Catwoman: Soulstealer (DC Icons #3)(91)

The thought was enough to focus him. Steady him.

Three against one. He’d faced worse odds, but his opponents had not been lethal killers. His opponents had not been built to take lives.

Luke calmed his breathing. Readied himself as the assassins noticed the trail of blood down the hallway, leading to the door behind him, the door he’d go down swinging to defend. They exchanged knowing glances and gave him cold, clever smiles.

When the first attack came, he was ready.



* * *



—

Every breath was an effort.

Every movement of her hands on the three various machines, each step between them, required the entirety of her focus.

Selina recited the process, telling herself what to do as she worked.

Activate the ley lines first. She moved to the machine on the far left, flicking on three switches. One to charge the machine. One to draw up the energy from the lines. One to direct it to the pool.

She staggered toward the second machine. Green button starts the chemicals mixing. Red stops it.

Maggie lay so still on that grated platform. So still as the liquid just beyond her began to eddy and churn, deepest green and darkest black swirling and blending, faint flickers of light darting among it like minnows.

Selina stumbled for the third and final machine, the toggle stick. Swing the platform outward. Lower it into the pool. Activate full charge of ley lines. Chemicals will drain as they are absorbed.

Selina’s fingers could barely clench the maneuvering stick as she pushed it to the left. Machines groaned, metal clanking. But the grated platform, Maggie unconscious atop it, slowly moved out over the center of the pool, the swirling liquid ten feet beneath.

From the locked door, the hallway beyond, shouts and thuds sounded. Brutal—the fighting had to be brutal. Something deep in her, buried in her chest, began to ache. Luke wouldn’t last long.

Neither would she. But she wasn’t the one who needed to survive.

Maggie reached the center of the pool, and Selina jammed the stick downward.

Slowly, so slowly, Maggie descended into the pool.

The dark water swallowed her up with barely a ripple.

Breathing became difficult. Impossible.

Her knees buckled, and Selina let them, sliding to the ground, still clenching the toggle stick.

It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter, none of it.

She was not afraid. Not as darkness crept into the edges of her vision. Not as she slid her hand from the toggle stick to the keyboard hovering right above her head. Punched in the final commands.

A low hum sounded through the room. Light flared within the water.

All of it, for this. All of it, for Maggie.

For Maggie.

Selina managed to push the toggle stick upward. Pushed with the tips of her shaking fingers.

The platform began to rise out of the Pit. Maggie’s soaked hospital gown clung to her body—

A body that was not frail.

Not thin.

A body that was healed.

And a chest that rose and fell, deeply, evenly.



* * *



—

Luke knew he was screwed.

He’d taken out Cheshire on a lucky, quick shot of his electrified Batarang. The woman had dropped like a stone.

No twisted smile lingered on her unconscious face after that. He doubted one would return after the GCPD picked her up.

Focus. Breathe. He went through his therapist’s instructions, even as he snatched up Cheshire’s fallen dagger and raised it against the other two.

Onyx and Rictus had only laughed—and attacked.

And were now kicking his ass. Where he lunged for one of them, the other attacked. Where they darted away, the other was striking. Partners, equals in fighting style, too.

Their knives chipped away at his suit. His blood mingled with theirs.

They remained standing. Herding him back toward that door. They were toying with him, and they all knew it.

Luke feinted a jab at Onyx, lunging instead right for Rictus. They saw Luke’s move, easily countered it. A left hook from Rictus to the ribs that had him yielding a step, a slash of Onyx’s dagger that had him yielding another. Rictus let out a low chuckle.

A sound that ended quickly as light flashed over Luke’s shoulder, flickering through the tiny window in the door.

The assassins’ faces tightened, all amusement fading.

The Pit was in use.

He caught the look exchanged between Onyx and Rictus. Playtime was over.

As one, they freed twin short swords from across their backs. The same blades Selina bore.

As one, they assessed him.

He just needed to stall them long enough for her to finish and get her sister out of here. It didn’t seem like a bad way to go.

To do right by his city, do right by those he cared about…It was all he’d wanted from the start.

So this did not seem like a bad way to go at all.

The assassins took a step, peeling apart.

They’d try to make it swift. To get to the door behind him as fast as possible.

He’d keep it going for as long as he could. Light died behind him.

As long as he could.

Luke managed to stand upright.

“Let’s get it over with,” he panted.

Rictus and Onyx smiled. Not one word. They hadn’t uttered one word since they arrived.

Those blades angled, mirror images to each other.