Arrow E-Book

Marc Guggenheim

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Arrow
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 363

Beschreibung

The official bridge between Arrow seasons five and six! In the devastating aftermath of season five, Team Arrow must resume their mission to protect Star City.Set in the devastating aftermath of Season Five and leading into the thrilling events of Season Six...Arrow: FATAL LEGACIES...reveals for the first time what occurred as Team Arrow resumed its mission to protect Star City. Those who survived Prometheus's trap on Lian Yu discover that Chase's revenge continues far beyond his death. Sara Lance returns, Dinah Drake accepts the mantle of Black Canary, and the entire team hits the streets again. There can be no rest in this collaboration between Arrow Executive Producer Marc Guggenheim and author James R. Tuck, for if Chase's deadly legacies can't be stopped, countless more will die.Arrow and all related characters and elements © & TM DC Comics and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. DC LOGO : TM & © DC Comics. WB SHIELD: TM & © WBEI. (s15)

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Also Available from Titan Books

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

June 2017

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

July 2017

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

August 2017

1

2

3

4

5

September 2017

1

2

3

4

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Also Available from Titan Books

Season 5.5

Fatal Legacies

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS:

ARROW: VENGEANCE

by Oscar Balderrama and Lauren Certo

ARROW: GENERATION OF VIPERS

by Clay and Susan Griffith

FLASH: THE HAUNTING OF BARRY ALLEN

by Clay and Susan Griffith

FLASH: CLIMATE CHANGELING

by Richard Knaak

GOTHAM: DAWN OF DARKNESS

by Jason Starr

FATAL

LEGACIES

Written by James R. Tuck

Based on a New Original Storyby Marc Guggenheim

Based on the Hit Warner Bros. Series Created byGreg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim &Andrew Kreisberg

TITAN BOOKS

ARROW: FATAL LEGACIES

Print edition ISBN: 9781783295210

E-book edition ISBN: 9781783296774

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark St, London SE1 0UP

First edition: January 2018

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Copyright © 2018 DC Comics.

ARROW and all related characters and elements © & ™ DC Comics.

WB SHIELD ™ & © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (s18)

TIBO40535

Visit our website: www.titanbooks.com

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

DEDICATION

James Tuck

Dedicated to every fanboy who ever wanted to write the heroes they love. I am you. Keep moving forward.

Marc Guggenheim

For Lily and Sara

Prologue

MAY 2017LIAN YU

He leapt, flinging his body off the dock and out into empty space.

He didn’t think about missing. Didn’t consider that if he did, he would go under the boat, dragged along the bottom of it and chewed to pieces by the propeller that drove it forward at top speed toward the open sea.

His only thought was of his son.

He crashed into the railing, the hard metal ramming into his ribs in a burst of pain he ignored as he hauled himself up onto the top deck. Scrambling over the cabin he jumped down, slamming into Adrian Chase, the man behind the hell his life had been for the last several months. The man who tortured him, who kidnapped the people he loved, who took his son.

Oliver Queen fell on Adrian Chase like the vengeance of God.

The bow in his hands became a club and he bludgeoned Chase, shoving him toward the back of the speeding boat. Chase stumbled away, unable to fight against the sheer ferocity of Oliver’s rage. Oliver pressed him until he was hanging over the rail, pinning him there above the churning propeller.

“Where’s William?” Oliver bellowed at him. “Where’s William?”

Chase smirked through a bloody mouth.

Oliver’s fist rose, as far back as he could swing, then crashed into his enemy’s face like thunder.

“Where—”

He drove his fist into Chase’s sternum.

“Is—”

His fist smashed down again in the same spot. The ribs there buckled.

“William!”

He punched again, his fist a hammer to the same spot now gone soft under his blows.

“You really love that kid, dontcha?” Chase gasped.

A raw animal sound tore out of Oliver as he lifted the bleeding man and flung him away. Chase careened across the deck, crashing into the vessel’s control panel. As he slid down he grabbed the throttle, cutting the engine. The boat slowed immediately, causing Oliver to fall back, grabbing the rail for support.

He righted himself and found Chase sprawled on the deck, leaning against the side of the boat underneath the controls, gasping for air. His voice came in fits and starts.

“For an… absentee father, your… devotion is impressive.” He gulped for oxygen. “Here you are, worried about your kid… when everyone else you care about is on an island… about to get blown sky-high.”

“My friends, and my team, can take care of themselves,” Oliver growled. He began to pull an arrow from the quiver on his back. Chase licked his bloody lips and looked up, smiling.

