Late

Sorry I've been late posting chapters. I've been really busy. I'll try to write more as soon as I can.

Ghost of a Man

   "You didn't see anything else? Just the hat and coat?"

   "No. Nothing."

   Bruce couldn't abide his own ineptitude. How could he have let the shooter escape?

   Crispus looked him in the eye. "Bruce. You know this wasn't your fault."

   Bruce shook his head. "Doesn't matter."

   Crispus sighed. "Alright, well, we'll have forensics go over the coat and hat; there's gotta be a hair follicle or something in there."

   Bruce walked around the circus area, now covered in police tape and lights flashing red and blue.

   "Thank you," a voice said from behind. Bruce turned to see Mr. Haly.

   Bruce frowned. "For what?"

   "If you hadn't followed him, we wouldn't have a single lead. But the detective tells me they've already got one thanks to you."

   Bruce didn't tell Haly the harder truth: that even if they found DNA evidence in the clothing the shooter left behind, they'd still have to find someone to test it against. It wasn't as though Gotham kept a DNA record of every person that ever came through town.

   "Did he have a family?" Bruce asked.

   Haly shook his head. "No. Harry never even really had a girlfriend; he was sort of a loner like that. We always told him he should find somebody... I guess now it's better that he didn't."

   Bruce walked back over to Crispus, who was standing along the quiet edge of the circus finishing up a phone call.

   "Anything new?" Bruce asked as Crispus hung up.

   Crispus forced the exasperation out of his voice. "Not in the last five minutes, n—"

   Crispus suddenly stopped in mid-sentence and flinched. When he opened his eyes again, he looked awkwardly at Bruce.

   "Hey, uh, I know this is kinda weird, but... could you tell me again what happined here? And what you saw?"

   Bruce eyed Crispus suspiciously. Nothing about Crispus' mannerisms or voice sounded right.

   "What's with the Boston accent? And what are you talking about?"

   "Look, I just need you ta'—"

   "What's wrong with you?"

   "Nothin's wrong with me, I jus—"

   "Who are you?"

   Crispus stopped. Clearly, this kid just wasn't going to buy it.

   "Alright. Listen, um... I'm not Crispus. My name's Boston. Boston Brand. Yes, like the city, and yes, my accent's ironic, okay?"

   Bruce's mind whirled. Crispus wasn't one for jokes, nor was he the type to have schizophrenia. This was something different.

   Crispus continued. "I'm... well, a ghost. I got killed back in August. I needed to talk to ya, so I hopped inside Crispus here and—"

   Bruce's eyes were wide with apprehension; his hand darted inside his pocket and pulled out his cellphone, finding the speed-dial buttons as fast as possible.

   "Hey, wait a sec," Crispus tried to say, but Bruce wasn't listening anymore.

   A voice spoke over Bruce's phone. "Hey, handsome."

   "I need you here. Now."

   A second and a half later, a whirl of sparkling violet light appeared and disappeared, leaving Zatanna standing in its empty wake.

   "What's wrong?" she immediately asked Bruce.

   He pointed to Crispus. "He says he's a ghost inhabiting this man's body."

   Zatanna narrowed her eyes.

   "Leaver siht tirips!"

   A transparent image of a second figure appeared over Crispus. It was a slender man, dressed in dark red, with a chalk-white shrunken face.

   Crispus shrugged. "Told ya."

   Zatanna's eyes went wide. "Bruce, this spirit is incredibly strong. I can't exorcise it without preparation."

   Crispus raised his hand. "Guys—"

   "What do you need?" Bruce asked Zatanna.

   "Uh, guys—"

   "I'll need a bucket of water, three bat wings, and a—"

   "GUYS!"

   Bruce and Zatanna stopped and looked at Crispus.

   "You don't need ta exorcise me. I don't wanna cause no trouble. I just need your help."

   Bruce and Zatanna exchanged a confused look.

   Wayne Manor stood like an ancient monument. While still within Gotham City limits, it stood separate from the rest of the city, atop a cliffside on the other side of Gotham river. It was huge; huge and empty. The massive rooms were full of paintings, sculptures, suits of armor, and ornate furniture—but rarely any people. Out of twelve bedrooms, only two were in use—one tiny room for Alfred, who kept it clean enough that no one would have known he was even there, and the gigantic master bedroom for Bruce.

