Of Witchcraft and SciFi.


After hearing of Eileen’s disappearance by the police agents, Joachim almost lost his mental capacities. Roaring and wandering the hotel room as a caged beast, he nervously held the pictures of both the giant question mark and his wife in a “missing” announcement.

“How could she do it? How could she do it? HOW THE HELL COULD SHE DO IT?!” he murmured to himself, unaware that someone entered the open window: “Do what, Mr Laneford?”  The already nervous scientist gasped at the sound of another person’s voice and his heart almost froze when he saw the large, caped figure silhouette in front of him. The two men stood still, without speaking and trapped in an awkward choreography of one making nervous to the other, because both knew from what were they capable.  

The passive fight of the strangers began when Laneford opened his mouth: “Who are you and what are you doing here?”  The shadowed figure felt a flurry of arrows piercing his flesh and invisible strings trying to move his body, like a flesh puppet: “ I …I--“.

- What is it? Don’t you have a name? Answer me!  

By that shift of his interlocutor’s control, the silhouette managed to grip on his will to answer: “N… names are not important, but for you—for you, I am the Batman and I’m here looking for answers”

Laneford had heard of Gotham’s strange criminals and its similarly strange vigilantes before, but he believed such things to be urban legends, mere fools clad in gimmicks and cartoonish tricks who weren’t at the level of “real villains”: terrorists, serial killers, rapists and so on. That’s why his scepticism almost clouded the room when he asked what kind of answers a perfect stranger would want from him:

- The ones only you can answer, the ones related to what happened to your wife -, said the Batman as he approached the centre of the room, -and the ones that aren’t important, I’ll make sure them to be discarded of our conversation -.

- I…I had nothing to do with her kidnapping, she left the hotel without been noticed, without been stopped! Such thing never happened before!  

- Stopped? Did you say ‘stopped’, Mr Laneford? - asked a somewhat surprised Batman.

Nothing else but silence came from the frightened scientist, for he let slippery words to escape from his mouth and he wasn’t able to pick them up again. In that moment, Batman felt he was in control again:

- Why would your wife needed to be stopped, Mr Laneford? Is there’s any reason for you to keep her…cloistered, every time you two are together?

After some seconds of cold and tense quietness, Joachim finally sighed before allowing a nervous sentence to flow out of him:

- You don’t see it, do you? You cannot understand it? No one does”, lamented Laneford with a tired voice:

“ Everyone believes me to be a monster; a stone-hearted demon that mistreats his spouse and sends curses upon people…however, none of them would see that my actions are nothing more than the biggest expression of love towards her…You see, my Eileen is not an ordinary woman and there wouldn’t enough adjectives or words to truly define who she is.

Nevertheless, the times where all her unusual beauty, her wits, her joie de vivre become simple ornamentations to a being that I merely don’t love, those moments…such hideous moments, Stranger, are the instants when a person realizes the mortal nature of all that there is to love or desire.

So…I decided to bury that essence of beauty underneath layers and layers of pain, and in spite that I’m aware of what I’m doing to her and that maybe she despises my existence. I’ll be happy knowing that what made me fall in love with Eileen won’t wither away and die along with the rest of her - -“

- Stop it, Laneford! I never requested you to tell this confession of yours, but to give me a possible reason of why was she kidnapped -, shouted a sickened Batman to a more confident Joachim, whose grey eyes shined like daggers in the darkness of the room as he carried on his “confession”:

- Well, as I was saying…Eileen’s no ordinary woman; for what she possesses might be…more than enough to be burned in a stake .

- And you have more than one reason to be sent to the gallows, as well, Mr Laneford -, replied Batman.

- I must admit that I ain’t the common chum either. But on difference of my wife, I managed to give purpose to my ‘skills’. Understanding that with benefices along come responsibilities, I assured most of my life to be free of both obstacles and intromissions, and I’m happy with said way of living; but Eileen…well:

She believed that there were more ways to comprehend her gift and to use mine without “having innocent people harmed” Can’t you believe it?! Saying such idiocies when her secret would expose the both of us as devils on the eyes of the masses…and in the fashion of a Greek deity, our – my latest invention was born from one of our quarrels.

