Catwoman: Soulstealer (DC Icons #3)(12)

He didn’t dare introduce himself. Didn’t do anything. Well trained not to be a presence but an instrument.

Even now, after all she’d been taught and instructed to do, it made her stomach churn.

A lie. This is all a lie. The East End bred me, raised me. The words sat on her tongue as she ducked into the car. This is all a lie.

But she didn’t need to speak a word to him: he already had the address of the Old Gotham City penthouse Holly had leased for the as-yet-unknown length of her stay. Likely through gala season, she’d informed the real estate agent, who’d nearly fainted at the commission of a lifetime.

Butter-soft leather cushioned her when she slid into the rear seat of the car, the driver making sure her waxed golden legs were fully inside, Birkin bag nestled in the seat beside her, before quietly shutting the door. Air at seventy degrees, two chilled bottles of water in the lowered tray beside her, a smart tablet anchored to the back of the front passenger seat, packets of lemon-scented face towelettes tucked into the mesh netting beneath.

Not that she’d use them. Why ruin the makeup she’d carefully applied before landing? The barely-there foundation, matte dove-gray eye shadow with a swoop of eyeliner, and bold flamethrower-red lips.

She’d refused to acknowledge the slight trembling in her hands while she’d done it—the hands she’d had to shake out multiple times before they were steady enough to precisely apply her eyeliner and lipstick.

Being nervous before a mission didn’t help anything. She reminded herself of that over and over. Even if she’d already gone through every breathing technique she’d been taught.

The driver got in, turning on the radio to the station she’d requested: classical. As a soon-to-be patron of the Gotham City Opera, she at least had to appear interested in it.

Appear to be many things, since the driver was sure to talk. Just as the flight attendants on the plane were sure to talk. Money bought nearly everything, but silence was never a guarantee. In Gotham City, loyalty was bought and sold as fast as any stock on the market.

Loyalty couldn’t exist in a place like this. She’d learned that, too, these past few years.

The car pulled out of the private airport, the heavy gates parting to let them through. Selina stroked a hand down the silky-smooth leather of the Birkin beside her. The bag, the shoes, the clothes, the jewels—all were loaded symbols. Literally. And also passports, veritable golden tickets into the circles of society who dwelled above those eking out a living on the streets of Gotham City.

Nature is all about balance, Nyssa al Ghūl, her mentor and personal instructor during her time in Italy, had once purred to her. Tip too far in one direction, and it will always find a way to right itself.

Gotham City had been tipping too far toward the rich and corrupt for a long, long time. She’d come home to right it once more.

The car wove through a grid of streets before merging onto the highway that would cross the Gotham River and take them downtown. As they sped over the Brown Bridge, the southern tip of Gotham City spread before her, packed with the glittering high-rises that pierced the cloudless summer day like lances. And lording above them all: Wayne Tower. Every citizen of the city could likely sketch the building from memory. A symbol of welcome, the postcards claimed.

That tower was a symbol of anything but.

And when she was finished here, the world would see that, too.

She peered out through the gaps in the steel beams of the bridge toward the muddy-blue waters of the Gotham River. How many bodies would be swimming in it by the time she was finished here?

Gotham City was primed to fall. All it would take was a little encouragement.

What fortunate timing that the sanctimonious Batman was currently gone—no sign of him for weeks now. And that Batwing, along with a few others, was barely holding back the tide of lowlifes seeking to take advantage of that absence.

She snorted softly. What ridiculous names they gave themselves, these vigilantes.

Selina lifted her gaze from the river to the shining metropolis approaching with every heartbeat. To the darker, shorter buildings of the East End smudging the horizon.

Home. Or it had been. She hadn’t let herself consider it her home in a long while. Refused to contemplate where home might be, if such a thing could ever exist for her now.

The brutal training at the League of Assassins had taught her many, many things. Had killed that street-raised, desperate girl, leaving her somewhere at the bottom of a ravine in the Dolomites. Had drained that girl away into nothing, along with the blood of the men who Nyssa and the others had taught her how to bring down—how to punish.

You will bring empires to their knees, Nyssa had once sworn to her after a particularly grueling demonstration on how to get men to talk. A kernel of promise while she’d puked her guts up afterward.

No, home did not exist anymore. But it was worth it. She’d come here to make sure it had all been worth it—the training, the unspeakable cost. She would not fail. Not this most vital mission.

So Selina loosed a settling breath and beheld the sparkling city as she reclined in the cushioned seat of the car.

And finally, at long last, she allowed herself a little smile.

Let Gotham City enjoy its final days of summer.





The nightmare was always the same.

Blinding sun, heat so dry it choked the air out of his lungs, and a flat plain of sand and scrub spreading to the horizon.