The assignment was dumb in the first place. Police reports had accused Catwoman of kidnapping someone. Even at her most criminal, she had no interest in ransoms. Besides which, the man was an average citizen, just some guy with no vast fortune to pay for his release. The whole thing was clearly bunk.
But the guy had gone missing and
someone
in a catsuit had been caught on camera, so it was enough for Bruce to put her on it. A sign he didn't trust her, throwing her this nonsense assignment, a snipe hunt, a wild goose chase...
Barbara hit the pavement, checking her usual bugs and wiretaps, as well as dropping in on a few stooges, but no one had heard anything about Catwoman planning a job, and Selina's usual hideouts and contacts were all dried up. But Barbara kept at it.
The break came, of all places, from one of a few fetishistic meta-watcher websites she monitored. People who got off on catching a sighting of Batman or Superman. There was a recent post mentioning Catwoman in Old Gotham. Barbara went to check it out. It wasn't Selina's usual stalking ground, but she quickly narrowed down the possibilities of where a wanted felon and potential hostage-taker would go to ground.
Arlington Hotel, between owners and momentarily condemned due to a fire, but habitable and the lights still worked. Was it possible Selina would pull some sort of target-of-opportunity job just because she could use this as a hideout?
Batgirl checked it out. She was scanning it with her binoculars when she caught a glimpse of something swinging from a de-cel cord, coming down smoothly on the rooftop. Batgirl zoomed in, just quick enough to catch a glimpse of a female form in motion before she'd disappeared behind the parapets that Barbara's vantage point denied her a perspective on.
The glimpse she'd gotten had been... tantalizing. This woman wore black vinyl, but tighter and thinner than Catwoman's armored costume had ever been. It flowed and caressed the ample curves of an athletic, voluptuous body, showing off every inch of an impossibly magnificent physique. Her zipper was undone to her waist, unleashing a blatant expanse of flesh, including two mountains of cleavage that Selina couldn't possibly have unless she'd seen a plastic surgeon. And from the way they jiggled, seeming totally unencumbered in the suit but stopping just short of revealing more of themselves than was on display already, it would have to be a very good plastic surgeon.
Batgirl fired off a grappling line and was quick to pull herself up to the roof. Luckily, it had been raining recently. When the woman went down the roof access stairs, she left footprints.
When that wore out, Barbara traced her by the smell of ozone, the traces of her light steps on the carpeting. She followed her to a penthouse suite.
The room was dark when Batgirl entered it, but her cowl goggles made it as clear as swimming a few feet underwater in a green ocean. Until something arced out of the darkness, hitting her cowl and shorting out the nightvision. Barbara threw herself backward, back into the hallway. She retracted the lenses from her mask's eyeholes and reached up to the armor plating that held her computerized gear. What she pulled out was halfway between a shuriken and a cat's claw. Selina was definitely playing rougher than usual. If it was her.
Barbara threw herself against the doorframe, reaching in and slapping the light switch on. Light spilled out into the dark hallway, casting a dim, irregular patch across the floor. Seeing that made the gloominess seem surprisingly unrelieved. Barbara's stomach gripped tensely and her mouth grew very dry. Despite herself, she found the darkness disconcerting and sinister.
"Shut off the light," came a voice, soft and sensual, from inside the room. It was not Selina's.
"What have you done with Peter Parker?" Barbara demanded, as gruffly as possible.
"Turn off the light and I'll tell you. Or are you afraid of the dark?"
Barbara thought it over. She was Batgirl. The night was supposed to be her ally. She couldn't cling to the light like a scared child. And, if this other Catwoman had nightvision goggles, she could use the request to her advantage.
"You've got it," Barbara said, and threw the switch again, plunging the room into darkness. At the same time, she dashed inside, throwing herself behind a sofa. "Now where is he?"
"Somewhere safe and sound," the woman laughed gently. "Thank you for turning the lights off. This is one thing we don't need to see to enjoy."
Barbara's breathing was shallow and rapid. "You said you would tell me what you did to him."
"How about a surprise instead?"
"Who are you?" Barbara demanded, desperate to steer the conversation her way.
"Not the one cowering behind a sofa, I'll tell you that much. Oh, well, I suppose there's no harm in telling you. My name's Felicia Hardy."
Barbara's palms were sweating and more wetness was dripping down her back, making her costume stick to her. "Hate to tell you this, Felicia, but someone came to the party dressed in the same outfit as you."
"Yes, well, I won't be here long. Just stopped by to pick something up."
"Peter Parker? Why?"
"I need a hot date for Friday night. Come on over. Don't you want your surprise?"
Barbara felt faintly dizzy, disoriented. Something about this woman's voice was so confident, masterful—no more cocky than Selina, but her unfamiliarity made her more disconcerting than Catwoman. And the way she spoke, the words she used, so sultry and loving, made Barbara sympathize with Bruce. This was the way Selina talked to him. Only to him...
Felicia moaned.
The sound stabbed into Barbara as if it were a knife, piercing her most secret thoughts. A spasm of raw sexual energy surged through her body, almost immobilizing her. She closed her eyes tightly, trying to calm her shaken nerves. Slowly, slowly, she reopened her eyes, fluttering her lashes several times as she blinked. For a moment she peaked out, staring into the darkness, trying to see Felicia on the bed. Her heart clutched as she thought she could make out a shape, a silhouette that was blacker than the darkness, but pale gray in the middle—those bountiful breasts again, and their white fur trim. But then she couldn't be sure. An instant later she did see something—a point of light, flickering feebly, stationary, and then moving.
"Are you smoking?" Barbara asked.
"Among other things. Can you smell it?"
Listening closely, Barbara thought she could hear a sound—sticky, wet, the sound of movement, of flesh pressing into flesh.
"I can see the ash," Barbara answered.
The cigarette tip moved again, then stopped, about where Barbara imagined Felicia's mouth to be. For a single, flickering moment the ember glowed brighter, casting out a flat, dull light, like a smudge of pale illumination spreading across the pitch-black room. With a spectral mistiness, the delicate softness of the other woman's face appeared briefly, aid then was gone.
Felicia exhaled. Then she moaned again, a little louder, with somewhat more breathless passion than before. There was no doubt in Barbara's mind what was happening.