- So, any of those reasons would make her a possible target for the Riddler?-, inquired the Dark Knight, - after all, she is the mother of the invention as you are the father and credited person for its conception.

Laneford told Batman that, that Riddler he was talking about couldn’t be conceived as more than a scentless maniac who stole his secret flowers and had to suffer the consequences of his felony.

- One last question, Mr Laneford: When your wife abandoned the room, is there any possibility she may be carrying any sample of the M.I with her?

-Please, don’t be ridiculous Sir. To obtain a single drop of the Ink, she would have to sneak inside the box of test tubes, and I’ve carrying it all day along –

The sentence died in Laneford’s mouth when he opened the box and, effectively, two test tubes were missing. At first perplexed, his surprise derived slowly into anger and then, into a venomous anxiety that transformed in cruelty at the moment he aroused the sight and his eyes crossed with the still figure of Batman.

-Very well, very well -  he hissed, -This is what’s going to happen: You are going to find this famous Riddler…and you and the PD are going to take him and my wife out of wherever they’re hiding and when you retrieve the both of them, you’ll - -

- Sent the criminal to justice? Of course I will, Mr Laneford; I’ve never needed anyone to tell me how to do my job and less in this case -, interrupted a nervous Batman before approaching the window and leaving an infuriated Laneford,
-Now, good night to you Sir, I wouldn’t try to curse the Riddler if I were you.

    *************************?***********************

Inside the amazing maze that composed “Gotham’s most wanted criminal at the time’s” lair, there couldn’t be a single being awake: All of the floors, the elevators, the hallways, the labs, the tunnels with green lights, the rooms’ zones with its tired and asleep occupants - in sum, everything - were a cold desert with no more traffic that the one of the cold wind and the hums of the security cameras. Unbeknown to the dormant, the clouds of ink had stained the ceilings and the walls with shifting curves and drawing as they were moving at the pace of the only creature half-awake in Riddler’s hideaway.

At every step this Intruder gave, every door, hallway and staircase was being explored, tasted, read. Like the whiskers of a cat or an Ariadne’s fleece, the figures of ink guided the strange Intruder through that labyrinth and in simile to the fingers of a king, no corner escaped to their “touch”.

The strange Intruder wandered across a maze of floors and corridors that would cause any person unfamiliar with its structure to get completely lost, searching for a particular place and subject in a quest that could be confused with the aimlessly walk of a ghost. At the point where a specific hallway changed of colour and finished in a three-on-one door, the Intruder stopped.

“Remember: you don’t want to scare him…the less he realizes what you are truly doing, the best. “, the stranger mused while the final door was opened.

An immense space composed as a studio or as a penthouse greeted its visitor as its big and little corners were explored limb to limb: Several rooms with papers and undecipherable writings spread all over their walls; unfinished  crosswords and puzzles disorderedly set on a table; a picture of a woman torn in little pieces and slightly burned with a metal lighter nearby; a pair of  Nirvana CDs; three tiny pill holders; a newspaper with the picture of a peculiar character called “The Batman” in the front-page highlighted with little red ink words. There were other spaces to continue the nocturne venturing, but none of those were considered interesting by the Strange Intruder. What such rare creature was looking for lied in the bedroom.

The bedroom’s door opened softly and silently, like a drugged mouth offering itself to the unknown; and the unknown visitor marvelled at the offering from that room: Clothes carelessly thrown over the floor and on a chair; a desk with an unfinished Waterhouse puzzle, a half-empty (half-full?) glass of some bitter liquid and a card from a “secret” club; books and electronic gadgets here and there; and in the middle of that messy shelter, there was him.

The Intruder expected to find the Riddler, but found a sleeping Edward instead. Without his mask and the rest of the stuff, he appeared as an aged grunge, the lines of tiredness drawing themselves around his closed eyes and the taste of sadness souring his mouth. Fascinated by the discovery, The Intruder laid on the bed by his side to watch him more closely.

