[Veritas]

Chapter Eleven: The Prisoner

October 8th, 2007, dawned bright and clear in New York, but clouds gathered over Luke Blade as the jury assembled in the jury room to decide Luke's innocence or guilt. The suspense was nerve-racking to say the least. At least the trial did not last as long as OJ Simpson's, to everyone's relief. With such incontrovertable evidence behind the prosecution, there would be no doubt about the outcome. His guilt was practically confirmed--it was his sanity that was debatable. Was Luke fully accountable for his actions, or were they the product of a damaged mind? Did Luke know what he was doing, or not? Should he be imprisoned, or committed?

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome became the hot-button topic around the country: it worked its way into everything from talk shows to daytime drama. The Discovery Health Channel devoted an entire hour-long program about it. Pamphlets about FAS were distributed by the Department of Health; they could be found in every doctor's office and women's clinic in North America. Bars and restaurants serving alcohol printed warnings about it on their menus. "A pregnant woman never drinks alone," became the catchphrase. It showed up on billboards and magazine ads everywhere. In time, Luke Blade became the unofficial poster boy for FAS.

Luke, however, was totally unaware of all this. He sat in his holding cell as fourteen people whom he never even met argued over his fate. He was looking at triple life if convicted. Luke laughed at that. How do you serve three life sentences when you only live once? Were you reincarnated to serve the second and third? Did they force you to live forever? No one could do that, he realized. But he did not relish the thought of being imprisoned for the rest of his life. He had grown up in institutions--the home for distrubed children, St. Mary's children's asylum, the psychiatric hospital for teens. All his life he never had a place he could call "home". He had no mother, no father, no blood relation alive--his biological father, George Clark, had died three years prior to the trial. Clark had died in prison while serving a twenty-year sentence for sexual assault on a minor girl. That was how they found the DNA link to Luke. His own real father had betrayed him, just like all the others.

The jury deliberated for the better part of the day. At 4:39 PM, they were ready to announce the verdict. The court reconviened to hear what the jury had decided. Luke was taken out of the holding cell and made to stand as the foreperson handed the verdict to Judge Williams: Guilty by reason of insanity.

Luke looked around, bewildered. Was that good or bad? Would he still have to go to prison? He would not know until December, when sentencing would be given. In the meantime, he would be returned to the mental hospital for "observation".

The weeks dragged on for Luke. Beckie Winslow came to visit as often as her new job at a commercial laundry and her meager expenses allowed. She tried to present Luke with a bouquet of silk daffodils, but they were confiscated by security, as the stems and leaves of the artificial flowers had metal wire in them. She gave him a photo album she had made with pictures of happier days, such as the Colorado ski trip, and Baby Luke's first Christmas. Beckie had talked to anyone who would listen to get Luke released. She had promised that he would be "good", and she would "take care of him". Luke had never hurt her, she had insisted. He wasn't a "bad" person, just "sick", and Beckie would help him "get well". She still loved Luke in spite of everything.

Luke accepted the photo album once it passed inspection. She was his "baby sister", he said, and he loved her as much as she loved him. They would be together again, he promised her, but his hopes were built on sand. Things would never be the same again. Luke was a prisoner, never to see the outside in his lifetime.

December 17th, 2007. Two days before Luke's thirty-second birthday, the sentencing phase of the trial commenced. Luke stood before the judge in shackles as usual. He looked haggard; he was several days away from a shave, and his hair had grown longer, giving him a wild-man look. He was no longer the debonaire man-about-Hollywood, schmoozing it up with the Beautiful People. He was a physical and emotional wreck.

Judge Thomas stared at Luke severely. "Luke Blade, you have been tried before a jury of your peers for two counts of murder in the first degree, and attempted murder in the first degree, and have been found guilty as charged. Do you have anything to say before sentencing?"

Luke remained silent, his eyes glowering with inner rage through the scraggly hair. He wanted to kill them all--the jury, the judge, Mac Taylor and his team, Sylvia Walker, everybody who had turned against him. Only gutteral growls were all the judge heard.

"What have you become, Mr. Blade?" Judge Williams asked almost pityingly. "You had so much talent, you could have done a great deal of good in the world. Instead, you used it to kill two innocent people who were close to you, and then you tried to kill your mother--"

"She's not my mother!" Luke shouted at the judge. "She abandoned me! She never was my mother!"

The judge hammered his gavel to silence him. "You tried to kill your mother, the woman who chose you over hundreds of babies to adopt. From your record, giving you up was probably the smartest choice she made."

Luke lunged at the judge, but was restrained by the two guards at his sides.

