Chapter 9 - Bloodlines and Broken Rules
The service lift slammed into the concrete floor of the sea cave with a violent clang.
The air down here was frigid, thick with the spray of freezing saltwater and the smell of ancient limestone. The lake roared through the mouth of the cavern, black waves cresting against the concrete dock where a sleek, matte-black interceptor boat strained against heavy mooring lines.
Chloe began to cry.
The concussive force of the explosions above had finally shattered her medicated sleep. She clung to Mara’s neck, her small body trembling uncontrollably, terrified of the roaring darkness and the metallic tang of smoke drifting down the lift shaft.
"Mara... where are we? Where is the cedar man?" Chloe sobbed into Mara’s collar.
Mara stood up, her legs shaking, her muscles screaming with exhaustion. She looked at the boat. The helm was illuminated by a single green toggle switch. She could board right now. She could hit that toggle, cut the lines, and disappear into the frozen black expanse of Lake Michigan. She could survive.
Then, she looked back at the lift shaft.
The gunfire above had stopped.
There was only silence. A terrifying, unnatural stillness broken only by the crackle of burning timbers and the faint, unmistakable sound of heavy boots descending the iron emergency ladder inside the shaft.
Mara’s mind moved with blinding clarity.
If Vance had killed Vincent, Vance was coming down that ladder. A launch on Lake Michigan would be a sitting duck for spotter drones within five minutes of clearing the cavern mouth.
There was no running. There had never been any running.
"Chloe," Mara said, setting the girl down behind a stack of wooden crates near the water’s edge. She looked into the child’s tear-stained eyes. "Listen to me very carefully. You stay right here. You do not make a sound. No matter what you hear, you stay behind these boxes."
"Are you leaving me too?" Chloe wept, her small hands clutching Mara’s torn scrubs.
"Never," Mara said, kissing the girl’s forehead. "I'm going to bring your father back."
Mara turned back toward the lift. She didn't have a rifle. She didn't have armor. But she had her medical kit, a flare gun from the boat’s emergency bulkhead, and the cold, unyielding rage of a woman who had spent twenty hours a day refusing to let death win.
She grabbed the heavy, orange plastic flare gun, cracked the barrel, loaded a twelve-gauge magnesium round, and stepped into the shadows beside the ladder landing.
A body dropped from the bottom rungs of the ladder.
It hit the concrete hard, rolling over with a wet gasp.
It was Vincent.
His black sweater was shredded, soaked in a horrifying mixture of his own blood and that of his enemies. His left arm hung limp, dislocated at the shoulder. He was clutching an empty pistol, his breath whistling through a punctured lung, dragging himself forward on his knees toward the boat.
Behind him, another figure stepped off the ladder with casual, terrifying grace.
Marcus Vance.
Vance was tall, silver-haired, impeccably dressed despite the soot on his designer overcoat. He held a customized nickel-plated .45, pointing it directly at the back of Vincent’s head.
"Ten years, Vincent," Vance sighed, his voice echoing smoothly off the wet cavern walls. "Ten years you made me chase shadows. All for a dying girl who wouldn't have lasted the winter anyway."
Vincent didn't beg. He didn't stop crawling. He pushed himself toward the dock, his blood leaving a thick, black smear across the gray concrete.
"She is... already gone, Marcus," Vincent wheezed, blood flecking his lips. "You're too late."
"Then I'll just have to settle for the pleasure of putting you in the lake," Vance smiled, thumbing the hammer back on his pistol. "Give my regards to your wife."
"Hey!"
The scream echoed off the limestone like a whip crack.
Vance frowned, his head turning toward the shadows near the lift.
Mara stepped out into the emergency light. Her scrub top was soaked in blood, her eyes blazing with murderous fury. She didn't hesitate. She didn't give a warning.
She raised the flare gun with both hands and pulled the trigger.
The magnesium round ignited with a deafening *CRACK*, launching a two-thousand-degree sphere of white-hot phosphorous directly into Marcus Vance’s chest.
The flare hit his overcoat, embedding itself in the thick wool before detonating into a blinding, searing fireball.
Vance shrieked—a high, inhuman sound of pure agony as the chemical fire instantly consumed his clothing, burning through skin and bone. He dropped his weapon, thrashing wildly, stumbling backward against the edge of the concrete dock.
Vincent moved.
With the last ounce of human strength left in his shattered body, Vincent surged upward from the floor. He didn't use a weapon. He drove his uninjured right shoulder directly into Vance’s burning torso, tackling the screaming mob boss off the edge of the dock.
Both men plunged into the thrashing, sub-zero black water of Lake Michigan.
"Vincent!" Mara screamed, rushing to the edge of the concrete.
The water was a chaotic vortex of foam and darkness. The burning flare hissed violently, casting an eerie, phosphorescent green glow beneath the surface before dying out.
For five agonizing seconds, nothing broke the water.
Then, five yards out, a single figure surfaced, gasping violently for air, clinging to the wooden mooring pylon of the dock.
Vincent Hale dragged his head above the waves.
He was alone.
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Marcus Vance had vanished into the freezing, lightless depths of the lake, dragged to the bottom by the weight of his burning coat and the relentless pull of the winter undercurrents.
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