Catwoman: Soulstealer (DC Icons #3)(83)

Selina lifted a brow. “You can’t mean to tell me that Nyssa doesn’t remember her little formula?”

Silence.

Selina snorted. “Perhaps she should have paid attention to those scientists she kidnapped—and not had us execute them when they were done.”

Selina had snapped one of their necks amid the gunfire of the other assassins.

A moment after he’d whispered to her, begged her not to. Explained what Nyssa had made him work on in secret for ten years, never seeing sunlight, never seeing his family. Knowing that if he disobeyed, she’d kill them. So he’d worked beneath the compound. Had done her bidding.

He and the two other scientists had found a way for the compound’s Lazarus Pit to become self-regenerating. A formula to create one from scratch—and for the Pit to be used over and over again. The ability to grant immortality to the highest bidder. To bring back people from the dead.

The most valuable weapon on earth.

He had told Selina where the data was stored, his password. Begged her to help him get free. To keep Nyssa from unleashing this thing upon the world. Selling it to the worst of mankind.

Nyssa had entered the blood-splattered room a moment later, demanding to know why Selina hadn’t finished the job.

Selina had broken the scientist’s neck before Nyssa finished speaking.

And now, standing before the assassins who had trained her, tormented her, made her into this thing she’d become…Selina lifted her chin.

The leader snarled, “Give us the formula. Now.”

Selina smiled again. “It’s too late.”

The assassins began to advance, moving as one down the smoky cellblock hallway.

Selina went on, “Do you know that in the weeks I’ve been here, my crime spree has gleaned some very interested buyers? People willing to do anything not to die.”

The approaching assassins halted.

Not at her words, but at the figure emerging from the smoke behind her.

The person she’d been brokering that formula to. He’d made it up from the sublevel. And right on time.

The Joker let out a hoarse laugh, his white jumpsuit baggy on his slim form as he stepped up to Selina’s side and drawled, “Thank you for confirming the formula’s existence.” He sketched a mockery of a bow, the smoke obscuring his face, his body, as he said to Selina, “We have a bargain.”

Then he clicked his tongue.

Even the League assassins seemed to recoil in surprise as the Joker’s army of vicious criminals exploded from behind them and charged down the hall.





She had insisted Ivy bring Harley into their circle for this. All of it, every step—for this.

This moment, this gamble. This alliance with the Joker.

To have his army, her army now, fight for her when Nyssa’s legion came to claim her head.

If the League assassins were cold precision, the Joker’s people were scalding chaos. No rules, no lines.

In the madness, the Joker extended a slim hand to her. “The formula, if you will.”

His reedy, light voice made her skin crawl.

Selina inclined her head. “Give me an hour, and meet me at the Statue of Saint Nicholas.” Right before the city proper, if they followed the long road from the outskirts where Arkham lay, he would easily find the marble statue for the patron saint of repentant thieves.

She turned to go, but the Joker gripped her arm, his long, thin fingers digging in hard enough to hurt. “If you aren’t there”—a breathy laugh—“you can imagine what I’ll do to you and yours.”

She peered down at the hand holding her, then up into the pale, angular face just barely visible through the smoke. “Don’t ever touch me again,” she said.

The Joker’s dark eyes swirled with cruelty—and madness. “We’re going to have fun, you and I,” he promised.

The words skittered over her, raking talons along her spine. She shook off his arm. “Don’t be late.”

Down the hall, the shouting on both sides was rising. The assassins had the skill, but the Joker’s men had the numbers on their side. And the wild desperation.

Just as gunfire started breaking out, the noise deafening in the tiny space, Selina prowled down the empty hall behind them. Turned right and then stepped through the hole blown open in the outer wall of the brick facade, revealing a sunny fall day, the dried-out lawn beyond. The gaping holes in the Gothic-style fences.

Sirens wailed in the distance. Inmates still poured out, shoving past each other to get through the spiked iron fences, sprinting for the long road that would take them down the hill on which Arkham was perched. And into the city itself.

She knew some weren’t heading toward Gotham City to escape.

Some were heading there to have fun.

Selina opened a panel in the arm of her suit and dialed a number she hadn’t called in years.

She spoke as she walked out of Arkham, the towering Gothic building looming above her, and then ran down that burnt-out lawn, through the skeletal trees.

Time.

She had been living on borrowed time.

And it was about to run out.



* * *



—

All hell was breaking loose.

Luke got the alert midway through dissecting what and who Holly had been.

A lie. It was a lie, all of it.