Post by HoM on Dec 19, 2018 12:30:53 GMT -5
Previously, in Secret Six…
One night in Gotham City, a sextet of criminals were abducted by the mysterious crime lord known only as 'the Voice' and blackmailed into acting as his agents in the field!
The Six were deployed to Texas to protect their latest "client", Nadine Corcoran-- a local druglord-- after she crossed the deadly El Penitente cartel during her rise to power.
For Copperhead, El Penitente are more than just some Mexican gang-- they're the reason she's an assassin, trained since the murder of her father at their hands during her childhood!
During a car journey through the streets of Dos Rios, members of the Six were ambushed by the deadly enforcers of El Penitente, Los Parajos, whose number included the horrifying cannibalistic assassin known as El Flamingo!
The flamboyantly dressed psychotic immediately recognised Copperhead, and forgoing Los Parajos' assignment to take down Corcoran, decided to kidnap her and return the reptilian assassin to her former employers for punishment...
Cluemaster (Arthur Brown) - Genius inventor. Expert at subterfuge. Not as smart as he thinks.
Mister Toad (alias unknown) - Amphibious member of the Circus of the Strange. Drives cars. Eats flies. Croaks.
Double Down (Jeremy Tell) - Rogue gambler from Central City. Can turn his skin into razor-sharp playing cards. Still needs to grow a spine.
Mist III (Nash Nimbus) - Opal City criminal. Learning to move past her grudges.
Sickle (Timur Abramovichi) - Hulking Siberian ex-pat. Criminal enforcer. Southpaw.
Copperhead (Larissa Diaz) - Former assassin for the Penitente Cartel. Master contortionist Expert in poisons. The only real professional here.
When Larissa Diaz woke up, she was tied to a chair. She tried to move, to break out, to use any of the techniques she’d learned over her years of training in contortion, but her restraints were ironclad. It was conceivable that she could escape, but it would take a very long time.
It didn’t help that she was covered in the bruises she received from her capture, chiefly among them being the swollen, discolored lump on her forehead.
It took her a moment to remember how this had happened. She recalled setting out for her first assignment on behalf of the Penitente Cartel-- the assassination of Javi Nieves-- and she recalled being reminded of the price of failure by her trainer and her guardian, her Tia Lola.
Then Larissa remembered what Tia Lola told her about her father, about how and why the Cartel killed him, and everything else came rushing back to her: she tried to run away, to steal a car and get out of Santo Lino as fast as she could.
The police stopped her before she left the city-- too late she realized they were bought off by El Penitente, instructed to prevent this exact scenario. A fight broke out but was ended just as quickly when one of the officers brought his nightstick down on her head and everything went dark.
Larissa focused herself. She pushed away the memories, pushed away the pain, the nausea and the grogginess, and focused on getting herself out. She started with her thumbs-- she’d have to dislocate them if she had any hope of getting out of her wrist restraints. She grabbed her left thumb with her right hand and began to pull…
<“I wouldn’t, mija.”>
She looked up and saw her Tia Lola standing there, looking down at Larissa with a neutral expression she usually reserved for training. Behind her was her hulking aide Cazador, silent as usual and holding a stun baton in both hands.
Tia Lola sighed. <“Where did I go wrong, Larissa? Help me understand, please.”>
<“You killed my father!”> Larissa spat. <“You kidnapped me! You stole my life from me!”>
Her Tia’s usually calm demeanor broke into a burst of anger and frustration. <“I took you in! I trained you, gave you a purpose--“>
<“To kill for you! For this damned cartel!”> Larissa had tears in her eyes now. <“I won’t be your weapon. You’ll have to kill me, just like you did him!”>
Now Tia Lola had tears well in her eyes as well, but she blinked them away and returned to her neutral expression. <“Perhaps I was too soft on you. I suppose I should stop treating you like family and start treating you like a soldier.”> She leaned close to Larissa and looked her in the eyes.
Tia Lola had no more tears to shed, no more anger to give; all that was left was a job to do. In a measured tone, she said, <“When I walk out of this room, Cazador is going to hurt you. There is nothing you can say and nothing you can do that will stop him, because unlike you, Cazador knows where his loyalties lie. This is the price you pay for defying El Penitente.”>
With that, Tia Lola turned away from her ward and left the room. Cazador switched on his baton, a crackle of electricity sounding from the metal-pronged tip and grit his teeth as he approached Larissa and got to work.
When Copperhead woke up, she was surrounded by complete darkness. She heard an engine running, of tires as they shook and jostled on uneven asphalt. She felt it every time they went over a crack or a bump in the road. And she felt the bruising and the pain around her throat.
