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25

On The Ropes

T obias sat on the edge of the SUV’s back bumper, unloading the armor and weapons in Izzy’s mechanic shop. Each of the Shadows struggled to pull on a sling of smoke grenades or a bullet-proof vest. Even Izzy looked at the stuff like they were alien artifacts, and nothing ever seemed to shake him.

As they armed themselves, Tobias barked out a plan. They’d block all exits except for the front-loading bay and exit chute in the back. A combination of tear gas, flash bombs, and some other fireworks would keep the minions on the ropes and far from Vincent. Since he was the better shot, Tobias would be the one taking out the Bloodsucker, though everyone had enough tranquilizers, black market and commercial, to weaken him. The name of the game was tranquilize and bolt. “If you’re close enough to stick him, run away,” Tobias warned .

Marisol wrapped her hands in gauze as Tobias reviewed her role in the plan. Armed with a small portable blowtorch, she would be in charge of freeing Vincent and escaping out the back chute. Tobias assigned this duty to her because, although she easily was a decade older than most of the Shadows, she still was the fastest runner. But the other reason he murmured, “Make sure nothing is permanent.”

If Vincent couldn’t come out of this intact? She jolted and reached for the pendant buried under her armor. Maybe she should pray away the looming uncertainty the way Abuelita would.

A familiar twang eased her worry. “Hell.” Mijo Ray, barely recognizable without her wig and eyelashes, wiggled into a bullet-proof vest. “A girl’s gonna break a nail putting on all this before she even gets to smack a bitch.” Her nails may have been broken and her glitter rubbed off, but Mijo Ray wore a pair of boots with metal stilettos, as dangerous as they were fabulous. Maybe Marisol would request a similar pair but an inch or two lower.

With the equipment distributed, Tobias shut the trunk of the SUV. Izzy hovered right behind him. “The Bloodsucker had a really nice supplier. Shipped stashes in Varian boxes. Quantity and quality so good that it must be from Vincent Varian himself. He has to be a drug dealer. How do you think he got so rich? ”

Marisol stifled a laugh, catching a glow in Tobias’s gaze as he presumably held in a smile. “I thought it’s because of all that compound interest on his antique pirate gold,” Tobias said. Was he joking or actually theorizing how Vincent became so wealthy?

Izzy sighed, loud and exaggerated. “Once we do this, the Shadows will be on our own again.”

Tobias kept his back to Izzy and looked at Marisol, rolling his eyes. “My condolences, Izzy.”

“What will I get for it?” Izzy asked.

“The Bloodsucker took out your competition. After all this, the Shadows could operate on every corner of the city,” Tobias said.

Izzy’s eyes beamed as he probably estimated the windfall of being the city’s sole heroin supplier. “Sounds beautiful.”

“But what you get is an early retirement,” Tobias continued.

“Excuse me?” Izzy scowled.

“You go to one of those countries without extradition, live off the money you have stored in your offshore accounts, and I never want to see your face around here ever again. I don’t want to hear your name even uttered. As far as Shadowhaven’s concerned, you’re dead.”

Izzy brought his lips to his nose and shook his head.

Tobias added, “Accept it. You’re out of the game. There should be nothing better. You aren’t leaving in a body bag or handcuffs.” Tobias rolled his shoulders back and straightened his spine, gaining another foot in height. He lowered his voice, but Marisol could still hear him. “Because after tonight, if I see you, I’ll fuck you up, either with my badge or my boot.”

Izzy’s gaze traveled over Tobias, from his boots to his head. He extended his hand. “It was nice working with you, Detective Quinlan.”

Tobias shook his hand. “All right, let’s roll.”

The SUV wound through alleys, stopping at the dead end where Marisol and Tobias had been hours earlier. The red-gold rays of sun signaled dusk’s arrival. Tobias exited the vehicle, ski-mask lowered. He pulled on a pair of black tactical shooting gloves and slung his weaponry behind him. A gas mask hung off the back of his head, as if a new face grew there.

Marisol tied on her mask, put her grappling gloves on, and flipped up her hood. She was prepared, like the perfect shift when she finished her coffee, stocked her supplies, and readied her beds. When triage had informed them of an entire wedding party coming into the hospital with food poisoning, Marisol stretched her neck and said, “Bring it.”

Tiny and one of his teen enforcers hopped out of the back.