   "Man, I'm dead an' I feel cold in here."

   Alfred gave the floating image of Boston a look crossed between indignance and fright. He was unaccustomed to having a visible ghost in his home.

   Boston had slipped back out of Crispus' body without a fuss and followed Bruce and Zatanna to Wayne Manor. Now that Zatanna had cast her spell on him, everyone could see and hear Boston even though he didn't have an actual body.

   Bruce leaned over his computer desk, typing at the keyboard.

   "Is this it?" he asked.

   "Yeah," Boston replied grimly. "That's it."

   Bruce clicked the video link.

   A one-ring circus, not unlike Haly's, was in the middle of a show.

   The announcer yelled into his microphone. "Introducing the one, the only, the daring DEADMAN!"

   As the audience cheered, a man in dark red spandex and a white ghost-like mask jumped onto the trapeze. Before he finished his second swing, however, a gunshot sounded off and "Deadman" fell to the ground.

   "That was you?" Zatanna asked.

   "Yeah" Boston replied. "That's why I look like this, I guess. I died in my Deadman outfit, so I'm stuck this way. Not that people can normally see me or anything."

   "But I don't get it," said Zatanna. "Spirits pass on immediately after death. Why are you still here? And why can you possess people so easily?"

   "It's, ah... it's a gift."

   "From who?"

   "Rama Kushna."

   A flicker of recognition went through Zatanna's eyes. "The goddess of karma?"

   "Yeah, somethin' like that. When I died, I saw these huge eyes lookin' down on me from the sky, and heard her voice. She said I had more to do in death than I did in life. I'm supposed to do somethin' here before I can pass on. Help people usin' my power, and try to find my murderer."

   "And you think that this shooter is the same one that killed you seven months ago,"

   "Yeah."

   Bruce turned to Zatanna. "This all sound right to you?"

   Zatanna shrugged. "Yeah, actually. It does. I think he's telling the truth."

   The frown that Bruce had been wearing since the shooting seemed to get worse. He stood up and walked to the nearby window.

   Boston looked at Alfred. "Was it somethin' I said?"

   Alfred shrugged, as if to say "he just does that."

   Zatanna put her arm around Bruce. "Hey. Are you okay?"

   "No. No I'm not. A man was shot to death in front of me, and I... I couldn't stop it, and I couldn't even catch him afterwards. Now a... ghost is in my bedroom, and... I just..."

   Bruce seemed frustrated at the very air in front of his face.

   "Nothing makes any sense!"

   "Bruce, things don't always have to make sense. Sometimes things just are the way they are."

   "No! There has to be a way. Somehow, there's always an answer. There has to be! There just..."

   "This isn't about the clown, or about Boston, is it?"

   Bruce didn't answer.

   "It's about Lois, isn't it?"

   Again, Bruce was silent.

   "You can't hold yourself responsible for her."

   "I should have just left her out of it."

   "She made her own choices; it's not your fault."

   Almost instinctively, Bruce looked up at the huge portrait of his parents hanging on the wall nearby.

   Zatanna moved in front of him. "Bruce, listen to me. You're not failing them. You're not. You're human, and that's all they'd ever want you to be."

   "I made an oath, Zatanna. And I plan to keep it."

   "You're sure you don' know anythin' about how the Socks did last season?"

   "Sir, honestly, I've never followed baseball in my life. Couldn't you just... float away and go find out for yourself?"

   Alfred was relieved to see Bruce return from his usual dramatic window-staring.

   "So, hey, Bruce," Boston said. "I had an idea about one way we could track this guy down."

   "What?"

   "Well... if I, uh, jump inside ya, our minds can link. Maybe between the two of us, we can piece together somethin' about the killer."

   "Uh-uh. No."

   "Aw, c'mon!" Boston pleaded. "You won't feel a thing."

   "Bruce," Zatanna said, "this might be the best way to find the shooter. Boston's not shown us any reason to doubt him yet."