It took Copperhead a moment to remember what had happened. She and the rest of the Six had been deployed to Dos Rios to protect their client-- a drug kingpin (or queenpin, as she would’ve insisted) named Nadine Corcoran-- from the wrath of El Penitente. Even though Copperhead knew the organization well, she had still realized too late how vastly she underestimated them.
The cartel had sent in Los Parajos, their most efficient hit squad, to eliminate Nadine and her protectors. Copperhead was barely able to fend off their first attacker-- the shapeshifting Papagayo-- when she was struck from behind by El Flamingo, Parajos’s resident psychotic. Flamingo had choked her out during their fight, and now had apparently thrown her into the trunk of a car to be taken…somewhere.
As Copperhead felt the urge to struggle, to panic, Tia Lola’s training kicked in: <“Breathe, mija. Assess your situation. Figure out what you know. Work from there.”> And she did. The first thing she realized was that Nadine was likely dead by now. Her only other means of protection-- that oaf Dutch Westenberg-- was dead by Papagayo’s gun. Copperhead had radioed for backup, but there was no guarantee the rest of the Six would get there before the rest of Los Parajos arrived or Papagayo recovered.
If nothing else, she was unlikely to get paid.
Where she was going, Copperhead had only one guess: Los Parajos were taking her home, back to Santo Lino, to face Don Gabriel and Tia Lola for ‘abandoning’ them. It wouldn’t matter that she’d been kidnapped and blackmailed into service by the Voice; the cartel would never believe such a story, especially considering she’d tried to escape before. She’d very likely be put to death-- slowly and painfully, she guessed. El Penitente wasn’t known for its mercy.
With too many unknowns hanging in the air, Copperhead saw only one feasible solution, one possible plan of action that might guarantee survival: escape her bonds, somehow kill Los Parajos, and figure out how to reunite with the Six. They may have been amateurs and screw-ups, but right now, they were the only chance she had.
Copperhead felt at her bindings. It was leather, slim and chapped-- likely the whip Flamingo liked to use as his primary weapon. The knot he tied was tight, and encompassed Copperhead’s arms and legs. However, escape from a binding such as this was something she’d mastered before she turned fifteen. It would be difficult and unpleasant, especially if she didn’t want to alert her captors to what she was doing, but it was doable.
She started by dislocating her thumbs.
What Copperhead didn’t know was that Nadine Corcoran was still very much alive-- exhausted, terrified, and running for her life on shoes with the heels broken off, but still alive. What she also didn’t know was that El Flamingo had acted alone, and that the rest of Los Parajos were still in the city, trying to finish their job.
Nadine didn’t know how far she had run, only that as soon as the freak in the pink costume had gotten in her car, that was her cue to take off. She ran as fast as her legs would carry her, letting her heart-racing panic fuel her. She was running in the direction she thought her safe house was when her foot caught on the edge of a curb, sending her sprawling onto the concrete sidewalk.
She tried to ignore her pain, tried to get up and keep running, but her left leg-- now red from both the blood and swelling bruise-- howled in pain any time she put weight on it. So instead, Nadine limped awkwardly down the street, gritting her teeth through the injury, even as her adrenaline was beginning to run dry.
Then Nadine was hit with a force that sent her off her feet, slamming against a brick wall and collapsing on the ground. She looked up and saw a hulking woman standing over her, wearing a jacket lined with white feathers and a white and gold luchador mask.
Carmen Aguila scowled down at Nadine. “This is what happens when you go against El Penitente,” she growled.
“I-I’m sorry!” Nadine stammered, tears streaking her face. “I’ll do whatever you want! I’ll sell the company! Just don’t hurt me!”
A wicked smile crossed Aguila’s face. “This will only hurt for a moment.” She cracked her knuckles, then raised her fists above her head. Nadine closed her eyes and braced for the worst when…
FWIP!
It was a thin sound, like something cutting through the air itself. Nadine opened her eyes and saw something small and sharp had landed in Aguila’s shoulder. Aguila pulled it out, apparently unbothered by any pain, and found it to be a playing card-- the ten of diamonds, to be specific.
Three more cards landed in her arm, breaking the skin easily but stopped from going any deeper by her thick muscles. Aguila looked over and saw the source: a slim man, his arms decorated with black tattoos, his open shirt revealing a large queen of hearts on his chest.
“Y’know, a wise man once said, ‘You gotta know when to hold ‘em, and know when to fold ‘em,’” said Double Down, displaying a level of confidence Nadine hadn’t seen from him before. “Right now, I’d say you ought to run.”
