The Voice in the Night

Klingon Hamlet

The Batman stood atop the highest tower in Gotham and watched the ants scurry below. Among the throng, bad people roamed. He could almost smell them. To the north, a scream punctured the silence.

He jumped without a second’s thought. His armour was thick enough to slow a bullet, yet light enough to let air skim over its surface. So, like a thorned arrow, Batman dropped straight down. His cape pushed up behind his head, skirting the tower’s wall mere feet from his back. With practiced ease, he reached up and grabbed two small clefts in his cape, taming its nightmarish dance, bringing it down around his shoulders and out, like a giant canapé.

Like a glider.

Physics took hold. The air currents bounced off his wingspan and ferried him forwards rather than down. Lifting his feet straight out behind him, Batman became a flying beast of the night, a terror upon those that use the night as feeding time. He ducked and weaved through the maze of columns and archways and worn-down pipes that were scattered across the body of Gotham. His audio sensors had narrowed the scream down to a point straight ahead and down, in the womb of Danger Alley. He followed the digital arrows that flowed across his white eye-lenses. Down he went, silent and grim, a human dressed as a bat, a man with a hunger for bad men’s suffering.

The cobblestone alleyway emerged from the thick fog and came straight towards him. He kicked his feet out and landed smoothly, coming to a running stop and rolling, dodging any incoming bullets or blades. Yet there were none.

There was no-one and nothing. The alleyway was empty. False alarm? Wouldn’t be the first time. Even the emotive-sensors could mistake a drunken laugh as a cry for help. Not often though. Extremely rarely. Still...
Something hard and sharp slashed across the top of Batman’s head. Even through the tough plating of his cowl, Batman’s head split open. He roared in pain and fell straight out on his front. Searing agony swamped his mind and he blinked as blood rolled into his eyes. Through the growing mask of red he could just make out a pair of withered boots approaching, coming to a stop inches from his face. He gagged. One of the old boots disappeared, then crashed straight into his nose. A solid kick from a coward. Something the Batman would have insulted, had he not swallowed one of his own teeth and dam near choked on it too.

A laugh. In the silence of that night, in the emptiness of that horrible and dank alleyway, a man was laughing. His voice was raspy, slithery.

“So you are but a man, after all. Under that silly black skin squirms a worm. I shall eat you.”

Batman felt himself being lifted and look up into a pair of red eyes. A huge jaw full of teeth opened wide. The teeth were like knives, yellow spittle clinging to them. He could smell the stench of old blood. It was enough to rouse him from his daze. He arched his back and leaned his head towards the ground, then crunched both knees against his chest, using his weight to roll out of the grip of this horrible man-thing. Batman tumbled rather unceremoniously on his rump, then bounced back to his feet and, while wiping the seeping blood from his eyes and face, he spoke.

“What in Godds name are you?!”

It was shaped like a man: two arms and legs, a head, a torso. It was sheathed in fabrics both fresh and old, patched and sewn. Its face had something hard under it, but it wasn’t a skull...it was far too sharp, with corners and ridges. The eyes...

It took a step forward, smiled, bowing its seven foot frame,. “I am,” it said, and Batman realised it had four knees, all clicking as it lowered its face but never its eyes, “a Soul Eater. I came for you, Batman. Bruce Wayne. I came to eat your skin and muscle and bone and soul. I leave nothing left, I depart, and I find my next feast.” It ground its teeth. It was like shark’s teeth, rotating and gyrating and practically dancing at the thought of turning Batman’s body to mush. “I’ll start with your eyes.”
It took a step forward and Batman held up one fist, opened it, showing him the little obkect in the shape of a bat.

“How fun!” it exclaimed, stepping forward again and clapping its long fingers together, slowly. “A Batarang.”

“No,” replied the Batman, licking his bloodied lips and smiling. He clenched his fist and the bat made a beeping noise. His suit glowed along the contours, expanding and making mechanical clanking noises. The cape unfurled and grew along his shoulders. Spines stretched out the fabric until it stood high and wide, a pair of batwings fluttering in the chill breeze. Batman’s eye-lenses glowed red, and a thick face-shield slid out from both sides of his neck, covering his entire face.

When he spoke, the face-shield deepened his voice to a devil’s growl. “I’ve made upgrades.”

A hearty clap again, and the Soul Eater smoothly unfastened his haphazard rags and clothing. The flesh underneath pulsated. There was a nasty ripping noise, and then a cloud of bats gushed forth from his torn chest. They slapped hard against the Batman, but he brought one wing around in front of his face. He could see and feel their claws and teeth mashing against the fabric. They’d get through it. He unclipped a string of miniature grenades from his belt and hurled them over his protective wing. The infra red showed him the explosions popping left right and centre in mid air, turning the night-beasts into ash, their screams far outliving the rodents that made them.

The batwing came down, and the Eater was gone.

“I will be back tomorrow night, little bat,” said that disgusting voice, somewhere far away, in the ether. “Be ready.”