Chapter Text
Kon had been in London a day and he already hated it.
For a start, the journey by ferry to Dover was uncomfortable in the extreme, with strong winds, large winds, screaming children and simpering romantic couples. Second, the porter had managed to put his luggage on the wrong train. It was now somewhere in Cambridge, but the South Eastern Railway assured him it would be found and returned. Until such a time, Kon was dependant on the contents of his small valise and the goodwill of the matron of his hotel.
Such goodwill turned out to be non existent. The landlady made it clear that she expected nothing but sudden death a suitable excuse for missing an appointment, and Kon was hardpressed to convince her to let him have his room at all. She finally gave him the key with an admonition to be more punctual from then on.
Minutes after Kon left the hotel in search of dinner it started to rain, and now it was dark out. There didn’t seem to be anyone on the streets, and Kon had lost his way among the narrow twisting by-streets.
At least, Kon thought philosophically, as he tucked up his collar against the drizzle, it couldn’t get much worse than this. He’d been dreading London, but if this was the sum of his troubles, he’d have escaped lightly. London was where Drake and company were based, and although Kon hoped against hope that Drake was still in Europe, with him Beth or Bartholemew and he didn’t want to think about that. The important thing was that he might not encounter them. He had to go to the Wayne Foundation library, of course, the one reason he’d come to London at all. But surely all the bad luck accumulated on this one day had to count for something, and given the choice between the rain currently working its way in cold trickles down his neck, and an encounter with Drake?
There was something to be said for the invigorating tendencies of a brisk English rain shower.
Kon stopped. All the roads looked the same and he couldn’t tell if one was familiar because he’d walked past it on the way to the hotel, or while searching vainly for the hotel. There was no point in going on -- how did he know he wasn’t just walking further away? Kon made out the outline of a steeple and turned his steps towards it. With any luck he could take shelter there for the night and set out again in the morning.
The main gates to the churchyard were locked but there was a sidegate placed ajar. Kon trudged down the roundabout path, his thoughts on his hoped-for shelter, and he only noticed the sudden flurry of movement to one side as it was almost upon him.
He turned, just in time to get hit full on the head with the blunt end of a shovel.
“Ow,” Kon said, staggering back more from surprise than from pain. “What in the b----- was that for?”
His vision swum, and Kon had a shadowy image of someone slim and untidy looking very stricken. “My humblest apologies. I thought you were --” The voice trailed off. “Mr Kent,” Bart said, sounding as miserable as Kon felt. “Oh, I am sorry.”
---
They sat on one of the pews inside the church, Kon holding the handkerchief Bart had insisted on preparing for him as an impromptu coldpress to his head while Bart wrung out Kon’s coat and apologised incessantly.
“Don’t know what I was thinking -- I mean, your carriage as you walk, obviously you’re alive. And then there was the complete absence of decaying odour and all of that -- I really am sorry, Kon. Mr Kent. Conner. I -- I don’t suppose you’d want me to call you Conner, would you? Mr Kent, then. And there’s your appearance oh, and the fact you were breathing --”
Kon ignored the ache in his head and focused on the one part of the conversation that made sense. “Kent will do fine, Mr . . . ?”
He looked so abject, that for a moment Kon almost forgot how much he had wronged him. “Allen.”
“Ah.” His headache had almost receded. “So Luthor was right about that.”
“We knew he’d found out something about -- the family,” Bart said, spreading Kon’s jacket out to dry over the end of the pew, and seating himself at the opposite end of it from Kon. He was as bedraggled and wet as Kon himself, and somehow, though Kon would have rather been in the outermost Artic regions than in conversation with Bart, he hadn’t quite managed to make himself leave. “Max sent me away with instructions to stay hidden, and then a fortnight later I got the news that he was . . .” He trailed off.
If Kon inquired too closely, he was going to end up forgiving him. “Is that why you, ah -- the dress, and everything . . .”
