Page 9 of Looking Grimm (Marionette #4)

With the Everett twins dispatched, or at least distracted, I bolted for the end of the catwalk. My feet pounded against the perforated metal, causing a rattling sound that made my ears ring. I had nearly reached the far side when a shadowy figure peeked over the walkway. He was as winded as I was, and he scowled as his hood slid back from his face.

“I’m too old for this shit,” Ripley grunted. “Scurrying up a bloody ladder to save your ass.”

I cracked a grin. “I handled it.”

Ethan’s squalling had stopped. Since I never heard the gruesome thud of his body colliding with the ground, I assumed his flyboy brother managed to save him. I also assumed they would return, and if either of them decided to toss me off the walkway, I wouldn’t get a timely rescue.

I flapped my hands at Ripley. “We gotta get down. Go, go!”

Ripley started down the ladder at a rapid clip. I chased after him, listening to his muttered complaints the whole descent.

“Why didn’t you kill them?” he asked. “Autograph a matched set of corpses. See what happens.”

“I’ll get to that,” I replied between breaths. “But they might be the only recruits with even a smidgen of measurable magic power. That makes them more important and more likely to know about Grimm.”

“Lot of good that’ll do you if you let them escape,” Ripley said. “And how do you intend to get them to talk? Or subdue them long enough to get information? One of them could quite literally bury us alive.”

I was plenty aware of Ethan Everett’s abilities, having played clean up after he wreaked havoc on the downtown block and, subsequently, Maximus Lyle’s house. So, I wasn’t surprised when we hit the warehouse’s ground level and found it quaking.

The smoke from Ripley’s poison had dissipated, and my eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness. There was no one else in sight. No one upright, anyway, but at least a dozen bodies littered the floor. I stopped beside Ripley, who joined me in searching the cavernous space.

“Did you…?” I began, then tried again. “Are they…?”

His jaw flexed in profile before he replied, “I handled it.”

I felt like I should thank him or apologize for forcing him to rescue me when he could have easily slipped out the door with everyone else. But before I could speak again, a gale of wind swept toward us. It struck with ferocity, driving us into the cold brick wall and pinning us there.

Grunting, I squinted as the aerial onslaught persisted.

Before us, Ezrah Everett descended to stand with his arms spread and a smug smile on his face. “This is even better.” He strode forward. “Now there’s two of us and two of you.”

Ethan emerged from the shadows several feet behind his twin, ripping up the cement with his advance.

“Could be a hell of an orgy,” I muttered. “It’s not too late to flip the script on this whole thing.”

The building trembled again, causing a groaning, creaking sound. Shattered glass rained from overhead, dusting my hair with shards.

Ezrah laughed. “You’re a real jackass, you know that?” He bent to draw a long knife from his boot.

“Sounds familiar,” I said.

Ripley writhed beside me. For a guy who would likely be bowled over by a strong wind on a normal day, this had to be hell on him.

“Do something, Farrow!” he exclaimed.

I squirmed, almost flattened by gusts so powerful they felt like G-forces. “I’m thinking! Can you knock them out?”

“I’m a bit tapped at the moment, mate,” Ripley growled. “Why don’t you do it?”

If I could have moved my head, I would have shaken it. “I’ve got two modes: kill and overkill. Neither works here.”

My plan to take the twins alive was slipping rapidly out of reach. Not that I knew where to put them with the storage facility and Nash’s cellar eliminated as viable options.

Meanwhile, Ezrah and Ethan closed in, the former brandishing the knife with a sadistic fervor he must have learned from Avery.

The wall behind me shuddered again, an empty threat because Ethan surely wouldn’t bring the place down while he and his brother were inside. I had time to figure this out.

I may have underestimated Ezrah—expecting him to take his time getting a pound of flesh from me or at least talk a while longer about how much of a dick I was. Instead, he crowded in with the knife tip pressing into my stomach.

“Gonna collect big on you.” He leaned in as the wind unsettled his pale hair. “Doubling up on Grimm’s favor and the Capitol’s bounty? I’ll be parading your carcass all over town.”

My eyes were watering furiously, and it was a struggle to keep them open. I imagined I looked about as menacing as a skydiver midflight as I retorted, “Sounds like some real Weekend at Bernie’s shit. Do I get to wear the sunglasses?”

Beside Ezrah, Ethan had closed in and produced a dagger of his own. He didn’t say a word as he put the blade to Ripley’s throat.

“Cutting it real fucking close, Farrow.” Ripley’s voice was strained.

Close was the keyword. The twins were inches from us and from each other, which was exactly what I needed to use my magic without being able to use my hands to channel it.

I did it with a blink instead, scrunching my entire face as I thought of the brothers colliding with each other headfirst.

A scuffling sound preceded a mutual grunt and a sudden, almost eerie, stillness.

The force that had plastered me to the wall relented, and my weight fell to my feet. I swayed forward, then steadied, while Ripley collapsed beside me.

