Chapter Text
The city of Gotham was not always a city.
Before its reputation, before its vigilantes, before its buildings that could claw at the sky, before it had roads like black veins and a ribcage made of twisted metal and a grave pocked skin of its citizens buried under it, Gotham was an idea.
It was whispers between shadows. Hope and fear twisted into one poisonous, poignant and beautiful thing. It was gentle and dangerous, like all important ideas were. It was fragile with its newness, unsteady on its legs, and without the confidence that it would one day change the world.
It was fragile, built on hope, and only lived on their lips.
They didn’t know it, but it was also fated to die. Just like the people that had said Gotham in hushed voices by their lamp’s light.
They were all fated to die.
Why did no one tell them that they were fated to die?
The name stayed, but the idea didn’t.
The idea was buried into the ground with the people that died trying to bring it to light.
But Gotham knows, better than any city, that her buried things never stay buried forever and the angry bones inside her never stay still.
Prussia
Date Unknown
Alojz is dying.
He can feel it in every part of his body. Every sinew is singing with it. Every muscle is spasming in a violent fight to stop it. Every organ is trying to keep the blood inside when it just keeps pouring from his neck.
The violence of it is so stark that he can’t even fully understand all the pain.
His head can only think one word: why?
He tried to form it on his tongue and it came out a garbled mess that was just as gruesome as the slash through his neck.
“Hush, Alojz,” a voice said above him, gentle even though she held the dagger that dripped his blood in her hand. “Everything will be okay now.”
No.
No.
He knew it wouldn’t be okay, not while agony ate at his body like he was a deer before wolves.
Not while the betrayal hurt even deeper.
Why?, he tried again and it came out as a rasp of a word.
Kveta only smiled, just like she had smiled when their dog had performed a trick.
She kept smiling as she laid his body down among the wildflowers of their home. He had picked these flowers with her years ago.
They were burning now, starting to get eaten by the same fire that had driven him from his home. The flames were slowly crawling closer.
“I am only doing what is needed to protect the village–“
Protect the village? Had he not killed the thieves? Had he not shed his blood to stop their assault?
“—from you.”
No, he wanted to beg, trying to twist in his sister’s arms.
This was his home. He would never hurt it. He loved this Blood rolled down his chest. And made a puddle on the ground. It spread around his head like a gory halo and his blonde hair was stuck to the side of his face with it. It was the only thing he could smell. The only thing he could see. The only thing he could taste.
She had to be mistaken. He wasn’t dangerous.
“K-k-kv…”
His sister put her finger to his lips, gentling pressing out his ability to speak. He didn’t have the strength to move his lips against the finger anymore.
“You are a Levistus, Alojz. Violence is in your nature. If we let you live any longer, than your potential for calamity would only fester.”
He’s… what?
No, he was a human. He wasn’t a demon. He was like her.
He tried to struggle as she stood, half-expecting her to help him up. But she just kept looking down at him like he was a pretty thing. His blood was seeping into the ground and staining the flower petals.
“A Levistus,” she said, her gentle smile never wavering, but he could see the edges of it now. Like thorns on a rose’s stem.
“Do you remember what happens to demons? Especially the uncontrollable kind?”
Her smile had never terrified him before.
“We kill them.”
He… he… what? He wasn’t?
But his own blood, catching fire as the flames licked closer, was beginning to turn it blue.
That… human blood didn’t… only Levistus blood…
Demon.
He was a demon.
The word was a death sentence, and he hadn’t even known he was being led to the chopping block. Kveta had executed him before he had known to be afraid.
Had it not mattered that he was still her brother?
Rage.
A feeling twisted in his stomach.
Fury.
Newer. Stronger. Deeper than anything he had ever felt.
Wrath.
It all grew until it became everything, and blue fire licked the edges of his vision.
He burned because he didn’t want to die but had already received his deadly cut. He burned because he was dying on the flowers he had grown up with. He burned because his sister had said she loved him while slicing open his throat.
He burned.
And the village that he had tried to protect just minutes before, burned with him.
Letter from one man to another about how they suppress an uprising of demons
“America — 1827
Dear my Friend Elizabeth,
Our campaign against the demons settling within the Jersey territory has been a rousing success! We crushed those beasts to the ground and put them back into captivity where they belonged. There must have been five dozen of the animals milling about the place when we had snuck up on their hoard. They did not even realise we were there until we had begun to set fire to their beastly nests.
