Page 80 of Saint of the Shadows

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, andPtoo!

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. Tobiaszip-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 shoesand 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!”

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