Batman Arkham Knight Read Free Page B

enabling him to glide over the crowd, past the fire engines, and then around the block. He felt the wind dying and he began to dip, so he fired his grapple again, up to the fourth story of the Kane Building, an old apartment house built in 1940 for Gotham City’s elite. Once used to house the wealthy, like so much of city, it was terribly deteriorated. Today it sheltered the poor.
    The grapple lifted Batman’s arc and sent him soaring up again to where he caught a new gust that took him another two blocks, past Stagg Towers, before forcing him to repeat the process. Most of the people below were so intent on finding their way out of Gotham City that they didn’t waste time looking up, so he was able to glide several blocks before a runner noticed him. And even then, before the person could be certain, Batman sailed around another corner, disappearing from sight.
    His gauntlet began to vibrate.
Cell call. Audio, not video.
Tim wouldn’t call—not now. And Dick barely spoke to him anymore. So it had to be James Gordon, Alfred Pennyworth, Oracle or Lucius Fox. With his hands being used to maneuver through the city, he sent the call to his ear comm.
    Alfred was on the other end.
    “Sir, to let you know, Mr. Fox is working on the new uniform, as per your request.”
    “Good to know, Alfred,” Batman responded. “But that’s not the reason you’re calling. Fox would have sent a comm when he was ready.”
    “Very perceptive, sir,”
the butler responded.
“The computer has picked up a fire alert in Old Gotham City. I recognized the address. GPS indicates you’re only two blocks away, and traveling in that direction.”
    “So?”
    There was a pause, then Alfred continued.
    “With all the problems the city is undergoing,”
he said,
“I have to ask, sir—why would you be making a detour there? The building has long been abandoned. No lives are imperiled.”
    “Fires can spread, Alfred.”
    “But were that to happen, you know you’re not equipped to stop it. The Fire Department will put it down before it spreads to any other buildings.”
Another pause.
“You’re going there because of what it was, not what it is… sir.”
    No answer.
    “Sir? In the greater scheme of things, you know that building is not important.”
    “It might be ready for demolition today,” Batman replied, “but fifty-seven years ago that building was a showcase. It was also where my father was born. He bought it before he turned twenty, and often brought me to it as he attempted to buy the entire block, planning its renovation. When he… when my parents were murdered, I… I didn’t follow through, and I should have, Alfred.”
    “I understand that, sir. But why now?”
    “Although it’s little more than a metaphor, I can’t stand by and watch the city my father tried to save be destroyed by fear.” His jaw tightened, and his voice became harder. “This fire wasn’t an accident.”
    “Sir?”
    “Are you picking up the five heat signatures directly below me? They’re torching this block—and God knows how many others—with Molotov cocktails. They appear to be doing it for fun.”
    “Understood,”
the butler said.
“I’ll alert the commissioner to have several cells prepared.”
    “Thank you, Alfred. We can’t protect our future by viciously razing the past.”
    * * *
    The leader of the five appeared to be no more than twenty-four, a smallish punk, thin, wearing jeans and a blue T-shirt with a design on it representing a popular TV cartoon character. He stuck the alcohol-soaked cloth into a glass bottle filled with gas mixed with motor oil, then lit the makeshift wick. When the bottle was smashed it would release a sudden, deadly fireball.
    If Batman let him throw it.
    The caped figure fired a grapple cable, snagged the punk, then yanked him halfway up the building, locking the grapple into position and leaving him hanging twenty-seven feet off the ground. As the would-be arsonist jerked to a stop Batman dove, cape