“Ready?” Tobias asked the mismatched duo.

Tiny and the enforcer pocketed a couple of Molotov cocktails and nodded .

Tobias and Marisol ripped through the foliage and met a rusted chain-link fence marking the perimeter. Down below was the abandoned slaughterhouse. Tobias held the heat vision goggles like binoculars over his eyes. “I think I see him.”

“Show me,” Marisol said. He handed her the goggles. Through the lens, she could see orange figures moving about the levels of the slaughterhouse. In the very back, an orange figure dangled over everyone. It had to be Vincent.

Tobias patted her on the back. “Haven’t chopped him up yet.” He tapped a commlink encircled over his ear. “Okay Iz, we have about twenty mob members. We need you to shock and block. If the Teeth Man comes out, you tranq and run, but I’ll take care of him.”

Tobias cut a gap in the fence with wire cutters. The group crawled to the other side. They watched from the hill as a fleet of beat-up cars drove abreast toward the slaughterhouse and parked, blocking access to the road out. The only way out for the Bloodsucker’s goons was swimming.

The Shadows moved like a quiet swarm around the building, stationing themselves at the exits. Tiny and his enforcer moved down the hill and jumped off the riverbank, heading in the direction of the storm drain.

Marisol and Tobias ran to the rear of the building. They fired grappling hooks from their guns in a synchronized fashion and ascended the slaughterhouse .

They prowled toward a skylight and crouched over it. With the goggles protecting her eyes, Marisol cut a football-sized hole in the skylight with her blowtorch. Sweat from the heat dotted her upper lip.

Tobias palmed a flash bomb in one hand. “I hope these guys know sign language. Never seen one of these suckers go off indoors.” He pressed the commlink at his ear. “Shock and block time.”

The building roared with the sound of doors opening. Canisters of tear gas rolled in all directions. The mobsters collected into a circle to escape the onslaught. Gas poured from the canisters, fogging the entire room. Tobias chucked the flash bomb through the hole in the skylight. Marisol squeezed her eyes shut. Bam! Glass shattered, metal rattled, and she could hear the groans of the injured below. She drew the heat-sensing goggles to her eyes. Some orange blobs weren’t moving, the mobile ones tried for the doors jammed by the Shadows. When the exits weren’t budging, most of the throng scrambled to the loading bay, clamoring to open the garage door with its rusted machinery. A few stragglers made their way to the storage, toward Vincent.

She squeezed her fist. No one came near Vincent but her. Marisol pushed the commlink button at her wrist. “Tiny, do your thing.”

An explosion blasted the grate of the sewer to the ceiling. Fire, licking from the depths below, chased the mobsters to the entrance far from Vincent.

She handed the goggles back to Tobias. He secured them over his eyes and drew a long dart gun from the sling on his back. He steadied it. “I see the Bloodsucker trying to open the front bay. He’s the only jabroni not staggering.” He fired a tranquilizer. Ptoo! "Got him.” He loaded the gun with another dart from his belt and adjusted the rifle, and Ptoo!

The garage door rumbled open. The fog of the tear gas dissipated. Except the coughing, wheezing minions hadn’t expected a wall of Shadows in gas masks ready to beat, bruise, and zip tie them into submission.

Tobias shot another dart. He hissed a yes and slung the gun to his back.

“He’s spotted me.” He tossed Marisol the goggles.

She pulled on a small ventilating mask over her mouth and put the goggles back on.

Tobias barreled the door to the rooftop open with his shoulder. He drew the cattle prod from his back and moved with cat-like efficiency across the narrow scaffolding of the observation deck. Marisol tiptoed behind, her focus only on the figure hanging in the storage room.

Goons filtered up from the floor, escaping the melee down below. Tobias clubbed one with the cattle prod and then zapped him in the torso for good measure as he writhed on the floor. Tobias zip-tied him to the scaffolding, but another swept in on the attack, appearing like an orange yeti in Marisol’s view.

“Go get your man, kid!” Tobias shouted.

Marisol breathed in through her nose. A sudden rush vibrated within her body and mind as if her choices and Fate aligned. Everything about her made sense—from her love of the city to her desire to save people; from her boxing to free-running; from Annie to Tobias to Vincent. She had spent her whole life surviving. “Bring it.” An orange yeti with outstretched arms entered her goggled vision.