“By using my plane to escape, right?”

* * *

“I can’t start the engine.”

John Diggle let the frustration edge into his voice. The C-130 sat behind him as he and Curtis Holt walked toward Felicity Smoak and Dinah Drake. Samantha Clayton, William’s mother, followed close behind them.

“John’s right,” Curtis said. “There’s definitely something wrong with the plane.”

“With the plane or with the pilot?” Dinah looked at Diggle. “No offense.”

“None taken,” he replied. “I’m no ace, but I know how to start a plane. Whatever this was, it’s not pilot error.”

Nyssa al Ghul and Slade Wilson moved up to join them.

“Either way,” Slade said, “we’re not going anywhere without Oliver, or his son.”

“Actually, we’re not going anywhere at all,” Nyssa said, holding up a mangled mechanical device. Torn wires hung off it, their frayed ends catching on one another. “I found this ten feet from the wing.”

“Please, don’t tell me that’s what I think it is,” Felicity said.

“Depends on if you think it’s an on-wing hydraulic system,” Curtis replied.

“Can we repair it?” Dinah asked.

“With what tools?” Thea Queen asked as she and Quentin Lance stepped up to join the group.

“So, we’re stuck here?” Lance snarled. “Is that what you’re saying?”

Diggle rubbed his forehead. “We have to tell Oliver.” He gave Felicity a hard look. “Now.”

Felicity put a comm in her ear and keyed it up.

* * *

“Oliver, do you copy?”

Felicity’s voice sounded in his ear. He kept his eyes pinned on Chase, but let go the nock of the arrow and reached to engage his comms.

“I’m here,” he answered.

“Chase sabotaged the plane. We can’t get off the island.”

“There’s an A.R.G.U.S. supply ship on the eastern shore—” Oliver turned, looking over at the island where his loved ones were.

“That’s on the other side of the island.”

“Slade knows where it is. Go. Now.”

“They’ll never make it in time.” Chase’s voice made Oliver spin to find him on his feet. The madman turned and opened the door that led into the cabin.

“Besides—” He leaned through the door. “—we’re not finished here.” He spun, revealing William Clayton trapped in his grip.

Oliver had the arrow out of the quiver and pulled across the bow before he even thought about it. He aimed it at Chase’s head, but his eyes were on his son’s frightened face.

“Don’t do that,” Chase said. “Even if you had a shot, you’ve already told me that you wouldn’t kill me.” He reached up, tousling William’s hair, tugging it hard enough to make him wince in pain. “Or have circumstances finally changed?”

The archer stared at Chase, holding his twelve-year-old son. The man was right. Oliver’s mind ran through all the angles, all the openings, all the options, calculating… calculating…

There was a dead man’s switch wired into Chase’s vital signs, linked to the explosives on the island. Anything short of a clean killing shot would be too tricky. It would run the risk of harming William. He had seen Chase move, fought him before, and he knew that even injured, even at this short distance, the man had the ability to put his son in the path of an arrow.

“If I die—” Chase smirked as the words left him. “—everyone you care about dies. Except your son. What if you don’t kill me? I kill him.”

“You sonofabitch.”

Rage and frustration pounded inside Oliver’s head, while fear for his son and his family pounded in his chest. His voice sounded strangled, even to his own ears.

“William or everyone else. You choose. Right now.” Chase rolled his head, looking casual, nonchalant, as he held Oliver’s child with an arm around his throat.

Oliver stood, bow drawn, frozen save for the shaking in his limbs.

Chase shrugged. “Either way it proves me right. Either way it’s exactly like I told you. Everyone around you, everything you touch, dies.”

Oliver’s eyes sighted down the still-nocked arrow and pointed at Chase, his mind racing. His son or his team. The innocent life—his own blood, who had done nothing to deserve the terror that rode plain on his face—or the family he had carved from the life he had chosen. Not just his team but his friends, the people he loved.

All the people who were his world.

He slowly lowered the bow.

Chase smiled.

The arrow was inches into his shin before he realized Oliver had fired it. The impact and the explosion of pain pitched Chase forward, tossing William out of his grip. The boy fell over into Oliver’s arms as his captor hit the deck, blood pumping out around the shaft.

“Are you okay?” Oliver scooped William up, keeping him from falling. He patted his son, checking him for injury. “Are you alright?” he asked, trying to keep the panicked worry out of his voice, and failing. “Did he hurt you? Are you alright?” William nodded and Oliver pulled him close, wrapping his arms around him.

He felt so small, frail.

