At
the north end of Gotham city, hidden beneath the remains of a hundred-year-old
library, now decaying and collapsed after its abandonment and neglect, the
building’s basement had found new life with its current occupant. Leaning back
on an office chair, his green leather shoos on a computer desk while he quickly
solved the paper’s crossword puzzles, Edward Nygma; The Riddler chuckled to
himself while he heard the screams and cries from the dozen or so computer
screens dotting the wall from his desk.
“WHAT
THE HELL DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!” Yelled a man with rings under his eyes, his
cloths dishevelled and looking like he hadn’t slept or eaten in days. The
computer screen showed that he was standing in the middle of a metal box, six
feet by six feet, with a single green light illuminating the entire space.
“Please! I’ll do anything!”
Smirking
to himself, Edward leaned forward and clicked the speaker to his microphone.
“Two camels were facing in opposite directions. One was facing due east, the
other facing due west. They were in the desert so there was no reflection. How
can they manage to see each other without walking around, turning around or
moving their heads?”
“Oh,
come ON! NO MORE RIDDLES! Just let me go-AAAAAAAARGH!” A spark of intense
electricity zapped through the man, making him jerk and collapse back to the
floor of his cell, gasping for air and clutching his chest. “Oh, I’m sorry, the
answer was they were facing each other, better luck tomorrow.” Chuckling to
himself he looked to his other trapped victims, each of them were different.
Many of them were from different walks of life; a stock broker, a drunk, a
prostitute, a janitor, a doctor. The Riddler had captured them all one by one
to see who among them could prove they were clever enough to get out of a box
on their own. So far, he was only amused that they could only say the same
threat or plea again and again. “Simpletons…”
“PLEASE!
I have a family, they MUST be looking for me, just let me go and we can forget
this ever happened.” Turning his attention to the woman trying to reach out to
his sense of empathy, Edward straightened his green tie and clicked the speaker
to his microphone. “What is the difference between a school boy studying and a
farmer watching his cattle?”
Shaking
her head and leaning against the wall of her cell, the woman scratched at her
head with both hands. “One’s smart and the other’s dumb?” Her answer was an
electric shock that forced her to her knees, gasping for air. “Oh, I’m sorry,
the answer is one is stocking his mind while the other is minding his stock.”
Rolling in his chair with laughter, Edward went back to his paper. “It’s
already been 2 days, hope you can stay alive tomorrow for another try.”
Interesting…
A spider that plays with his flies.”
Caught
off guard and gripping the arms of his chair, Edward looked around, trying to
find the source of the voice. “WHO’S THERE?! HOW DID YOU FIND ME?” Getting up
to his feet, Edward gripped his golden cane with the question mark grip and
raised it like a club to strike whoever came into view. What stepped out of the
shadows was a young man in a green dress suit, a black trench coat folded over
his arm while his other reached for his green rimmed hat and placed it to his
chest to bow in greeting. “You are very difficult to find… And yet so simple to
follow, you leave many crumbs in your wake, almost as if you WANT to be found.”
The man answered in an East European accent.
Gripping
his cane more tightly, the Riddler sneered at the stranger who somehow just…
Appeared out of thin air. “I’m NOT going back to Arkham! If you’re with the
police, you’re gonna have to take me kicking and…” Before he could finish, the
man was already right in front of him, face to face and gripping his cane with
an iron grip. “Screaming?” Smiled the man with a toothy grin, his yellow eyes
staring deep into Nygma’s with an intensity of an owl staring into the eyes of
a mouse. Stuttering and losing his grip, Edward was lost in Dracula’s gaze.
“A
lovely young woman told me of you, a man who knows… Many things about this city
AND the century I find myself in, I have questions, you have answers.”
“Wha…
What do you want to know?”
Letting
go of the Riddler’s cane, the man stood straight, draping his coat over the
chair at the desk. “I am in need of personal paperwork, a means of
identification so as not to arouse suspicion to my true self and nature, I was
told that you could do this without much effort.” Nodding his head and wringing
his hands, Edward looked the man over, even when he leaned towards his desk and
gently traced a gloved finger over the screen of one of his prisoners, almost
as if he didn’t understand what a computer screen was. “Y-you still didn’t
answer me; HOW did you find me? I have to know.” Looking back at the Riddler,
Dracula leaned up and pulled free one of his gloves. Right before Riddler’s
eyes, the man’s finger nail grew longer, sharper with an almost metallic glint
to it before he gently traced that finger over the desk and carved a question
mark over its surface. “You had painted question marks across the entire city,
hidden as graffiti on walls and objects. if someone could see from the sky,
they would have traced the shape of an even BIGGER question mark with your nest
at its point.” Stabbing his finger at the dot of the question mark he carved,
his bladed finger cut straight through the wood like it was paper.
“Passport,
birth certificate, driver’s license, these things you will make for me. Now.”
Still
holding his cane, Edward looked around his quarters and back to the man staring
back at him. “And if I refuse?” Edward never had the chance to react when he
found himself pinned to the opposite wall of the room, held by the neck by a
hand stronger than his entire body, and staring into the fanged maw of what had
to be a lion. The roar he gave off made the skin on Edward’s cheeks warble from
its intensity, and just from the sounds coming from his computer, all his
prisoners heard it too. “I am a man of great patience… I have travelled an
ocean of time to come here, but I am not a man of tolerance, can you understand
THAT riddle?” nodding rapidly, the Riddler fell to the ground where a puddle
formed between his legs. “Cross me and I will make a meal of you… Unless you
have something else to offer?”
