This story is the seventh in an ongoing series of Batgirl adventures, mainly based on characters in the early Batman comics and that wonderful '60s TV series but with the timeline brought up to the present.
Warning! This fictional story contains strictly ADULT content and is ONLY intended for mature readers and for personal consumption. No copyright infringement is intended.
The Adventures Of Batgirl
Batgirl: The Vampyre Caper
Chapter 8: Even The Best Laid Plans...
The call came through on the police radio, while the two homicide detectives were on their journey back to GCPD headquarters in central Gotham. They diverted off their route and headed for an old rundown industrial area of the city, situated just to the south-west of the docklands. Apparently, some young kids who had been playing hookey from school, had stumbled upon four dead bodies in an old abandoned church. Renee wound down the window and clamped the magnetic base of the flashing lamp onto the roof above her head, while Harvey turned on the police siren and pressed his foot down on the gas pedal.
The battered Chevrolet Impala swung into the dusty square in front of the crumbling church building, raising a billowing cloud of dust, as it screeched to a halt behind the two black and whites with flashing blue lights, that were already parked out front. The two detectives leapt out of their vehicle and ran inside.
The police officer on the door, instantly recognized the two homicide detectives and waved them through, with a perfunctory greeting. None of the media vultures had arrived yet, but a small crowd of curious bystanders had already started to gather outside the church, attracted by the police presence.
"What have we got here, Maloney?" Harvey growled, approaching a uniformed officer who was trying to keep a tight rein on three scruffy youngsters, all about 10 or 11 years old, who were yelling their heads off and generally misbehaving..
"Four bodies, all gangland types, plus a suitcase full of high grade cocaine. We figured this might have been a shoot-out between rival gangs, until we caught sight of the bodies."
"Wha'd'ya mean?" Harvey asked, frowning.
"Better go take a look for yourself, Harv."
Montoya had already walked over to the centre of the room, where a second uniformed officer had just finished marking off a large area in the centre of the nave, using fluorescent yellow police barrier tape. Four blood splattered corpses, lay sprawled out among the remains of the shattered pews. She automatically crossed herself, being a devout Catholic. Even if the church had long since ceased to be used for worship, Renee still thought of it as a Place of God.
Harvey ambled over and joined her. It was obvious what Maloney had been alluding to. All four bodies had an unearthly bleached white pallor to their skin, and expressions of absolute terror on their faces. They had all died a horrible death.
"Another four victims of the vampire, by the look of it," Montoya muttered, hugging herself. The slim brunette shivered, violently. The atmosphere inside the church, suddenly felt very chilly.
Harvey nodded, before ducking under the tape barrier and approaching the nearest of the dead men.
"Hey, don't go tramping around in there, you moron," protested the uniformed sergeant, in an alarmed tone. "The forensic boys haven't had a chance to check things out yet."
Harvey ignored this comment and did a perfunctory check of all four victims. They all had the familiar twin puncture marks in their necks. "Looks like the vampire must've surprised these guys, while a drugs deal was goin' down," he said, looking over at his partner.
Montoya nodded her agreement, before indicating the battered suitcase with a further nod of her head. "Well, there's the suitcase full of drugs, but where's the money?" she asked.
Detective Bullock peered around. "Yeah, where IS the money?" He gave the uniformed sergeant a jaundiced glare. "They don't usually accept checks or credit cards during this sort of transaction," he informed the man, pointing out the blatantly obvious.
"Don't look at me, I ain't seen no money," the policeman protested, going bright red in the face. "Perhaps one of them managed to hightail it outta here with the cash?"
Renee shook her luxurious crown of long dark hair from side to side. "No way, Sarg! No-one gets away from this creature."
"In that case, where the hell is..." Harvey paused, as a metaphoric light bulb lit up in his mind.
He hurried over to the group of youngsters, who were still noisily playing up a red-faced Officer Maloney. "Okay, you guys, where is it?" he growled, impatiently.
"Where's what?" retorted a cheeky-faced youngster with spiky ginger hair and freckles all over his face, grinning at the scruffy copper. He was obviously the leader of the trio. "Ya stink, Ugly!" he added, as he caught a whiff of Harvey's stale tobacco breath.
Harvey grabbed the front of the kid's shirt in one meaty fist and lifted him high off his feet. "The money, you little shit," he snarled, giving the youngster a vigorous shake. "Where's the money?"
The wide-eyed kid was frightened now. He could see that this big, fat copper was in no mood to be flim-flammed. "It's hidden over there, under that pile of rubble," he cried, pointing a shaky finger. "We weren't gonna keep it, honest, mister!"
