Catwoman: Soulstealer (DC Icons #3)(33)

“Give back the painting.”

She patted the satchel at her side, then asked, “Where’d you come up with Batwing? Was it because Batman was already taken?”

“This can go one of two ways. Either you—”

“Give back the painting right now, or you take it from me?” A sound that might have been a click of the tongue. “Isn’t it wrong for a big, tough man to threaten to hurt a woman?”

Holy hell. “I think you lost the right to ask that question when you took the painting.”

“A girl has got to eat.”

“Find another profession.”

She stalked toward him, a few steps. Certainly closer than most of Gotham City’s worst dared get. Close enough for him to make a grab for that satchel if he could brave the reach of the bullwhip.

Exactly why she did it. A taunt.

“If you want stealth,” she observed mildly, “then that night-light on your chest isn’t very helpful.”

Luke ground his teeth, the sound amplified in his helmet. “It’s a symbol.”

With every word, he sized her up, calculating the space of the roof, the way he’d seen her move, the weight of the painting in that bag.

“And symbols have power,” she recited. “I forgot how boring you self-righteous do-gooders can be.”

Luke released a slow breath, counting backward from ten. Temper. His temper was his downfall, Bruce had said. Controlling it was key.

Well, Bruce wasn’t here.

As she stretched out her free hand and touched the tip of a claw to the center of the glowing bat-symbol on his chest, Luke lunged.

Or he tried to.

He’d aimed for her arm, intending to whirl her around and pin her to the brick facade of the doorway into the building below. But her arm wasn’t there.

Fast. She was so fast. And she let her arm and the bullwhip be a distraction while she swept her leg.

The world tilted—

Luke hit the roof but rose instantly—

Metal on metal clanged through his head, the night.

A one-two combination right to his face, those claws now retracted. His head snapped back, and he managed to throw all of one jab before—

She used the same maneuver he’d intended for her. Grabbed his outstretched arm, locking it, and slammed him to the ground.

His suit cushioned much of the blow, but however he’d anticipated this night ending, it hadn’t been like this. Knocked on his ass.

He surged upward, his suit sending him a whirl of analytics on her technique, her calculated moves based on what it had already observed.

But she was gone.

No, not gone. She’d moved to the corner of the roof. And was now peeling from a pole what looked to be a camera—

She wouldn’t dare. She wouldn’t have dared to record this encounter.

But the stranger, this Catwoman, lifted the camera in salute as she leapt over the edge of the roof.

By the time Luke had scrambled for it, ego smarting more than his body, she was gone.



* * *



—

The next morning, however, proved that the video footage was not.

Striding into the gym at dawn and surveying the neat piles of newspapers along the greeting counter, Luke scowled at the headline blaring above the photo on the front page.


When the Bat’s Away, the Cat Will Play



And there he was—or Batwing was. The shot, he would admit, was brilliant. She’d likely picked a frame from her footage.

The photo showed him in the middle of falling, Catwoman’s body the portrait of conquering queen as she sent him to the ground.

Luke swiped up the newspaper and chucked it into the gym trash bin to land among empty cups of water and cleaning wipes.

Not good. Not good at all.

The message it would send to the other criminals in Gotham City was precisely why she’d leaked the photos.

Luke knew it’d be futile to go to the newspaper to ask who’d sent them. They had an anonymous tip line. And they had clearly struck gold last night. No way they would reveal their source. Even if they could.

Luke stepped onto a treadmill, punching it up to a flat-out run.

He had to get her under control—and fast.

Before the underworld of Gotham City started to stir.





Selina didn’t mind the name: Catwoman.

And the papers seemed to adore it, too, granting her the front-page banner.

She was still smiling about it two nights later, especially the little tidbit about how the Fox heir had lost his painting. Maybe she’d swing by her neighbor’s apartment later to see how he was coping with the loss.

After she completed this job, of course. She’d nearly finished hacking into the cavernous jewelry store’s security system to reroute the video cameras to play the same footage on a loop.

If only her old social workers could see her now: a different sort of poster girl for the efficacy of Gotham City’s At-Risk Youth Program.

Selina’s smile faded as she stood in the small security office in the back of the enormous, multilevel store that occupied half a city block, the alarms disabled courtesy of a few careful snips from her tiny wire cutters.

A broken system—that’s what it was. What it had always been. Maggie had only gotten out because of whatever strings or cash Talia had handed over that night. How many other kids never got that chance?