“So, you’re the hired hand?” said Aguila, dismissively. “I’ll deal with you next.”
Double Down was undaunted. “You know what your problem is? You’re playing with nothing but a high card. But me? I’ve got a full house.”
A cloud of green fog appeared out of nowhere and formed into a person; it was the Mist, and she already had her gun raised at Aguila. The force of the shot that rang out from it was enough to knock Aguila off her feet and back onto the ground-- and do the same to Mist, who wasn’t ready for the kickback of her new pistol.
Double Down was quick to get next to her to help her up, but Mist refused. “Is the primary okay?” she called out.
“Affirmative,” came the voice of Cluemaster in response. He and Sickle were next to Nadine, with Sickle helping her up and Cluemaster looking her over. “A bit bruised, but nothing serious.”
Nadine’s face looked a mess, stained with tears, running makeup, and specks of grime from where she fell. She winced in pain whenever she put any weight on her left leg, and she had almost certainly wet herself during the altercation. Nevertheless, she smiled at her rescuers.
“Thank you,” she said, and she meant it.
“What happened to Copperhead?” Cluemaster asked.
Nadine shook her head. “They took her. Some freak on a motorcycle. He threw her into the trunk of our car and drove off. I barely got out of there…”
Cluemaster cursed under his breath. He withdrew a phone from his pocket and tapped on it a few times. “The good news is I had the foresight to put tracers on all the cars-- you’re welcome-- and it looks like they’re heading… South. And fast. I’ll go after them with Double Down. Mist, Sickle, take the primary back to the safe house and stay with her.”
“Wait, we’re doing what?” said Double Down.
“I’m not repeating myself, Tell.” Cluemaster was already getting into his car. “You have your orders. Let’s move.”
Tell’s confidence seemed to waver, but he got in the passenger seat of the car still. Cluemaster drove them away, leaving behind Mist to escort Nadine back to the safe house.
As he approached the Mexican border, Eduardo Flamingo could barely contain his razor-toothed smile as he imagined everything Don Gabriel would let him do to Copperhead. There were so many implements to use, so many parts to dissect, so many pieces to eat-- his mind boggled at the possibilities.
A rare spark of common sense flickered in his mind, and Flamingo took a cautionary glance at the fuel gauge on his stolen car’s dashboard. The needle was twitching dangerously close to the ‘E’ and considering the drive across the border and back to Santo Lino was almost entirely off-road, the fuel tank would likely run empty before he arrived.
With no small effort, Flamingo forced his thoughts away from blood and cannibalism and towards pragmatism. He cursed as he steered the car towards the nearest exit off the highway and scanned the horizon for a gas station. He found a 24-hour Ovel Oil Station soon enough, pulled in, and started to refill up the tank.
After roughly five seconds of waiting, he became bored and went into the attaching convenience store, leaving the car to refuel on its own. The store was a base locale-- buzzing florescent lights overhead, plain linoleum floors, rows of cheap junk food and toiletries, fridges full of various bottle drinks and ice cream in the corner, and a single clerk behind the counter, sitting in a rolling chair and reading a magazine, barely giving his customer a glance during the interminable night shift.
Flamingo grabbed the biggest bottle of water he could find and a Jolly Jack chocolate bar and went to the checkout. The clerk-- a heavy man with round glasses and a name tag that read ‘Kevin’-- put down his magazine and glanced up at his customer for the first time, and very nearly jumped when he saw Flamingo’s ensemble.
Kevin sized him up and down wordlessly before finally asking, “You working a shift at the Johnson Club or something?”
Flamingo growled. “Costume party,” he said, infusing the innocuous words with as much malice and menace as he could muster.
Kevin seemed to completely miss Flamingo’s intentions, and instead responded with a knowing smile and nod. “And you’re going as Prince, right? That’s cool, man. A few years back, I dressed up as Bowie for Halloween. ‘Course, on me it looked more like the Fat White Duke, y’know?”
He chuckled at his own joke. Flamingo just grimaced beneath his hot pink mask. Kevin seemed to finally get the unspoken message, letting his familiar demeanor drop and quickly scanning in his customer’s purchases. “That’ll be $3.48,” the clerk said, now avoiding eye contact.
Flamingo reached into his pocket and withdrew a handful of stray coins and a crumpled bill. Kevin looked them over. “Are these pesos?” he said. “Sorry, man, we can only take American currency.”
