Batman 2 - Batman Returns (22 page)

Well, she supposed she might as well tell him.

“Your blood, Max.”

He grew even paler than he had been before.

“M-my blood?” he sputtered. “I—I gave at the office.”

“A half pint,” Catwoman purred. “I want gallons.” She curled her whip around his neck with a flick of her wrist. It was time for Max Shreck to have a little date with that big humming generator.

But Max didn’t want to go. “Let’s make a deal,” he continued feverishly as she literally dragged him along.
“Other
than my blood, what can I offer—”

“Sorry, Max.” She thought of that trip out the window during the snowstorm. She certainly hoped he pictured it as well.

“A die for a die,” she added, dragging him so that he might have reached out and touched the wheezing generator. The melting ice seemed to have affected it as well. It was definitely laboring now, shooting out a whole, steady stream of sparks.

“Either you’ve caught a cold,” Max replied, “or you’re planning to kill me.”

Smart boy. All she needed to do was ground dear Max properly, and he should go up in sparks as well.

A rope appeared nearby, dropping down from the dome above. A moment later Batman dropped in as well.

Max whimpered and crawled toward him.

“You’re not saving one life,” Max called out, “you’re saving a city and its way of life!”

Batman drop-kicked him into the generator.

Max yelped as he bounced off. Just a small shock this time. A taste, Catwoman hoped, of things to come.

Batman turned to Max. Sometimes, she had to admit, she liked his style.

“First,” he said to the businessman, “you’re going to shut up. Then you’re going to turn yourself in.”

What? This was what she got for getting involved with this sort of goody-goody!

“Don’t be naïve!” she demanded. “The law doesn’t apply to people like him.” She paused and looked Batman in the eyes. “Or us.”

But Batman shook his head. “Wrong on both counts.”

He reached out to take Max.

No. Catwoman wouldn’t let that creep get away. She cartwheeled straight at Batman, delivering a swift kick to his abdomen. He flew backwards, falling.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked as he picked himself up. “We could drop him off at the city jail, then go home together—”

As if it could be as simple as that! Couldn’t he understand?

“I’m not a house cat,” she began pleadingly.

Batman started to smile. She couldn’t stand that.

She lashed out with her claws, scratching Batman’s face. He pivoted away from her talons, punching out with his fist to push her beyond arm’s reach.

“I won’t declaw you,” Batman explained. “Just watch where you sharpen those things.”

Catwoman stared at him. If only she didn’t have to deal with Max. But she did, and Batman stood in the way.

“Don’t you see,” Batman pleaded. “We’re the same. Split down the middle.” He reached out a gloved hand toward her.

“Just like in a fairy tale,” she agreed. “I could live with you in your castle forever after.”

If only, she thought, there wasn’t this other thing I have to do first.

She leaned forward. She longed for the sweetness of his kiss.

She gave him a head-butt instead.

He reeled backward.

“I just couldn’t live with myself,” she admitted.

“Selina?” Max remarked as the light suddenly dawned upon him. “Selina Kyle? You’re fired!” He looked over at the recovering Batman. “And Bruce—Bruce Wayne? Why are you dressed up as Batman?”

Catwoman replied. “He
is
Batman, you moron.”

But Max had a gun in his hand.

“Was,” he corrected.

He shot at the rising Batman, catching him in the side of the neck. Batman fell to his knees as Max turned the gun on Catwoman.

Where did he get the gun? She should have been watching Max, not arguing with Bruce. Corn dog—

She stopped herself. That was Selina Kyle’s thinking. That was her past. For better or worse, Catwoman would have to face the gun.

She sauntered toward him.

“You killed me,” she said demurely, “Batman killed me, The Penguin killed me. Three lives down. Got enough bullets to finish me off?”

“One way to find out,” Max replied. He squeezed the trigger.

One bullet hit her arm. Another ripped into her thigh.

She kept on walking. She pulled off her hood.

“Four, five,” she remarked. “Still alive.”

She was bleeding, but she couldn’t feel it.

She pulled out her stun gun. She was going to finish this if it was the last thing she would ever do.

Selina had been shot. Twice.

Batman pulled off his own mask, trying to stanch the blood on his wounded neck. He told himself it wasn’t much more than a flesh wound. No matter how bad it was, he had to stop Max before he killed Selina.

He tried to get to his feet, but he was too dizzy.

“Selina—” he managed, “please stop.”

Max fired again, hitting her other leg. She kept on coming. He shot one more time, blowing away the barrel of her weapon. Sparks flew from what remained in her hand.

She kept on walking, a little shakier now.

“Six, seven,” she managed, “all good girls go to—”

Max aimed at her chest and pulled the trigger. No more bullets.

“Hmm,” Selina remarked casually, “two lives left. Think I’ll save one for next Christmas. Meantime, how about a kiss, Santy Claus?”

The once-powerful Max Shreck was actively whimpering by now. He stepped back, knocking against the generator.

