Catwoman: Queen of the Gotham Night by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/Catwoman-Queen-of-the-Gotham-Night-1268306781

Catwoman: Queen of the Gotham Night ANIMATION

The Velvet Glyph of the Night

Selina Kyle had always believed that history hoarded its treasures like dragons—possessive, jealous, and quietly snarling beneath the dust of forgotten centuries. That was part of the allure. Wealth glittered, yes, but secrets glittered more. And tonight, she intended to steal one that gleamed darker than gold.

She stood before the carved obsidian entrance of a newly uncovered tomb in the Valley of Kings, a moonlit ribbon of desert curling behind her booted heels. The excavation tents nearby lay dark—scientists had been evacuated that morning after two inexplicable accidents. Selina called them ominous coincidences. She preferred to think of them as invitations.

Her catsuit—black, sleek, not quite body armor but close—whispered against ancient stone as she traced her gloved fingertips along the hieroglyphic relief. A woman wearing a cat-headed mask was depicted kneeling before a jackal god. “Bastet kneels for Anubis,” Selina murmured, smirking. “That’s a scene I never thought I’d see.”

A voice purred from behind. “You always did appreciate irony.”

Selina whirled with feline precision, ready to spring—only to see a figure emerge from shadow: a tall man wearing desert camouflage and a rather smug grin. Hassan—Egyptologist, antiquarian, sometimes smuggler, and her guide in this little venture. His eyes gleamed with something Selina could never quite categorize: admiration, contempt, amusement, or all three.

“You do love to startle,” she said coolly.

“I could say the same. Most sane people leave haunted tombs when archaeologists run screaming from them.”

“Sane is overrated.”

Hassan chuckled softly. “The curse associated with this tomb… is particularly vicious. The pharaoh buried here—Nes-Sekhem—was rumored to have dabbled in alchemical resurrection rituals.”

“I thought those were myths.”

“Perhaps. Until his priesthood all vanished within days of sealing him in.”

“That only makes him a better host.” Selina strode forward, confident as moonlight. “Now, let’s crack this vault open before dawn.”

The stone door sighed with a heavy groan when Hassan pressed a concealed panel. A pillar slid into the ground, and dry sand cascaded like falling stardust. The entrance yawned. Darkness breathed out a stale, ancient sigh.

“After you,” she said.

“No,” he replied. “After you. It’s your midnight joyride.”

Selina grinned. Something serpent-slick coiled low in her stomach—not fear exactly, but anticipation sharpened with a hint of seduction, a familiar feeling she got when stepping onto dangerous rooftops at two a.m.

Inside, the corridor descended like a throat devouring them. Selina’s tiny wrist-lamp cast shifting shadows across painted murals. Scenes of funerary rites: bodies wrapped, organs weighed, souls led through black gates. The usual.

Until they found something decidedly unusual.

A tableau showing a woman with emerald eyes and distinct feline features kneeling before the pharaoh himself. The artwork depicted her guarding him—her hands wrapped around a golden mask shaped like a cat.

Selina tilted her head. “Looks like the Egyptians had a thing for cats.”

“Bastet was revered—but this figure isn’t Bastet.” Hassan traced the line of paint, careful not to touch. “This looks… contemporary to the pharaoh’s reign, but the iconography is wrong. Almost… human.”

Selina laughed lightly. “Maybe they just liked the aesthetic.”

But beneath her amusement, an unsettling sensation stirred—an odd recognition she could not explain. Those emerald eyes, painted with shimmering pigment, seemed to follow her.

They moved deeper. Torch stands burst to life. Someone—or something—had prepared the way.

“Please tell me you turned those on,” Selina murmured.

“I wish I could,” Hassan replied.

As they walked, a low wind drifted through the passage, carrying with it the dry whisper of shifting linen. Something shuffled behind them. Selina pivoted, but only darkness lingered.

“Desert rats,” she decided aloud.

“Very large rats,” Hassan answered, voice tightening.

As they turned the next bend, the corridor widened into a burial chamber so vast their lights dissolved in its vaulted height. Columns shaped like entwined serpents ringed a raised sarcophagus carved from jade-flecked basalt. Strange sigils shimmered faintly as though illuminated f
...(more at https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai).
For more supergirl, chun li, batgirl, tifa, lara croft, wonder woman, rogue and much more, please visit my page at www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai - Thanks for your support :)