Edward, on the other hand, didn’t realize the Strangers’ presence, for he was submerged in a cozy dream, thinking perhaps in Cleo and her silvery scale dress, or maybe in Roxanne and her scent of wet cloth, or even in Julie without the sordid details that would ache, or in any loved and/or desired person he sheltered in his memory. The intruder didn’t have a clue of what was running through his mind, but such thing was less than important in comparison of what was truly wanted from him:

In the fashion of an oneiric passage, a finger from the watcher gently posed upon the man’s face, drawing a dark violet line around his closed eyes and other one around his lips; these lines formed kaleidoscopic patterns over Edward’s face similar to the ones on the walls and the ceiling. Wrapped around the invisible sheets of sleep, Edward believed that feeling to be the result of his dream and his sole reaction was to lift his arms like struggling with an imaginary force; yet the force coming from the threads of hair of the Intruder was very real.

-What’s your name? whispered the Stranger Intruder to Edward, at which his mouth opened and stood on an unintelligible groan; - What’s your name?, asked the gorgon-like visitor with a cold, vicious voice tone. The insistence was so subtle and yet so strong, that he finally answered in the same mumbling, aching way he did when Cleo asked him the same question: “Edward”.

In the meantime, many floors away, Eileen was submerged in her own slumber, while the fantastic kaleidoscope of the sentence “His name is Edward” was being drawn in the entire cell.
      
                   ***************?*******************

As Batman was returning to his own hideout, Mr Wayne was struggling for freeing himself from the invisible strings that the puppeteer Laneford had put on him. The scientist’s serpentine voice was ringing in his ears with terrible commands such as those of murder, threats and so on. Trying to silence that unbearable cacophony, both Batman and Wayne hurried to find any memory, any method that would at least soothe the sensation of being manipulated by a mindless thing by such hideous and twisted man; and suddenly it came at him: The tree painting. Of course! The caress of the muse rescued him and made the peace to come back at his mind.

Panting of tiredness and relief, Wayne removed his Batman cowl and drew a soft smile upon his face. Opening his eyes since the moment he came out from his vehicle, Bruce Wayne – also known as the crime fighter Batman – stood up from the place he was sitting and walked towards the large computer from the place he called “Batcave”, expecting both his butler Alfred and adopted son Dick to be around. But he didn’t find them there, so he called their names to find no response.

Concerned about the unusual silence, Wayne walked out of the cave and wandered around the enormous house, until he felt a noise coming from the kitchen. When he passed through the door, his worries became motif of fun at the sight of both Alfred and Dick watching the new episode of “Macondo!” with their eyes almost pinned to the screen.  

During that episode, two men were discussing about having the houses of the title-named village painted in blue or white; and they were speaking in dubbed English with a Colombian accent, which reminded of the Kung Fu movies from the 70’s and, for the same reason, it resulted a source of unintended humour for the watcher, or at least for Mr. Wayne.

Twelve minutes later, the episode was over and he finally managed to reunite the other two men in the entire house (actually, the other one and a half men) to join him in the analysis of Laneford’s confession and a possible suspect to start their quest. After Bruce finished narrating his encounter with the –oh, so- dreadful scientist, there was a brief silent between the three of them until Alfred coughed and declared:

- So it’s true what rumours say about him: Laneford curses people with his words.

- I’d prefer to say that he controls them with his words…and who knows of what else he is capable, replied Wayne.

- But all cases related to him finished in disaster, continued Dick, How did you manage to free yourself from…whatever he did to you?

- I evoked an image and somehow it made his voice to disappear from my head; yet I wouldn’t feel too sure that it’ll work again.

- As for his marital secrets, I must say that only a madman ripped out from a Nabokovian tragedy or some third – classed novel would find such declarations minimally beautiful -, soundly expressed a disgusted Alfred.  

- What does that means, Alfred? I don’t get it, asked a confused Dick.

- It means my dear boy, that this guy is nothing more than a domestic abuser in the guise of a suffering husband and a pitiful romantic; because no person in his right mind would harm his significant other in the name of love.

- I see…and there must another reason for him to act like that; after all, he mentioned something about “skills”.

- A struggle for power? Possibly, answered Bruce, but that’ll be revised later; we need to focus on how to find both Mrs Laneford and the Riddler.

- From where would we start? He left only one clue and hasn’t show his head ever since, replied the boy to his foster father.