"If there is still a part of you that can still reason, if there is still a rational area in your brain that can still function, think on this: you have escaped from a lot of things in your career, but you cannot escape justice. You are still accountable for your actions despite what the jury said. Regardless of what distorted logic drove you to commit these crimes, you are stll a criminal. Therefore, this court sentences you, Luke Blade, to the Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane. Term: for life, without parole, effective immediatly. This will satisfy both the law and the psychiatric community. You may prove to be a very interesting case study. but don't entertain any hopes for escape, as you will be placed under round-the-clock supervision. Not even your skills will help you there. You will live there, you will grow old there, and you will die there. Case dismissed."

There were murmurs and flashbulbs popping as Luke Blade, former master illusionist, was escorted out of the courtroom to face the reality of his life behind bars. His magic career was over. His life was over. His last act of defiance was a vicious stare at Mac Taylor, the detective/scientist who had condemned him to a lifetime of misery at the most notorious institution in the world.



Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane was founded in 1783 by Jeremiah Arkham as an instiution for the mentally unstable. It was an act of philanthropy by the civic-minded Arkham to rid New York of the derelicts and mental cases swarming the streets, causing terror among the citizenry. While Arkham was lauded by the governor of New York for his humanitarianism, the methods used to control the inmates were criminal by today's standards. Beatings, cold water, restraints, poor sanitaiton, abuse by guards, and perpetual confinement did worse damage than whatever they had suffered from in the first place. Various reforms were put into practice over the two-hundred years of its existance, but the conditions were still brutal. Because of the fortresslike building, it was decided around the beginning of the twentieth century that it would house the most dangerous, most psychopathic and most violent crimimals, ones who could not be kept in a standard prison such as Sing-Sing or Reiker's Island, or in a mental hospital like Bellevue. Technology at Arkham had kept pace with the times: camera surveillance, electronic sensors, metal detectors and the like, but its reputation was as brutal as it had been in the eighteenth century.

It was to this dungeon of a building that Luke Blade found himself transported. Passing through the wrought-iron gates was like going through the gates of Hell. He had no possessions of any kind with him except the clothes on his back, and they were prison orange. No bling, no black leather jackets, not even his beloved magic set which he had carried around since childhood. Yet Luke was surprisingly calm as he was led into "processing", where he was stripped, body searched, and examined for any noticible scars or tattoos. He was bathed, given the standard uniform of the Asylum (olive green surgical gear with white canvas loafers), and assigned his cell. It was little bigger than one of his walk-in closets in his Las Vegas home. The security reports for that day stated that "the prisoner was co-operative with no sign of trouble".

The truth was, Luke was biding his time. He was still an escape artist, and he would make his greatest escape ever from this place. All he needed was time to case out the place for possible routes. And time was what he had in abundance.

[RACHEL02189]

Keep iit coming

[Smurf]

more please

[Veritas]

Chapter Twelve: The Fugitive

Of all the institutions in which Luke Blade had been incarcerated, Arkham Asylum was the worst. It was worse than St, Mary's Children's Asylum, worse than the psychiatric ward where he was held as a teenager, worse than the mental hospital where he was imprisoned before his trial. The inmates were not so much committed as interred alive within the mausoleum-like stone walls. There was little contact between inmates, and none with the outside world. What few letters arrived were opened and scrutinized by the guards, then either passed on (which seldom happened) or were discarded for "security reasons". Arkham was a city of the living dead, shunned by society, all hope abandoned by and for those who lived there. Even Luke was cut off completely. No friends, no Family came to see him. The only letter he ever received there was from the Society of the Brotherhood of Magicians, telling him that his membership had been revoked. It was the final blow for the once famous illusionist.

But hope still burned within Luke. He had escaped jail cells before in his career. He made it his mission in life to escape from that hellhole the state of New York had sent him. It was the only thing which kept him going, helped him endure the isolation and misery. He would show the world that Luke Blade was still the master of illusion and escape. No matter how long it took, he would have his freedom!

The days turned into weeks, weeks into months. Luke slogged through the dreary chores of "work detail", sat through hour after fruitless hour of psychiatric therapy, swallowed the tasteless meals, and brooded in his cell, all the while taking in the smallest details of the Asylum: where the guards were posted, when they changed shifts, what door led where, the kinds of locks they used, the venting system--nothing was overlooked by the keen eye of the Master.

Plan after plan was designed, but just when it seemed to be perfect, some small detail crept in to put the kibosh on the whole scheme. Undeterred, Luke kept planning and scheming his greatest escape yet. It had taken months, if not years, to execute his stunts in the past; this would be more challenging.

One morning, in late August of 2008, the six AM alarm rang out to awaken the inmates for another day. The morning shift guards made the rounds as usual to make sure everyone was out of their bunks. When they came to Luke's cell, there was no response. The guard hammered on the cell door. Nothing. He immediatly reported the problem to the secruity station and went in the cell.