Blinking found my eyes inexplicably dry yet watering. I had to wipe them to focus on the Everett twins sprawled on the cracked ground in front of us, unconscious .

I snorted and smirked. “Go, me.”

Ripley gathered himself up and stood, dusting his hands over his dark clothes. His typically sour expression returned as he beckoned to me. “All right, Larry. Grab Moe and Curly and let’s go.”

“Why Larry?” I protested.

Ripley sighed noisily. “Because Moe and Curly were brothers. Like these blighters.” He waved toward the twins.

“Wait, really?”

“Yes. Can we go?”

I couldn’t carry them both. Not at once. But Ripley offered no assistance on the first or second trip to the car, merely walking alongside while I dragged first Ethan then Ezrah to the Porsche and piled them beside it.

The duffel bag Holland had given me was stuffed behind the driver’s seat. I dug it out and dropped it on the pavement beside the brothers. Crouching to unzip it, I pulled out both antimagic collars and their remotes, then handed the remotes to Ripley.

His lip curled as he took them and slid them into his hoodie pocket.

I crept over to Ezrah and Ethan, fastening the steel rings around their throats. Checking the duffel found the pistol inside. I left it untouched, closed the bag, then tucked it back behind the seat.

When I turned to face Ripley again, he made no effort to mask his disdain.

“They won’t both fit in my tiny ass trunk.” I gestured to the tilted forward driver’s seat. “One’s gotta go in here.”

Ripley leaned around me to inspect the cramped space the manufacturer graciously referred to as an “occasional seat.” Watching him try to puzzle through the logistics was a humorous reminder of why I had borrowed Donovan’s car for my previous abductions.

“You’re joking,” he said at length.

I raised a brow. “Do you have a better plan?”

He hissed an aggravated sound. “Fine. I’ll go around. You push, I’ll pull.”

The Three Stooges jokes should have continued as we stuffed Ethan Everett’s body behind the front seats of the coupe. His limp form bent and flopped, arms and legs going a dozen different directions as I leveraged all my strength to lift and push him through the vehicle.

On the passenger side, Ripley grabbed him by the shoulders, shirt, and even his head at one point, and heaved backward.

“This is absurd,” he said between labored grunts. “And you’ve been parking this tin can outside the hotel?”

“It’s the only car I’ve got,” I replied.

“It’s bright bloody red!” Ripley exclaimed. “How’ve we not been raided yet? Christ.”

With the first twin wadded into the allotted space, I flipped the driver’s seat into the upright position, not much minding if I smashed wayward fingers or toes in the process.

Before I exited the car, I pulled the release lever in the floorboard to pop open the front trunk. I grabbed the remaining Everett twin under his arms and started lugging him around to the hood of the car.

The movement felt familiar, echoed from another dark night in this same parking lot. It didn’t fully register until I propped the unconscious man against the Porsche’s front bumper and peered into the trunk cavity .

Moonlight pooled across the gray upholstery, outlining the dark stain where Donovan’s blood soaked into the carpet. In the day, I imagined it was a brownish color, but here it looked inky black and deep like a hole I could crawl into. Grabbing the trunk lid, I slammed it closed and spun to put my back to the car. My breath hung in my lungs.

I never cleaned it. Told Nash not to. It was the last shred of denial I could store and ignore. Another grave I could visit, though I didn’t want to go there tonight.

Ripley approached and stopped at the side of the car. He looked at Ezrah leaned next to me, then the now closed trunk hood.

“What’s all this, then?” he asked. “Stuff the poor sod in there, and let’s go.”

Swallowing, I stared across the lot, looking at the rings of light from lampposts dotting the dark landscape.

“I need a minute,” I murmured.

Ripley didn’t wait, instead passing me to the driver’s side and popping the trunk again. When the lid swung open against my back, I cringed but didn’t budge.

“We don’t have all night, Farrow,” Ripley said as he stomped over. “They could come back, you know. Looking for you, or me, or these two. Or someone may have phoned the Capitol…” He trailed off, then came back with a statement that was more of a groan. “Aw, bugger.”

He stepped in front of me. He was a couple inches shorter than I was, so I didn’t have to raise my head to meet his eyes. He must have seen the blood because a rare sympathy softened his face.

“We’re gonna take care of that,” he said. “But first, we have to take care of them. You need me to load him up?” He nudged Ezrah’s slumped form with the toe of his tennis shoe.

I shook my head. “I’ll do it.”

Ripley stepped back and gave a nod of his own. “Good man.”

After a few minutes of heaving and bending and forcing the unconscious man’s body into the crowded trunk compartment, I closed the lid again and climbed into the driver’s seat next to Ripley.

He didn’t stir to my arrival, too busy thumbing through the apps on his cell phone. “Do you have an idea where to put them?” he asked without looking away from the screen.

I slouched behind the wheel, physically drained and as emotionally bankrupt as ever. “Not a clue,” I replied.

