Monday morning found me quietly longing for a quick death, running through Robinson Park in the early morning mists.
What can I say? I was never terribly athletic before, and despite the odd runner's high, that hasn't really changed. But James has very firm ideas on the topic of a sharp mind in a fit body, and dying of asphyxiation after trying to breathe and run at the same time is preferable to his whinging all day, or plotting some revenge. Besides, when you're running away from Batman every little bit helps.
But nothing says I have to suffer alone.
"Dulaman na binne bui," I gasp out, trying for a rhythm with the shock of my footfalls, "dulaman Gaelach! Dulaman na farraige, b'hfearr a bhi in Erin!"
True, James is perturbed by rock and pop, and almost any 80s power ballad/Rocky training music would have annoyed him almost as much. Almost. My other half has certain opinions regarding the Irish, and was most displeased to hear of Independence and the revival of a language and culture. Whilst I will never apologize for who I am. Or technically who my great-grandparents were.
As you can imagine, it's been something of a sore spot between us. One I occasionally can't resist poking, either to remind myself I'm not him, or when he makes me get up before the sun to half-kill myself in the cold.
Another sign of my individuality is on my chest, no point running in the nice suit so I got out another of my T-shirts. This one I've often used on our workouts, it has a spiky-haired silhouette doing pushups and bears the legend 'TRAINING TO BEAT GOKU' and beneath it in half size font 'or at least Krillin.' James doesn't really get the joke, like most of my pop culture references, hey, maybe that's why he's so concerned I might be unstable? No, Jonathon. No it is not. Anyways, he's just happy to take any extra bit of motivation it gives me.
Which may be another reason he chose Robinson Park, I think, as I settle into a brisk walk to the halfway mark of my morning run. There's a rolling green hill, maybe two hundred yards from the reservoir, and at it's summit is a tree untouched by the late autumn that made lesser trees shed their leaves, that will ignore the winter, the mallorn tree I planted here over a decade ago.
So I stumble up the hill and take a little break here, just until the cold prompts me to move again, and place my hand on the trunk. I did this. With my own hands I brought a piece of wonder into the world, for no other reason than that it was beautiful and I always wanted to see one. And using up part of a limited resource to do so. Really, James, how can even you look at this tree and begrudge the spell that made it?
Never mind. Discussion for another time. Agreed, if you can argue, you can take the next stretch at a jog.
Yay. Well, back to work *whipcrack* I start jogging back towards the car.
"In the merry month of June, from me home I started. Left the girls of Tuam nearly broken-hearted..."
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I made it back, hardly my best time, and there was loyal Freddie waiting.
"Trouble boss. Vinny just called it in. Chatter on the O-line-" our code for Vinny's monitoring of Oracle's computer setup "to the effect that somebody called the Order of St. Dumas has released a modified Ebola strain in Gotham."
St. Dumas, St. Dumas, I search my memory of Catholic saints and come up dry. But comics wise, some kind of kooky religious assassins brainwashed a guy called Azrael, Jean-Paul Valley? With something called the System. And I only know Azrael because he was Bruce's pick to replace him in... Knightfall, before he went off the rails and had to be reigned in hard.
Well, if these people are to blame for the ultraviolent Fake Batman thing a couple years back, I already dislike them. Quite aside from their apparently releasing super-Ebola in my city.
"Then we best be moving." I climbed into the car and waited a moment for him to get in the driver's seat. "What else do we know?" I asked as he started her up.
"The warning came from somebody called Azrael. Oracle cross-checked and found several dead bodies, and Gotham Central has already contacted the CDC about setting up a quarantine. Babylon Towers has gone into lockdown, but the Bat seems to think Patient Zero is somewhere in there."
"Okay, obvious question, but what the hell is Babylon Towers?"
"Oh, I forgot most of that happened after you were locked up. Remember all that construction off Kane Ave in southern Diamond? Near the movie theater there? Well now it's a gated condo community for the nouveau rich. Too poor for a proper mansion, too good to slum it up in suburbia. Really secure, supposed to be super-luxurious. Armand Krol lives there, Grange and Skeffington too."
And they named it Babylon Towers? A little on the nose, all things considered.
"So, if I understand you correctly, the situation is largely contained within a gated community. One which houses my major political rivals and much of the class strangling the life out of the city. Forgive me, Frederick, but this sounds like a problem of the self-correcting variety. Let Batman worry about Babylon Towers, and we can tend to the rest."
"But you could save them all." It's not a question, nor an accusation. But something in the way he said it still gave me pause.
Could I?
Well, of course I could. The only reason for lingering doubt is James' ingrained belief in disease as something (newfangled vaccines aside) you must endure. But should I?
