Sorcerer in DC

Julius POV

Everything felt distant.

I moved because Avery pulled me. Her hand was on my arm, steering me through the medbay's twisting halls of stone and wood. Roots hung like veins from the ceiling, pulsing softly with light. I barely registered them.

Then we passed a side corridor, and something caught my eyes.

It was a strange pod, long and low, covered in a sagging tarp. Four masked figures pushed it towards a massive wooden double door.

Strangely, the pod didn't hold my attention for long before it shifted to the two men who trailed behind the figures.

They wore no mask and strode with purpose.

One was tall—towering, even. His shirt dipped into a deep V, showing off a chest carved with ink—black lines and faded symbols I almost recognized. Over it, he wore a sleek black jacket, open and casual.

His eyes were sharp, tracking everything.

The other man looked softer, shorter, and thinner. A white coat flared around him, giving him an air of warmth that didn't quite reach his face. His almond eyes shone with a glint behind his big round glasses, and he smiled at me as they passed.

The smile wasn't friendly. Or cruel. Just...amused.

Like he knew something I didn't.

I didn't like that very much. 

"Where's that lead?" I asked, nodding toward the double doors.

Avery didn't stop walking. "Don't worry about it."

"Avery—"

"You're bleeding," she said firmly, tugging me harder. "It's for employees only."

I opened my mouth about to point out that the 6"5 bruiser didn't really fit Ivy's employee mould, but then realized I didn't care.

Wasn't my business.

But whatever was under that tarp—it wasn't conventional medicine.

Avery pulled me deeper into her office. She pressed a cloth to my side, and the knife came out at some point.

She asked questions, but none of it all.

All I could think about was Zsasz and the lightning. 

Black Flash.

That's what the memories in my head called it.

–

Artemis POV

It had been a week since I got the target's name. Mark Desmond.

Since then, I haven't stopped digging.

At first, I thought it would be simple. Find out who he is, what he does, run the standard background sweep.

But the deeper I went, the more it felt like I was chasing smoke. The man was brilliant—a chemist with a dozen published papers and a reputation for breakthroughs in bio-enhancement.

Then one day, he just vanished. Dropped off the face of the earth.

No forwarding address. No employment records. Not even a whisper on the black market boards.

But Roland Desmond? His name lit up like a Christmas tree.

Assault, racketeering, illegal paramilitary groups, and more than one incident involving armed robbery and murder. Every time the feds knocked him down, he rebranded, rebuilt, and came back worse. Mid-tier crime boss, no doubt about it. And tied at the hip to Mark.

Brothers.

And that made the situation so much more complicated.

My gut told me Roland was the man we'd be dealing with instead of Mark.

He certainly had the disposition and chops to pull it off.

He likely had Mark in hiding--probably restrained or just about--and was about to make a lot of money selling his DNA and tissue samples, assuming he accepted our deal.

My stomach turned at the thought. It was trafficking if I was being generous and slavery if I was being clinical. It was the kind of thing even villains turned their noses up at.

But all this could be in my head. I could be jumping to all the wrong conclusions. 

What if Roland was a half-decent human being who wasn't willing to sell his brother?

What if we were actually approaching Mark like Cheshire and Dad promised?

What if Mark was interested and chose to organize the transaction through his brother?

Stranger things have happened.

The not-knowing gnawed at me. I wanted this to work. Needed it to.

The miracle drug—whatever it was, whatever it did—could change everything for Mom.

The thought of her walking again after all these years was enough to push the bile back down.

Enough to justify the patience, even though my instincts screamed at me.

Jade was oddly excited for the wrong reasons. And Dad? He was professional in the worst kind of way. 

Some small part of them might want the miracle for mom, but this was also about leverage. New connections. Power.

I couldn't count on them to do the right thing.

So I hedged.

I made a quiet call to a detective I trusted. Asked her, in a low voice, if she could get me a number.

"Gordon," I said. "Commissioner James Gordon. I need to talk to him."

Gordon had a line to the one person I knew could shut it all down if things went sideways.

Batman.

If this deal was what I feared—if it turned into something worse—I wasn't going to turn a blind eye, even if it meant risking Mom's cure.

–

I sat on the rooftop, heart pounding, fingers tapping against the bow resting in my lap. The wind pressed cold against my neck, but it wasn't the air that made me shiver.

Cars occasionally glided through the intersection below.

The fears that had plagued me earlier in the week were practically screaming now.

It's not too late to call this off, I thought. One call to the commissioner.

Not yet.

I shook off the voices. I'd agreed to wait and see, and that's what I'd do.

Desmond was above ground—finally. The radiation tracker Cheshire had somehow slipped into his body during a chaotic stint at Ivy's underground fight club had come online a few minutes ago.

She never explained how she did it. Never cared to. And I didn't press, already knowing how the conversation would go: jokes, smarmy rebuttals, and distractions that led to inevitable frustration.

