The bells of St. Brigid's tolled midnight as Jonathan climbed the cathedral steps, each chime echoing like a warning.
The fog thickened in the alleys behind him, swallowing the gaslights one by one until the church stood as an island of pale flame.
Crane muttered as he followed, "If there's a devil in Gotham, you'll find him in here."
Jonathan pushed the heavy oak doors.
The scent of incense and mildew met them along with the sight of Father Mordecai Vale waiting at the altar.
A tall, gaunt man with skin pale as candlewax, his eyes burned like dying coals beneath a heavy brow. His robes were plain black, save for a silver ring etched with faint circles.
"Officer Wayne," Vale greeted, his voice both weary and sharp. "You have been walking paths you should not tread."
Jonathan's hand hovered near his revolver. "Then you know why I'm here."
Vale gestured toward the pews. "Sit if you are to inherit Gotham's sins, you should at least hear their testament."
They sat in the shadows of the nave.
Vale unrolled a length of yellowed parchment across the altar rail. The writing was cramped, ink faded to brown.
"This," the priest whispered, "is Gotham's true scripture. Not written by prophets, but by the city's first men the founders.
Traders, slavers, bankers, men who bled the soil with coin and blood alike."
Jonathan leaned closer. Symbols were scrawled beside the names: two concentric circles again, repeated over and over like a refrain.
"They called themselves the Owe," Vale went on. "A covenant. A promise that the city would never rise without sacrifice. Debt paid in flesh, so that Gotham might prosper."
Jonathan felt his chest tighten. "You mean to tell me the killings are not random? They are ritual?"
Vale's smile was faint and bitter. "All debts are ritual theirs merely take a sharper form."
Crane swore under his breath. "You admit to this? To being part of them?"
The priest's eyes flickered. "Part? No. Bound? Always. My family was keeper of their ledgers the record of names, payments, and the blood owed.
My brother Thomas turned away. I did not someone must preserve truth, even if it damns him."
Jonathan's fists clenched. "And these killings today the children, the dockworkers, the women do they mean nothing but numbers on a ledger?"
Vale's hands trembled faintly as he traced the ink. "They are chosen. By bloodline, by debt unpaid. Some families escaped their tithes, thinking time would wash away what was owed but time remembers. The Owe always remembers."
He turned another sheet. A family crest stared up at Jonathan a stylized "W" flanked by two black wings.
The Wayne sigil.
Jonathan froze his throat went dry.
Vale's voice dropped. "The Waynes were not merely victims of Gotham's foundation. They were architects. Your great-grandfather, Elias Wayne, signed the first covenant. He bound your bloodline to the Owe."
Jonathan staggered back a step. "Lies."
But the ink was there, Elias Wayne's name written in curling hand. And beside it, the double circle pressed in wax, not just ink.
Crane glanced nervously at Jonathan, then at Vale. "Why show us this? Why not burn it, bury it?"
Vale's eyes gleamed with something that was not quite mercy. "Because you asked. And because truth, no matter how buried, festers. Better it be cut open than rot unseen."
He rolled the parchment back into its case with deliberate care. "Know this, Jonathan Wayne: you cannot fight Gotham's curse without knowing you carry it in your veins. The city will not let you."
The candles guttered as if a draft had swept the hall. Jonathan's ears rang faintly at first, then stronger, that same rhythmic chant he had heard beneath the streets.
Crane straightened, alarmed. "Do you hear that?"
Vale's expression darkened. "They come. The Owe does not suffer its secrets spoken aloud."
From the cathedral doors came a heavy slam. Then another. The wood shuddered. Shadows gathered at the stained glass windows hooded figures, their outlines blurred by fog.
Jonathan drew his revolver. "Crane, guard the priest."
But Vale only shook his head, almost serenely. "No. My testament is given. My debt must now be paid."
Before Jonathan could stop him, Vale pulled from his robe a small dagger ancient, its blade etched with the circle. With one motion, he slashed his palm and smeared the blood across the parchment scroll.
A chorus rose outside low, thunderous voices chanting in unison. The stained glass cracked.
"Go!" Vale hissed, thrusting the scroll into Jonathan's hands. "Take it! If the ledger burns, Gotham's last chance burns with it!"
The doors burst open. Figures in black surged forward.
Crane grabbed Jonathan's arm. "Move!"
They tore through a side door into the vestry, the priest's voice echoing behind them:
"Blood calls to blood Wayne you will pay, or you will break them."
The last thing Jonathan saw as they fled into the fog was Vale standing firm before the altar, his bleeding hand raised like a torch.
The Owe descended on him in silence.
Jonathan and Crane didn't stop running until the church bells were far behind. The scroll weighed heavy in Jonathan's coat, hotter than iron.
For the first time, Jonathan Wayne understood that Gotham's darkness was not only around him.
It was within him.