On the one hand, no one could blame for leaving them to die. Most people don't suspect, I think, how easily I can do mass effects with the initial investment of just a couple of spells. I could even make some political capital of it, the diseased fruit of their decadence coming home to roost and all that. Besides, as likely as not, Batman will find a cure at the last minute and hardly anyone will die. Alternatively, how better to show my repentance for past misdeeds and shiny new character than saving those I despise? Too, there would be a certain satisfaction in having some of these people in my debt, even if they were unlikely to ever acknowledge it. Besides, Batman will probably find a cure anyways.
Ultimately, and to James' disgust, the final vote went not to pragmatic concerns but sentimental conscience. I am trying to be a better person and not cause more death, with one or two noteworthy exceptions. This is a good beginning, a good deed performed because I wish it, not because I wish to reap the rewards of appearing benevolent, as I often have in the past.
"Is the trunk stocked?" I ask Freddie, though I know his answer.
"Yes it is, boss. Where to?"
"Take me to these 'Babylon Towers.'" I looked at him "And kindly wipe that smirk from your face."
Why, oh why are all my lieutenants so invested in getting me to listen to my better angels?
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Freddie's Crown Vic has a surprisingly spacious trunk, you could stuff three large men in there if you didn't care for their comfort. When not transporting people, it's still half full of odds and ends that might someday come in useful. There's the usual spare, tire iron, ice scraper and cables, but also a shovel, axe, box of latex gloves, some duct tape, toolbox, first aid kit, emergency blanket, few MREs, can of gas, a hundred feet of rope, plastic sheeting, etc. Plus, more illegally, a pair of pistols, his beloved Mossberg shotgun and a decent supply of ammo. On the weirder side of things, there's twenty phials of metal shavings suspended in alcohol for Freddie, and a small emergency library for me.
I also know for a fact he's got thirty grand stashed away inside that spare. Just in case his home and our safehouses gets too hot.
For the moment, I take Myths and Folktales so with the ring on my finger I can easily turn my workout clothes into my sparkling white suit. Children's Tales From Around the World should have some healing and general utility spells, Bullfinch's Mythology just in case, Flamewind of Oseon, the first trilogy of the Book of Swords, well that's where my copy of Princess of Wands went! But first things first, there's a copy of Siege of Tolkeen VI: Final Siege, a book containing, among other things a detailed description of a rather OP artifact, the Elder Rings. Made of a magic-enhancing metal, set with a magic boosting gem, the final effect is that whoever wears one of the rings has the range, power and duration of their spells doubled, and the mana costs halved. I've experimented before with these, and spikard rings, black jewels and other power-amplifying artifacts, in general they seem to about double my capacity for creating objects, strengthen the spells I make by a noticeable yet almost unquantifiable degree, and don't stack. Whatever their original description, that seems to be how all power-amplifying artifacts my magic can create work. Well, there is one exception...
...
It's terribly sad for a lifelong geek like me, but the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings are banned from my home and work-spaces. I just can't be around them. Even now, years later, I sometimes wake up in the night with such a raw burning need for the Ring, I can't trust myself with anything like easy access to the books. I can hardly stand to think of it long without longing.
But for now, I have a power-enhancer, and that is all. Repression, my old friend, what would I ever do without you?
Huh, for a swanky gated community, this place sure has the look of a fortress. Thirty foot brick wall with barbed wire up top, and cameras every fifty feet. Meh, we've cracked harder.
Freddie and I step up near the wall and he drops a penny to the ground, then puts his arm around my back, pulling me firmly to him.
"No homo?" He asks. An old joke between us, I wouldn't care a fig if he were gay, and we're certainly closer than many women we've slept with.
"No homo." I agree.
Then he casually hops over the wall.
On the other side, he tosses a second penny at our presumed landing area, and our fall rapidly slows to the point I hardly need to bend my knees on impact.
I still go for the full superhero landing though. Because I'm an adult now, so I get to decide what that means to me.
"Well then," I get up and brush some imaginary dust off my shoulder, "let's see if we can find someone in charge. Or, failing that, someone whose sick."
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As it happened, it took us almost no time to find both a sick person, and the closest thing we were likely to find to a boss, which today meant Robin.
Kid was skeptical when I said I was here to help, and unapologetically stared while I administered a potion to the first couple of victims to come our way. I kept half an eye on him too. I liked the old Robin, understood him. The middle one just annoyed the heck out of me. Still getting used to and forming impressions of Tim Drake. At least, I assume he's Time Drake and I haven't butterflied away whatever circumstances first made him Robin, it's not like I can ask. Dick joined the Bat after his parents were murdered, Jason after trying to steal the tires off the Batmobile and squealing on Fay Gunn, what led Tim to become Robin again?
Oh well, not terribly relevant at the moment.
Once Little Robin Redbreast (and no, I am never going to stop calling any Robin that) was convinced I wasn't going to poison anyone and went back to chasing the first survivor or whatever, leaving two private security goons trying to loom menacingly over us, I asked the people I'd healed to spread the word and ask everyone else to come here. Then I returned the empty potion bottle to the book and didn't pull out a fresh one. Potions are good and all, for the immediate problems, but just those few doses were making the pages visibly singe. For a mass healing I'd need something a bit more... direct. Luckily I know just the thing.