I will admit that I had thought it was impossible for the beasts to gather in such ways without them all killing themselves, but when we reached their wretched coven it almost looked like a real town. I would have never thought the beasts had the forethought and intelligence to do as much as they managed to do. Absurd, of course, but I simply could not imagine that such creatures could continue much longer without slaughtering each other.
I think it is perhaps a kinder fate to take them from their savage hoard and into the gentler care of humans. I myself was able to collect a demon dam and her pup and plan on sending the pup to my younger sis—”
“Fucking speciesists,” Barbara cursed as she snapped the book and shoved it away like it had bitten her.
Her eyes were narrowed and she angrily crossed her arms over her chest.
She knew that she had to read this shit. That it was historical. That she needed it to be a source for her thesis, but hell…
People could be such pigs.
“Hey, you okay?”
Cullen popped his head out from behind a bookshelf. His multicolored pupils shifted colours slightly.
Barbara put his fingers to her forehead, massaging her temples lightly.
“I’d be more okay if people weren’t so fucking speciesists to demons.”
The Alectos laughed lightly and came up to the table. He was holding a stack of books and papers to his chest.
“Don’t I wish,” he said with a sad smile, hugging the books just a little bit tighter. “But it’s changing. Slowly, but progress is still progress.”
He met her eyes, his smile changing into something happier. “Plus, we have people like you on our side.”
She was glad that he believed in her because sometimes she didn’t believe in herself.
She had gone to law school to help fight for demon rights, to actually make a difference, and work with the people that society had too often categorised as animals. Her eyes had been starry with the possibility of what she could do, but...
Progress was slow. Painfully slow.
And sometimes fighting for increased demonic rights felt like a game of taking one step forward and two steps back.
She looked at the books bundled up in his arms. “Are those the 1823 letters?”
“Yeah, and what they have from the 1835 collection too.”
She sighed. It was too late to dive into accounts about how to effectively separate implings from their packs. She didn’t want to think of any children being taken from their homes, even if those children had been dead for a century.
“Could you put it on the couch there? I’m going to start with it tomorrow.”
“Okay,” he chirped, bounding into the office and placing them down. His eyes glowed bright happy yellow in the dim light.
She gave him a small smile. God, she wished she had his energy.
The clock over the frame blinked an unhappy 12:56 AM and she knew that it was more than time to pack everything up. And Cullen, god, she had kept her research assistant here longer than she had intended to too.
Tiredly, she rolled back from the table and wheeled herself towards the office door. She paused to collect her jacket and shove it on.
“I’m sorry I kept you here so late,” she said as Cullen packed up his stuff. “Are you going to be okay getting back home by yourself?”
The demon’s head perked, and he looked at the time. His face twisted in thought. “I should be fine. I only live a ten minutes’ walk from here and…” he fished a hat out of his backpack. “I got my beanie to hide my horns.
Gotham was a dangerous city for demons, both of them knew it, and it unsettled Barbara to have Cullen walking back home alone.
“Are you sure? I don’t mind accompanying you.”
The young Alectos waved her off.
“I promise. I’m okay! I’ve been in much worse parts of the city for much longer and I was fine.”
That, somehow, did little to settle her nerves.
But she didn’t want to press. The demon was growing out of being an impling. He was looking for independence and she respected his choices. Plus, he really did live close; it would probably take him less than ten minutes to get back.
He would be fine.
“Okay, Cullen, but let me know when you get back home okay? Just shoot me a text.”
“Alright,” he agreed, putting on his backpack. Together, they went to the library’s entrance and stepped into the deary night of Gotham. The city was still alive around them, cars rushing past and a couple of people pacing the sidewalks. The neon glow of billboards reflected off buildings and made shimmery, oil gleams on puddles. The familiar silhouettes of buildings pierced the sky and Barbara mentally ran through their names.
The Cathedral.
The Wayne Tower.
The Chinese Hotel.
At this angle, it was almost enough to make it feel like a home.
“See you tomorrow, Barbara,” Cullen said as he looked both ways. When there was a lull in the traffic, he dashed across the street, avoid the glare of headlights. Within a couple of seconds, he was gone, almost like he was eaten by Gotham itself.