   Bruce sighed. "Fine. Do it fast."

   Boston dove into Bruce's chest, completely disappearing inside him.

   Bruce and Bostons' memories swirled about them like a pool full of paint. Boston saw Bruce's perspective: the man standing in the tent supports; the gun barrel, a glint of metal. Bruce saw Boston's perspective: from high above the ring, looking down at a muzzle flash somewhere within the crowd—along with a similar glint of metal. Bruce had assumed that that metallic shine was from the gun, but now that he had two perspectives, it seemed to be something else entirely. Gradually, the image that both Bruce and Boston held in their minds merged, and they both saw the shining object: a steel hook where the shooter's left hand would have been.

Circus Act

   A funny thing about Gotham City: the walls of every alley seem to lean in, like a giant black coffin. In many cases, that analogy is more fact than metaphor.
   Crispus Allen stood solemnly over the dead girl's body. He always took a brief moment before examining each crime scene body, partly out of respect for the dead, and partly in order to begin focusing on the task at hand.
   A female voice echoed from the end of the alleyway.
   "Detective! The boy's here."
   Crispus glanced down the alley and saw his partner, Renee Montoya, standing next to eighteen-year-old Bruce Wayne on the other side of the police tape.
   "Let him in."
   Bruce and Renee both ducked under the tape and moved to meet Crispus.
   "Detective," Bruce said with a polite nod. "Another one?"
   "Yeah. Third this week."
   Bruce knelt beside the body. "Blonde hair, mid-twenties, about 5'7''. Just like the others. Any ID?"
   "Whoever killed her didn't take the wallet this time. Her name's Joanna Harper. A student at Gotham U."
   Bruce narrowed his eyes. "The killer didn't take her wallet?"
   "Nope. What does that tell you?"
   Bruce took a few seconds to think it over.
   "Either the killer was interrupted and had to run, or he was never after the money in the first place."
   "Not after the money? How do you figure that?"
   "This is the third girl of the exact same age, height, and hair color found in an alley with her throat slit inside of a week. This is serial-killer work. He finds girls who fit very specific parameters and murders them in the exact same way every time. Whoever's killing these girls is doing it out of a pathological obsession, not greed or desperation. There's no reason for him to take their wallets unless he just feels like it, or if he's trying to throw us off."
   Crispus felt proud of his unofficial student. "Good thinking," he said.
   He glanced at Renee. She seemed a bit uneasy. Thinking about it, Crispus guessed that he really should be, too. Bruce seemed to have a kind of intuition for criminology, the kind that meant he was either brilliant or horribly twisted. Or he just watched a billion of those damned CSI shows.
   Bruce only nodded slightly in return, straight-faced.
   Crispus, more than most others, recognized the flat, jaded look that Bruce often wore: the look of someone who's lost everything. Crispus knew what had happened to Bruce's parents; it was the only reason he'd agreed to let Bruce shadow him on these cases. If Bruce kept along this path, he'd probably make a great detective one day.
   Bruce's phone beeped.
   "Sorry; I need to run. I'll catch up with you in a few hours."
   Bruce turned and quickly left the alley the way he'd come.
   Crispus shook his head. Then again, if Bruce kept up that kind of behavior, he'd be lucky to graduate above beat cop.

   On the edge of the city, near the docks, a gigantic red tent stood next to a ferris wheel. Haly's Circus, one of the last true traditional one-ring traveling circuses, was enjoying an extended stay in Gotham.
   Bruce drove up and parked around the backside of the tent. The last show of the day had ended three hours ago; the place was deserted aside from the circus workers themselves. Bruce walked inside the tent and was immediately greeted by a redheaded girl.
   "Bruce! Hey!"
   Bruce returned a smile. "Hey, Mary."
   Mary's boyfriend, a black-haired boy named John, did a backflip off an overhead balcony and landed in front of Bruce and Mary.
   "Bruce! Didn't think you'd make it tonight," he said, shaking Bruce's hand.
   "I was on the other side of the island; sorry I'm late."
   John glanced at a clock. Bruce was two minutes late. "Um, yeah, you're fine. You ready?"
   Bruce nodded.