With the intoxicating effects of destiny bolstering her, Marisol floored the henchman with a left hook, wrangling his gun from his hands and meeting his falling face with a jab. She pitched the gun over the catwalk. Another orange yeti charged her. She bobbed and weaved his swinging hands and hinge-kicked him in the gut. While he bent over, she elbowed the back of his head. With the walkway cleared, Marisol swung her legs over the railing, slid down the scaffolding, and landed on the kill-floor.

Propelled from a lunge, she bolted to the back toward the storage. All thoughts fixated on one, her one—her Vincent. She reached the orange figure raised above her and pulled the goggles from her eyes.

The sight dropped her to her knees .

Vincent hung from a meat hook plunged into his back. Coagulated blood gathered around the giant wound. Stacks of bent rebar, like sinister bangles, pinned his arms behind him. His blood dripped into a puddle.

The plan. What was the plan? “Vincent!” she shrieked, though it failed to rattle him as he weakly nodded.

Marisol ran to the rusted controls, jamming the button that lowered him to his feet. First, she pulled the hook from his body. Vincent dropped to the floor. Her hands steadied. The bleeding man was not Vincent then. He was her patient. And Marisol had a job to do.

She used her small blowtorch to melt away his rebar cuffs. The flame burnt the vinyl layer of her gloves. Blood and sweat trickled toward the heat, landing in sick whispers. The torch singed her fingertips. She had to keep going. Fingers on the verge of blistering, she only managed to cut a sliver through those rebar cuffs. Freeing him would take all night.

The blood. Vincent’s wound wasn’t magically going away. She took her hoodie off and tied the sleeves under his armpits. As she twisted the knot tight, Vincent mumbled something she couldn’t quite understand. She bowed, meeting her ear to his chapped lips.

“Run,” he whispered.

Never! He needed her! But her gaze followed a path on the ground to a pair of pointed dress shoes and moved up to the masked face of the Bloodsucker. The teeth and teeth! Throbbing pointed rows froze her. An image of Annie’s lifeless hand struck like a lightning bolt. Marisol staggered back.

The Bloodsucker lurched toward her. Marisol sprinted away, the Bloodsucker nipping at her heels. Her nerves frayed to the last thread, making everything grow fuzzy as if she watched herself from the outside. She crawled up a rusted conveyor belt and jumped onto a swinging chain. Rusted metal chafed her fingers raw. But the pain kept her in the here and now. While the Bloodsucker clawed for her, she reached and climbed onto a different chain. Panic did no good. Follow the plan. Break it down. Task one: Aim. She reached into her utility belt and drew a gun.

“You can’t kill me.” His voice slurred, drool pouring from the corners of his wide mouth.

“But I can put you to sleep.” Task two: Fire. Clink . A tranquilizer dart injected into his body.

He laughed and reached for her, parting the series of chains, but Tobias zapped the Bloodsucker with the prod and threw him to the ground. “I’m out of tranqs, kid. You get your man and go! Don’t worry about me!”

Though the Bloodsucker had taken a huge number of tranquilizers, he was still faster and stronger. A flying punch from him cracked Tobias’s cattle prod in half .

Tobias slung the pieces of the cattle prod into the holster on his back and raised his fists. With the Bloodsucker occupied, Marisol jumped down to Vincent, laying on the ground. She pulled him by the sleeves, gaining six inches with every burst of leg muscle. Just like her training taught her—kneel, pull, kneel, pull. A foot. More. She needed to gain more distance.

She looked at Tobias. The Bloodsucker punched him over and over again. Each time, he staggered and raised his fists for more. Kneel, pull, kneel, pull. Her lungs burned. A punch cracked into Tobias’s flank. He stumbled, appearing to fight the urge to cradle it. Another few drags, and Marisol and Vincent reached the chute. She elbowed a button, and the door to the chute opened, revealing the SUV waiting at bottom with its trunk open. All she had to do was slide down it to get him to safety.

“The virus,” said Vincent. “Get the virus.”

What was Vincent talking about? In the corner of her eye, Tobias’s arms weakened to jelly. He was on the ropes. He needed to keep his fists up.

Back at the lab, she couldn’t save Annie. Could she stomach losing one more friend? “Stay here.” She leaned Vincent against the base of the chute and kissed his temple. “Time for a new plan.” Marisol tapped the commlink at her wrist. The SUV’s trunk closed, and it sped away. She pressed another button on the controls. The old conveyor belt shook, squealed, and moved. She rode it, nearing Tobias and the Bloodsucker .

