Chapter Text
“We got another body,” Detective Carson dutifully reported into his walkie-talkie.
Amy leaned back, letting her head hit the back of her chair with a sigh. The brief throbbing of her skull was nothing compared to the thriving headache dutifully present for the past few weeks.
She downed a pain reliever and forced the rest of her cold coffee down her throat before grabbing her keys and jacket.
She was on the scene in fifteen minutes.
“What do we have, Carson?” she asked as soon as she pushed past the huddle of reporters and officers trying to survey the scene.
Carson gave her a respectful tip of his cap before shining his flashlight on the body. She squinted her eyes to see past the pouring droplets of rain. “Name’s unknown so far. We’ll have to wait for forensics to identify the body. Black hair, brown eyes. There’s still no sign of any similarities between any of the victims in terms of looks, gender, age, or any of the usual stuff.”
Amy crouched down next to the body. “Cause of death?” she asked. She forced herself to look at the body clearly, taking in every inch of the scene that she could. She couldn’t afford to miss anything.
“Same as the others. No visible cause, and we’re still waiting on the toxicology report for the first victim. Coroner said it should take another few days to get the results.”
The rain slowed to an almost soothing rhythm of pitter-patter. Goosebumps littered her arm as a breeze ruffled her already-drenched hair.
Amy frowned. Still no results and they had already found a seventh victim. She knew the coroner and forensics teams were busy as it was—this was Blüdhaven; everyone working in the legal system was busy—but it was taking frustratingly long to get the official report, especially since it was needed for their case.
It’d been three weeks—21 days—and the murderer was not slowing down in their killings. She tugged on the latex gloves that she despised for their clammy nature and put a gloved finger on the victim’s neck.
Just as it was for the other victims, two puncture marks protruded just along the jugular vein, side by side. They dug deep into the skin and exposed the body’s flesh and muscle. Amy shuddered involuntarily. ‘Don’t look away,’ she reminded herself.
The bleeding had stopped and dried along the victim’s neck; a sign that the body was already beginning to stiffen and run cold. The soulless body was just another casualty of Blüdhaven.
‘Keep looking,’ Amy repeated.
This was her job. To look, to listen, to find, and eventually, to avenge. She would bring the victims justice. She swore it.
The ‘Vampire Killer,’ reporters had almost lovingly dubbed the culprit. It made her sick to her stomach. The media would say anything if it gave them a good story. How horrible it must be to the grieving families to see people’s interest in this ‘vampire.’
Amy stood, her back cracking from the movement. She rested her hands on her hips and sighed steadily. They were nowhere closer to solving this case than they were three weeks ago.
She felt a prickling sensation as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up—a sensation she was all too familiar with lately.
She turned around slowly, not wanting to frighten her crew, and tilted her head up to the shadows, where she knew he was lurking.
Detective Carson followed her gaze and sighed. “Looks like Nightwing is having as much trouble with this case as we are.”
Amy sent him a sharp look. “We don’t rely on criminals to solve our cases for us, Detective.”
“Right…”
Carson lingered for a moment before walking away, dejected.
Amy kept her gaze on Dick. No one would be able to tell but her, probably because they didn’t know the expressive eyes hidden beneath his mask, but she could see that this case was catching up to him. His shoulders were stiff, unlike his usual relaxed stance, and his fists, though she couldn’t see them, were probably clenched with frustration and anger.
It had been her decision to take him off the force after discovering he was a vigilante, but she still cared for him. He was her partner, her friend, and she hated to see him so stressed, especially when she also had the power to solve this case. He acted as if the whole world rested on his shoulders, particularly after that stint he pulled by acting as Batman for a year.
A year into his retirement from the police force, Nightwing had mysteriously disappeared from Blüdhaven. He still visited from time to time, but the city could tell that he was preoccupied with other things.
She heard nothing from him, until one day, a message lit up her phone at an unholy hour of the night, reading, “Hi, sorry to bother you, but do you know how to convince a kid that sleep is important?”
After that, whispers of the Gotham vigilantes began. The Bat was acting strange, and Robin was somehow shorter and more violent than before. Only Blüdhaven, being so near to their sister city, was privy to these whispers.
It didn’t long for Amy to realize what had happened. Dick had become Batman, and he had a new city, as well as a new kid, to keep safe.
A little more than a year later, Nightwing was flying through the rooftops of Blüd once again, and Batman appeared to be back to normal. She never asked him what had happened, but she did check up on him by sending a quick text every now and then.
He was a criminal, and she was a captain of the BPD. That’s just the way it was.
The moonlight shone on him and the strained, crooked smile that she knew he put an effort into forming. The light caused rain droplets on his suit to twinkle in the darkness, and he immediately took a step further back to blend into the building beside him.
That’s just the way it was, but sometimes, just sometimes, she liked to pretend things were the way they used to be.
Nightwing shot her a quick, two-fingered salute before retreating into the shadows. He would do his own investigation of the crime scene later, she figured.
“Captain!” Carson called.
She turned back to him and made her way through the scene, stopping next to him. He shined a flashlight on the ground.
She crouched down next to the spot, frowning.
“What do you think could have caused those dents?” another officer asked.
Carson leaned closer to the ground.
The asphalt was terribly cracked. Large dents were marked all over, leading into an alleyway and spreading across buildings. Pools of rainwater stained with red seeped into the cracks eagerly and smeared blood clung to the dried weeds as if they were a lifeline. Signs of a struggle. That was more than they had for the other cases.
“You don’t think…it was a meta, right?” a detective behind Amy asked. Amy straightened up.
That was a dangerous proposition to make. The uprise of meta-humans in Blüdhaven was already a problem with the protestors and riots. If the perpetrator was a meta…
Amy silently shuddered. She didn’t even want to think about what the public’s reaction could be.
However, she couldn’t deny what her instincts were telling her. The dents were too big, and no large animal would ever be so near the center of the city.
“It must have been. Nothing baseline human can make marks like those,” she sighed. “Let’s call it in.”
If anything, going through the proper channels could help tame the inevitable backlash.
___
Wally shifted impatiently as he waited for the team to get ready. “Did the League say why they wanted to talk to us?” he asked. They had gotten an alert fifteen minutes earlier from the League, requesting the team’s presence.
Kaldur shook his head, attaching his water bearers to his back. “No, though I assume it is due to a new assignment.”
Artemis hummed in agreement. “It better be. We’ve had nothing to do in ages.”
The five of them made their way to the briefing room once they were ready. Several members of the Justice League were already there, waiting for them.
“You’re here,” Superman stated, sitting at the center of the table. “Good.”
“Why have you called us here?” Kaldur asked, taking a seat first. The others quickly followed his example.
“There’s a new mission for the team. In Blüdhaven.”