Flamingo narrowed his eyes. He placed his gloved right hand on the handle of the sheathed filleting knife at his belt. Kevin felt sweat drip down his forehead. His eyes darted towards the wooden baseball bat he kept beneath counter. He knew he’d have to use it someday-- an Ovel station in the middle of nowhere wasn’t the safest place to work, especially during the graveyard shift-- but the thought of escalating his already tense situation was an intimidating one.
He decided against it. Three dollars’ worth of merchandise wasn’t worth starting something over, especially since he already smoked half a joint before his shift started.
“You know what, man? It’s good. Just take it.”
Flamingo didn’t move. His gaze was stuck on the clerk, his hand now gripping the knife at his belt. And he was smiling-- an eager, eerie, unsettling smile that showed off all his razor-sharp teeth. Kevin was trembling, and he moved his hand slowly but purposefully towards the baseball bat…
They both heard a sound from outside that caught their attentions. The trunk of the stolen car had been opened and someone had sprung out of it-- someone slim and lanky, wearing leather clothes and with bleached hair.
As Copperhead ran around to the driver’s seat of the car, Kevin turned back to Flamingo and asked, “Did that chick just jump out of the trunk of your car?!”
The response he received came in the form of Flamingo’s knife plunging into his chest. Kevin gasped, tried to catch his breath, but there was blood immediately pooling into his lungs, and breathing was becoming quite impossible.
Through it all, Flamingo’s smile didn’t break. He withdrew the knife and licked the blood off the flat of it, savoring the taste-- and then spitting it out in disgust onto the linoleum floor. He hated when there was too much fat in his meal.
Kevin coughed and sputtered blood. He slumped to the floor, no longer able to stand on his own power. Flamingo, meanwhile, turned his attention back to the car and walked towards it.
Copperhead had found, to her dismay, that El Flamingo had taken the car keys with him when he left the car to refill. She was now trying to hot-wire it, but she was rusty, and her eyes were still adjusting to not being in the pitch blackness of the trunk. She thought she was mere moments from starting the engine when Flamingo threw the door open and dragged her out of the driver’s seat.
Before she could do anything, he threw her body across the gas station parking lot. Copperhead bounced and skidded to a halt on the dirty asphalt, but she recovered quickly and bounced up into a fighting position.
<“Don’t do this, Eduardo,”> she said, half a plea and half a warning. <“Don’t be the monster they made you.”>
Flamingo paused, and he seemed to be considering this. Then he said, <“I was always a monster, niña. But I could never abide cowards.”>
His grip on the handle of his knife tensed, its blade still wet with the hapless clerk’s blood. He broke into a run towards Copperhead. She swore, raised her clawed fingers in front of her, and readied herself for the fight.
Mister Toad was in the armchair in the living room of the safe house, sleeping like a log, his noxious snores drowning out the sound of late-night infomercials from the TV he’d left on. The obnoxious pitchman selling a product that was “perfect for you, perfect for your family, and perfect for your friends!” wasn’t enough to wake him, nor were the repeated rings of the telephone. Mister Toad was a very heavy sleeper.
What was enough to wake him was the door slamming open, with Sickle and Mist bursting into the house with an out of breath Nadine Corcoran. Toad jolted awake with a snort and a “Wozzat? Wot’s happenin’?” before his senses returned to him and he became cognizant of the situation. “Wot ‘appened to you?” he asked the bruised and terrified Nadine.
Mist slammed the door shut behind her and hastily threw all the locks on the door. “They’re here,” she said. “The cartel is in the city.”
“Balls,” Toad muttered. “Wait, where’s the other three an’ the big guy?”
Mist checked outside one last time to make sure the coast was clear. She turned to Toad and began to explain the events of the last few hours.
Then a voice came into their heads-- the same voice, at the same time, to all of them. It was deep and distorted, but its words were unmistakable: <“Americans. We don’t know why you’re protecting Corcoran, and we don’t care. Turn her over to El Penitente now, or you will share in her fate. The choice is yours.”> The echoes of the voice faded away through their minds until it vanished.
Toad, Sickle, and Mist all looked at each other, quietly understanding that they had all received the same telepathic message.
“They found us,” said Sickle.
Mist took another look out the window to the street and saw two people standing out there: the giant luchadora from earlier, and another woman dressed in black with a feathered mask over her eyes. “Guys,” she said, her voice shaking. “I don’t think our safe-house is safe anymore.”
One night in Gotham City, a sextet of criminals were abducted by the mysterious crime lord known only as 'the Voice' and blackmailed into acting as his agents in the field!