Oliver swore in his heart that he would keep his son safe from that moment on.

“He’s gonna be fine.” Chase pushed himself up, sliding back to lean on the cabin door as he sat in a puddle of his own vital fluids.

Oliver pointed his finger. “Don’t you talk to him. Don’t even look at him!”

“You won,” Chase said. “Your son has his father back, and he learned exactly who his father was, just like you learned who your father was, right here on these very same waters.”

“What?” Oliver shook his head.

“William’s younger than you were, so he’s gonna be fine, y’know? And you have each other.”

“What are you saying?”

Chase continued on as if Oliver hadn’t spoken.

“Which is good.” He nodded emphatically. “Oliver, that’s good, because it’s gonna be lonely.” Chase reached around, his hand going to the small of his back. “Without Mom, and Felicity.”

The hand came out from behind his back.

Holding a large-caliber revolver.

He lifted it to his temple.

“No, Adrian!”

The gun kicked out of Chase’s hand as the bullet entered his skull. Oliver watched it happen, unable to move, holding William tightly against his chest, shielding him from the suicide.

The first explosion made him turn away from Chase’s slumped corpse, to look out over the island of Lian Yu. That explosion rose above the tree line like a rapidly blooming orange flower. More followed, creating a garden of destruction that raced from one end of the island to the other. He stared in horror.

William pulled back from the man he had been told was his father, watching the fires rage across the island.

The boat drifted on the water.

JUNE 2017

1

He drove his knee into the man’s back, pushing him to the ground. Even though the man wore a Kevlar vest, he felt the floating ribs fold in under the blow.

His mind flashed back, dragging his memory to the last time he’d experienced cracked ribs. Sharp pain, like an ice pick shoved up into his lungs from underneath, diaphragm spasming but not drawing air.

Unable to breathe.

Unable to stand.

Unable to fight.

He spun on his heel, dismissing the downed man as no longer a threat. Unlike the second man who now stood in front of him.

Same dark uniform as the downed man—military-style fatigues and Kevlar, bristling with weaponry. Same skull mask covering his entire face.

An AR-15 semiautomatic rifle in the Skull’s hand.

Pointed at him.

“Back off, man!” the Skull said. The voice through the mask was muffled, hard to make out. His own voice, however, was electronically amplified and distorted for maximum effect.

“Drop the gun and get out of my way.”

“I could…”

The shaft had sunk four inches into his opponent’s shoulder before he even saw it drawn and fired. The pressure of impact caused four spring-loaded prongs to pop out and sink their barbed points into his skin. A touch of a button on the bow, and the Taser arrow lit the Skull’s nervous system with 50,000 volts of electricity.

The Skull fell back, rifle clattering to the asphalt, falling from a useless arm.

Green Arrow stepped over him, moving into the lit, noisy warehouse that was now unguarded in the back.

* * *

He settled high in the rafters, looking down on a scene in the large open space. People in matching skull masks moved in a chain, hustling multiple stacks of duffel bags into the trunks and interiors of five cars that formed a line behind an empty car carrier—an eighteen-wheeler that rocked gently to the rumble of its idling engine. The cars were different makes and models and parked close to one another, bumper-to-bumper, scant inches between them. The Skulls moved with efficiency, like a ballet of dark uniforms and bone-colored masks.

“Move faster, but don’t get sloppy!” The woman barking orders wore the same uniform as the ones loading the duffels, standing out because her skull mask was electric blue, just a hairsbreadth shy of being neon. The visage on it was stylized to look more menacing than the plain, nearly anatomical, masks worn by her confederates. “I want these cars packed tight. Not one bag left behind.”

There were a few others wearing blue skulls, and even a scattering of other colors, all separated from the rank and file. Each held a rifle.

The muscle and the ones in charge.

The last time he’d tangled with skull-masked thugs, they’d been bank robbers and easily dealt with. Felicity had dubbed them the “Spooky Crew.”

Felicity…

He pushed the image of her from his mind. He had work to do.

This gang had nothing to do with the Spooky Crew. They were a new thing, grown up like mushrooms after the rain. Heavy with numbers and mostly focusing on the drug trade in Star City. They had moved in during the time he had been occupied with the machinations of Adrian Chase.

Each duffel bag being moved was packed with drugs, all kinds—uppers and downers and all-arounders, heavy on opioids, heavy on junk made in trailers where nobody lived, on the outskirts of the city where the police presence ran thin. Even legitimate prescription drugs used to treat diseases, and steroids for athletes.

These Skulls were covering all the bases.

