Goddess: Descention

Chapter One: Earthshine

Chapter 1

Earthshine

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Lord Alfred Tennyson

Gotham City

Only a sliver of a moon hung over Gotham City but the rest of the dark grey sphere was still visible behind it. Earthshine, is what the phenomena is called, where most of the moon is hidden from the radiance of the sun but lit by the dim illumination of the earth.

If the moon was a conscious entity as it was believed to be by primordial man eons ago then the shining silver crescent seemed to peek down at the world as if it feared to show it’s full face… Afraid perhaps of what might look back up at it.

Under that timid moon a shadow moved, but the heavens were not where it’s attention was directed. The moon had nothing to fear from this apparition, but the vermin below did. They moved in darkness but the shadow saw. They spoke in hushed voices but the shadow heard. They believed they acted in secret, but the shadow knew them. The vermin of Gotham City kept no secrets from it’s shadow-cloaked protector for long.

He could have moved on them as soon as he saw what they planned to trade. Guns, several crates of them stacked in the two black plate-less SUVs they pulled up in. Double parked on the deserted street, they stood around their cars talking quietly. It would be an easy hit, the guns were still locked up in the vehicles but he waited, he wanted their customers too. Crouched on the topmost crumbling balcony of an old tenement building in Gotham’s east end he watched and listened and waited, as silent as stone.

He counted six so far and recognized four of them as low level muscle for hire with a long list of violent priors. Below him the four he knew scanned the area with apprehension. They frequently looked up at the tall buildings masked in darkness, untouched by the glow of the sporadic streetlights, with thinly veiled fear. Inwardly the shadow smiled, he knew what scared them. The other two were new to him. He listened to them admonish their hired help for their unease. Judging from their bearing and the lack of concern, they were new to Gotham, new to his city. They’ll soon learn to fear Gotham’s night.

Batman heard before he saw the white panel truck pull around the corner followed by a black sedan. He watched them park only a few yards away from the SUVs. Several more; three from the sedan joined the others and two from the truck hauled open it’s sliding rear door and two more hopped out. Inside the panel truck, stacked on pallets and covered with plastic were hundreds of small green boxes. Seven of the newcomers were clad in black head to toe and moved with an economy of motion usually ascribed to dancers, athletes or martial artists… Interesting. The last was tall but slender, he wore a long dark overcoat and his face was hidden by the shadow of a wide brimmed hat, but Batman did see a wisp of… was that long white hair? Curiouser and curiouser.

He contemplated moving on them now, but he waited and listened intently to their conversation. He hoped to learn more about these newcomers before he attacked. Who was White-hair and what exactly was inside those boxes? Below he heard the two groups exchange strained, nervous pleasantries, White-hair’s voice had a distinct accent, Boston perhaps… Then suddenly another voice split his concentration, a familiar voice.

"Sir? A situation has developed you may be interested in.”

Batman tapped his communicator twice, a signal that meant he heard the communication but could not reply at the moment and that Alfred should continue. They had developed a thousand such signals over the years, he and Alfred, his oldest friend. Sometimes he thought they could literally have an entire conversation without speaking a word, they knew each other so well.