Bart’s eyes were full and yellow in the shadows. Beth’s eyes, but not Beth. “It’s part of it,” he hedged, eyes slipping down in a gesture that Kon would have found charming on Beth, but was oddly disconcerting when matched with Bart’s untidily cut hair and suit. “That’s how it started, pretty much. I really am sorry.”
“You keep saying that.” Kon allowed some of his irritation from his head-pain to seep into his response. “You could have told me.”
“I tried to. I thought I had until you went and hit Tim for cheating me of my virtue.”
Kon flushed at the memory. “I feel badly enough at allowing myself to be so deceived. Must you parade the full extent of my foolishness before me?”
“I didn’t mean --” Bart looked stricken. “I never, ever, wanted to hurt you. Tim neither. But he said it was best after the way you reacted to him, and I didn’t want -- I valued your company too much to want to lose it.”
“So you let me believe in a relationship based on a lie?” Kon glared furiously. “I was in love with you!”
There was a long moment of silence as they regarded each other.
Bart shut his eyes. “I still a--”
“No! Will you keep on with this, even here?” Kon interrupted, horrified. “We’re in a church--” he grappled for words, unable to express his shock.
Bart’s mouth tightened, and he stood, grabbing his coat. “Of course. How stupid of me to forget. I shall take my unholy self out of this sacred place so as not to offend you further.”
Kon heard the door shut behind him, and counted to ten. Breathed. Wondered why he was letting Bart worry him so, and then decided that, after all, no one deserved to be outside on a night so miserable.
“Bar -- Mr Allen! Wait!”
Kon scanned the churchground for movement. The rain had not abated any and it was hard to make anything out in the murky darkness of the churchyard. Eventually he spotted movement in a shady corner over by the wall and made his way over.
“You’ll catch your death of cold,” he said, halting at the edge of the path. “We don’t want that, do we?”
This statement was met by absolute silence.
Kon sighed. “Look, we may have quarrelled, but that’s no reason for you to take on so. It’s wet and cold and there’s room for both of us back in the church. I’m sure we can manage to be civil to each other, for as long as it takes for morning to arrive.” He took a step forward. “Come on, then.”
The figure turned. Void, empty eyes met Kon’s as the figure swayed unsteadily towards him, heavy with the thick smell of rot. One of the arms it held out towards Kon was clearly broken, and the American couldn’t stifle an exclamation of dismay as the thing moved closer.
It was far from the most fearsome thing he’d encountered, but its unexpected appearance and something pitiable in its aspect held him still while it ambled towards him. The thought occurred to him that he should probably move or get out of its way but that message did not seem to be getting through to his body and he could only stare as the thing stepped closer --
And met the blunt end of Bart’s shovel.
“Get back!” The viciousness and suddeness of Bart’s attack was just as surprising, and Kon continued to stare, astonished, as Bart sent the creature reeling back with several more blows from the shovel and a well-placed kick. The thing was finally beaten back into the grave it had apparently crawled from and Bart began shovelling dirt back over top of it, pausing occasionally to hit a roving limb with the shovel. “And this time, stay there!”
This put a lot of that evening’s happenings into perspective. Kon rubbed his forehead ruefully. “Does this happen often?”
“A couple of times a night,” Bart said. “This one’s the freshest, he’s usually the first to start things off. It’ll be Nell next. She’s over by the oak.”
“Ah,” said Kon turning to squint through the darkness at the shadowy outline of the tree. “Was she an acquaintance?”
“She looks like a Nell,” Bart said vaguely, adding a last shovel of dirt for good measure.
“You’re giving them names?” Kon repeated, incredulous. “Just how long have you been here?”
He was taken aback by the fierceness of Bart’s response. “It’s not as though I don’t have places I could go! I just happen to not want to -- It’s none of your business!” Swinging the shovel over his shoulder he stomped angrily in the direction of the oak.
