The Riddle of the undead Man. Riddler meets his Master

Written by Gorel on Superstories. Postet with his permission

At the north end of Gotham city, hidden beneath the remains of a hundred-year-old library, now decaying and collapsed after its abandonment and neglect, the building’s basement had found new life with its current occupant. Leaning back on an office chair, his green leather shoos on a computer desk while he quickly solved the paper’s crossword puzzles, Edward Nygma; The Riddler chuckled to himself while he heard the screams and cries from the dozen or so computer screens dotting the wall from his desk.

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!” Yelled a man with rings under his eyes, his cloths dishevelled and looking like he hadn’t slept or eaten in days. The computer screen showed that he was standing in the middle of a metal box, six feet by six feet, with a single green light illuminating the entire space. “Please! I’ll do anything!”

Smirking to himself, Edward leaned forward and clicked the speaker to his microphone. “Two camels were facing in opposite directions. One was facing due east, the other facing due west. They were in the desert so there was no reflection. How can they manage to see each other without walking around, turning around or moving their heads?”

“Oh, come ON! NO MORE RIDDLES! Just let me go-AAAAAAAARGH!” A spark of intense electricity zapped through the man, making him jerk and collapse back to the floor of his cell, gasping for air and clutching his chest. “Oh, I’m sorry, the answer was they were facing each other, better luck tomorrow.” Chuckling to himself he looked to his other trapped victims, each of them were different. Many of them were from different walks of life; a stock broker, a drunk, a prostitute, a janitor, a doctor. The Riddler had captured them all one by one to see who among them could prove they were clever enough to get out of a box on their own. So far, he was only amused that they could only say the same threat or plea again and again. “Simpletons…”

“PLEASE! I have a family, they MUST be looking for me, just let me go and we can forget this ever happened.” Turning his attention to the woman trying to reach out to his sense of empathy, Edward straightened his green tie and clicked the speaker to his microphone. “What is the difference between a school boy studying and a farmer watching his cattle?”

Shaking her head and leaning against the wall of her cell, the woman scratched at her head with both hands. “One’s smart and the other’s dumb?” Her answer was an electric shock that **** her to her knees, gasping for air. “Oh, I’m sorry, the answer is one is stocking his mind while the other is minding his stock.” Rolling in his chair with laughter, Edward went back to his paper. “It’s already been 2 days, hope you can stay alive tomorrow for another try.”

Interesting… A spider that plays with his flies.”

Caught off guard and gripping the arms of his chair, Edward looked around, trying to find the source of the voice. “WHO’S THERE?! HOW DID YOU FIND ME?” Getting up to his feet, Edward gripped his golden cane with the question mark grip and raised it like a club to strike whoever came into view. What stepped out of the shadows was a young man in a green dress suit, a black trench coat folded over his arm while his other reached for his green rimmed hat and placed it to his chest to bow in greeting. “You are very difficult to find… And yet so simple to follow, you leave many crumbs in your wake, almost as if you WANT to be found.” The man answered in an East European accent.

Gripping his cane more tightly, the Riddler sneered at the stranger who somehow just… Appeared out of thin air. “I’m NOT going back to Arkham! If you’re with the police, you’re gonna have to take me kicking and…” Before he could finish, the man was already right in front of him, face to face and gripping his cane with an iron grip. “Screaming?” Smiled the man with a toothy grin, his yellow eyes staring deep into Nygma’s with an intensity of an owl staring into the eyes of a mouse. Stuttering and losing his grip, Edward was lost in Dracula’s gaze.

“A lovely young woman told me of you, a man who knows… Many things about this city AND the century I find myself in, I have questions, you have answers.”

“Wha… What do you want to know?”

Letting go of the Riddler’s cane, the man stood straight, draping his coat over the chair at the desk. “I am in need of personal paperwork, a means of identification so as not to arouse suspicion to my true self and nature, I was told that you could do this without much effort.” Nodding his head and wringing his hands, Edward looked the man over, even when he leaned towards his desk and gently traced a gloved finger over the screen of one of his prisoners, almost as if he didn’t understand what a computer screen was. “Y-you still didn’t answer me; HOW did you find me? I have to know.” Looking back at the Riddler, Dracula leaned up and pulled free one of his gloves. Right before Riddler’s eyes, the man’s finger nail grew longer, sharper with an almost metallic glint to it before he gently traced that finger over the desk and carved a question mark over its surface. “You had painted question marks across the entire city, hidden as graffiti on walls and objects. if someone could see from the sky, they would have traced the shape of an even BIGGER question mark with your nest at its point.” Stabbing his finger at the dot of the question mark he carved, his bladed finger cut straight through the wood like it was paper.

“Passport, birth certificate, driver’s license, these things you will make for me. Now.”

Still holding his cane, Edward looked around his quarters and back to the man staring back at him. “And if I refuse?” Edward never had the chance to react when he found himself pinned to the opposite wall of the room, held by the neck by a hand stronger than his entire body, and staring into the fanged maw of what had to be a lion. The roar he gave off made the skin on Edward’s cheeks warble from its intensity, and just from the sounds coming from his computer, all his prisoners heard it too. “I am a man of great patience… I have travelled an ocean of time to come here, but I am not a man of tolerance, can you understand THAT riddle?” nodding rapidly, the Riddler fell to the ground where a puddle formed between his legs. “Cross me and I will make a meal of you… Unless you have something else to offer?”

