I do not own Batman, or any D.C. character named within. I am only using them for a tale written for entertainment purposes only.

Batman: Night of the Hunter

By LJ58

1

He stared coldly down at the five men that stood close to the dark sedan at the end of the block. Despite the height, the hour, and the malfunctioning street light, he could make out every detail with crystal clarity. He could even smell the distinctive colognes of those that wore such scents. Three of the thugs were simply rank with the stench of sweat, filth, and cruelty common to their kind.

His eyes narrowed as he clenched one fist, barely conscious of the feel of his own sharp nails cutting into his calloused palm.

He cocked his head, ears twitching slightly as his hearing focused unerringly on the gravelly voice that emanated from the backseat of the large sedan pretentiously utilized by its owner as a limo. He listened briefly as instructions were relayed to the thugs, and they snorted and chuckled appreciatively at what they thought was going to be an enjoyable time. After all, this was their city. Their territory. Their night.

His eyes narrowed to mere slits now as he watched the five stroll off cockily as the sedan sped away, likely to ensure the passenger in the back had an airtight alibi for tonight.

He didn't care. He would catch up to him in due time.

For now, he had to ensure innocents didn't suffer because of one man's greed.

More innocents.

He clenched his jaw, growling deep in his throat as his teeth, his very sharp teeth, were slightly bared.

Time to hunt, every instinct in his mind and body screamed.

He watched the five turn the corner at the near distant end of the block, and let a faint, chilling smile spread over his shadowed features.

"Time to hunt," he murmured to the night.

Then he leapt out from the roof heedless of the height, or even gravity.

~B~

"Well, well, well," Jase Cartwright, leader of the small gang of enforcers for the Gardener, as their boss liked to call himself. "What have we here?"

"Funny, Jase," one of the thugs behind him commented as he entered the door Jase had just kicked in, leaving the family of five inside the shabby, but relatively clean apartment gaping at them. "I thought this place was supposed to be empty. Didn't everyone get their ee-vic-tor notices," the bald man asked leeringly as he eyed the young mother who clutched the baby to her chest as her three older children gathered behind her.

"That's eviction, idiot," another of the men snorted at their comrade as they invaded the small apartment, kicking and smashing anything in their way.

"Please," the young brunette cried. "We have no place else to go," she begged.

"Sure you do," Jase said cruelly as he held up a long, glittering blade he pulled from its scabbard at his back. "There's always a vacancy at the cemetery," he cackled as he approached the woman as she looked in vain for mercy in the tall man's eyes.

"Say, bye-bye," Jase told her as he raised the knife when he stood over her, his men having surrounded the frightened family, leaving them no room to run.

"Bye-bye," the illiterate thug giggled as the woman screamed, putting her baby beneath her as the knife flashed down.

Behind them, glass shattered, interrupting the murder even as a huge, black shadow flowed into the room from outside. The thugs had a brief moment of confused paralysis as they watched that shadow fly into the suddenly dark room as every light around them abruptly went out. Then they lunged forward, perceiving a threat even as something cold, and sharp sliced at their throats, leaving gouts of blood behind as sharp claws tore at vulnerable flesh.

The woman and children screamed, and cried, but somehow, the shadow among them formed a living barrier that kept the five thugs back, and in a very short span of time, only one man was still standing, and he was rocking unsteadily on his feet.

Beth Carter stared in horror as the shadow seemed to coalesce before her eyes, and then became a tall, if hunched figure that leaned over the man now caught in two powerful hands that literally dripped blood.

"You, little man," the shadow rasped in a voice like stone grinding on stone. "Are going to the police. Confess all if you want to live. If you do not, I will find you. No matter where you hide, no matter who you hide behind, I will find you. And your last moments will not be pleasant," that hollow voice promised before the shadow-man flung himself out the window an instant later, and seemed to just vanish.

"There… There's nothing there," the ten year old boy who rushed to the shattered window exclaimed as the hood just gaped, dropping to his knees as his courage and strength failed as one, and he stared blankly out the window.

Bethany swallowed hard as her son asked, "What was it, mommy? Where did it go?"

They were answers she couldn't give him, or the police, when they finally arrived to ask her the same questions again, and again.

~B~

Cold, gleaming eyes stared through the darkness, watching the streets.

At least he had spared some few innocents needless misery this night.

He looked up at the moon, and remembered childish fantasies, and banal films of nocturnal creatures that waxed and waned with the moon, or stars. He remembered the silly rules and rituals regarding those creatures as set forth by film or fiction, and snorted, his dark amusement a low cough of disdain in the silence around him.

The films had not even been close. Not even close.