Moving them in cars loaded on a car carrier was smart. No police officer would look twice, and they’d think very little of it when the truck stopped to drop off a car from its back—a car loaded with drugs, delivered to a community where they would be dispersed to a network of dealers, put on the streets to poison people and destroy their lives.

Not on his watch.

He reached to his ear without thinking, stopping before activating the comm system in his hood.

His hand dropped back down.

Tonight he was working alone, and it was time to get started.

He slid back into the shadows.

* * *

The car didn’t bounce when the trunk slammed shut, even though the Skull slamming it did so with enthusiasm. It was too full of merchandise, dozens of duffel bags’ worth, their weight causing the vehicle to sit low on its shocks.

“Drivers! Load ’em up,” the Blue Skull cried out. “Take your time getting them on the back of the truck. I don’t want them falling off halfway there.” The people with the red skull masks moved to the cars. Before any of them could get into their vehicles, however, the warehouse plunged into inky blackness.

Three red dots streaked through the dark, embers flicked as if from the hand of God. They cut down from above, their swift trajectory ending in three dull metallic thunks as the arrows pierced the hoods of three automobiles—the first, middle, and last. The impacts were followed by a trio of low whining sounds that rose quickly in pitch.

At the ten-second mark, they became a shrill scream.

“What’s happening?” Blue Skull’s voice rose over the din. The words were just out of her mouth when the arrow’s screams ended in three simultaneous explosions. Metal sheared from the cars in blasts of noise and light and smoke, flinging a ring of concussive force from each that dropped a dozen skull-masked thugs to the floor.

Men and women, hardened criminals to a one, screamed as if the end of the world had come. Emergency lights came on, and then he was among them.

The hooded man moved with the brutal efficiency of a woodsman, chopping with his aluminum and carbon-fiber bow as if it were an ax, felling Skulls like saplings. A flash of movement caught his eye and he dropped, spinning on his toes and, in one graceful motion, drew, pulled, and fired a green-fletched arrow that sank into a Skull who had recovered enough to raise his gun. It hit with enough force to whirl the man around and sling him to his knees, the gun lost and clattering away into the shadows.

Without pausing he drove himself forward and swung elbow-to-jaw on one Skull, the blow twisting the mask completely around, blinding the woman who wore it. He let his momentum carry him forward into a flip that snapped his boot into the throat of another, this one with a telescoping baton that fell away from fingertips gone weak and watery.

He kept moving, kept grinding, kept dealing out the punishment for a life of crime. Skull after Skull fell in the dark to his blows, to his rage. He was more than a man in a hood, more than an archer, more than a vigilante.

He was Green Arrow.

Standing over the last Skull he looked around at the fallen criminals. Every one of them had on the bone-colored masks or the red ones.

Where are the Blue Skulls?

The answer came via the sound of the car carrier shifting into gear, and the stitch of automatic gunfire. He dove to the ground as the bullets pinged on the scorched and smoldering drug cars. Looking up, he watched as the Blue Skulls rode away, hanging from the back of the empty car carrier.

Pushing off, he climbed to his feet, pulled and fired an arrow. It arced across the warehouse and struck its mark, the rear tire of the car carrier, but the distance was too far, the rubber too thick, and it bounced off, as ineffective as if he had missed completely.

Racing after the departing vehicle, he stopped in the bay door of the warehouse and cursed as the vehicle pulled out of sight. He had the drugs—they weren’t hitting the streets—but the thought that the perpetrators had gotten away boiled his blood.

From behind him came the shrill whine of high-performance machinery. It echoed through the warehouse, giving the whine an erratic, almost hollow cadence. Drawing closer.

He pulled another arrow, waiting for what came.

A motorcycle streaked from the night, sliding to a stop beside him. The rider was a woman in dirty white leathers, blond hair tangled from the whipping of the wind. She cracked a reckless smile up at him. Her voice was a smoky growl.

“You want to keep staring,” she said, “or do you want to go catch some bad guys?”

Though questions whirled through his mind, he slung his bow on his back without uttering a word, climbed onto the motorcycle, and put his arms around Sara Lance, the White Canary.

* * *

The highway glistened, slick from an earlier rain, as it whipped by under them. He leaned with Sara, using his body in tandem to hers as she took the curves at high speed. Soon they were closing fast on the car carrier. Traffic was light with the late hour, and they were heading toward the edge of the city. The handful of Blue Skulls hung onto the metal frame of the speeding eighteen-wheeler.

White Canary leaned back, her voice tearing past his ears with the wind.