Looking to the screens at his desk, Edward pointed towards a metal door to the side of the room. “In there, there’s where you’ll find my contestants, take’em all if you want… They would have all starved to **** anyway before figuring out how to leave.”

Looking towards the door pointed to, Dracula moved to face it. The door knob had a number pad above it, a security lock just in case. “The combination is…” A squeal of metal filled the room when the vampire lord gripped the door frame and pried the steel door off its hinges with the same effort as tearing paper and tossing the ruined door to the side by his feet. “Count Bolg Varcolac… From Romania, the rest I allow YOU to fill out before I am finished with your guests.”

Watching the stranger walk into the long dark hall, the Riddler went straight to work typing out information and forging papers as quickly as possible. Looking up at on of the screens showing his prisoners he found his guest had ripped open the cell door with the same ease as earlier. “Oh, thank GOD! I didn’t think I was going to get…” blinking back in horror, Edward gasped when the man lunged at the prisoner, clamping down on his neck with teeth longer than his fingers. Blood splattered everywhere while the man screamed and twitched before slumping down to the floor, dead. Shivering and shaking, the Riddler recomposed himself to continue, daring not to look back at the video feed even when it showed the vampire licking the walls clean before moving to the next cell. One by one, Dracula had his fill of the men and women who had been trapped in the Riddler’s grasp for days, draining them so completely of blood that only a dried-out husk remained. However, when Dracula went to the last cell, tearing the door open and flitting into the cell with the same grace as a leaf in the breeze, the vampire Count halted. There curled into a ball and crying her eyes out was the form of an eight-year-old girl. Staring her down, he crouched until he was eye to eye with the bawling girl, her eyes puffy and red from crying and her hands at her mouth.

“And who are you?” He asked, his gloved hand reaching out gently to her. “I want my mommy…”

*

Giggling to himself nervously now that he had completed his work and bundled up the documents still fresh off the printer, Edward Nygma looked back to the ruined door to find the man standing just at the threshold of the door frame. “There, all done; passport, license, certificates, everything!” With shaking hands, he offered the papers to the unreadable Count as he looked over each document before placing them into his pocket. “So, is that it? We’re done? You won’t be… Doing to me what you did to them will you?”

Stepping aside, Dracula revealed the little girl, unharmed and holding herself, her eyes half open as if she were sleep walking. Crouching back down to look her in the eyes, Dracula pointed towards the door where he came from and looked back at the Riddler. “Go through there, you are free now, your mother is waiting for you… Forget this place, forget him, forget ME.” nodding softly the little girl turned and ran out into the darkness where the sound of a door opened and slammed shut a split second after. Standing back up to his full height, Dracula glared back at the shivering genius with a look of intense disgust. “I had been mistaken, I thought you a spider, but instead I find filthy cockroach.”

“What?”

With the same speed that had him pinned to the wall, the Riddler was quickly in the grasp of the Count and slammed down to the metal grated floor, with Dracula hissing with barred fangs and teeth. “Even a spider would ignore the tiniest of flies in its web for a true meal, but YOU capture ALL. And for what? In the hopes of validating your superiority to the ignorant and confused?” Opening his mouth wide, wider than what could be humanly possible, a pair of mandibles jutted out of his dislocated jaw. Massive fangs the size of steak knives flexed and chittered like rattlesnake tails while additional eyes formed and opened above the man’s forehead. “Have you no honour? That even children fall under the appetites of your ego?” Rolling his shoulders and shifting his arms, long chitinous limbs branched out from his sides, slamming down one by one until eight glossy black legs held up the bloated furry mass they were attached to. Whimpering and trying to look away, the Riddler found himself pinned down by a giant black spider the size of a Clydesdale horse, its claws keeping him pinned down while venomous drool dripped on his face and cloths “You shall make amendssss to me, YOU shall find more victimsss for me to feasssst upon, BUT NO CHILDREN!” Nodding in a panic, the claws holding his face **** him to look up into the eight yellow lidless eyes staring back into him. “Until I deem otherwisssse, the only thing your ego will feasssst upon will be the carrion and crawling… Otherwise I feed on YOU!!!”

Screaming and covering his eyes, Edward flailed and scampered to the far wall, only now realizing that no one was holding him down anymore. When he looked up, he found the creature gone and in its place, was the young man reclaiming his coat and putting his hat back over his head. “I shall return tomorrow night, but there is another task I shall have you perform in my absence.”

“W-what?”

“You are to find wolves for me, your city will be… Infested with them by now I presume, you will find out where they den… So that I may flush them out.” Not even giving the man a nod of farewell, Dracula moved without making a sound and disappeared through the secret entrance to Edward’s lair. Getting up on shaking legs and ignoring the second puddle he left behind on the floor, the Riddler sat heavily on his office chair and shakily went to his key board. “Wolves? Wolves in Gotham? Why?” Fueled by the unanswered question, the Riddler set to work. While typing he noticed a roach scurry over his desk, with a quivering lip, he snatched the bug up and swallowed. “Wolves… Have to find wolves…”