Looking
to the screens at his desk, Edward pointed towards a metal door to the side of
the room. “In there, there’s where you’ll find my contestants, take’em all if
you want… They would have all starved to death anyway before figuring out how
to leave.”
Looking
towards the door pointed to, Dracula moved to face it. The door knob had a
number pad above it, a security lock just in case. “The combination is…” A
squeal of metal filled the room when the vampire lord gripped the door frame
and pried the steel door off its hinges with the same effort as tearing paper
and tossing the ruined door to the side by his feet. “Count Bolg Varcolac… From
Romania, the rest I allow YOU to fill out before I am finished with your
guests.”
Watching
the stranger walk into the long dark hall, the Riddler went straight to work
typing out information and forging papers as quickly as possible. Looking up at
on of the screens showing his prisoners he found his guest had ripped open the
cell door with the same ease as earlier. “Oh, thank GOD! I didn’t think I was
going to get…” blinking back in horror, Edward gasped when the man lunged at
the prisoner, clamping down on his neck with teeth longer than his fingers.
Blood splattered everywhere while the man screamed and twitched before slumping
down to the floor, dead. Shivering and shaking, the Riddler recomposed himself
to continue, daring not to look back at the video feed even when it showed the
vampire licking the walls clean before moving to the next cell. One by one,
Dracula had his fill of the men and women who had been trapped in the Riddler’s
grasp for days, draining them so completely of blood that only a dried-out husk
remained. However, when Dracula went to the last cell, tearing the door open
and flitting into the cell with the same grace as a leaf in the breeze, the
vampire Count halted. There curled into a ball and crying her eyes out was the
form of an eight-year-old girl. Staring her down, he crouched until he was eye
to eye with the bawling girl, her eyes puffy and red from crying and her hands
at her mouth.
“And
who are you?” He asked, his gloved hand reaching out gently to her. “I want my
mommy…”
*
Giggling
to himself nervously now that he had completed his work and bundled up the
documents still fresh off the printer, Edward Nygma looked back to the ruined
door to find the man standing just at the threshold of the door frame. “There,
all done; passport, license, certificates, everything!” With shaking hands, he
offered the papers to the unreadable Count as he looked over each document before
placing them into his pocket. “So, is that it? We’re done? You won’t be… Doing
to me what you did to them will you?”
Stepping
aside, Dracula revealed the little girl, unharmed and holding herself, her eyes
half open as if she were sleep walking. Crouching back down to look her in the
eyes, Dracula pointed towards the door where he came from and looked back at
the Riddler. “Go through there, you are free now, your mother is waiting for
you… Forget this place, forget him, forget ME.” nodding softly the little girl
turned and ran out into the darkness where the sound of a door opened and
slammed shut a split second after. Standing back up to his full height, Dracula
glared back at the shivering genius with a look of intense disgust. “I had been
mistaken, I thought you a spider, but instead I find filthy cockroach.”
“What?”
With
the same speed that had him pinned to the wall, the Riddler was quickly in the
grasp of the Count and slammed down to the metal grated floor, with Dracula
hissing with barred fangs and teeth. “Even a spider would ignore the tiniest of
flies in its web for a true meal, but YOU capture ALL. And for what? In the
hopes of validating your superiority to the ignorant and confused?” Opening his
mouth wide, wider than what could be humanly possible, a pair of mandibles
jutted out of his dislocated jaw. Massive fangs the size of steak knives flexed
and chittered like rattlesnake tails while additional eyes formed and opened
above the man’s forehead. “Have you no honour? That even children fall under the
appetites of your ego?” Rolling his shoulders and shifting his arms, long
chitinous limbs branched out from his sides, slamming down one by one until
eight glossy black legs held up the bloated furry mass they were attached to.
Whimpering and trying to look away, the Riddler found himself pinned down by a
giant black spider the size of a Clydesdale horse, its claws keeping him pinned
down while venomous drool dripped on his face and cloths “You shall make
amendssss to me, YOU shall find more victimsss for me to feasssst upon, BUT NO
CHILDREN!” Nodding in a panic, the claws holding his face forced him to look up
into the eight yellow lidless eyes staring back into him. “Until I deem
otherwisssse, the only thing your ego will feasssst upon will be the carrion
and crawling… Otherwise I feed on YOU!!!”
Screaming
and covering his eyes, Edward flailed and scampered to the far wall, only now
realizing that no one was holding him down anymore. When he looked up, he found
the creature gone and in its place, was the young man reclaiming his coat and
putting his hat back over his head. “I shall return tomorrow night, but there
is another task I shall have you perform in my absence.”
“W-what?”
“You
are to find wolves for me, your city will be… Infested with them by now I
presume, you will find out where they den… So that I may flush them out.” Not
even giving the man a nod of farewell, Dracula moved without making a sound and
disappeared through the secret entrance to Edward’s lair. Getting up on shaking
legs and ignoring the second puddle he left behind on the floor, the Riddler
sat heavily on his office chair and shakily went to his key board. “Wolves?
Wolves in Gotham? Why?” Fueled by the unanswered question, the Riddler set to
work. While typing he noticed a roach scurry over his desk, with a quivering
lip, he snatched the bug up and swallowed. “Wolves… Have to find wolves…”