Batman investigates his 'black outs.'

He needed to know, his conscience wouldn’t allow him to think on anything else. He immediately checked the news dates of the times he blacked out. Anything to let him know what he had done during those moments he couldn’t remember. Disappearances… Murders. He had to know for sure.

He had Oracle upload news posts for the last three months in the city, skimming past specific dates to the ones where the moon was full. What he found didn’t give him any sense of comfort. He already tabled the deaths found to be caused by blood loss or dehydration and focused on the more physical murders located in his city. 2 dead, a pair of drug dealers torn apart in an alley, their firearms completely spent but no bullets found on the scene. 3 dead, gang members belonging to Black Mask, their bodies mangled and torn apart like they ran into a meat thresher. 5 missing in the Gotham outskirts, a group of college kids trying to play dare outside of Arkham. 12 dead at a bar known to be a side gig for the Penguin, 20 dead at the burned down warehouse at the docks. The further he went; the body count rose. He felt… Sick, the first time he felt ill since this all started happening.

Clicking a control at the keyboard, Batman signalled for Oracle again, a small screening popping up on his monitor showing her face, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes since the last time he called her. “Hey Bruce… It’s what? Two, three AM? What can I help you with this time?”

“Barbara, I need to see the Gotham security footage from these specific dates, notably from dark alley locations and speeding cameras on the streets.”

“Sure thing boss, need me to bring up the camera feeds from the local ATMs too?”

“Yes.”

She meant it as a joke but looking at Batman’s stern face told her that Bruce was on a mission now, and it was best not to question. “Sure thing, you’ll have it uploaded in just a few minutes.”

Waiting patiently while still reading the reports, Bruce noticed the new file added to the computer and immediately began skimming through the images and recordings. He wasn’t looking for anything sticking out, he was looking for off hand corners and sides where the attention was at its least focused. The darkest part of the images where lights were not flashing and zooming in on them. Changing the ultraviolet spectrum in the picture until the colours were almost reversed, Batman found what he was looking for in the pictures. In the far corner of a picture of a family of three leaving an opera house, he caught the silhouette of a massive wolf hunched down on all fours sniffing at the child’s open bag of popcorn he had dangling to his side, and the parents never noticed. Another pictured showed the same massive wolf looming over a couple exiting a bar, comparable to the size of a car it overshadowed them and yet was so silent they never noticed it or its shadow… HIS shadow. Sitting back heavily from his chair, Batman rubbed the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “So many… What have I done? What has that THING done?!”

Skimming through more pictures and video feed, Batman found other ‘wolves’ the cameras just barely picked up. A pack of seven wolves led by a pair that stood out from the black and brown furred creatures that followed them. Notably how one was chalk white and the other blood red. Zatanna’s words rang through his head again. “Werewolves are butchers Bruce, the next full moon you’d kill anything that moved or anyone who gets in your way, and the survivors? Well they’d end up just as bad as you.” Closing his eyes, despair gripped him. Could it be? Had he truly become the greatest threat to his city? There was no denying it now. “NO!” Opening his eyes and glaring back at the pictures, something else caught his attention. The people his… Other half was looming over, they weren’t reported missing or killed. They returned home, went to work, called in sick, they didn’t die at all.

Typing commands in the computer and correlating the locations of the murders with the locations of the disappearances across a map of Gotham city, Bruce began to investigate another side of his search. The murders were marked in red with the disappearances in green. The red dots were like wounds or smears that trailed thinly across the bowers of Gotham, one carved from the forests edge near Arkham to the residential sector. Another curved around the docks and industrial end. But the disappearances were specific. Methodical. Patterned.

Zooming out the map to its fullest, Batman’s eyes narrowed when the locations of the missing people in Gotham made a big green question mark, its dot pointing at the far south end of Gotham. Checking the dates of the disappearances and comparing them to when the S.S. Ceres docked at the Gotham port. The rate of the disappearances had nearly tripled.

“Someone’s been thirsty… Been keeping house guests Edward?”

He was a werewolf, he couldn’t deny that now, he also couldn’t deny that he didn’t harm the couple, he didn’t harm the family, and he didn’t harm the child. He wasn’t another Joe Chill. Getting back on his Batcycle and revving the silent engine, he planned his next move. It was another week before the next full moon. But before than, he must pay a visit to the self-proclaimed master of riddles.