- Many clues on one, as a matter of fact: Something or someone made Mrs Laneford to leave a trail of personal belongings – said Bruce as he showed on the large computer, a picture of the question mark found on the blind alley – each possessing a meaning. Let’s see what do we got here: Her cell phone, a canister, her wallet, ID car, hotel room keys, a flower earring, mini flashlight, a vintage hat, two devil’s tail earrings, paper tissues, hand lotion, a beeper and…what’s that?

The last item that formed the giant question mark was a pamphlet of a known Research Institute called “The Submit “, associated with studies of parapsychology  and other pseudoscientific matters.  

- Riddler meant to leave her helpless, aisled from the world no doubt – he concluded – but that pamphlet appears to be out of the picture…doesn’t seem to fit.

- Maybe Mrs. Laneford threw it by accident when they caught her - reasoned Alfred - she would be trying to reach something, and then…poof! She was abducted.

- It’s a possibility, that pamphlet is the last item before the Riddler’s calling card. We must investigate anything we can about that institute…

- But what about the suspects? - asked a visibly impatient Dick.

- Well, I think you’ll like this colourful bunch, replied a smiling Bruce as he showed the kid, the list that Gordon gave to him earlier.

Awesome! I want to start with this one! He happily replied.   

    *******************************?*******************************

Before gentle Eos coloured the sky with brushes of peach and rose, there was a sea of grey clouds next morning in Gotham City. Most of its natives weren’t too affected for the smoky darkness that still reigned around 6 am, because for them, life in that city meant to face the brightest day as if it was the darkness night.

During those instants, the Riddler was taking his morning shower while his mind was trying to organize the important affairs to solve that day. The cool water fell through his jet black hair - making it to stick to his face and the back of his neck – “I really need to cut my hair, it’s starting to bother me”, he used to say to himself; and through his skin, his scars and tattoos – a black question mark on the right side of his chest and a naked fairy posing with a green glass on the left side of his lower back – as the dream he had the other night was appearing across his other thoughts:
It was a recurring one, which started before he escaped Arkham and a bit after Penguin tried to shut his night weeping up with laced pills and smuggled bourbon. In the dream, Edward was fighting to a Medusa - like being who wanted to tell him something he didn’t want to hear, and at some point he cut the creature’s head, showing it to the entire city afterwards.  But something had changed in it since last night: The medusa was asking him his name and the people who looked at her eyes created a massive - yet elegant-  orgy around Edward; among those persons he recognized a man who was supposed the Batman when the decapitated head talked to him again. He didn’t remember anything else.

Some minutes later, Riddler was out of the bathroom, drying his long hair with a towel while thinking in the ink and Mrs Laneford, in their absolute futility and the burden they now represented for him. “They’re of no use at all, aren’t they?” he asked to himself, “A ‘not so marvellous goo’ and a whiny Scottish broad with more issues than yourself; you’re really improving in this career of yours, Eddy. Soon you’ll be stealing coins from soft drink’s machines like some analphabetic hobo. “
Somehow connecting both the dream and the prisoner, Riddler felt the need of getting rid of her, but how could he do it? She already knew too much; enough to destroy everything he had been working for those entire years effortlessly, and nevertheless he could still rely on her personal story: Knowing the image of unstable woman her husband built around her, maybe it wouldn’t that difficult to free himself from that nuisance. But just to make it in a civilized manner, Riddler needed a little advice, a way of releasing himself from the burden without getting caught.
He rose from the place he was sitting and walked to a desk covered in papers, searching with his fingers in his contact’s notebook, he found the name “Dent, Harvey. Attorney” underlined in the sixth page. Dent, he was the man he needed in cases like that.
              