Deep down, though, I knew the voices were right.

Still, I held out hope. Tried to suss out more information from the two of them.

Why not wait for Desmond to return home and confront him somewhere less public?

But Cheshire and Dad had been firm. Nervous, even—like they were dealing with a rabid animal.

"He's a world-famous chemist and recluse. Approaching him in his home base could be tantamount to suicide," Lawrence had said, like it was common knowledge. "The meeting has to be out in the open. Where neither party can do much harm."

It made logical sense, even if the strategy felt flimsy.

It was hardly the smoking gun I needed.

Still, before we left the house, I tried one last time.

"What if he says no?"

"He won't," Lawrence replied without hesitation, his back turned to me.

A sharp ping pulled me from the memory. The tracker.

I stood, squinting toward the road, and my stomach twisted into a knot.

"This isn't right," I said into the comms.

Desmond wasn't alone. He was being moved like high-value cargo: a reinforced security truck flanked by two sleek sedans. Private security.

"We're not ready for this," I said, forcing the tension down. "Mark is protected. Like private military protected. They'll fight us if we try to intercept. We need to abort."

"Stand by," came Lawrence's calm voice, the faint growl of his engine underneath it.

Panic prickled at the edge of my thoughts.

"This is what we planned for," he added, just as his car plowed through the intersection—tires screaming—before slamming to a halt and blocking the convoy's path. Another vehicle spun into place behind them, cutting off their escape. Jade was driving it.

"What the hell are you doing!"

"Don't worry, sis," Cheshire's voice whispered in my ear like sugar-coated venom. "We won't kill them."

Someone shouted from below—"Ambush!"—and the convoy's men scrambled out of the cars just in time to see two canisters arc through the air.

"Gre—hkkgh—" Gas grenades burst open, clouding the street.

Shots rang out—wild and blind—but they didn't matter. One by one, they dropped, gasping, coughing, then crumpling to the pavement.

"The distractions have been deployed. We have five minutes before the GCPD or Batman scrambles," Lawrence said, emerging from his vehicle like a soldier fresh from war. His mask was black, and his armor was matte and brutalist. Weaponized sports gear hung from his body like trophies—modified discs, collapsed spears, and other tools I didn't recognize.

And that's when it hit me. Not the gas. Not the betrayal.

The truth.

"This was always the plan, wasn't it?" I screamed into the comms, fury and disbelief bleeding together. "You never wanted to cut a deal! Who the fuck is Mark Desmond?"

Dad didn't even flinch. He just jogged toward the back of the armored vehicle, planting an explosive on the latch like it was routine.

I felt something inside me crack.

I leapt from the rooftop, landing hard on a sign before dropping into a crouch in the street. My bow was already in my hand, arrow nocked, aimed square at him.

"Give me answers," I growled, voice shaking from rage and heartbreak. "Or I'll drag this out until Ivy's reinforcements get here."

Dad didn't stop. "This is hardly the time or place," he said, calm as ever.

"Come on, Artie," Jade said. "You didn't really think asking nicely would work."

I wanted to scream. I'd let them rope me in. Except it wasn't just me they lied to and betrayed. Mom would be devastated.

My fingers inched off the feathers of my arrow.

"I swear to God—"

Jade raised her hands. "Fine, fine. You want the truth? Here it is." She glanced at Dad, who gave her a warning look. She ignored it. "She's a big girl. She can handle it."

She turned to me, eyes sparkling beneath her unsettling mask.

"Mark is an experiment gone wrong. A living monster with enough strength to flatten a building. Mentally unstable. Killed hundreds—inside the ring and out. Somebody paid very well for him. So we're delivering."

I felt the blood drain from my face. "And the cure for Mom?"

My voice cracked on the last word.

"Oh, that's very much real," Lawrence said, finally meeting my eyes. "Mark Desmond is what it costs."

He took several steps away from the truck, circling around as he approached me.

"So? Can you do it, Artemis? Can you put your mother above your morality?"

I didn't answer. I couldn't. But I didn't need to.

He saw it on my face—the way my hand trembled, the way the arrow wavered just slightly.

"Pity."

Dad hit something on his suit.

A flash of light. The thunderclap of an explosion.

I hit the ground hard, vision seared white. My bow slipped from my hands. Distantly, I heard gunfire—then fists, shouting, something slamming against metal. I blinked, trying to focus.

Dad was fighting Desmond. I caught a glimpse of a tall man flung from the back of the vehicle into the windshield of a Sedan.

 Jade shoved another man out, laughing.

And then the truck was moving. Jade caught my dazed stare and gave a mock salute. "Good luck, sis. I'd start running if I were you." 

I laid there longer than I should, fist bunched up, wrung in rage. 

This was on me. I'd known, felt it in my bones. 

I should've...I should've stopped pretending that my father and sister were more than they were ever going to be. 

And now they had a monster, and I had to break the news to mom.

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