The Six were deployed to Texas to protect their latest "client", Nadine Corcoran-- a local druglord-- after she crossed the deadly El Penitente cartel during her rise to power.
For Copperhead, El Penitente are more than just some Mexican gang-- they're the reason she's an assassin, trained since the murder of her father at their hands during her childhood!
During a car journey through the streets of Dos Rios, members of the Six were ambushed by the deadly enforcers of El Penitente, Los Parajos, whose number included the horrifying cannibalistic assassin known as El Flamingo!
The flamboyantly dressed psychotic immediately recognised Copperhead, and forgoing Los Parajos' assignment to take down Corcoran, decided to kidnap her and return the reptilian assassin to her former employers for punishment...
... WHO ARE THE ...
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Cluemaster (Arthur Brown) - Genius inventor. Expert at subterfuge. Not as smart as he thinks.
Mister Toad (alias unknown) - Amphibious member of the Circus of the Strange. Drives cars. Eats flies. Croaks.
Double Down (Jeremy Tell) - Rogue gambler from Central City. Can turn his skin into razor-sharp playing cards. Still needs to grow a spine.
Mist III (Nash Nimbus) - Opal City criminal. Learning to move past her grudges.
Sickle (Timur Abramovichi) - Hulking Siberian ex-pat. Criminal enforcer. Southpaw.
Copperhead (Larissa Diaz) - Former assassin for the Penitente Cartel. Master contortionist Expert in poisons. The only real professional here.
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DC2 Presents…
SECRET SIX #11
“How to Escape Your Toxic Family”, Part 2
Written by UltimateDC
Cover by Scurvy Pirate Hog (click the link to view his gallery)
Edited by House Of Mystery
THE PAST - SANTO LINO, MEXICO:
When Larissa Diaz woke up, she was tied to a chair. She tried to move, to break out, to use any of the techniques she’d learned over her years of training in contortion, but her restraints were ironclad. It was conceivable that she could escape, but it would take a very long time.
It didn’t help that she was covered in the bruises she received from her capture, chiefly among them being the swollen, discolored lump on her forehead.
It took her a moment to remember how this had happened. She recalled setting out for her first assignment on behalf of the Penitente Cartel-- the assassination of Javi Nieves-- and she recalled being reminded of the price of failure by her trainer and her guardian, her Tia Lola.
Then Larissa remembered what Tia Lola told her about her father, about how and why the Cartel killed him, and everything else came rushing back to her: she tried to run away, to steal a car and get out of Santo Lino as fast as she could.
The police stopped her before she left the city-- too late she realized they were bought off by El Penitente, instructed to prevent this exact scenario. A fight broke out but was ended just as quickly when one of the officers brought his nightstick down on her head and everything went dark.
Larissa focused herself. She pushed away the memories, pushed away the pain, the nausea and the grogginess, and focused on getting herself out. She started with her thumbs-- she’d have to dislocate them if she had any hope of getting out of her wrist restraints. She grabbed her left thumb with her right hand and began to pull…
<“I wouldn’t, mija.”>
She looked up and saw her Tia Lola standing there, looking down at Larissa with a neutral expression she usually reserved for training. Behind her was her hulking aide Cazador, silent as usual and holding a stun baton in both hands.
Tia Lola sighed. <“Where did I go wrong, Larissa? Help me understand, please.”>
<“You killed my father!”> Larissa spat. <“You kidnapped me! You stole my life from me!”>
Her Tia’s usually calm demeanor broke into a burst of anger and frustration. <“I took you in! I trained you, gave you a purpose--“>
<“To kill for you! For this damned cartel!”> Larissa had tears in her eyes now. <“I won’t be your weapon. You’ll have to kill me, just like you did him!”>
Now Tia Lola had tears well in her eyes as well, but she blinked them away and returned to her neutral expression. <“Perhaps I was too soft on you. I suppose I should stop treating you like family and start treating you like a soldier.”> She leaned close to Larissa and looked her in the eyes.
Tia Lola had no more tears to shed, no more anger to give; all that was left was a job to do. In a measured tone, she said, <“When I walk out of this room, Cazador is going to hurt you. There is nothing you can say and nothing you can do that will stop him, because unlike you, Cazador knows where his loyalties lie. This is the price you pay for defying El Penitente.”>
With that, Tia Lola turned away from her ward and left the room. Cazador switched on his baton, a crackle of electricity sounding from the metal-pronged tip and grit his teeth as he approached Larissa and got to work.
