With Dracula injured, Dr. Mendez tries to avenge her love.

Twelve hours had passed since the confrontation with the werewolf that nearly killed Dracula. The no life king had been recuperating since sun up in a crate of his native earth, buried like a corpse, yet restless in his sleep. Zatanna and Mendez knelt near him, watching their undead lover and master slowly heal. Dr. Mendez brushed her fingers gently over the scarred cheek of her love, watching on as the injuries faded before her eyes. “You will be avenged my love, this I promise you.” Her worried expression turned to a sneer when she heard Zatanna scoff back at the pale woman.

“Please… You were tossed aside like an angry cat, I have a better chance of avenging our love than you ever could.”

Growling under her breath and baring her fangs, the doctor brandished her clawed nails when the two stood to their feet, staring daggers one another. “So says the coward, at least I acted, you only retreated when our love was in danger.” Growling more deeply, the two vampire women looked ready to lunge at each other. “Do not confuse my caution for cowardice, if that monstrosity was too much for our love than what could YOU have done? Oh, right… Get tossed aside like the whore trash you are!”

Roaring out like a furious lioness, Dr. Mendez lunged for Zatanna, only to be sent hurtling towards the wall by a flash of red light conjured between Zatanna’s outstretched fingers. Picking herself up and wiping the blood from her lip, Mendez sneered back at the smirking gothic woman turning her back to her. “Please DO try to face the beast if you’d like, if you fail than it will just be him and me!”

Growling in anger, Mendez stormed out of the dark room, making her way down the hallway of their shared lair until she passed by the Riddler. The man was uncharacteristically smug when she found him, brushing clean the rim of his bowler cap with his green gloved thumb and smirking back at the raging vampires. “Trouble in paradise I take it? How do the dead stay so lively?” Instantly the man found himself with a clawed hand wrapped around his neck and being pinned to the wall with his feet dangling. “WHAT DO YOU WANT WORM?” Placing his hat back on his head, the Riddler explained himself. “Do you know what you all have been doing but failing to achieve? ‘Catching’ an animal instead of finding one.” Narrowing her now red burning eyes, Dr. Mendez slowly lowered the man down to his feet. “Why DO you think the master keeps me around? Because he has a superiority complex? It’s because I know how to trap big dumb animals… It’s a hobby of mine, apart from riddles of course.” Loosening her grip around his neck, Edward repositioned his tie and gestured for the woman to follow him.

Brandishing his question mark cane high in the air as the man skipped to his quarters. “Riddle me this Dr. Eva Mendez what animal keeps the best time?” Crossing her arms, the woman blew a strand of black flowing hair out of her eyes. “I don’t know.” Edward leered back at the woman with a smirk. “A watchdog.”

*

The next night finally fell over Gotham, dark and foreboding with a storm brewing over the horizon. Yet with the coming storm clouds thundering off in the distance, the full moon hung high over the city, and a low howl echoed over the skyscrapers. The black wolf was prowling again, leaping unseen from one roof top to the other. Staying low on all fours, the massive creature sniffed the air, taking in the scents of the wind blowing through the city. The great wolf could make out several things travelling through the air; the tang of salt air from the dockyards, the smog from the industrial end, and hundreds of others his nose could pick up. But one scent caught the monster’s attention, the scent of blood. Licking his chops, the monster wolf leapt from his perch and stalked towards the scent. The closer he approached the smell, the stronger it became, metallic and sharp, he recognized the scent; blood mixed with spring flowers. He recognized that scent from the night before, when he faced the creature that nearly killed him… And the little one that lunged at his arm during the escape.

Landing heavily yet barely making a sound when he crouched behind a dumpster, the wolf already spotted her. Dr. Mendez walked alone down the alleyway towards the industrial end of the city, her black heels clicking on the cobblestone ground and her hair flowing like silk through the wind. Turning around to look over her shoulder, a trail of blood dripped down the side of her mouth. Despite knowing he should not have been spotted, the woman looked back towards his direction and smiled… Just before bolting down the alley with the speed of a cheetah. The hunt became a chase as the great wolf took off to follow her, barreling towards the woman like a charging bear. Yet she showed no sign of fear in the chase, her fanged smile never leaving her lips, even when she tried to make her escape into the open shipping gate of an abandoned warehouse. Lunging through the opening, the wolf found the entire space empty, barren. Then the gate closed behind him and the electric hum of a lock clicked into place.

“How utterly predictable, if I had known it would have been this easy to catch you, I would have set up a wooden box with a turkey leg underneath it.” The Riddler’s voice could be heard over a speakerphone but the echo made it difficult to find where exactly it’s source was. Looking around, the wolf leapt to a second-floor gurney to reach for the window, only to go numb and be sent back onto the ground floor with a heavy landing when 10,000 volts flowed through his clawed fingers. “Sorry to say, but you can’t leave the game just yet, the only way out is to play to win.”

Getting back up to his feet and standing to a full 13-foot height, the great wolf sneered, growling under his breath. “OH MY, you ARE a big one, aren’t you?” Getting a roar that shook the windows as a response, the Riddler was silent for a few seconds before the click of a switch could be heard on the intercom and green lights began flashing through the warehouse interior. “I present to you three riddles, three chances to make your escape and go back to doing what big dumb animals go about doing in the middle of the night but be careful! Lose any one of them and tonight will be your last night.”