   "Watch your balance. Spread your arms a bit more."
   Bruce struggled to stay balanced on the tightrope. He'd been told by Zatara that he had incredible balance, but on an inch-thick rope that didn't matter much. As Bruce wobbled nervously, John walked effortlessly across the rope to meet Bruce in the middle.
   "See here? Hold your hips a little more to the right. Keep your knees a little bit loose."
   Bruce adjusted accordingly, and he stabilized.
   "Good. Now try to stay on the rope while I jump."
   Mr. Haly, the circus owner, a red-haired rotund man in his late forties, walked up beside Mary, who was watching from the floor.
   "How's he doing?" Haly asked.
   "Really well, for a beginner," Mary answered. "He's still really shaky, but he's already learned around a couple years' worth of gymnastics."
   "In just the three weeks he's been here?"
   "Yeah. It probably helps that John and I are putting him through the crash course and everything, but he really does have a gift for this sort of thing. Are you sure he doesn't want to become a performer?"
   "You can ask him yourself, but yeah. He said all he wanted was to learn gymnastics from the best, but he didn't want to join up. I asked if he wanted to go to the Olympics or something; he said no, he just wanted to learn. And he's paying us a ridiculous amount of money for it, so I left it at that."
   "Huh. Well that sucks. We could really use another one. A trapeze act with only two people isn't as much of a crowd-pleaser."
   Haly gave Mary a wry smile. "Well, if you and John would just get hitched and start making more little acrobats, we wouldn't have this problem."
   "Mr. Haly!"
   Mary blushed, but couldn't stop herself from smiling like a mad person.
   Up above, John backflipped, sending a bounce across the rope. Bruce wobbled horribly and fell off, landing in the net sixty feet below. Mary, Haly, and John all laughed at him. Bruce wasn't amused, but that made it all the funnier.

   The next evening, Bruce decided to go see one of the circus' shows. Bruce was never one to be impressed by anything, but he had to admit that he was very impressed with everything he saw. John and Mary, of course, were amazing. The animal trainers were masters at getting a reaction both from their animals and from the audience. The clowns were decidedly less incredible, but then again, they were clowns. Cheap laughs are what they're for.
   As the show came to its climax, all the acts went on at once. The clowns drove their tiny car in circles around the ring, while the fire-breathers, animals, and everyone else intermixed in the center. John and Mary did flips across the open air above. As the crowd roared with applause, Bruce could barely hear a muffled bang.
   One of the clowns that hung out of the tiny car's open door fell to the ground and laid there, perfectly still. As the seconds passed, a few others near him started to look down with worried faces. From this distance, Bruce could barely see a red stain on the clown's white shirt.
   The crowd began to gasp and chatter immediately. A woman somewhere screamed. Bruce realized what was happening and instantly began searching furiously for where the shot had come from. He looked upward, toward the wooden beams at the top of the tent, and saw a glint of bright metal next to a large gun-barrel held by a figure in silhouette. Bruce scanned the rest of the support structure and found a path across the beams. Bruce shoved his way through the crowd as fast as he could, keeping his eyes on the man in shadow. He climbed up onto a horizontal beam near the top of the tiered seats and began making his way toward the shadowed man. The man quickly turned around and jumped out a slit in the side of the tent; Bruce began to run. He focused. I can't miss this, he told himself. This isn't the time to fall. He jumped to another beam and kept running; bounced off a vertical beam and landed right on the tiny wooden platform that the gunman had been sitting on. He put his head through the slit in the fabric and looked down. The man—who, as if to be as stereotypical as possible, was wearing a trenchcoat and hat—had just landed at the base of the tent, and began working his way into the crowd. Bruce jumped out of the tent and slid down its side, landing and crashing into a woman at the bottom. He tossed a half-hearted apology her way as he got back up and tried to follow the shooter's path. Unfortunately, word of the shooting had now spread outside the tent, and the entire crowd was now rushing towards the parking lot. Bruce nearly got trampled in the swarm of bodies, and completely lost track of the shooter. Whoever he was, there was no way to find him in this chaos.