Even he could not be sure exactly what had happened to him, or how he had survived it. Still, he had lived through a nightmare that no man should ever have to experience, and live. Or had he? Had he really survived? He still wasn't sure about that point either. Was he really still alive? Or had he died, only to be resurrected as something else that only thought he still lived?

He just wasn't sure. Not anymore. He only knew that so long as he could make such a difference, he would ensure no one else had to suffer as he had. As she had.

He swore that oath not for the first time as his eyes dropped from the gray, sliver of moon that hung over the smog bound city. God, how he hated cities. Always had. But here was the evil. Here was his prey. He had to remain. At least for now.

Evil had called him. He was bound to answer.

It was the way of the Hunter.

~B~

"What do you mean the building isn't clear," James Thomas IV spat as he clenched his fist around the phone. "I was assured the damn thing would be empty this morning. What…? No. No, I have no idea…."

He stopped, listening to the speaker on the other side.

"No. I'll come down myself. This bitch will be made to see reason. I'm sure…."

"Sure about what, Mr. Thomas," a fat man in a stained overcoat asked as his secretary gave him a rueful glance from the now open door.

"The police, Mr. Thomas," she told him anxiously. "I….couldn't get him to wait."

"Detective Bullock," James grimaced as he nodded at the slovenly cop.

The cop only smirked back at him.

"I have to go, Marty. Just hold pat till I get there."

"That could be a while, Mr. Thomas," Harvey Bullock grinned, still chewing on whatever he had last shoved into his mouth. Behind him, his pretty, if silent partner merely stared from the door as if covering him in case he tried something.

"Is there a point to this visit, Detective Bullock," he asked sardonically after hanging up. "Or are you just harassing me again?"

"Funny you should ask," Harvey grinned, pulling off his hat to shove his hand through the thinning hair atop his head before cramming the shapeless hat back atop his head. "See, just this morning, this bloody, bruised, and very frightened scumbag gets dragged into our precinct. You wouldn't believe what he had to say," Harvey told him, giving a sardonic twist of his fat lips.

"I'm sure I wouldn't, since I don't know any….scumbags, as you call them."

"Well, this one sure knew you. And he was singing one nasty little tune, Jamie-boy," Harvey told him. "So, in the interest of public safety, the natural curiosity of the law, and all that, you are coming with us. You can do it easy, or," Harvey trailed off with a smile as he flexed his big fists.

James knew men that underestimated Bullock. The man looked and acted like a pig, and had even less manners. He was also built like a tank, and could shoot like a marksman. You did not cross Harvey Bullock. It was one of the reasons that Gordon had enticed him down to Gotham from his New York City beat. Rumor was, when Harvey left the Big Apple, the local bad boys threw a party.

"On what grounds," James asked coolly, keeping one eye on Detective Montoya. The voluptuous Hispanic cop was one mean bitch herself. She was just sneakier about it. "I don't believe I've ignored any parking tickets lately," he smiled.

"Cute. But you're gonna wish it was just parking tickets before we're done with you."

"I think I should call my lawyers," James decided, not liking Bullock's tone of confidence.

"Call 'em from downtown," Montoya told him, clearly impatient now as she nodded at Harvey. "Let's do this, partner. Before lunch, if you don't mind."

"James Thomas the Fourth," Harvey mocked his name as he stepped forward, one hand producing a set of cuffs. "You are under arrest for…..well, hell, you know the reason you're under arrest. Just get your pampered ass up, and let's go," Harvey spat, all but willing him to resist. "Just know you have the right to an attorney, while you can still afford one. You also have the right to remain silent, but if you wanna yammer, I'll be sure to take note of every little detail. Got it?"

James was not that great a fool.

"My lawyers are going to tear you apart this time, detective," he promised as Harvey roughly slammed him face down on his own desk, scattering the papers he had been studying for another real estate deal. "This is harassment, pure and…."

"Ah, shaddup," Harvey grunted, shoving him toward the door so hard he almost landed on his knees. If not his face.

"You might as well go home, sugar," Montoya mocked Alena, his very sleek secretary who dressed far better than the plainclothes detective in jeans, and a flannel shirt under her old denim jacket. "Your boss is going to be busy for a long time."

"Cancel all my appointments, Lena," he called as they headed to the elevators. "And be sure Wayne knows why I can't make my meeting. Then get my lawyers on the phone. Tell them I'm being kid….."

The elevator doors cut off anything else he might have said.

"Kidnapped. That is a good one," Harvey snorted as he ignored the startled old man in a rumpled suit already in the elevator.

"Yeah," the dark-haired woman with him snorted. "I've never heard getting arrested being considered as kidnapping."

"First time for everything," Harvey advised her, feigning indifference to James. "You know how these scumbags are. Even the pricey ones aren't much better than the nickel punks you roust down on the docks. They all seem to think they're somehow above the law."