“Hold on.”

He pressed closer to her back. Bullets tore chunks from the road underneath them, pieces of it peppering their legs. White Canary twisted the throttle hard, making the bike leap forward. She veered left to avoid another spray from the Skulls’ firearms as the gap narrowed between them and the truck. The bike screamed up to the rear of the carrier, until it was just inches away.

Canary leaned lower over the handlebars.

She’s not—

He didn’t finish the thought before she pulled up sharply. The bike lifted, front tire leaving the ground and striking the loading ramp of the car carrier. Sparks showered as metal struck metal with a clang and a bang and the bike squealed as Sara screamed and forced the thing up and onto the back of the trailer.

The bike slewed sideways and he threw himself off, hands reaching out to grab onto the frame and stop himself from tumbling onto the speeding asphalt below. He latched on and used the momentum to swing up and onto the upper level of the car carrier. The force of the wind stream smashed into him like a bulldozer, almost knocking him back off.

Through the ramps meant to hold the top row of cars he saw that White Canary had also come off the bike, which had tumbled into the space between her and the Skulls. Somehow it hung upside down, engine still chugging. Two of the five Blue Skulls pointed their guns at her. He pulled his bow off his shoulder and had an arrow notched in the blink of an eye.

He was too slow.

Canary did a nimble twist at her hips and her arm extended as a blur. In the dark and at the speed it was done, he didn’t see the shuriken she threw until the spinning blades were embedded in the arms of both Blue Skulls. Their guns dropped, bouncing off the metal of the trailer and falling to the street to be swept away as if they’d fallen into a river. From a thigh holster she pulled a pair of nunchaku, the two hardwood handles connected by a length of chain.

“Stop this thing from moving!” she yelled up at him as she began working the weapon, spinning it and whipping it around to build momentum. “I’ve got these guys.”

Part of him wanted to stay and watch her work, but instead he pushed off, leaned into the wind, and began moving toward the cab of the big rig.

* * *

She could feel the smile that spread across her face.

Legs braced against the motion of the speeding truck, she worked her weapon, looked at her enemies, and felt that thrill—the joy of oncoming battle—swell inside her chest. This was what she’d been trained for, had been remade for, had been reborn for. All the things she had endured on Nanda Parbat, the times and fights since, had brought her to this moment, crafted her to become this thing built for the simplicity of battle. Strength against strength, skill against skill, weapon against weapon.

The nunchaku whistled around her, cutting the air, whipping in a pattern of centrifugal force with her as the anchor point. Her mind expanded, becoming an open field of perception that took in everything—the sway of the vehicle under her feet, the whirl of her weapon, the beat of her heart. The rhythms of her body, her blood in its blind circuit, the very air as it passed her by full of the scent of the night, of the truck on which she rode. Of the city itself.

The copper and latex scent of the criminals that were her prey.

The leader pushed two of the Skulls, pointing them up, yelling for them to climb and intercept the Green Arrow above. They swung their guns to their sides, anchoring the straps, and scrambled to climb up.

She didn’t try to stop them. Oliver could take care of himself.

The two she’d stuck with the shuriken began moving toward her. Despite a wave of sooty black smoke from the diesel engine of the truck, she could smell the blood running under their sleeves. She could read the conflict in their body language, as well. She’d hurt them, but in their eyes she was just a small woman and it made them angry.

One pulled a knife from his belt. It was as long as her forearm.

Looks like they want to teach me a lesson.

Her smile widened.

The two came toward her, moving with heavy steps, remaining upright by holding onto the metal beams that comprised the sides. They passed her motorcycle, its engine now silent, its wheels still. When they stepped past it, she moved.

Using the motion of the truck under her, she leapt at the one with the knife, closing the distance as fast as a striking snake. He slashed at her, the blade shining in the low light. She dropped to a crouch, swinging the nunchaku down, the hardwood cracking against his shin, making him shunt forward. Twisting, she moved with the new direction of her weapon, and it struck the Skull’s knife-hand. The blade spun in a circle, flying up as its former wielder fell down, crashing into the metal platform of the car carrier.

Time seized up, and White Canary watched the knife spin in the air as if it were in stop motion, everything about it liquid and slow—an eternity between heartbeats, the heightened perception of a warrior’s mind. As the knife began to fall, she swung the nunchaku in a backhand, striking the handle. The blade went from a spinning thing into a streak of sharpened steel that had been fired and flew straight and true, embedding itself in the calf of the Skull who once held it. It passed between muscle and bone and wedged into the space between the metal tracks of the trailer, pinning him to the floor.