*************************?****************************

Meanwhile, an already awaken Eileen was removing the improvised rollers from her hair when she noted a little package at the feet of her bed. Opening it carefully, a dark red suit appeared in front of her and a wide smile appeared upon her face: “Well, it seems that my host wants me to make myself at home; this is getting better by the minute”, she uttered to herself while putting on the suit; “I being you, wouldn’t feel so comfortable, Mrs Laneford”, interrupted the Riddler who was standing under the threshold. A surprised Eileen gasped at him with a shocked expression before replying with a condescend smile: “Oh, good morning to you too; did anyone teach you to knock first when a lady is getting dressed? “, “I didn’t know you were getting dressed and I knocked the door, but as you didn’t answer, I believed you were asleep” After those words both stood quietly, staring at each other:
The Riddler looked at the woman in the red suit and those parts that weren’t covered in the fabric – her neck, the lines of her breasts splashed with tiny freckles, her face still swollen with a nose still red and a pair of eyes that used to be beautiful but now they were sunk in the darkened lids – and something shivered inside of him.  Eileen, on the other hand, examined the lanky man in the absurd green suit and those parts that weren’t wrapped in the concept of whatever role he pretended to represent – His severe features, the veil of his hair still smelling to wetness, his painted lips with a sad bow, his fingers tapping his omnipresent staff – and something sweet like compassion would’ve bloomed inside of her if a parallel of that man with her husband hadn’t poisoned the seed into a feeling of reject.

- I’d be straight with you, Mrs Laneford -, said the Riddler to break the silence - I’m afraid I’ll have to dispose of you.

- Excuse me? she asked.

- Nor your presence neither the Marvel Ink samples are useful for me. I will arrange a meeting with your husband for - -

- Wait! she interrupted him, - Why would you want to get rid of m…the marvel ink? It’s because something didn’t work with it?

- It wasn’t what I expected, - continued an impatient Riddler, - but that’s not th –

- Do you want the Ink to work, Mr Riddler? - Questioned an obsequious Eileen, - do you want it to do what you truly desire? Is that what you want?

- Please Mrs Laneford; don’t insist “replied a tired Riddler, - I won’t keep a thing that will not serve to my purposes and I won’t keep a person whose job consists in invert the same things I do.

- Invert the things you do? What in the world are you talking about? , inquired defiantly Eileen, - My work consists in deciphering codes and interpreting symbols, not unravelling riddles and building puzzles.

- Ho, it’s your work that shallow?! Too bad…You’ve proofed how useless it’s your presence for me then. - , he replied with bitter irony to the apparently helpless female.

Putting on the mask of worry, Eileen begged to the Riddler with a slightly sly voice tone: “Please, Mr. Riddler, let me stay. Maybe you don’t need me for such matters, but there are other things I can do – “

- Like what, Mrs Laneford? - , he asked while struggling with some profanities in his mouth.

- I can decipher and make appear things and secrets that not even the best of detectives or wise men can even conceive, and I can do it in a way that not even the greatest dreamer had ever dreamed of…as a matter of fact, I’ll do it right now, right here, for you. - She said before giving him a wicked smile with her rosy lips.

At that point of the conversation, Riddler was convinced that he was in front of a mad woman who pretended to bend his will with childish methods. Yet, there was a pair of doubts about Mrs Laneford’s strange behaviour: Why would she prefer to stay with him?  And what was that “other thing” she was talking about?  Did it have anything to do with those “incidents” he had investigated about her and her husband?

- Goodbye, Mrs Laneford. , he finished, - I’m not interested in watching whatever trick you’re capable of.

After that, he turned on his heels and started to walk away, ignoring the reply of “I wasn’t asking you “from Eileen; when the sound of Smyther’s call on the phone interrupted his path.

- Sir, sir!  , his voice screamed on the other side of the line.

- Calm down! What’s going on?

- It’s the ink! It has gone out of control! It has spread all over the street! Lots of things are appearing on the walls and floors -, Smythers yelled.

- What are you saying? I told you to track down Harley Quinn, not to sniff the ink – a confused Riddler replied.

- That’s exactly what I was doing! But...it seems that a stain fell on a part of her body and now…this is happening.

- I – I don’t know what to say

- Sir…is the prisoner in the lair? Hasn’t she run away? , asked Smythers with an unusually scared voice.

- Actually, I’m in her cell and she’s behind me, why do you ask?

- Because…because her smell is here…as if she was writing the words in the walls…for example, there’s an “I wasn’t asking” appearing in front of me - - Sir?

After a female voice from Riddler’s side said “I told you so”, the line went dead.