of exhaustion could make him reckless.
Rubbing his forehead hard, he took a deep breath and wished again he had time to practice the healing rituals he had been taught. But he didn't. He had to keep moving. Someone was out there. A guard maybe, or perhaps Wellesley's curious man-servant. Someone... And in the shape he was in, he wasn't sure he could have tackled Mrs. Morgan, let alone her husband.
Pushing off of the tree's rough skin, he turned unexpectedly into the visage of Hell. A grotesquely carved mask stained blood red hovered in the air, obscuring the face of the lean fleshly specter who faced him, torchlight illuminating even stripes of red and blue body-paint that alternately spiraled down his heaving chest only to terminate somewhere below a primitive loincloth in a spurious imitation of the Celtic Tree of Life. The phantom's hair was skinned tight against his skull and plastered a bright yellow from crown to the tip of a twenty inch tail. His large hands seemed to drip blood. Jolted, Nightwing stumbled back from the apparition, forgetting the silent sentinel whose battered bark had withstood the onslaught of several hundred years that waited close behind. The rushing form of one puny human meant less than nothing. Within seconds of striking the tree and sliding to the wet grass, his prone form was surrounded by other brightly arrayed phantoms bearing torches and chanting praises to their god. Though, as he felt their callused hands grasp his tired flesh and he was hefted to their shoulders and borne towards an indeterminate fate, he somehow doubted very much God had anything to do with it.
Continued in Chapter Four