Luke was there all right, but he lay collapsed on the floor, writhing in pain. The small steel toilet revealed a greenish bile. The guard called for the infirmary to come to Luke's aid. He covered Luke with the thin blanket from his bunk and waited for the medics to arrive. The medics took his temperature. It was 105 degrees Fahrenheit.

Luke was wheeled to the Asylum's infirmary, where he was diagnosed with peritonitis. The infirmary did not have the resources to treat this disease, so arrangements were made to transfer him to a local hospital. Even though Luke was too sick to move, let alone try to escape, he would still be placed under guard. He was wheeled through the labrynthian corridors of the Asylum to a waiting ambulance, securely strapped down on the gurney, and taken to the hospital.

What happened next is a matter of conjecture. The first week was uneventful as Luke recovered from his illness. He was due to be returned to Arkham the following Monday. On Saturday, August 28th, a nurse making her rounds that morning discovered Luke missing. She reported it to her supervisor, who in turn reported it to the authorities. Police arrived to investigate the hospital room. There was the rooftop of a cocktail lounge under his hospital room window, so the theory was that he had climbed out of it. The guard at the door was not held liable as this was an unforseen act; at any rate, the window had a keyed lock on it to prevent such an occurance. It is strongly believed that Luke had picked the lock and freed himself. There was also a cover from a vent on the ceiling missing. It was large enough to accomodate him as well. Yet no one heard any noise from any of the vents during their shift. And no one had entered or left the room at any time, the gurard confirmed.

So how and when did Luke Blade escape? Investigators were called in to find out. Every doctor, nurse, medical assistant, food service worker, and custodian were carefully questioned, but no leads turned up. It had been a very quiet night, they all told the authorities. Nothing unusual; just the same routine.

A statewide manhunt began for the fugitive magician. Once again, Blade was front-page news. A toll-free hotline was set up for any person who had information about Luke's whereabouts. As was the case of any crime story, there were the usual false leads and crank calls. No real leads were made. Some suggested that Luke had been so sick at the time that he probably died on the run. The morgue was called, but no bodies fitting Luke's description was turned in.

His former Family members were contacted, but they had severed all ties with their former employer and wanted nothing to do with him. They were free to live their own lives now. The only one who stayed loyal was Beckie Winslow, who was living with Victoria Soames, Luke's former personal nurse. Neither had any knowledge of Luke's whereabouts, but investigators decided to keep watch over Beckie, as she might become an accomplice should Luke turn up.

Despite the seriousness of the crimes Luke had committed and the fear generated by his escape, the whole thing deteriorated into a national joke, in line with the "Who Shot JR?" mystery generated by the television series Dallas. "I Saw Luke Blade!" bumper stickers and t-shirts were produced by small independant merchants. An underground fan club connected by the Internet had formed during Luke's imprisonment, cheering him on. His merchandise was fetching astronomical prices on eBay and other websites. The tabloids fed on the frenzy with lurid headlines about Luke's whereabouts. Armchair detectives and self-professed psychics all had theories and "sightings".

Yet for all the media attention, no real progress had been made. Investigators and forensics experts went over the few facts they had and followed every lead, however remote or absurd. They struggled to keep a tight lid on the case so as not to have anything interfere with the investigation. Very little if any news was released, leading conspiracy theorists to draw their own conclusions: Luke had been taken by the US Government because of his special skills to free American servicemen held prisoner in Iraq, or he had plotted revenge against the judge/jury/police officers/CSI team/witnesses/Family members who put him away, or he was living in another country under an assumed name with funds secreted in offshore tax shelters.

As time went on, the escape of Luke Blade began to take on mythical qualities. It became one of America's greatest unsolved mysteries, ranking among Judge Carter and Jimmy Hoffa. To "pull a Luke Blade", meaning to escape, entered current slang among American young. His hairstyle and Gothic wardrobe were copied by rebellious teens everywhere. He became an antihero to the outcast youth. By October of 2008, one year after his conviction, the case was growing cold, but his popularity was never hotter

[RACHEL02189]

Wow!!!

[Smurf]

more please

[Veritas]

Chapter Thirteen: The Mystery

Two months had passed since Luke Blade escaped the hospital. The grounds had been searched thoroughly, the surrounding area alerted for any sign of the fugitive illusionist. The director of the hospital had gone on national television to plead for Luke to surrender and return to the hospital for his own sake. He was a very sick man and needed medical help, he had said. Now there was little if any hope of Luke surviving his illness outside the hospital, unless he got help somewhere else.