"Yeah, sure you weren't," agreed Harvey, gently placing the kid back onto his feet and smoothing down his crumpled shirtfront. "Good boy." He showed him a nicotine-stained set of teeth, then patted the urchin on his cheek, perhaps a little bit harder than was strictly necessary. "Honesty is always the best policy, son. You remember that," he advised, with a chuckle.
He turned and strode over to the indicated pile of stone rubble, accompanied by Maloney.
"You didn't have to be quite so rough on the kid," Renee remonstrated.
"It got the right result didn't it," Harvey snapped, bending down to start sorting through the rubble. "Ah, here's what I'm looking for!"
He extracted a dust-covered briefcase, snapped open the catches and opened the lid. Inside, were neatly stacked bundles of used one-hundred dollar bills. Harvey gave a chortle of delight. "Wow! No wonder the little punks were tempted," he exclaimed.
Renee sighed and gave him one of her disapproving looks. "Don't loose sight of the main objective, detective. There's a vampire on the loose out there and the body count is going up... fast!"
-oOo-
The various law enforcement agencies had all been fully mobilized to be on the lookout for the vampire killer, as well as any sightings of Batgirl or Barbara Gordon. Roadblocks had been set up by armed police, on every major route out of the city, hopefully to prevent the killer from escaping into the surrounding countryside.
The newspapers and local TV and radio stations, had finally picked up on the vampire connection and the front pages of the papers were given over to lurid headlines such as 'Vampire on the Prowl in Gotham' and 'Blood Sucking Monster Terrorizes City'. The general population was in a state of turmoil, not knowing whether to lock their doors or fall about laughing, at the sheer ludicrousness of such claims. The heightened police activity did nothing to put their minds at ease, especially since the national media were starting to show an interest.
The official police stance, was that, YES, there had been several mysterious deaths, but NO, they were not looking for some blood-sucking vampire, but a wild animal, possibly a black panther, that may have escaped from a circus or private zoo. Police Commissioner James Gordon had refused to give specific details of any of these suspicious deaths, saying that to do so at that stage, would be prejudicial to the ongoing police investigations.
Page four of the Gotham Daily Gazette, contained a small news item on the disappearance of Barbara Gordon, the Commissioner's only daughter, speculating that she may have lost her memory and wandered off somewhere. The reporter had failed to make a connection to the inexplicable death of Dr. Macintyre.
-oOo-
Batgirl sat with her shapely ass perched on one of the steps of a rusting metal fire escape, half way up the side of an old tenement block, that was situated in one of the more run down districts of Gotham City. The elevated vantage point, enabled her to keep a lookout for any approaching cops or the Caped Crusaders. She also had a carefully organized escape route over the rooftops, should it become necessary to take to her heels. Batgirl squirmed, uncomfortably. She couldn't wait for night time to arrive. Recently, she'd noticed that bright daylight tended to make her feel more and more irritable.
Her back stiffened, as a musical beep came from one of the compartments in the utility belt slung low on her hips. She flipped open the compartment, took out her cellphone and saw that she had just received a text message from Jenny. The Voluptuous Vampire frowned, but decided to see what Jen had to say for herself. She pressed the 'read' key:
B, worried sick bout u. Need 2 meet u somewhere. Name time/place. J.
"Short and sweet," Barbara mused to herself, then frowned. "Of course, this could be some sort of trap?" she muttered, then shook her cowled head. "No way! If there's one person I can still trust, it's gotta be Jen." Barbara had already realized that she was going to need some help, if she was to successfully evade the clutches of Gotham City's finest AND the Dynamic Duo, with all the leading edge technology that they had at their disposal.
Making up her mind, she started texting a reply to her blonde friend.
-oOo-
The Gotham Knights were one of the most successful teams in the NFL and often played to packed crowds of over 70,000 during the football season. Their home stadium, the Gotham Superdome, was some six miles from the city centre and comprised three broad tiers of seats that completely encircled the playing field. The atmosphere during a game was frequently electric, the roar of a capacity crowd, almost deafening. But the world famous old stadium was a very different place when it was deserted and in darkness, apart from the dim, glow of the barely adequate emergency lighting.
The slightest sound seemed to be magnified, as Jennifer cautiously made her way up a concrete staircase, heading for the pre-arranged rendezvous point. She was wearing a simple check shirt and blue jeans combination, together with a pair of 'sensible' jogging sneakers, which enabled her to move almost noiselessly.
