Devil's Consultancy 53

After the Question’s dramatic retelling of his, Huntress, and Hawkgirl’s adventure smashing the alien technology fabricator, tuned to assemble raw materials into copies of the Crime Bible, he presented one of the full examples. “It’s mostly drivel.” The Question explained, “But within its glorification of violence, it reveals volumes of subtlety, including proof of a few sinister plots that have been difficult to secure evidence for.” One of the unfortunate things about working with Vic is that he was a conspiracy theorist, and many (but, irritatingly, not all) of those theories were utter nonsense. She wasted ten minutes of her life hearing about aglets, of all things. It was usually safe to just ignore him when he alludes to those. “I suspect there is a mild memetic hazard within the book. Ignorable if you remain vigilant, but potentially hazardous to the unaware.” He gestured, and Huntress walked in with a stack, passing each table an edition. 

“We’re all stubborn as mules, so it should be fine.” Hawkgirl said. “If you hate horror movies, maybe keep your eyes off.”

“We don’t have all night, so just skim it, get a feel for what your enemies have been reading.” Batman warned, “These particular ones have been cleared of bugs and booby traps, so they’re safe enough to read later. If you have any doubts at all about the memetic hazard, let someone else read it.”

After a brief intermission while some people took more snacks while others read through random parts of the Crime Bible, Rhine floated off of Batman’s shoulder with a small flap of their wings and settled next to Etrigan. “As the esteemed elder, please be a helper. What’s your thought, you’ve seen this before, or at least you ought?”

“Never ever.” Etrigan said, “Thinking of this book, there is no trace, I’ve not mistook.”

Now that’s interesting. “Naught a trace?” Rhine asked, “If that’s the case…”

“Their history without place.” Etrigan finished. 

“Their origins from space.” Rhine continued, 

“A fake, a disgrace!” Etrigan agreed. 

“Woah, you gotta let a guy brace.” Nightwing joked. 

“This isn’t a race, no need to show face.” Rhine said, putting their hands on their hips to emote disappointment. 

“Could you follow that?” Black Spider asked. “I think they realized something.”

“Etrigan’s old enough that the fact he’s never heard of this Crime Bible before is suspicious.” Batgirl summarized. 

“The oldest signs of their existence that I’ve found with satisfactory proof dates to the seventies.” The Question said, “But I suspect that the rabbit hole goes deeper.”

“You always say that.” Hawkgirl said, annoyed. 

“He’s usually right.” Huntress countered, casually leaning on The Question’s side and giving Mother Panic a dirty look. The cyborg in question glared back. 

Still, Rhine floated to the remaining magical vigilante who may have insight. “Lurks in shadows, hides in the park. Simon, Simon, Simon Dark.” Rhine said, saying the nursery rhyme to address him. “What insight have you? Ignorance too?”

Simon Dark growled. His fidgeted, picking at the stitches that riddled his teenage-seeming form. “The Dark Faith’s attempted to invade Gotham before, although they were subtler about it last time. It was around… 1980 I think, when the Court controlled most crime in Gotham.”

“The Court?” The Question asked, his mind latching on that mention like a bloodhound. 

“The Court of Owls.” Azreal said, “They’ve been the dominant occult power in Gotham for centuries. It is curious how they’ve decided to push occultism mainstream, but the rich and powerful consorting with demons is nothing new in Gotham.”

Batman’s body language was always difficult to read, but Rhine could tell that he was confused. “Beware the Court of Owls, that watches all the time, ruling Gotham from a shadowy perch, behind granite and lime.” Rhine intoned. It was a very long rhyme, but as long as they planned the whole statement ahead of time it was usable. 

“That’s them.” Simon Dark confirmed, “The dead whisper about that time, many bodies were fed to Slaughter Swamp during that shadow war. The Dark Faith must want a rematch, which is why they’re committing so much. They must want the Owl’s magical resources, meaning ArcWayne’s going to be in trouble.”

What? Oh. “ArcWayne’s a Court front?” Rhine asked, loading their voice with skepticism, “Spilling their secrets like a font?”