Barbara smiled at where his back had been.
He was a good kid. Bright, curious, and ready to take on the world. He had come to her wanting to be her research assistant and had always been there to lend a helping hand. He wanted to be a social activist too, though, he wanted to focus more on reforming child poverty than demon rights specifically.
Unfortunately, though, those two subjects overlapped hugely.
Barbara let her smile fall and began wheeling herself down the street. She only needed to go a couple of blocks to her train station and then she would be basically home. It was a short commute, but it seemed a thousand miles long with exhaustion clinging to her bones.
Maybe if she…
Her eyes went to an alleyway…
That would be more convenient and would cut the distance she needed to go.
Normally, dark alleyways wouldn’t be tempting but…
Her arms were screaming, and she dearly wished she had taken the electric wheelchair. Plus, the alleyway seemed empty.
Fuck it, she would take it. She was going to be fine.
She rolled down the alley, going right through a puddle. Rats skittered along the walls. It was creepy, but all the alleyways in Gotham were creepy in the right light.
She tried to ignore the unease that was prickling down her skin and kept her head high.
This wasn’t even a bad part of town. The crime rates were lower than in most—
“Hello, girly,” a voice said, and Barbara startled in her chair. She hadn’t even noticed the dark figure leaning up against the dumpster.
His eyes blinked, reflective in the low light.
Demon, her mind supplied and that primitive human part of her flared forward.
Enemy , it whispered. Predator. Run.
But Barbara shoved it down.
What kind of demon rights activist would she be if she automatically assumed that a demon would do her harm?
“Hello,” she said, not stopping her pace.
She hoped that she would just roll past; she would go harmlessly by the demon and prove to herself he wasn’t a danger.
But as she went by him, he stood and paced after her.
A tail whipped around his legs.
Luciferean.
She tried not to look back, tried not to let her fear leak in. But she knew he could feel it. Not as much as an Incubus, but Lucifereans were genetic cousins to them, used many of the same clues to judge power imbalances. They were predators. It was written into their bones and—
Barbara froze as another demon entered the alley, lighting down from a fire escape with feathered wings.
She narrowed her eyes.
Feathered wings were impossible.
Royal Vepars had been extinct for centuries.
And yet, a Royal Vepar stalked forward, a pair of black and teal wings trailing behind him. He smiled as his sharpened second set of fangs, glinted in his mouth.
He…a Royal…it was impossible.
“Scared, little girl?” The Luciferean whispered, leaning over Barbara’s shoulder and whispering directly into her ear. “I can hear your pulse. It’s delicious under your skin.”
Fuck that.
Barbara growled and whipped her elbow back slamming it into the Luciferean’s nose. There was a wet crack of cartilage and the snap as it gave way.
He howled in pain, stumbling back with a hiss. His tail whipped around his ankles and he held his bleeding broken nose.
He mumbled something that might have been ‘fucking bitch’ and growled.
The air in the alley turned and the aura tipped as the demons twisted it.
All the instincts in Barbara screamed and she was suddenly very, very aware that she was outnumbered by the demons who circled her like sharks.
“Do you want to fight, human?” the Royal Vepar purred, his tone honey-sweet and deceptive. “I don’t think you do.” His throat bobbed and his voice was almost musical.
“I think you want to sleep.”
Fog filled Barbara’s mind. It crept in rapidly, filling and leaking into every part of her body. She tried to think through it, tried to fight it but… humans couldn’t fight against a Royal’s charmspeak.
They hadn’t been able to for centuries. They had never figured it out and when science failed, they turned towards extinction.
Of course, the trophy of a pair of beautiful, feathered wings for a rich man’s mantle hadn’t helped either.
“Sleep.”
Her eyes were heavy. Panic filled her lungs, but it was dampened by the exhaustion. Her heart wanted to pound, but it was being drugged into even rest.
“Sleep, human. Don’t wake up until I say so.”
Finally, the sleep took hold and she couldn’t keep her head up above the waves of slumber that were dragging her down.
It was too strong. The charmspeak was too strong. The fear was still there, but she couldn’t act on it anymore.
Barbara slept and didn’t feel as the demons lifted her out of her chair and disappeared back into the city.
She was reported missing 48 hours later.