Grabbing hold of the nearest item in reach, the giant wolf grabbed hold of a wooden crate and tossed it against the wall, roaring out in rage, rage that was snickered at by the disembodied voice before the green lights focused on the wolf like a spotlight. “Riddle me this! What grow but never get's taller, shrinks but never gets smaller, hurts the minds of men, doesn't live, but doesn't have a deathbed?” Grabbing hold of another crate, the giant wolf threw it at one of the green lights pointing towards it. “Oh, I’m sorry… The answer is sound.” A feint whine filled the room, growing in intensity until it was no longer heard, but the giant wolf suddenly fell to all fours before clutching its head, yelping in pain. Intense low frequency sound filled the warehouse, growing in strength to the point that the windows cracked, and several light bulbs exploded, unable to take the sonic pressure.

Watching on in the safety of the Riddler’s control room, Eva watched on over Edward’s shoulder, her eyebrow raised in confusion. “Huh, sound? Really?” Looking over his shoulder back at the vampire with a smug grin, the Riddler chuckled. “Every test begins with a simple question my dear.” Looking back at the screen, the woman sneered when it looked like the giant wolf was trying to get back on its feet before collapsing again. “Why not finish this now? We have him.”

“Oh hush Dr. Mendez, I would have thought you’d enjoy the fun of playing with your prey.” Watching on, the wolf was starting to bleed from its ears and eyes, staggering back to its feet and struggling to stay standing. Roaring out with an intensity that surprised the Riddler, the shockwave from the roar rattled the stereo projectors until they began to spark and cut out into a dull blur of sound, then dying completely. Collapsing to all fours, the wolf coughed and gasped, its wounds and injuries rapidly healing. “Well done, most surprising… Round 2!” Growing at the disembodied voice, the wolf growled, its temper rising.

“Riddle me this! Look in my face, I am somebody; Look in my back, I am nobody. What am I?” Smirking back at the wolf while it roared out in protest, the Riddler smirked. “Two for two it seems… The answer is, I am a mirror.” With the click of a switch, a disco ball descended from the ceiling, slowly rotating and reflecting the green lights around it. By the time it stopped descending, the lights all focused their brightness at the ball itself, its reflective surface sending the lights back out to point in every direction. Then the lights began to grow in intensity, focusing into narrow beams. In a matter of seconds, the green lights became green lasers and instead of shining light down on the floors and walls, they began to burn. Feeling one of the lights trace across its shoulder, the wolf howled in pain, suddenly finding itself surrounded by blades of light carving burning trails through the warehouse. Another passed by its leg, another its arm, and when one green light of light passed by its face, the wolf cried out in agony. The place had become a shredder, the lights growing more intense and burning deeper into the walls. Slowly having its furry skin carved again and again, the monster wolf began to get dizzy, its potential to heal pushed to its limits by constant barrage of sharp heat. With nowhere to escape or hide, the wolf raised its claws up like a boxer’s guard, protecting its face while its arms were cut again and again. Seizing its moment, the wolf lunged for the disco ball and crushed it in its claws, sending shards of glass to rain to the floor and the lights to only focus on themselves, shorting out and going out in the process.

“Stop wasting time Nigma! Kill it! NOW!”

Watching the wolf gather itself back up and cradle its healing claws, the Riddler spoke up through the intercom. “Bravo… You’re cleverer than you look, and that’s saying something.” Hearing another click of a switch, the wolf looked around to find the warehouse filling with a foul-smelling gas, the scent making the wolf’s eyes water. “FINAL ROUND you dumb animal, the warehouse is filling up with kerosene gas, and in one minute the lights you broke will short out and ignite the gas in an epic fireworks show to mark your final failure.”

Picking itself up and covering its snout, the wolf looked around, the place filling more and more with gas until its vision was blurry. “But get the question right and the doors open… I hardly expect THAT to happen.”

“Riddle me this! What is the only part of a bat in flight that still touches the ground?”

Coughing now, the wolf shook its head, going more and more dizzy as the warehouse became pungent with gas. To the surprise of both the Riddler and Dr. Mendez, the wolf looked up at the camera looking back at it… And spoke.

“It’s shadow.”

Instantly the warehouse gate slid open, with only seconds to spare, the wolf leapt out of through the service gate just as the warehouse exploded in a blaze, sending burning debris to rain down all over the shipping lane. Picking itself up and rolling its shoulder, watching as its burns slowly healed, the wolf howled out into the night’s sky and disappeared into the night.

*

“YOU IDIOT! YOU HAD HIM, AND HE ESCAPED!!!” Roaring out like a tigress, Dr. Mendez pinned the laughing green clad man against the wall, brandishing her black finger nails like talons threatening to cut the man’s throat open. She had failed her lover and master, again. What was worse, this pompous man was still laughing his head off at the entire affair. “He… He, he solved it, its HIM, I should have known ha HA ha ha ha…”

“START MAKING SENSE YOU GREEN WORM!”

“The wolf! The creature that hurt our master, the one he has been searching for this whole time in Gotham.” Quickly regaining his bearings when fear won out over revelation, the Riddler still had his grin. “It’s BATMAN!” Dropping the giggling green man like a rock, Dr. Mendez stepped back and blinked, stunned. “Batman… That THING is Batman? How do you know?”

“Because I used that same riddle in another death trap last year, he was the only one to solve it.”

Crossing her arms, the vampire woman narrowed her red eyes, her black silk smooth hair flowing behind her like a tempest, matching her mood. “And HOW does this help us? NO ONE knows who the Batman is.”

Wringing his gloved hands against his chin and smiling so wide he threatened to split his face. “No one… But me!”