"And they all seem to have overpriced lawyers who think the same way," Montoya said darkly, her dark eyes flashing her own disdain.

"Well, this time, no fancy mouthpiece is gonna let you walk, Jamie-boy. See, our songbird is singing some real nasty tunes, just like I said. But funny how his songs all have your name in 'em."

James frowned. Someone squealed? He'd have their heads. Hell, he'd have their hearts.

"I believe I have the right to face my accusers, detective. I'm pretty sure the fellow you refer to is just an ex-employer, or opportunist, likely trying to extort money from a public figure. I mean, look at any celebrity. They say even that Batman character….."

"You do not want to go there," Montoya warned him as Harvey's face turned dark red.

James wisely refrained from saying any more.

A moment later, they were in the lobby, and he was being shoved past his own security to the waiting police car where the public stopped to gape at him being shoved into the back of the vehicle like a common criminal.

"Enjoy your moment, detectives," he muttered darkly as they climbed into the front of the car. "By tomorrow, I'll own your asses."

"Like I've never heard that one before," Harvey snorted.

~B~

"What do you think," Commissioner Gordon asked Dr. Adam Heart as the noted psychiatrist that had recently come to Arkham Asylum after that Hugo Strange affair closed the file on the man he had in his hands.

"I do believe he's sincere, Mr. Gordon. He obviously saw something. Something that traumatized him so much he was willing to confess to crimes going back more than fifteen years," the doctor told him.

"You don't think it's an act?"

"No, commissioner. I'm used to seeing some degree of trauma among certain prisoners that encounter our resident vigilante, and frankly, I thought this was but another of them. In my professional and private opinion, this is no act. Mr. Sanders encountered something so horrific that his mind still cannot conjure a name, or a shape to order his experience. It is….continuing to torment him as a result."

"What about his competence? Would his testimony hold up in a trial?"

"Against himself, or against Mr. Thomas? Frankly, Commissioner Gordon, Ian Sanders is wired so tightly right now, I amazed he's coherent at all. Still, I don't suppose it would do any harm. After all, a condition of his…miraculous escape seems to be fixed in his mind that he must testify. I'm afraid that if we denied him the chance, it could do incalculable harm to his psyche."

"I see. Well, ordinarily, I'd not hesitate. But this is….beyond my purview. I've never seen anyone so genuinely terrified of the dark. We can't even shut out the lights in his holding cell," he exclaimed.

"Yes," Dr. Heart nodded as he headed for the door. "A most…intriguing case."

Even as the door closed, James sensed more than he saw or heard the newcomer.

"You heard," James Gordon asked as he leaned back in his chair, not even looking at the window behind him.

"I heard," came the low, grim tone of a voice he knew well enough after all these years.

"Sounds like you may have competition out there," the commissioner told him. "Again."

"This is something different," the Bat told him as he balanced precariously on the sill of the open window, thirty floors above the hard, unforgiving pavement.

"I don't think I want to hear that," the old cop sighed. "Not from you, at any rate."

"I don't discount Ian Sanders' story," the living shadow in cape and cowl murmured as he studied the file Gordon had handed him. "I've seen enough over the years to know there are things out there that might ordinarily be discounted as hallucinations, or simply delusions by more rational people. To be frank, commissioner, I suspect we may have a genuine supernatural entity visiting Gotham."

"Again," the aging man sighed.

"At least this one seems to be avoiding innocents. It seems focused on protecting them."

"For now. But how do we know that isn't just a coincidence?"

"Four dead thugs, another sent packing with a cryptic warning? Then there were five innocent victims we both know Thomas wanted gone left without a mark on them," the Batman told him bluntly.

"So you think it's connected to Thomas?"

"Possibly. James Thomas has buried enough skeletons in his past to have at least ten demons on his tail. Still, it could just be a random selection on the entity's part. I won't know until I investigate further."

"You do know that Bane is out again," James Gordon told him with a sigh.

"I'm not worried about him," the vigilante replied smoothly, his voice betraying no fear despite the fact that some years ago he had almost died at the hands of that mercenary criminal. "If he shows his face, he will be captured again soon after," the Batman promised curtly.

"You know," James sighed. "It seems the villains in this city only get stronger, and wilier. Even you don't seem to age," the commissioner complained. "How do you….?"

He turned and realized the man was gone. "God, I hate when he does that," he sighed as he picked up the file from the floor where it had been dropped.

Outside the window, there was no sign of the man in cape and cowl. As was his way, the Batman had simply vanished when his purpose had been fulfilled. "I'm getting too old for this stuff," he muttered as he threw the file on his desk.

To Be Continued…..