So I started an industrial, assembly line process, a line of people walking up so I could stab them in the heart. Oh don't worry, I used Woundhealer, so while it hurt and also felt good, it didn't leave a mark and purged their body of illness. Freddie had to restrain the first three, security did not like that, but then I had them hang around to offer testimonials. Then I just did it a few times in front of the whole crowd and after seeing the people I healed were fine, people lined up.
Did I perhaps enjoy stabbing certain people a little too much? Nonsense. I enjoyed it too an entirely appropriate degree, and didn't even cackle madly. Be in awe of my restraint, I recognize several faces from the Batgoat incident.
Incidentally, people are coughing and vomiting and having terrible diarrhea. Some are visibly bleeding. I though Ebola generally took at least a week to kill you, some of these people look like they wouldn't last three days. At least twenty have to be carried over to me. Perhaps it's the new strain?
"What the hell do you think you're doing!"
Oh. Birdboy is back. And here's me with a sword buried in the chest of a geriatric man. I can see how he might get the wrong impression there.
Well, this is awkward.
"Healing." I replied all casual. Woundhealer got stuck in the man's chest somehow, thought I'd fixed that by keeping the edge parallel to the ground, so I have to grab his shoulder firmly and kind of push him off as I pull the blade out with a sucking sound, and perfect flesh left behind. "See? He's fine. Aren't you fine, sir?"
The old man looks around. "I can breathe alright for the first time today, but I can't see!" He pulls off his glasses and starts frantically rubbing them with his shirt-sleeve. Then stops and looks around again. "Apparently I can see without my glasses. How?"
"Sword forged buy Vulcan, accept no substitutes. So how's your day going, young Robin?"
"Are you seriously trying to deflect me from how you just stabbed a man right in front of me!?"
"With my healing sword. Do keep up, Boy Wonder. Do you have idea how many people I've stabbed with the Sword today? Look around," sweeping arm motion "all these people are fine, mostly because they let me work on them and didn't get hung up over the minor details."
"Getting stabbed in the chest is a minor detail?"
"One already addressed. Moving on, did you find what you need?"
"Oh yeah, I have the blood sample we need to synthesize a cure. Only, I can't leave without risking spreading this thing further."
I smiled.
"I have just what you need, right here. Hold still now, this won't hurt a bit."
He immediately hopped back and dropped into a defensive stance, pulling out his escrima sticks.
"Or not." Now how to convince him? "Freddie? A moment. We need another demonstration and you and I should both have a hit anyways for safety's sake."
Freddie walked right up and held still while I plunged the blade into his heart. Didn't even hesitate. I love this guy.
"See? Now if you want to deliver that blood sample in a timely manner, hold still and take it like a man."
Robin gulped, but he did hold still. Brave kid, not that I'll ever say it to his face. It'd only sound condescending.
It takes us better than half an hour after Robin left to get everyone, and the security personnel too. A few were unconscious, one with a rather distinctive split-toe bootprint on his face, so I assume Robin was to blame.
Outside where no one can see the loss of dignity, I take a moment to brace myself mentally, then fall on my Sword.
It's bliss and agony wrapped into one. There's a sword in my chest, and every pain signal is going off to tell me something is seriously wrong, but I feel better than I have in a long time, all my pains are gone, save that one. After a long moment I wrench the Sword out and offer it hilt-first to Freddie, who also stabs himself to be rid of any infection that might have taken hold since the last time.
We get in the car, laying Woundhealer in the backseat. Then call Vinny.
"What's the butcher's bill, and where are there the most victims?"
"We've got at least thirty dead so far. About a hundred cases at Gotham Central."
"Then I guess we know where we're going."
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Several doctors were unhappy, to say the least, at allowing non-FDA approved treatments. Particularly where they involved a magic sword. But the urgency of an engineered, fast-working Ebola made a persuasive argument. I'm just amused imagining how the paperwork after this will read, as I walk outside. "Healed by magic" isn't an existing box on the form, but hopefully after a few months in office, they'll need one.
Mostly though, I feel good. I spent several hours today saving lives and reliving suffering, and several friends and family of victims came up in the lobby to offer thanks and shake my hand. Just naother way magic can improve things, not by taking work from doctors, but by fixing the things they can't. Today I have been generous and genuinely selfless, helping from a pure desire to do so. Today I am truly candidatus, made shining white.
"Binder! You're John Binder, right?" A man runs up to me, Latino, with a tiny moustache. "Bookworm?"
"Yes, Mr...?"
"Herrera" His hand dips into his pocket. "You killed my son, you son-of-a-bitch."
BLAM!
Well, I guess not everyone's a fan.
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Whose flesh the Sword of Mercy hurts has drawn no breath
Whose soul it heals has wandered in the night
Has paid the summing of all debts in death
Has turned to see returning light