Sara twisted as the other Skull lunged toward her. He was too close and the nunchaku bounced off his shoulder, not doing any real damage. Hands closed on her jacket, bunching the leather, and he yanked her toward him. This Skull was a bear of a man, long arms thick with muscle, shoulders of rock, and a chest as wide as the grille of a sports car. He lifted her off her feet, swinging her like a toy he intended to smash against the wall.

She could hear his teeth grinding through his mask.

Her left hand clamped on his arm, fingers sliding until they found the soft spot, the place her shuriken had gone in. It had long since fallen away.

Pushing deep into the cut, she dug with her nails, not the least bit squeamish at the feel of his muscle separating. He howled, the sound vibrating the latex mask like a loose drum-skin. Then he jerked, trying to pull his arm away from the blinding pain she was causing him, the motion dropping her back down.

As her feet hit metal she rammed the handle of the nunchaku into his throat, driving with her shoulder and the force of her body weight. Instantly the Skull went limp, his knees banging into the ground before he slewed sideways and crashed, unconscious, on top of his fallen partner.

White Canary stepped over him, looking for the last Skull, the leader of them all, when the air filled with bullets.

2

The two Skulls pulled themselves to the top of the car carrier just as he reached the front half of it. They crouched, swaying with the rhythm of the speeding vehicle, their shirts rippling up their backs as a result of the drag of air rushing past.

The one on the left reached up and jerked the mask off his head, revealing a fighter’s face that matched his broad frame. Short-cropped hair, cauliflower ears, nose canted to the side from being broken more than once, and a slick of scar tissue over his left eyebrow likely from leaning into punches instead of ducking away.

The unmasked Skull was steadier on his feet than his partner, who held tightly to the rail beside him, knuckles white. Frozen by his fear, the man didn’t move forward.

But he did raise his gun.

Green Arrow drew an arrow from his quiver and fired, aiming at the unsteady Skull’s feet. The arrow clanged on the metal platform, spitting sparks and clattering toward his opponent like a skittering animal. The Skull jumped to avoid it. Off balance, he slipped and crashed to the metal platform, the impact shaking the grate. He cried out, finger squeezing the trigger, sending a stream of bullets into the night air.

Green Arrow drew and fired again, this arrow thunking into the metal grate a foot from the fallen figure. He moved his face slightly into the shadow of his hood as the flash-bang arrow fulfilled its destiny in a blast of sound and light and force. Then he turned back, in time to see the Skull slide away, sent flying by the blast, falling off the edge of the trailer.

The unmasked Skull lunged forward, shooting toward Green Arrow’s knees. His arms were outstretched.

He’s a grappler.

Green Arrow twisted, pushing off, stepping high to go over the man’s back. Something powerful clamped onto his leg and jerked him out of the air, the steel of the car carrier slapping him like a giant’s hand, forcing the air from his lungs. The world went staticky for a long moment, all white speckle snow pulsing in a field of matt black, and he fought to keep from falling into it, from being swallowed up.

Pressure on his chest, enough to make the fibrous seams of cartilage creak with sharp pain, cleared his vision. The unmasked Skull lay on top of him, pinning him to the steel grate, massive shoulders driving into Green Arrow’s torso as the criminal’s fingers dug into the holes of the grate for leverage, adding even more pressure. The archer twisted, bucking to throw the bigger man off him, but the big criminal fought back, driving Green Arrow down again. His face came inches from Green Arrow’s, as he bared his teeth like an animal.

A bridge of dark gray metal replaced three missing molars on the left side.

“I will kill you.”

His breath was the foul meat smell of a carnivore. Green Arrow didn’t answer, saving his own limited breath. His arms were pinned, the quiver on his back driving into him. Options zipped through his mind so fast they weren’t even thoughts, but rather instinct. His hands clenched into hard fists, first knuckle extended in a Phoenix Eye. He drove them deep into the unmasked Skull’s back, digging hard for the pressure points above the kidneys.

The man on top of him jerked away. The force of him lurching off Green Arrow’s chest knocked the Emerald Archer’s hand into the metal grate, and torn knuckles sent a burning lash of pain up his arm. His brain shut it away as air rushed into his chest and he rolled on top of the bigger man.

Lunging forward in a mounted position, he tried to drop an elbow strike, but the unmasked Skull was too quick, his meaty hand catching the archer’s arm and deflecting it. The Skull didn’t try to flip his opponent off him. Instead he drove a hard punch to the vigilante’s ribs.