THE PRESENT - SOMEWHERE IN TEXAS:
When Copperhead woke up, she was surrounded by complete darkness. She heard an engine running, of tires as they shook and jostled on uneven asphalt. She felt it every time they went over a crack or a bump in the road. And she felt the bruising and the pain around her throat.
It took Copperhead a moment to remember what had happened. She and the rest of the Six had been deployed to Dos Rios to protect their client-- a drug kingpin (or queenpin, as she would’ve insisted) named Nadine Corcoran-- from the wrath of El Penitente. Even though Copperhead knew the organization well, she had still realized too late how vastly she underestimated them.
The cartel had sent in Los Parajos, their most efficient hit squad, to eliminate Nadine and her protectors. Copperhead was barely able to fend off their first attacker-- the shapeshifting Papagayo-- when she was struck from behind by El Flamingo, Parajos’s resident psychotic. Flamingo had choked her out during their fight, and now had apparently thrown her into the trunk of a car to be taken…somewhere.
As Copperhead felt the urge to struggle, to panic, Tia Lola’s training kicked in: <“Breathe, mija. Assess your situation. Figure out what you know. Work from there.”> And she did. The first thing she realized was that Nadine was likely dead by now. Her only other means of protection-- that oaf Dutch Westenberg-- was dead by Papagayo’s gun. Copperhead had radioed for backup, but there was no guarantee the rest of the Six would get there before the rest of Los Parajos arrived or Papagayo recovered.
If nothing else, she was unlikely to get paid.
Where she was going, Copperhead had only one guess: Los Parajos were taking her home, back to Santo Lino, to face Don Gabriel and Tia Lola for ‘abandoning’ them. It wouldn’t matter that she’d been kidnapped and blackmailed into service by the Voice; the cartel would never believe such a story, especially considering she’d tried to escape before. She’d very likely be put to death-- slowly and painfully, she guessed. El Penitente wasn’t known for its mercy.
With too many unknowns hanging in the air, Copperhead saw only one feasible solution, one possible plan of action that might guarantee survival: escape her bonds, somehow kill Los Parajos, and figure out how to reunite with the Six. They may have been amateurs and screw-ups, but right now, they were the only chance she had.
Copperhead felt at her bindings. It was leather, slim and chapped-- likely the whip Flamingo liked to use as his primary weapon. The knot he tied was tight, and encompassed Copperhead’s arms and legs. However, escape from a binding such as this was something she’d mastered before she turned fifteen. It would be difficult and unpleasant, especially if she didn’t want to alert her captors to what she was doing, but it was doable.
She started by dislocating her thumbs.
MEANWHILE - DOS RIOS
What Copperhead didn’t know was that Nadine Corcoran was still very much alive-- exhausted, terrified, and running for her life on shoes with the heels broken off, but still alive. What she also didn’t know was that El Flamingo had acted alone, and that the rest of Los Parajos were still in the city, trying to finish their job.
Nadine didn’t know how far she had run, only that as soon as the freak in the pink costume had gotten in her car, that was her cue to take off. She ran as fast as her legs would carry her, letting her heart-racing panic fuel her. She was running in the direction she thought her safe house was when her foot caught on the edge of a curb, sending her sprawling onto the concrete sidewalk.
She tried to ignore her pain, tried to get up and keep running, but her left leg-- now red from both the blood and swelling bruise-- howled in pain any time she put weight on it. So instead, Nadine limped awkwardly down the street, gritting her teeth through the injury, even as her adrenaline was beginning to run dry.
Then Nadine was hit with a force that sent her off her feet, slamming against a brick wall and collapsing on the ground. She looked up and saw a hulking woman standing over her, wearing a jacket lined with white feathers and a white and gold luchador mask.
Carmen Aguila scowled down at Nadine. “This is what happens when you go against El Penitente,” she growled.
“I-I’m sorry!” Nadine stammered, tears streaking her face. “I’ll do whatever you want! I’ll sell the company! Just don’t hurt me!”
A wicked smile crossed Aguila’s face. “This will only hurt for a moment.” She cracked her knuckles, then raised her fists above her head. Nadine closed her eyes and braced for the worst when…
FWIP!
It was a thin sound, like something cutting through the air itself. Nadine opened her eyes and saw something small and sharp had landed in Aguila’s shoulder. Aguila pulled it out, apparently unbothered by any pain, and found it to be a playing card-- the ten of diamonds, to be specific.
Three more cards landed in her arm, breaking the skin easily but stopped from going any deeper by her thick muscles. Aguila looked over and saw the source: a slim man, his arms decorated with black tattoos, his open shirt revealing a large queen of hearts on his chest.