“The Waynes have been high ranking members of the Court since its inception.” Simon insisted, “I don’t know where Degurechaff fits into it-”

“-Degurechaff’s the half-sister of Tanya Wayne, both born by Heather Graystone.” The Question said, looking at Batman suspiciously. He knew the actual story, so it was a little surprising that he was willing to uphold the deception. “If Bruce Wayne’s a member of the Court, that’s the connection.”

“If?” Hawkgirl said, pretending to be shocked. “How generous.”

“Rhine has a point.” The Question said, “Degurechaff’s modus operandi doesn’t fit an occult organization.”

“ArcWayne’s been accumulating knowledge from all around the world.” Batman said, playing devil’s advocate. 

“They’ve been making money, too.” Raven pointed out, still staying within arms reach of Nightwing. “I’ve done some work for them, they haven’t put anything sneaky in the work agreements or anything I’ve noticed.” If Rhine recalled correctly, Raven was mostly making toy golems, as she had the power to do so without animal sacrifice. She also made one for herself at cost, a rabbit that she dressed up in her hero outfit. Victor kept sending them short videos about how the golem was terrorizing Garfield in Raven’s absence, directed entirely by the boy’s imagination on what Raven’s evil toy rabbit would do. 

“The Court of Owls doesn’t care about money.” Simon Dark said dismissively, “They care about power. I don’t know what’s going through Bruce Wayne’s head,” Clearly not, “-but the Court works in opposition to the Dark Faith, so their lengthy plots aren’t important right now. What does matter is that last time, the conflict forced the Court to deploy their Talons, after one of the Dark Faith’s adherents murdered the Waynes.” The only reason Rhine noticed Batman’s sudden tension was because they were looking for it. “It was a chaotic time, and after something like this? Expect the Talons to be out in force.”

“They watch you at your hearth, they watch you in your bed, speak not a whispered word of them or they'll send the Talon for your head.” Rhine said, finishing the nursery rhyme. 

“Who are the Talons?” Batman questioned. 

“A better question: what are the Talons?” The Question… questioned. 

“Undead slave-soldiers.” Simon Dark summarized. “Dangerous, durable, cunning, and utterly devoted to their missions.”

“How strong?” Black Spider said, cutting to the point. 

“A pale imitation of myself or my brother.” Simon assured them, which was not comforting given how powerful Solomon Grundy was, “But they have an unknown number, hundreds at least, maybe thousands. I wasn’t active then, so I cannot be more precise than that.” Ah, right, Simon Dark’s information was having fractured memories of everyone who had their body disposed of in Slaughter Swamp. Quite the cross-section of Gotham’s population, presumably including at least a few members of the Court, but all at a remove, as the memories of the dead. Rhine knew how vague those could get at times from experience. “The important thing to consider is why the Talons need an agreement among the Court’s elders to be deployed: Because they always get diverted into side projects and petty dispute resolutions, so expect normal organized crime actions from them as well. They won’t go so far as to have the Talons fight each other, that’s forbidden, but pre-emptively resolving inheritance disputes is well within possibility.”

Ah. That sounded like it could be a problem. Shadow wars tend to get very messy. 

-----------------------

The meeting ended with everyone properly warned of the threat, and temporary partnerships were formed, Batman distributed a few trinkets to allow each of them to coordinate for the duration of the conflict, but it was mostly taken begrudgingly, as Batman’s reputation from his fellow vigilantes was more of a busybody, or an annoying authority figure, than a leader. 

Tanya had her opinions on how Bruce could come across as less C-suite and more of a direct report or equal collaborator, but she held her tongue: he considered himself through his own actions as being responsible for the other vigilantes, but his words on the subject were that of a tsundere, so he wouldn’t be receptive to her advice. 

Still, the night was busy, but nothing particularly noteworthy happened; there were crimes, yes, and even a sighting of some of those Talons, but there wasn’t anything particularly interesting about the ghouls, magically. Tanya guessed that some kind of alchemically refined ectoplasm was used to sustain them, from how they smelled, but they weren’t able to capture one so this remained a theory. 

Nevertheless, she wasn’t about to let these disasters cause her to change plans, so after sleeping the morning away, Jason, Billy, and her all went to the movies! 