Even through the Kevlar mesh it felt like a hammer.

Green Arrow folded, elbows tight to his side to protect himself, and dove left toward his bow. It lay bouncing on the vibrating grate just a few feet away. His hand closed on it as pain blasted up the back of his leg, the muscles seizing into a clenched knot. Scrambling away he turned to find the unmasked Skull holding a metal tube not much longer than his hand. The end of it crackled and sparked with electricity.

Thanks, Cisco, Green Arrow thought. If he’d been hit with that Taser while wearing his old suit, he’d have been paralyzed, rather than just suffering a cramped muscle.

The unmasked Skull waved the Taser again. “I’m going to shove this down your throat,” he growled.

Oliver pulled an arrow from the quiver on his back.

“Shoot me!” the Skull screamed over the wind. “Do it!” A shadow passed across them, cast by a highway overpass.

Green Arrow pulled and fired.

The arrow crossed the space between them like magic…

And sailed right over the criminal’s head.

“Ha!” he cried. “You can’t even—”

The thin cable attached to the shaft burned across the Skull’s bicep as the loop on its end slipped over his arm, sliding all the way to his shoulder. He still looked surprised when the loop cinched closed, and he was pulled off his feet by the grappling hook arrow lodged in the overpass. Green Arrow stepped aside as the big criminal was pulled past him and off the end of the trailer.

He still had a limp as he turned and began moving toward the front of the truck.

* * *

The bike still hung upside down, its front tire wedged into one of the support struts for the upper level where Oliver stood. A hail of bullets struck it, and the impacts sang loudly in Sara’s ears. White Canary braced against the machine, nunchaku held low by her hip as she waited for a pause in the fusillade.

A few seconds later, the opportunity came.

Over the rumble of the speeding truck and the hollow clang of the bike hitting the side of the car carrier, she heard the distinct dry clack-clack of a magazine being changed in an assault gun. Stepping around the hanging motorcycle, she found the Blue Skull raising the carbine in her hands. Whipping the nunchaku up and around she let it fly, spinning like a dervish across the space. The hardwood and metal chain weapon struck the gun, knocking it from the Blue Skull’s hands. The rifle swung around her body, still attached to the strap across her torso, causing the masked woman to stumble.

Sara closed the distance between them in three long steps, swinging a knife-hand strike at the Blue Skull’s head. Her opponent used her own stumble to duck, White Canary’s palm just skimming the latex of the mask. Closing her fingers, she snatched it off the Blue Skull’s head. The woman underneath the mask had a set of wide eyes that might have looked innocent if they weren’t pools of molten rage.

Canary planted her feet and spun, bringing her shin up in an arc toward the unmasked criminal’s head. The woman raised her arm to block. They connected and blue sparks shot from the blow, the shock causing White Canary to collapse to the metal grate of the carrier’s platform. Looking up through a curtain of her hair she found the Blue Skull pulling back the sleeve of her shirt, revealing a gauntlet of metal and wire that wrapped her forearm. She clenched her fist and electricity buzzed around the mechanism.

“You’ve got a Taser glove?” Sara said. “Not fair.”

“And it’s going to get a lot worse.”

White Canary pulled herself up to stand unsteadily, still holding the mask. The micro muscles of her legs jumped and spasmed. She’d be okay in a few minutes, but until then she wouldn’t be able to move—couldn’t brace herself, couldn’t even kick.

She raised the rubber mask and held it up.

“Got your nose.”

“I’m going to watch you scream, then throw you under the wheels of this truck,” Blue Skull said, breathing hard, pulling air through her teeth. Sweat from wearing the mask made her skin shine, highlighting cheekbones and brow sharp enough to cut. White Canary read the determination in the criminal’s eyes—she had a feral glint deep in them, of someone who would be absolutely ruthless.

Still holding the rubber mask, Sara clenched her fists and dropped into a boxer’s stance, regaining more of her footing with each passing second.

“You’re gonna have to do better than you have so far, sweetie.”

The Blue Skull growled, a low animal sound, and stepped forward, swinging her electrified arm like a club. White Canary ducked back, letting the strike whistle past her face. It came so close that the electricity in the device made her lips tingle. Her own hand shot up, wrapping the rubber mask around the gauntlet, using it as insulation from shock. Tightening her grip, she pushed the gauntlet against the Blue Skull’s throat.

A look of surprise appeared on her opponent’s face as Sara held it there, watching as the woman convulsed from the shock and her dark eyes rolled up into her head. The acrid smell of melting rubber was stronger even than the diesel.