Luke Blade's crimes and subsequent escape put him in the top ten of America's Most Wanted list. His mug shot was a regular feature on the crime series. Yet there were no leads as to where he was. Had he fled the country? Had he died? Had he changed his name and features and living among ordinary citizens? Where was he hiding? And who was helping him?

By October 28th, 2008, one year and two months after his escape from the hospital, David Baron, Luke's former manager, had Luke declared legally dead. Without the antibiotics he needed for his peritonitis, the medical authorities claimed he would have succumbed to the poisons swirling around in his bloodstream. There was no way he could have survived without them, they said.

The memorial service was a private affair, with very few attending. Beckie Winslow was chief mourner, weeping throughout the brief fifteen minute service. She had bought a large pot of yellow daffodils purchased from a greenhouse to the service. Soames, the Weeks family, and David Barron were the only others present. The funeral was kept secret to prevent a media circus or protest movements.


While Luke's will bequeathed his entire estate to Benny and Andrea Weeks, with a trust fund set up for Baby Luke, his assets had been frozen and under garnishment by the Court for damages in the wrongful death suits filed by the surviving families of Vienna Hyatt and Austin Cannon. His possessions were auctioned off to pay for legal fees and other debts. The house in Las Vegas was put up for sale in mid-September. By late October the following year, there were still no buyers. When a prospective customer came to look over the house, word would leak out abour its previous owner, and it was good-bye sale. The realtor could not even sell it for the value of the land. Some logical types blamed it on a sluggish housing market, but in reality, the house was cursed. Only a lone caretaker tended the property, who enjoyed regaling the neighborhood kids with lurid tales of Luke Blade and his evil ways, many of his own creation. It was here that he plotted his murders, he said, and who knows who might be buried in that house? He was a famous magician who sold his soul to the Devil for his powers, and there were many strange sights while he lived here. No one sought to correct him, or complain about his behavior. They just dismissed him as an eccentric man with a vivid imagination.




The controversy that was Luke Blade's life rages on. Underground fans say that Luke is still alive, and will return in all his former glory. Others believe he is truly dead; indeed, sightings of Luke's ghost around the warehouse theater were reported, either menacing or pleading for rescue. A videotape of one such "sighting" made the rounds on the Internet: a greenish wraithlike shape drifting past the camera lens. As much as the skeptics tried to debunk it, there were those who swore it was the ghost of Luke Blade caught on tape.

Many people still see Luke as a cold-blooded killer. He would always be a criminal, villified and condemned by his own actions, mental and psychological disabilites notwithstanding. Religious types, especially fundamentalist Christians, consign him to the lowest depths of Hell for his sins. He showed no mercy, he received no mercy. He was everything that they despised about the entertainment world, especially magicians, whom they claim practice the Dark Arts.

Others take a more humane view of Luke, saying he was a victim of an antiquated mental health system and an inadequate social services system as well. He was more to be pitied than censured, more to be helped than despised. He was cursed from the womb, when his mother drank alcohol and damaged his brain, then he suffered abandonment and abuse from a chruch run orphanage, then was shuttled in and out of foster homes and other instiutions. While they did not exonerate Luke for his crimes, he should have received better treatment for his disorders.

There are still those who regard Luke as an antihero, the idol of the outcasts. He had accomplished the impossible by escaping the most secure and inpenetrable prison in the country, despite what everyone said. He was immortal in their eyes. His CDs and DVDs are played at parties and Goth gatherings everywhere. It is the epitome of rebellion to wear Luke Blade type clothing and hairstyles; many high schools blacklist such fashion statements in their dress codes. Luke Blade has become a legend.

As of this writing, the mystery of Luke's disappearance remains unsolved. No witnesses have stepped forward to make a statement, no new clues have been discovered. However history judges him over time, whether as entertainer, criminal or madman, he is still a man who had been shaped by forces outside of his control and had suffered in the end, as well as those in his orbit. He suffered a debilitating disorder by his biological mother's alcoholism. He suffered horrific abuse by those in whose care he had been entrusted. He had been cheated by the man who brought him to stardom. He harbored feelings of abandonment and rejection by not only his adoptive mother, but by those whom he brought himself to trust. He was haunted by traumatic events and a sense of unbearable lonliness. Judge Thomas Williams stated that Luke could escape anything except justice. It is closer to the truth that Luke Blade could escape anything but himself.


This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of the characters in this work to any persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Arkham Asylum is the creation of DC Comics, producers of Batman and others. It is an incomplete biography, just a thumbnail sketch of a fictional character. The author wants to thank all the Loyals for their support and positive reveiws, knowing the supertalented among them will undoubtedly wish to either add on, or use this as a reference for their own works. I wish them luck.

[Smurf]

Great Story i really enjoy reading it , and getting to know Luke a little bit better .

[RACHEL02189]

Awesome