Kon followed at a safe distance. “At least tell me that you’re not actually living here.” At Bart’s continued silence he sighed. “Surely, you don’t need to remain here because of the zhombies. There are many ways of permanently dealing with them --”
“What did you call them?” Bart turned to look sharply at Kon.
“Zhombies.” Kon shrugged. “You know. The undead.”
“Another one of your American innovations?” Bart asked. “Our undead are usually better at knowing when they’re beaten.”
“Burning them is usually the way to go with zhombies,” Kon said. “I’m surprised you haven’t already tried it.”
“In this weather?” Bart raised an eyebrow through the wet hair plastered to his forehead.
There was a near constant trickle of water down the back of Kon’s boots. “Ah. Point taken. It’s been like this a while then?”
“All week. Still, what can you do?” Bart stepped forward with his shovel as the ground of the grave they were watching slowly began to move.
“Tried salt?”
Bart stopped beating the ground and stared at Kon. “Salt?”
Kon shrugged. “It’s standard Voduin. What, you don’t know?”
“Not everyone can have the benefit of a college education,” Bart said tartly. “You don’t happen to have any salt on you now, I suppose?”
Kon reached inside his jacket. “Call me superstitious,” he said with a shrug. “Anti-clockwise, and you make a circle like so.”
Bart watched closely as the ground ceased moving, Nell evidently returning to her unquiet slumber. “Mr Kent, you are quite the source of useful information tonight.”
“This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to deal with something of this manner,” Kon said as they continued on to place circles on two more graves and finished with a loose circuit of the churchyard. “This would explain why there was no one on the streets. Been going on long?”
“This is the second week,” Bart said. “We’re puzzled. The Foundation got it contained relatively quickly, and they’ve explained it as a sort of plague -- and it seems to act a lot like one, but nothing much seems to keep the victims down for long. Besides cremation of course, and until the Foundation is sure what effects the smoke or ashes might have, they’re reluctant to allow it.”
Kon nodded, wondering how to procede with the conversation. “I have to visit the Foundation to make use of the library.”
“You should mention you have experience when you do. Try and talk to one of the Associates -- I think Grayson is in house at the moment. The Fellows are rot, they don’t know anything. They’re just there for appearances.” Bart said blythly. “Oh, look. The rain has stopped.”
Kon held out his hand. “So it has.” He watched as Bart wrung out his coat. “What are you going to do now?”
The look he received was startled, almost hopeful. “You wish to know?”
“No,” Kon said flatly. “I don’t. Frankly, I wouldn’t much mind if I never saw you again.”
“You really . . . ?”
It was becoming harder to see Beth in Bart. Kon could concentrate, and make out her features in him, but it was quickly becoming Bart’s smile, Bart’s eyes, and it was just one more thing he’d lost. The hurt gave Kon the conviction to continue. “You lied to me,” he said. “You lied, you made me believe in something that didn’t exist and I can’t even remember now -- Do you know how much that hurts?”
“I never -- I’m sorry --”
“You can say that all you want, it won’t change anything!” Kon finished. “I don’t know you, anything about you. I don’t think I care to know you.”
“You’ve made your feelings on the matter abundantly clear.” Bart said tightly, straightening his tie. “I will try not to bother you again.”
“Good.” Strangely, saying all of that didn’t make Kon feel any better. He watched as Bart walked down the road. In seconds he would be invisible amongst the shadows, completely out of sight -- could Kon really let him go like this?
“Mr Allen? One last thing.”
Bart paused. “I can scarcely imagine what more you could have to say,” he said. “But if you insist, so be it.”
Kon joined him in the middle of the road. “I won’t pretend to like your company,” he said. “But as it happens, I have lost my way. If you could point me in the direction of Weaver’s Lane, I would be grateful.”
Bart looked at him a long moment before replying. His eyes, inhuman eyes, were light in the darkness. “It’s long,” he said. “You’d better follow me.”