Letting go, White Canary let the woman drop like a puppet whose strings had been cut. She shook the melted, sticky mask off her hand, then looked up.

I wonder how Oliver’s doing?

The thought was just complete when the truck slewed sideways, throwing her against the railing. She caught herself, staying on her feet even though her legs still weren’t entirely steady.

I guess he’s doing alright.

* * *

The three net arrows hit almost simultaneously, lodging in the front left tire of the big rig. The arrows deployed their payloads—high-tensile cable netting that zipped out and anchored in multiple overlapping points, some in the tire, some in the truck body, some in the street, most of them wrapping the tire and becoming a steel tangle around the axle.

The sheer weight and momentum of the big rig almost carried it through, but something snapped with a warbling twang and the truck cut sharply left, swerving up onto the wide median between the two sides of the highway, and then coming to a shuddering stop. The driver’s-side door opened and a Skull fell out, tumbling onto his back, hands scrabbling at his waistband for some weapon.

The last net arrow from the quiver struck the ground between his legs and launched its payload. Instantly he was wrapped tight from shoulders to ankles, unable to move, all in the second it took Green Arrow to drop down from the roof of the tractor trailer.

* * *

“Well, that was fun.”

Oliver slung his bow up over his shoulder and walked toward Sara, who leaned on the trailer’s rear set of tires. He couldn’t help but smile.

“Thank you for the help.”

“Anytime.” Her smile matched his. “Well, anytime I’m in town.”

“Speaking of which…”

She held her arms out. “I’m in town.”

“Anything I should worry about?” he asked.

She shook her head, blond hair moving just above her shoulders. “I’m in Star City for a bit and thought, ‘I’ll go home, see Dad, maybe help take down some regular old human criminals for a change.’”

“You’re still with the Legends?”

She nodded.

“Last time I saw you it was aliens.”

She raised her hands, palms out. “I didn’t bring any with me.”

“You know that stuff still weirds me out.”

“I know it does.” She bumped him with her shoulder. “That’s why you can’t be part of my team.”

“I did fine with the aliens.”

“We don’t do much aliens. Dinosaurs a surprising amount, but not many aliens.”

His smile widened. “It’s really good to see you.”

“I didn’t know I could be such a bright spot for you.”

“It’s been…” His mind flashed back, filling with images.

Explosions reflected on water.

The slow leak of blood from the neat hole in Adrian Chase’s skull.

The feel of his son, William, sobbing in his arms.

He pushed those things down.

“It’s been a really tough couple of months.”

She looked at him—not speaking—with the gaze of someone who had known him longer than almost anyone left alive. She studied him with that keen, tactical mind of hers, trying to read him from the history they shared. He saw her jaw tighten as she almost asked for more, then relax as she changed her mind.

“So, you want to call in the cops to pick up these Skulls, and then call it a night? I bet we can dislodge my bike. It’ll get us back to the Arrowcave.”

His face tightened. “I hate that.”

“What do you call it? The Bunker?”

“Actually…”

She laughed. “Of course you do.”

“Will your bike still run? You crashed it into a moving tractor trailer.”

“It got shot, too.” She waved her hand, dismissing both. “It’ll be fine. It’s not Waverider issue but it’s a tough bike.”

3

He wanted to touch it.

The urge made his fingers feel slightly electrified, as if microwires had been implanted, running alongside the nerves in them, firing infinitesimal bursts of electrons and protons from knuckles to fingertips. He ignored the sensation, keeping his hands flat on the desk, not feeling the blotter beneath them.

It sat behind the stapler, between the phone and the cup of pens, exactly where he’d found it on his first day back in the office. It sat where, any of the numerous times a day he reached for any of those objects, he could pick it up as if it were just another envelope. Just a regular piece of mail you would find on the mayor’s desk. Perhaps a memo from a subordinate, a notice of some pending meeting, or even a letter complaining about the terrible job he was doing.

He wished it was any of those.

The side facing up, clearly visible, was plain—no markings to interrupt the clean field of the cream-colored, heavyweight card stock that made the envelope. Yet he knew what was on the other side. Two symbols, meticulously drawn by a steady hand, a hand steady enough to perform surgery.

Or butchery.

Two symbols. Meant for him to interpret.

A green triangle with an X over it, and a simple series of curved lines that met in three points. A primitive representation of fire.

He kept his mind still as his body as he stared at it, ignoring the tension in his shoulders.

Ignoring the memory of fire blossoming along the coast of Lian Yu.

Ignoring the men in his office.