“Y’know, a wise man once said, ‘You gotta know when to hold ‘em, and know when to fold ‘em,’” said Double Down, displaying a level of confidence Nadine hadn’t seen from him before. “Right now, I’d say you ought to run.”
“So, you’re the hired hand?” said Aguila, dismissively. “I’ll deal with you next.”
Double Down was undaunted. “You know what your problem is? You’re playing with nothing but a high card. But me? I’ve got a full house.”
A cloud of green fog appeared out of nowhere and formed into a person; it was the Mist, and she already had her gun raised at Aguila. The force of the shot that rang out from it was enough to knock Aguila off her feet and back onto the ground-- and do the same to Mist, who wasn’t ready for the kickback of her new pistol.
Double Down was quick to get next to her to help her up, but Mist refused. “Is the primary okay?” she called out.
“Affirmative,” came the voice of Cluemaster in response. He and Sickle were next to Nadine, with Sickle helping her up and Cluemaster looking her over. “A bit bruised, but nothing serious.”
Nadine’s face looked a mess, stained with tears, running makeup, and specks of grime from where she fell. She winced in pain whenever she put any weight on her left leg, and she had almost certainly wet herself during the altercation. Nevertheless, she smiled at her rescuers.
“Thank you,” she said, and she meant it.
“What happened to Copperhead?” Cluemaster asked.
Nadine shook her head. “They took her. Some freak on a motorcycle. He threw her into the trunk of our car and drove off. I barely got out of there…”
Cluemaster cursed under his breath. He withdrew a phone from his pocket and tapped on it a few times. “The good news is I had the foresight to put tracers on all the cars-- you’re welcome-- and it looks like they’re heading… South. And fast. I’ll go after them with Double Down. Mist, Sickle, take the primary back to the safe house and stay with her.”
“Wait, we’re doing what?” said Double Down.
“I’m not repeating myself, Tell.” Cluemaster was already getting into his car. “You have your orders. Let’s move.”
Tell’s confidence seemed to waver, but he got in the passenger seat of the car still. Cluemaster drove them away, leaving behind Mist to escort Nadine back to the safe house.
SOMEWHERE IN TEXAS:
As he approached the Mexican border, Eduardo Flamingo could barely contain his razor-toothed smile as he imagined everything Don Gabriel would let him do to Copperhead. There were so many implements to use, so many parts to dissect, so many pieces to eat-- his mind boggled at the possibilities.
A rare spark of common sense flickered in his mind, and Flamingo took a cautionary glance at the fuel gauge on his stolen car’s dashboard. The needle was twitching dangerously close to the ‘E’ and considering the drive across the border and back to Santo Lino was almost entirely off-road, the fuel tank would likely run empty before he arrived.
With no small effort, Flamingo forced his thoughts away from blood and cannibalism and towards pragmatism. He cursed as he steered the car towards the nearest exit off the highway and scanned the horizon for a gas station. He found a 24-hour Ovel Oil Station soon enough, pulled in, and started to refill up the tank.
After roughly five seconds of waiting, he became bored and went into the attaching convenience store, leaving the car to refuel on its own. The store was a base locale-- buzzing florescent lights overhead, plain linoleum floors, rows of cheap junk food and toiletries, fridges full of various bottle drinks and ice cream in the corner, and a single clerk behind the counter, sitting in a rolling chair and reading a magazine, barely giving his customer a glance during the interminable night shift.
Flamingo grabbed the biggest bottle of water he could find and a Jolly Jack chocolate bar and went to the checkout. The clerk-- a heavy man with round glasses and a name tag that read ‘Kevin’-- put down his magazine and glanced up at his customer for the first time, and very nearly jumped when he saw Flamingo’s ensemble.
Kevin sized him up and down wordlessly before finally asking, “You working a shift at the Johnson Club or something?”
Flamingo growled. “Costume party,” he said, infusing the innocuous words with as much malice and menace as he could muster.
Kevin seemed to completely miss Flamingo’s intentions, and instead responded with a knowing smile and nod. “And you’re going as Prince, right? That’s cool, man. A few years back, I dressed up as Bowie for Halloween. ‘Course, on me it looked more like the Fat White Duke, y’know?”
He chuckled at his own joke. Flamingo just grimaced beneath his hot pink mask. Kevin seemed to finally get the unspoken message, letting his familiar demeanor drop and quickly scanning in his customer’s purchases. “That’ll be $3.48,” the clerk said, now avoiding eye contact.
Flamingo reached into his pocket and withdrew a handful of stray coins and a crumpled bill. Kevin looked them over. “Are these pesos?” he said. “Sorry, man, we can only take American currency.”