Selina placed the stun gun in her mouth like some electronic pacifier, then grabbed Max, hugging him close.

“What are you—” Max screamed.

She leaned her head forward as if to kiss him as she drove her talons into the generator’s open fuse box. Both their bodies jumped as the electricity arced through them.

Bruce managed to stand as the two others were lost beneath a shower of sparks.

Commissioner Gordon looked out over Gotham Plaza. It was a happy scene for Christmas Eve, as all the stolen children were matched up with their anxious parents, with the help of the police and some mayoral aides. And, of course, the services of Batman.

It had been a strange night. Only a few minutes before, reports had come through about groups of penguins wandering around sporting strange helmets and carrying weapons. But the patrol cars hadn’t been able to find a thing. Probably somebody’s idea of a joke. It was amazing what Christmas brought out in some people.

The lights dimmed all around them. Were they going to have a blackout? For some reason, the Batsignal blinked to life in the sky for an instant, then was gone.

The lights came back, and this time, the Christmas tree lights came on as well. Parents and children cheered.

Gordon frowned. They had almost lost power in all of Gotham City.

Could Max Shreck have been right about his crazy power plant scheme?

Gordon would be glad when this Christmas Eve was over.

Bruce heard a high scream of joy come from beneath the sparks. The cry sounded like a cat.

He stumbled forward. He saw a body on the floor.

“Se-li-na Kyle,” he called. There was no answer.

He moved forward, through the rising mist that formed when the sparks hit the surrounding mist. There was only one body here, and that belonged to Max Shreck. He was quite dead.

He took a step away. The generator had stopped. Somehow, the lights were still working, but the air-conditioning was gone. It was getting hotter in here by the minute.

He turned as he heard a voice behind him.

“Gotta crank the A.C. Stuffy in here.”

It was The Penguin, risen from the sewers.

T
he Penguin looked terrible.

His soiled clothing was soaked and torn, his face and hands bleeding. He supported himself by using two umbrellas as crutches. He seemed to be sweating, too, as he struggled over to the air conditioner, not even aware that someone else was present.

The generator explosion had ignited some of the upper parts of the display. Fiery rubble fell from above. The Penguin dodged the flaming debris as he tossed away one umbrella to free a flipper. He fiddled with the dials on a singed air conditioner. It didn’t respond; it was as dead as the generator.

He turned and saw Batman.

“Without the mask,” he croaked, “you’re drop-dead handsome.” He grunted as he raised his umbrella. “So drop dead.”

He pressed the handle. The top of the umbrella transformed itself into a whirling merry-go-round.

“Shit,” The Penguin muttered. “Picked the cute one. Heat’s gettin’ to me.”

He searched the floor for the other umbrella, the one with the bullets. It wasn’t there. He looked back up at Batman.

And saw that his adversary held the umbrella in one gloved hand.

The Penguin took a step away. “Hey. You—wouldn’t blow away an endangered bird—”

Batman raised the umbrella. He aimed straight between the Penguin’s eyes.

The birdman tugged at his collar. His face was turning a very unpleasant shade of red.

He turned, and started waddling away, his breathing heavy.

“You wouldn’t shoot me in the back,” he called over his shoulder, “would you?”

Batman followed The Penguin with the still-raised umbrella, ready to fire.

The birdman stumbled, but started forward again, toward the last few vestiges of ice at the edge of the moat.

“I’m overheated, is all—” he gasped. “I’ll murder you momentarily—”

He tugged at his collar, pulling it open.

“But first—a cool drink—”

He took a final step, then belly-flopped only a few inches from the last glistening chunk of ice at the water’s edge.

“—of ice water—” he managed.

His flipper reached forward for the ice, just out of reach.

The flipper fell.

And The Penguin was still.

Batman put down the deadly umbrella. He stopped and stared as four penguins, larger than their fellows—emperor penguins, he would guess—moved forward from the shadows. They surrounded the fallen birdman, and, with a singleness of purpose, reached down with their beaks and grabbed hold of The Penguin. All four lifted their heads, raising The Penguin like pallbearers at his funeral, then turned and bore him away, back into darkness.

Batman couldn’t tell anyone about this. They would never believe him.

He wasn’t even sure if he believed it himself.

All the lights were on in Gotham City.

The Christmas tree blinked merrily, and the Bat signal blinked back.

Carolers sang. Children laughed. It was almost Christmas.

Commissioner Gordon sighed, and looked to the mayor and his staff. He pointed at the flashing bat emblem in the sky.

“Think he’ll ever forgive us?”

The mayor shrugged. “Probably not. But he’ll always help us.”

Commissioner Gordon hoped so. For the sake of them all, he hoped so.

A
lfred had come for him.

Battered and wounded, Bruce Wayne sat in the back of the Rolls-Royce. He stared out the window for a moment as the car passed the happy families that surrounded the tree in Gotham Plaza. But for all his hurts, and all the Christmas joy around him, he really couldn’t feel anything.