From the conveyor belt, she pounced onto the Bloodsucker’s back and jammed a syringe of tranquilizer into his neck. He flipped her over his shoulders. As she tumbled, she pulled the stupid plastic and cloth mask with her.

On the ground with the wind knocked out of her, she strained for air but saw him—Skeleton Man! Or Stone Ruthven, the man who cornered Annie at the ball. She recognized his pale pock-marked skin, thin lips, and patchy black hair slicked back into gelled chunks. This was the Bloodsucker, the scourge of Shadowhaven? He was just a man, a pathetic man! The fear so easily paralyzed her before now flowed out of her, washing away into the drains where all Shadowhaven’s shit seemed to gather.

Bring it! She could do this. She could save everyone.

Ruthven punched Tobias in the chest. “Why can’t I kill you?” he asked. Tobias, wobbling, spat a mouthful of blood into Ruthven’s face and laughed.

Marisol reached for her utility belt to prepare another dose. Standing up, she aimed, but Ruthven spun around and knocked the drug from her grasp. She countered with a hook, leaving her wide open. Ruthven snatched her by the throat. “I should snap your neck! What have you done to me?”

His grip was weak, but still able to squeeze against her throat. Her heartbeat drummed ever louder in her ears. Tobias attempted to reach for the tranquilizers rolling on the floor, and Ruthven kicked him in his ribs while Marisol dangled.

Black spots dotted the corners of Marisol’s eyes. She saw Annie smiling, appearing like record scratches in her sight. Ruthven. Scratch. Annie. Scratch. Ruthven. Scratch. Annie. She could see the dead? Was she dying? This couldn’t be how it ended. She had victory in her grasp, but it sifted through her hands.

“Annie,” she whispered.

“What?” Ruthven asked, but he stumbled, drool pouring out of the corner of his mouth. He slumped, dropping Marisol.

The SUV backed into the kill floor from the storage room, wheeling around injured mobsters and Shadows, and smashed into Ruthven, sprawling him on the floor, out cold.

A syringe protruded from his ankle. Who got Ruthven with a final shot?

Something heavy slapped against the ground. Vincent drug himself to Marisol’s feet. His wrists were raw from bending back the rebar, and blood soaked the sweatshirt tied around his back. An empty vial rolled from his hand.

Vincent was her hero, magnificent yet fragile. Panic set in. Did she lose him? She knelt next to Vincent. Her shaking hands wrapped his wound tighter with her utility belt. She dragged him to the SUV, but she could barely lift his limp weight. She held her hand below her throat. God, please don’t leave him like this. Again, she pulled him to the trunk. The tendons in her neck bulged from the strain as she tried. She collapsed. “I need help!” came out in an exhausted wail.

Izzy whistled. The Shadows raced to Marisol. Faces behind masks, they turned to her for guidance, Izzy, Mijo Ray, enforcers all. They counted to three and lifted Vincent over their heads, holding him under each of his limbs. They laid him in the back of the SUV. Marisol crouched by his side, trying to make sense of how to fix him.

Izzy lifted his mask and shouted, “The Teeth Man’s moving. We got to go!” The Shadows scrambled out of the entrance.

Ruthven stirred, even with the inordinate amount of tranquilizer in his system. Tobias gripped Ruthven by the back of his shirt and dragged him into the old freezer locker room. He threw Ruthven into the room, shut the latched door behind him, and jammed it with the empty tranquilizing rifle. He staggered back to the SUV and stumbled into the passenger seat.

The hatch of the SUV slammed shut.

“Hit it!” Tobias wheezed out.

“Destination determined,” Staci answered.

The driverless SUV sped out of the slaughterhouse, leaving a trail of dust among the blood in the abandoned industrial park.

Marisol and Tobias removed their masks. Marisol’s cheeks cooled when air met her tears. She held Vincent, his back leaning against her chest. As she bent her head forward, she breathed in his scent of smoke and blood. “C’mon Vincent. You gotta pull through.”

“We should get him to a hospital.” Tobias grunted as he held the swollen side of his face.

“Destination determined,” Staci repeated, and they slowed down, entering traffic.

Against Vincent’s ear she whispered, “You gotta because I love you.”

Vincent’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, and a hissing sound escaped his lips as he passed out.