Yes, Wayne Manor had a movie theater. Yes, it had popcorn machines and supplies of every other movie theater snack that they ever expressed interest in. And yes, they even had an arcade! But Jason absolutely insisted that this one movie theater, the one he grew up near, had better popcorn, and it lacked the ‘kidnap me, I dare you’ energy that was announcing on Perch that you were going to see the Muppets take Metropolis, nominally as a chaperoned date, at the very same theater that your grandparents were shot next to. Selfies included. 

Despite knowing with certainty that Bruce wasn’t there, Tanya compulsively checked Batman’s favorite brooding gargoyle on the way in any way, because if the man had somehow found a way around her blood magic sense of his location, she knew he wouldn’t tell her about it. Besides, he was stuck in Wayne Enterprises meetings today, and she had a secret weapon against the possibility that he’d call in her CEO identity for one while he was in the office. 

The movie was, as it should be, hilarious. They had gotten Clark to actually participate in a few scenes, including an on-screen interview where the real Clark Kent interviewed a robot Superman about LexCorp’s new management, although their Lex Luthor was simply an impersonator, a bald actor that usually played the CEO in a popular weekly comedy show, although in this case the parody wasn’t quite so extreme, it was done with a level of respect that reeked of Luthor’s conditions on agreeing to allow some scenes to be shot on LexCorp property, and given how LexCorp outright owns a solid thirty percent of Metropolis’ real estate, with another thirty owned by Luthor’s shell companies, that was an important thing for them to secure. 

“Bi-Bizarro!” Tanya wheezed, “Bizarro saved the day!”

Billy was laughing too, the two children leaning on each other as the credits rolled. “They didn’t even exploit his opposite everything on purpose! I couldn’t understand Fozzie and Gonzo’s instructions at all, they were so convoluted.”

“They actually would have done it correctly,” Tanya said, as she was well practiced with wordplay, “-but because they both did it, it was a double negative, which as you know…”

The boy laughed harder. Jason, who was chuckling himself, ushered them out of the theater. “C’mon pipsqueaks, let’s refill our popcorn tubs before we leave.”

Tanya took some deep breaths to quiet her laughter. Ah, she needed a good laugh after last night. “Okay, you take care of that, I have phones to check, they’ve all been off for the last two hours.”

She took out her ‘Tanya Wayne’ phone first, and it immediately blew up with notifications, mostly from Barbie. What in the world? One of them had a news article, and the title of it revealed what had occurred: “ArcWayne headquarters assaulted by criminals, CEO killed.”

Lovely. With an activation of a spell she set up in advance, the Tanya Degurechaff phone appeared in her hand… inside of an evidence bag, destroyed. Fuck. “Rhine. Berechnung. Mahou.” Tanya muttered, reversing the summoning she just did and banishing the evidence back to, presumably, police lockup. Hopefully no one noticed that…

Still, she had a blank backup phone, right? …Yeah, they’re last year’s model, but she can update later. She quickly used it to access the software mirror backup of the whole phone that they had in the Batcave’s servers, last updated… shortly before the disaster, perfect! Okay, it’s downloading, that’ll take a few minutes. In the meantime… Tanya Wayne phone. Calling…

Bruce picked up the phone instantly. “What did you do?” He growled immediately. 

“I just watched a movie!” Tanya protested, “I chirped about it and everything.”

“I thought you couldn’t split into two different human forms.” Bruce said. From his tone, he probably wasn’t in public right now. 

“I can’t.” Tanya said, idly erecting a spell that twisted her words into a whiny complaint about how Billy was a perfect gentleman to those trying to overhear her conversation. “I send an animated puppet to work that was piloted by a chunk of my soul.” Actually… Yes, it’s back. “I didn’t notice when it came back to me, so I have no idea why the news reported her dead, the puppet didn’t even have blood. Because it didn’t dispel properly, I’ll need to do some soul-searching to find those memories.” Assuming that they didn’t use something exotic in an attempt to stop her from wreaking revenge from beyond the grave, anyway. But the section of soul was just a little frayed, so the damage didn’t seem too bad. Easily fixed, it just needed that fixing, which was concerning. 

