The Knowhere Girl

[34] Swan Song

I let my backpack drop to the floor thud. It allowed me to carry my guilt and my red shame like a physical burden. I mightn't have given up Bruce's secret identity, but I was a coward.

There was no doubt about that now as the door slammed shut behind me. I crumpled, facedown, hands-down on the cold wooden floor. Utterly exhausted.

I was alone.

Inside Jason's safehouse.

Not alone, actually, as I raised my head from the floor.

There was Joker, just a few feet away, folded backward in a way people shouldn't bend. Still grinning, even in death. Then his skin started to melt away Raiders of the Lost Ark style, a mess flesh dripping from his bones, peeling away, red, hunks of hair and brain matter on the floor.

Just his skeleton left now, it didn't join me on the floor but stayed standing.

The skeletons mouth moved, and a high-pitched bark of laughter came from it, halfway between a laugh and a shout, the smile across his bones twisting in at the ends, turning cruel.

Come and dance the Deathwalk
Beneath the grinning moon...
We'll do the dance together
In the dying afternoon...

But though the skeletons mouth bones moved, the voice came from some other place I couldn't pinpoint. It sank its teeth into me, piano wired on my throat. Knees to my chest, I cradled myself in a ball.

Only feet, that was all I could see of him now. They were dancing in a line, doing the Nutbush the only dance I knew, as easily as if he were alive and real.

The Deathwalk looks so tricky
But I think you'll learn it quick
Just step into my crowbars arms
She'll teach you in a tick

I hear shouting from beyond my little hell.

Thumping.

Scuffling.

I pushed myself back against the wall.

I stared out to the city, eyes scanning across the darkness. The high-rise lights spoke to me from that wrought-iron-and-gargoyle jungle, staggering in the wind, cool on my cheeks.

Cold, like a blade on my cheek. The scars there burned.

See the jolly skeletons A-dancing on the seal
They haven't got no cares now
Not like you and me...
They went and did the Deathwalk
That crazy nighttime beat...

I my eyes wandered over to the chunks of skin on the floor, those tiny pieces of flesh and scalp and brain that would rebuild the puzzle of his head. Which part of the brain was it, the part that told you what was real and what was a waking nightmare? I must already be missing that part. And where were those red feelings kept, the guilt, the shame? I hoped those would be the first to peel away, leave me with some of the good fragments, the better memories.

I waited for the crowbar. The crack of bones, the last sound I'd hear save for my own screams.

And now they partner ghosts and ghouls
On bony, pearly feet...

No, no. I couldn't die like this. On my knees, knowing it was coming. I tried to push up, but all the strength was gone from me, all the fight, crashing back down. I glanced down at my legs. Why weren't they working?

I just need a teensy-weensy favour, girlie. We're partners, after all. Partners tell each other things. Tell me: who's the Bat?

So I waited.