Justice League And The Hounds Of Hell

Chapter 6: Rallied Up

I recorded everything Diana had seen. A van, two burly men, and lots of barking. They were also armed but they weren't interested in brawling. I concluded that they were the same men I had seen beating the life out of the dog under the bridge. Which meant that they were connected, and I was getting on the tail of these culprits. I skipped school on Friday to make it to the rally, but I spent the morning in the Batcave studying the pictures I had taken. Alfred kept me company by organizing the place and bouncing comments about the investigation with me. 

I twisted around on the office chair to face him. "Alfred, how is that dog we saved doing in the hospital?" 

"He's snapped at the vet quite a few times, but is making a fast recovery." He gave me one of his unimpressed looks. "I hope you know the fees for his care are coming out of your allowance."

"I don't have an allowance."

"Yes, whenever Master Bruce starts to give you one, I will have a balance made up for you in the checkbook." He gave me a sweet smirk.

"I would like to visit him one of these days. He's a key witness."

"I would advise against that, he's proven to be quite aggressive..." We made drawn out eye contact, I lifted my eyebrows just a bit. "But, for the sake of your investigation, I did inquire about when we can see him. They said they are transferring him to the animal shelter next week, we can visit him when he gets there."

"You are the best!" I ran across the room to give him a quick hug and glanced at the time. "I should get going, I don't want to be late. Tell my dad not to worry when he gets home." 

"Shall I get the driver?" 

"Nope, Tim is giving me a ride. I'll see you later." 

I filled my purse with everything I could need, including a couple batarangs, and a mask to hide my face if things should get hectic. Tim was waiting for me in front of the manor, leaning against his car as if he was in an ad. I think he was trying to channel the badboy Marc Wahlberg from the Calvin Klein days, but Tim was just too cute for that. He had such an innocent look about him, and that's what was great about him; the fact that he could do the perky never-hurt-a-fly thing, yet hold his own in a fight if and when it came to that. He'd been spending the last week consoling his lead, and today he was going to check out the ninja camp under an alias. He left me down the street from the zoo to get to his meet and greet with the counselors.

The outside of the zoo was steadily filling with people carrying posters. Some of them had pictures of the infamous lion, and a few that had been made that morning had pictures of the hyenas. I kept a baseball cap low on my head to hide my face and protect myself from the sun. They all looked like well-meaning people, a few were obviously kind of over the top. One man was practically naked. He reminded me of Tarzan, but with a jello-like gut instead of rockhard muscles, and it was best to keep a distance of at least three feet from him because his dreads smelled like they hadn't been washed in weeks. He said it was all in his effort to conserve freshwater resources. He was the one the media would focus on, and that would make him the face of this movement.

Police had come by to ensure that the protest remained peaceful. Meanwhile, families going to visit the animals watched with critical suspicion. At fifteen minutes past noon, the leader of the event stood in the center with a loud megaphone to speak. She was a little on the radical side, and went on a rant about the evils of humanity to treat our fellow creatures as "its" rather than "thous." She claimed that zoos should be shut down because they turn beautiful wildlife into entertainment for uneducated folk in the city. She also cited that the enclosures were too small and the animals lived miserable lives at the hands of their keepers. There were lots of shouts in agreement.