“The police reported your death so as to dissuade further action.” Bruce said, “They think you’re just in hiding now.”

“How’s the research?” Tanya asked, “Do I have to worry about whoever did this having anything dangerous?” Whatever her spell was twisting her words into, Billy choked at. 

“Data purge protocols activated without issue.” Bruce replied, “The offsite backups remain intact. I suspect that the invaders didn’t expect a sorceress to have a competent IT department.”

Tanya nodded triumphantly. As she personally did most of the translation work, there was very little original documentation within the corporate offices, it was mostly digital in airgapped servers, using a complex method to maintain the backups without directly exposing it to cyberattacks. She didn’t pretend to understand the specifics, but Lucius used the metaphor of an airlock to explain it. 

As such, destroying the data was easy without losing anything important; it was on such a hair trigger that it had thrice before been deleted accidentally. Which, for a span of eight years, wasn’t too bad. Worth it, to protect some of the nastier spells they had records of. 

“Well, I’m fine, and this isn’t going to set back productivity for long, so there’s no need to worry.” Tanya said, “The movie was great, by the way.”

“Don’t spoil it. I have plans to watch it with Dick before patrol.” Bruce said, unable to leave out a note of annoyance that she watched it without him. “How long have you been sending… whatever that is to work, anyway?”

“The last three months.” Tanya said honestly, “It’s called a simulacrum, incidentally. It’s not nearly as powerful as myself, and it’s a little dull, but you know as much as I do how easy a CEO’s job is. I’ll call the GCPD and make a statement after I get home and recover those memories.”

“Do that.” Bruce said, before his voice pitched up to his usual ditzy tone. “I love you Princess, stay safe out there! Gotham’s streets are dangerous.”

“Of course they are, I’m on them.” Tanya joked back, “Love you Daddy, goodbye!” Hanging up, she turned to Billy, who seemed to decide that impersonating a tomato was his favorite thing. “...Okay, what did my spell make you think I just said?”

“I figured out that what I was hearing and what you were saying was different at around the time you said that you’ll kiss him as much as you want and there’s nothing Bruce can do about it.” Jason deadpanned, holding a pair of popcorn tubs that was freshly filled. 

Urk. After a moment of regaining her composure/competing with Billy in the tomato impersonation contest, Tanya coughed. “Ah, sorry about that, Billy. Sometimes my disguise magic gets away from me if I get too distracted to direct it.”

Billy’s eyes flashed, the sign that he decided to invoke the Wisdom of Solomon. Instantly, his embarrassment faded, as if his blush was doused by icewater. “Did something happen?” He asked seriously. 

“ArcWayne got attacked.” Tanya said, frowning. “We shouldn’t be talking about it in public, though.” She put on a plastic smile, increasing her volume to just a hair above what was polite. “Daddy’s fine, though, so nothing we need to worry about, he’s got this!” She grabbed one of the popcorn tubs and started snacking more on it. “Come on, let’s get back to the manor.”

They made their way to where Jason parked the pickup truck he had been using to learn to drive, having officially gotten his license mere weeks ago. It wasn’t a particularly heavy duty pickup truck, the same kind low income immigrants with lawn care businesses favored. This was chosen specifically to make it less likely to get stolen. 

“We’re surrounded.” Jason said suddenly. “Quiet fuckers…”

At that, they revealed themselves: the villains numbered four, wearing full body leather, including masks with breathing apparatuses. They moved somewhat unnaturally, which could just be trained intimidation but could also be signs of inhuman aspects to their anatomy. They were all lithe, compact with muscle, and wielded wicked claws that may or may not be part of their suits.

Were these… the Talons? Why would they attack- oh. The Court of Owls were, if Simon Dark’s intelligence was accurate, directed by Gotham’s high society. He was mistaken on the role of Bruce… probably, she didn’t think Bruce was capable of hiding something so big from her, but she’s been surprised before. Either way, someone among their number was doubtlessly displeased with Jason’s admittance into the upper crust, so… “Aaaaaah!” she screamed, a high pitched noise that directly attacked human protective instincts. “Zombies!” She shouted in fright, whipping out a wand from her dimensional storage while pretending it came out of her wand sheath that she had strapped to the interior of her coat. 

