The night in Chicago was still bitterly cold. The wind off the lake had turned into a darkness deeper than the night itself. The distant high-rises were like remnants of Thunder, icy and sharp. And the night lights scattered through the low streets carried a kind of cyberpunk flamboyance. The Gothic buildings that looked full of retro charm by day were left only with their savagery at night.
There were still many Shadows of Batman clinging to Bruce. When he moved through the night, he could almost meld entirely into the darkness, passing so silently he seemed as if he had always belonged to the night.
The dorms of the Brotherhood were of course occupied, and by quite a few people. But there seemed to be no event tonight; everyone was asleep. Bruce slipped quietly down to the base of the wall, recalled the structure of the Brotherhood's building, and climbed up along the junctions of the drainage pipes.
He eased himself over onto a balcony, then crossed several balconies in succession before finally finding one that wasn't locked. Once inside, he gently closed the window and looked out into the hallway. This floor should be residential, so Bruce quickly left and went down to the room where he'd had his interview today. Bruce poked around inside but didn't find anything.
Below was the main hall. Next to it stood a dining room, probably where they usually held parties; some party supplies were piled in the corner, and the walls still bore the glue marks from posters. Beyond the dining room lay the kitchen, but it was obvious they didn't cook much—aside from the microwave, there were no signs of use.
On the other side of the hall was a reception room luxuriously decorated, clearly meant for entertaining important figures, such as board members and visiting journalists. Bruce wandered around there and then noticed a revolver hanging on the wall.
The gun was clearly a collector's piece, nicknamed the Peacemaker, the type most commonly used by West cowboys, symbolizing expansion and enterprise. Though quite a few still survive, there are always people who like to collect them, because they represent a certain spirit of America.
The one hanging on the wall had been very well maintained; the wooden grip gleamed with oil, and it was fitted with two rounds. The display case was even set into the wall itself, enough to show how important this gun was to them.
Bruce stood beneath the display case, thinking. Of course this time he wasn't wondering whether Shiller would pull the gun out. In his eyes, there was no need. For Shiller, the candlestick was more than enough.
Nor did he consider whether he himself could pull the gun out. Faced with Shiller wielding a candlestick, the time it took to get the gun free would be more than enough for him to be skewered clean through.
Bruce continued to roam through the Brotherhood dorms, even using a bit of wire scavenged from Stark's discarded electronic components to pick open a door and take stock of the room inside. To give them their due, the dorm conditions were genuinely impressive—not only single rooms, but with ample heating, far better than their own dorm building.
Just as Bruce was about to leave, he suddenly heard movement downstairs. Bruce, on pure Instinct, flattened himself against the wall on the far side of the staircase, body pressed to the plaster, ears pricked to the sounds below. It sounded like someone getting up in the middle of the night for water; the footsteps hadn't been deliberately muted, and they were heading toward the kitchen.
Bruce exhaled in relief. He knew this was no place to linger, and began to glide soundlessly toward the window. But the next second, he caught a very faint gasp of breath.
Anyone else standing here would have taken it for someone shivering from the cold on their way to the bathroom. But Bruce was a Gothamite—he realized instantly that this was the throaty sound a person makes in extreme suffocation. A murder was unfolding downstairs.
Bruce hesitated for less than a second, then took the stairs in two strides instead of three. What he saw was Dali's body slumped against the kitchen cabinets.
A gust of cold air knifed in through the window, chilling Bruce to the bone. The killer had left through that window. He'd arrived fast enough, but that kind of sound almost always meant the victim was beyond saving. The kitchen counter made a perfect step; in under two seconds you could vault out, so he never even caught a glimpse of the killer.
Bruce walked over slowly, lowered his gaze to the counter, and saw no footprints. In all likelihood, there would be no fingerprints on Dali's body either. And all he was thinking at that moment was: with two murders in such quick succession, is Shiller really not afraid?
Bruce chose to go back upstairs and slip out through a window on the other side. Whatever plot the Brotherhood had been weaving was now utterly ruined. At this point, he had grasped one hard truth—just as Arrogant had told him, just as Stark had said to him: compared to a knife or a gun, Shiller in his youth was more like a Thunder Strike. Artistic creation was never the Avenger's primary aim; he simply descended like Thunder, bringing Death and ruin, then vanished without a trace.
Political games, psychological warfare, intricate schemes—none of it worked on him. Wealth and fame, worldly status, Appearance and learning, all were pitifully small before Death. When a killer wants nothing from the victim, desires nothing but his Death, he comes close to being a God of Death.
On the way back, Bruce kept turning this over in his mind. If Shiller in his youth hadn't even bothered with artistic creation, could anyone really have caught him?
The urge to express is a desire too. As long as there is desire, there are clues. But if one doesn't even have the desire to express, if the only wish is to bring Death, that is practically invulnerability. Bruce had never encountered anyone like that.