“Back to the hotel, then,” he said. “We just got new neighbors.”

I’d thought it strange that Ripley and Maggie’s hotel room had a connecting door. For as reclusive and suspicious as Ripley was, anything less than a solid wall between him and the outside world was a potential weak spot. That was probably the reason they’d pushed one of the bedside tables in front of it, lamp and all. It remained there even after Ripley and I unloaded the twins into the adjoining room, gagged them with hand towels from the bathroom, and bound them with electrical cords ripped out of the alarm clock, coffee maker, and hairdryer. I’d gone for the one on the television, but Ripley was already bitching about having to pay for damages, so we stuck with low-cost electronics.

With our new captives secured, Ripley insisted we take care of the Porsche’s trunk situation before turning in for the night. It was past midnight, and I yawned through every turn on the way to a quarter-machine car wash near the suburbs. If I’d learned anything during my brief time in Capitol employ, it was to stay clear of street cameras in the city proper when conducting suspicious activities. Or if you drove a distinctive, red sports car.

Exhaustion weakened my mental fortitude and, by the time we pulled into an empty bay, I couldn’t will myself to get out of the car. Ripley lingered, too, crushing candies on his cell phone and not saying a word.

When I had finally pushed enough deep breaths through my lungs and mournful thoughts out of my mind, I killed the engine and plucked the keys from the ignition. I thought Ripley had changed his mind about helping until he reached into his hip pocket and pulled out a folded knife.

“Best thing to do is cut out the carpet.” He flipped the knife open. Its blade glinted in the scant light. “Unless you want to be here all night scrubbing.”

Nodding, I pulled the trunk release, and then stepped out of the car. Ripley followed suit.

I stood back while he sliced through the scrubby gray carpet, drawing a box along the metal floor. He closed and pocketed the knife, and together we ripped up the fabric and the thin layer of foam beneath it, both dried stiff with muddy brown blood.

A smear remained on the exposed floor, and I stared at it while Ripley rolled the carpet and padding and wedged it behind the front seats. He said he knew of a dumpsite where we could drop it.

After plugging the machine, the hose kicked on. I sprayed the trunk bed, trying and failing to avoid splatters that bounced back and soaked my shirt and jeans.

By the time I was satisfied with the cleanliness of the trunk, the cold air and my damp clothes had chilled me through. I dropped the hose, then piled into the car, where I cranked the heater.

Ripley returned to his seat in a much more leisurely fashion. As he sat and buckled, I cracked my window a few inches and dug out my cigarettes and lighter.

I assumed from Ripley’s side eye that he wanted to protest but, when he spoke, it wasn’t at all what I expected.

“You know, I wanted to do right by you,” he said in a low voice. “By both of you.”

I took a slow drag and savored it, holding the smoke in my lungs as long as I could stand it. “Whatever you’re talking about, it’s fine,” I told him. “You don’t owe me anything. Donnie, either. I’m sure you tried to save him.”

“I was too weak…”

I rolled the cigarette between my thumb and forefinger, watching the ash end flare. The night Donovan died, Ripley had been in terrible shape, injured and half-starved. I couldn’t fault him for not doing more to stop Jax’s attack. I couldn’t blame him for surviving, though part of me wanted to.

Ripley leaned back in his seat, fixing his gaze out the windshield where the cinderblock structure formed a tunnel into the darkness outside. “It’s more than that,” he said. Cigarette smoke clouded the air between us despite the cracked window .

“When you first came to the gang, I knew what Grimm was going to do to you. He looked at you like a wild animal set on its prey.” His features twisted at the thought. “He wanted to destroy you, and I… thought I could stop him. I thought the Capitol could, given the right information.” He huffed a sorrowful laugh. “So, I told them everything. I gave up everything. But nothing changed.”

Piecing together what he’d first explained to me in Thorngate with comments he’d made since then added context to the story. He’d told me he betrayed the Bloody Hex for Donovan and me, but I’d failed to acknowledge the full meaning of that before now.

Ripley stood up to Grimm for me. Risked his life for me. Went to prison to rot for me. But nothing changed.

I pinned the cigarette between my lips and held my hands against the dashboard vent blasting hot air. “Sorry it didn’t work out,” I mumbled.

The apology was more for his loss than mine. I was done pitying myself for shit that went wrong years ago.

Ripley glanced over. “It’s not too late.” He seemed to rethink before adding, “For you.”

Rolling my eyes, I plucked the cigarette out of my mouth and twisted in my seat to face him. “Rip, we just collared and gagged a couple guys in a hotel room. I am going to torture them. The Capitol thinks I’m killing investigators, and I have a price on my head again. It is too late for me. But not because of you.”

His face clouded with disappointment that made me regret my words.

“It means something that you tried,” I said in the growing quiet. “You might be the only one who did. ”

I pumped the brakes, then shifted the Porsche into drive. Silence consumed both of us as we rolled out from under the cover of the carwash and headed back to the hotel.