She had dozens of wands, although only about nine different kinds. This one was chosen more or less at random, so… oh. This was her demon wand, infused with her own power. Yeah, she can work with this. 

“Hey now, let’s not jump to conclusions, pipsqueak.” Jason said, even as he squared up for a fight. “Zombies would have attacked us already.”

“That’s still on the table, Mr. Todd.” Said a smug voice, distorted somehow. A man wearing a fine suit and wearing an elaborate ivory owl mask emerged from the shadows. Tanya would guess that he’s in his early twenties, and the suit looked… bespoke, but not from one of the big names. Age range, height, lower end of the old money wealth brackets… Doesn’t quite narrow it down enough for her to guess. It could be one of four people. “But I don’t play in anything less than certainties. Step away from the girl, and she will go on her way, unharmed.” Ah, with that turn of phrase, this was absolutely Desmond Crowne, older brother to Abbot Crowne, one of her unofficial suitors. He was the bulkiest of them, very vain. Very handso- not the time! 

“What about Jason?” Tanya demanded, face flushed with what was definitely rage, “What about Billy?” Her wand was in her hand, but not pointed in any direction in particular; she guessed that the Talons would probably leap into action if she looked like she was actively attacking. 

A pocketwatch slipped out of Demond’s hand, gently twirling in a circle. Immediately, a magical hypnosis attempted to batter her mental barriers, but she had enough warning to firm them up enough that they held. “You’ll understand later, after your initiation.” He said, before even confirming that she was under his spell. 

Tanya immediately put on her ‘no thoughts, only cute’ expression that she relied on to deflect suspicion for so long. “Arr…” She slurred, “Are you in a secret society?” She asked, distantly. 

Desmond’s body language became smugger. “Would you like to join?” He asked. 

“Yes…” Tanya said, walking with mechanical grace towards him. 

“...Hey, quick question.” Billy said, suspicious as he eyes flared. “Have you ever used that hypno-watch before?”

Desmond fidgeted. “It just worked, didn’t it?” He asked, a clear no. “Kill them.” He declared, and the Talons surged forth. 

Tanya snatched the watch out of Desmond’s grip, using a flare of magic to phase the chain through his hand, then twirled it in front of him. He paused, confused, as Tanya used her other hand to wave her wand at one of the ghouls. 

It burst into hellfire, quickly rendering itself into a pile of scorched meat. Billy channeled tiny fractions of his blessings to send another talon flying out of the alley with a powerful and quick punch, while Jason dodged the attack, went to grapple the Talon, and slammed it into the wall before leveraging his superior weight to slam into the undead, cracking several of its bones. 

The one that flew out of the alley jumped back, only to get the hellfire treatment. She was in a bad mood, okay? The one that was broken assumed a green glow, standing up despite its injuries. Tanya burned that one into a crisp as well. “I do not envy you having to deal with them during the night.” Tanya idly commented, “The good news is that the hellfire worked, the ectoplasm boiled away and stopped them from regenerating.” She focused, taking a deep sniff while enhancing her magical senses. “Their tortured souls have been released, but not destroyed.” She knew from experience, unfortunately, that destroyed human souls had a distinct smell that was similar to animal souls, but thoroughly unpleasant. Like rotten coffee…

Turning back to her subject… “Rhine. Berechnung. Mahou.” She incanted, spinning the watch. “You were stopped in your mission by Azreal, who brought the judgement of The Lord to the Talons. He let you go to spread the word of the Wrath of God.” Desmond nodded dumbly and walked away to… a waiting car, looks like, and was driven off. Good thing she slipped a tracker into his back pocket. Idly, she used magic to link the magical suggestion from Desmond to his driver, so that he’ll report the same story. 

“Sloppy.” Jason admonished. “They’re not going to fall for that.”

“They don’t need to.” Tanya said, “But it looks like Simon was correct: now that the Talons have been deployed, the Court of Owls is going to be fulfilling all sorts of side objectives.” 

And just her luck, she was one of them.