with regenerative powers. All atop ley lines.”
“I’ve never heard of them.”
“Because their owners don’t want you to.”
“And you were making fun of me for the hocus-pocus earlier?”
Selina shrugged. “Legend claims that a Lazarus Pit can keep old age and sickness at bay. Even bring you back from death.”
“Hence their owners protecting them. And the name.”
Selina nodded, pivoting on one foot—just as she’d done so many times on the balance beam at the Y—and traced the line back toward Ivy. “Once used, though, the Pit’s powers are drained forever. So it’s a onetime get-out-of-jail-free card.”
“How do you know about them, if they’re so secret?”
Selina paused her steps. “In the place where I was trained…” Ivy tensed at that, at the implication of that word. Trained. She’d know from that word alone what Selina was. That she’d answered to deadlier powers than Falcone or the Joker. “They had a Lazarus Pit in the catacombs. It was guarded day and night. I first heard about it from the other students, who claimed they heard instructors whispering about it.”
Certainly never from Nyssa or Talia.
Ivy crossed her arms. “I’m not surprised the rich and powerful want to keep such a natural wonder and gift to themselves.”
Selina studied the ground beneath her feet. “Neither am I.”
Ivy asked, “If you knew about ley lines, why act like you didn’t?”
“I didn’t know much, just rumors. And you’re the science nerd,” she said. “I wanted to see if you knew more.” Selina toed the dirt. Not a thrum of energy to be found, at least not through the thick soles of her boots. “And…maybe I wanted to get out of the city for a night, too.” While Harley was off doing whatever it was that Harley did in her spare time.
Ivy smiled, a few of those flowers blooming again. “You can just ask me to hang out the next time, you know.”
Selina laughed. “I realize that now.”
Luke had thanked his parents profusely for the gala—and apologized for the broken glass afterward.
Just a drunk reveler who forgot to go home, he’d told his mom. She’d given him a look that said she highly doubted it, but asked no questions.
His dad didn’t need to ask questions, however, when Luke had insisted his parents go to their château in Provence.
His dad had only said he’d have the private jet fueled up and they’d be on it by midday. How his dad explained it to his mother, Luke still didn’t know. But his father had hugged him tightly before Luke left the estate. He wondered if his dad was worried he’d never get to do so again. If he was remembering the phone call he’d gotten in the middle of the night when that IED landed Luke in a field hospital.
A few hours later, his parents were gone, flying over the Atlantic.
That had been three days ago. And since then, Luke had spent that time holed up over at Bruce’s manor—well, beneath Wayne Manor, technically. Reading through any and all files on the League.
Tigris: deceased. He’d written that into the system himself. And then he’d combed through Bruce’s archives, searching for any sign of Catwoman.
Luke found nothing. Not a whisper. She hadn’t gone by Catwoman until she arrived here. And either she was young enough to never have made a name for herself at the League, or she’d been kept secret by Nyssa and Talia as they waited to unleash her upon the world.
Until she’d unleashed herself instead.
And whatever she was going to sell to Gotham City’s underworld…He couldn’t risk that happening. Gray as her morals might be—ready to kill a woman and then uttering a final rite for her the next—he had no doubt that she’d go through with her plan. Jeopardizing Gotham City in the process.
Or would she? He was still puzzling over it as he finally returned to his apartment that night. She’d warned him to protect Gotham City from the League. The good people here.
It made no sense.
And time was short. There was a GCPD event tomorrow night, honoring the police’s service to this city. Every important cop, politician, and donor would be there. It was her ideal sort of target. The kind that packed a message.
Luke had no intention of wasting this chance to grab her. Stop this madness.
He’d already warned Gordon to have extra security: armed guards, bomb-sniffing dogs, metal detectors, snipers on the roofs of adjoining buildings. Every angle had been considered.
Back in his own apartment, Luke opened his fridge and frowned at the