Flamingo narrowed his eyes. He placed his gloved right hand on the handle of the sheathed filleting knife at his belt. Kevin felt sweat drip down his forehead. His eyes darted towards the wooden baseball bat he kept beneath counter. He knew he’d have to use it someday-- an Ovel station in the middle of nowhere wasn’t the safest place to work, especially during the graveyard shift-- but the thought of escalating his already tense situation was an intimidating one.
He decided against it. Three dollars’ worth of merchandise wasn’t worth starting something over, especially since he already smoked half a joint before his shift started.
“You know what, man? It’s good. Just take it.”
Flamingo didn’t move. His gaze was stuck on the clerk, his hand now gripping the knife at his belt. And he was smiling-- an eager, eerie, unsettling smile that showed off all his razor-sharp teeth. Kevin was trembling, and he moved his hand slowly but purposefully towards the baseball bat…
They both heard a sound from outside that caught their attentions. The trunk of the stolen car had been opened and someone had sprung out of it-- someone slim and lanky, wearing leather clothes and with bleached hair.
As Copperhead ran around to the driver’s seat of the car, Kevin turned back to Flamingo and asked, “Did that chick just jump out of the trunk of your car?!”
The response he received came in the form of Flamingo’s knife plunging into his chest. Kevin gasped, tried to catch his breath, but there was blood immediately pooling into his lungs, and breathing was becoming quite impossible.
Through it all, Flamingo’s smile didn’t break. He withdrew the knife and licked the blood off the flat of it, savoring the taste-- and then spitting it out in disgust onto the linoleum floor. He hated when there was too much fat in his meal.
Kevin coughed and sputtered blood. He slumped to the floor, no longer able to stand on his own power. Flamingo, meanwhile, turned his attention back to the car and walked towards it.
* * * * * *
Copperhead had found, to her dismay, that El Flamingo had taken the car keys with him when he left the car to refill. She was now trying to hot-wire it, but she was rusty, and her eyes were still adjusting to not being in the pitch blackness of the trunk. She thought she was mere moments from starting the engine when Flamingo threw the door open and dragged her out of the driver’s seat.
Before she could do anything, he threw her body across the gas station parking lot. Copperhead bounced and skidded to a halt on the dirty asphalt, but she recovered quickly and bounced up into a fighting position.
<“Don’t do this, Eduardo,”> she said, half a plea and half a warning. <“Don’t be the monster they made you.”>
Flamingo paused, and he seemed to be considering this. Then he said, <“I was always a monster, niña. But I could never abide cowards.”>
His grip on the handle of his knife tensed, its blade still wet with the hapless clerk’s blood. He broke into a run towards Copperhead. She swore, raised her clawed fingers in front of her, and readied herself for the fight.
DOS RIOS:
Mister Toad was in the armchair in the living room of the safe house, sleeping like a log, his noxious snores drowning out the sound of late-night infomercials from the TV he’d left on. The obnoxious pitchman selling a product that was “perfect for you, perfect for your family, and perfect for your friends!” wasn’t enough to wake him, nor were the repeated rings of the telephone. Mister Toad was a very heavy sleeper.
What was enough to wake him was the door slamming open, with Sickle and Mist bursting into the house with an out of breath Nadine Corcoran. Toad jolted awake with a snort and a “Wozzat? Wot’s happenin’?” before his senses returned to him and he became cognizant of the situation. “Wot ‘appened to you?” he asked the bruised and terrified Nadine.
Mist slammed the door shut behind her and hastily threw all the locks on the door. “They’re here,” she said. “The cartel is in the city.”
“Balls,” Toad muttered. “Wait, where’s the other three an’ the big guy?”
Mist checked outside one last time to make sure the coast was clear. She turned to Toad and began to explain the events of the last few hours.
Then a voice came into their heads-- the same voice, at the same time, to all of them. It was deep and distorted, but its words were unmistakable: <“Americans. We don’t know why you’re protecting Corcoran, and we don’t care. Turn her over to El Penitente now, or you will share in her fate. The choice is yours.”> The echoes of the voice faded away through their minds until it vanished.
Toad, Sickle, and Mist all looked at each other, quietly understanding that they had all received the same telepathic message.
“They found us,” said Sickle.
Mist took another look out the window to the street and saw two people standing out there: the giant luchadora from earlier, and another woman dressed in black with a feathered mask over her eyes. “Guys,” she said, her voice shaking. “I don’t think our safe-house is safe anymore.”