* * *
“I don’t care if he is in the middle of something,” Sebastian said, the volume of his voice rising in Malcolm Merlyn’s office. As the assistant disappeared into the room behind him, Sebastian paced the outer office.
She returned, and moments later Sebastian stood before Merlyn himself, sweating and seething with anger. Despite that fact, Merlyn casually leaned back in his desk chair, and his expression revealed that he was unimpressed with Sebastian’s entrance.
“That was quite a racket you made coming to see me, Mr. Blood,” he said, gesturing to a guest chair. “Please take a seat—you must need to recover after such a performance.”
“Thank you, but I would rather stand,” Sebastian said firmly. “We don’t need to bother with the niceties, Mr. Merlyn. Why did you close the clinic?”
“Ah, that.” Merlyn rose to his feet. “Mr. Blood, I should have closed that clinic down years ago,” he continued. “It was my wife’s project, and it should have been shuttered when the people of the Glades murdered her.”
“Do you have any idea how many people rely on that clinic?” Sebastian said. “You can’t just—”
“Save your energy,” Malcolm said, raising his hand to halt the conversation. “I’ve heard about your crusade—everyone has. ‘Alderman Blood is here to save the Glades,’” he said with a condescending sneer. “But you won’t, Mr. Blood. The Glades are already dead, and the people who live there will get what’s coming to them. So I strongly urge you to do yourself a favor, and find a new cause to support—something that people will actually care about. Because despite your juvenile delusions, no one will ever care about the Glades.
“The clinic is shut down for good,” Malcolm concluded. “Now if you would be so kind as to leave my office a little more quietly than you entered, I too have more important matters to address.” With that he reached for the phone.
* * *
A short time later Sebastian arrived at City Hall and saw light coming from under the door of Mayor Altman’s office. Taking a deep breath and squaring his shoulders, he knocked lightly.
“Come in,” Mayor Altman called.
Sebastian entered to find him filing paperwork and watching the local news, with anchor Bethany Snow on the screen. The sound was low. Sebastian caught a glimpse of himself in the window, and realized how disheveled he was. His hair was unkempt and messy, his dress shirt half tucked in and his tie hanging loosely around his neck.
Not a good look, he mused.
“Sebastian, what happened?” Mayor Altman asked with concern.
“I’ve come for some advice, Mr. Mayor. I realize that the last time I did this, I let my emotions get the best of me, and ask that you forgive me,” Sebastian said.
“I appreciate that, thank you,” the mayor said. “So what has happened that has left you looking like… this?” he added.
“Malcolm Merlyn closed the Glades clinic today,” Sebastian replied.
“I know,” Altman said. “I heard.” Sebastian thought he sounded disheartened, as well.
“Mr. Mayor, the community depends on the clinic—for so many people it’s their only alternative. They wouldn’t know what else to do, where else to go.” He paused, then continued. “Perhaps if we work together, show a united front, we can come up with an alternative. It might even be to our advantage,” he offered tentatively. “Provide us with some political capital.”
The mayor sat back for a second, rubbing his forehead with his fingertips, when suddenly a banner headline on the television announced breaking news. Both men turned their heads, and Mayor Altman reached for the remote, turning up the volume.
“We now go live to the Queen Mansion,” Snow said in a voice-over, “where we’ve been told Moira Queen has called a press conference.” The image on the screen was of an empty podium, and while they watched Moira Queen stepped into view, wearing a red dress suit. The look on her face was startling—a combination of fear and anguish—as she took a deep breath and began to speak.
“God forgive me,” she said, her voice breaking. “I have failed this city. I have been complicit with an undertaking for one horrible purpose… to destroy the Glades and everyone in it.” As a startled murmur broke out in the pressroom, Queen continued, struggling for control, revealing that she feared for her own life and the lives of her family. Yet she couldn’t stand by and remain silent. The conspiracy, she said, had been the brainchild of one man.
Malcolm Merlyn.
As she spoke, Sebastian felt a strange vibration, and his eyes went wide. Bethany Snow reappeared on the screen and announced that they were cutting to a live feed from the streets of the Glades. When the image changed to show a street view, however, it was as if the camera operator couldn’t control his device. The picture rocked violently, making it difficult to focus on what was occurring.
It looks like an earthquake, he thought. But that’s impossible… unless…
Crowds flooded the streets, which were cracking and shifting as the vibrations appeared to increase. Pieces fell from the buildings, striking people down at random, leaving bodies crushed and bleeding. Here and there fires could be seen, sending angry flames and clouds of smoke into the night air. The current of bodies grew as chaos reigned, and people trampled one another to escape.
Sebastian glanced at the mayor, whose face had gone white. Without a word, the young alderman bolted from the room.
* * *
Out in the street traffic was at a standstill, so Sebastian ran, determined to reach the Glades. The closer he got, the stronger the vibrations became, threatening to throw him to the ground. When he reached the perimeter of his neighborhood, all he found was chaos as far as the eye could see.
What has Merlyn done? he wondered incredulously. How could he accomplish so much destruction?
Another quake, and he was thrown to the ground, landing hard on his palms. He looked up and saw the building above him start to crumble to the ground. Scrambling to his feet, ignoring the stinging pain in his hands, he spotted a teenage boy about to be buried by the falling rubble. Moving as fast as he could, he grabbed the kid around the waist and dragged him to one side just as the bricks and mortar struck the ground and scattered in all directions.
Making sure the teen wasn’t hurt, Sebastian started running again. He passed the clinic and was horrified to see gaping holes in the walls. All of the windows were shattered. A portion of the fire escape had broken loose and was lying in a twisted tangle of metal on the ground. Pausing only for a moment, he started toward Zandia Orphanage. As he did, fear gripped his heart, telling him what he was going to find.
Finally he turned the corner…
Thank god.
It was still standing.
“Sebastian! Brother!” Cyrus called out, waving his arms above his head.
“Cyrus,” Sebastian yelled, running over. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Cyrus replied, and he pointed. “The children are in the basement of the church, and we’re watching over them. The walls are solid—they should be safe from this insanity.”
“Have you heard from Dr. Vaca?” Sebastian asked. “I went to the clinic, and it’s all but leveled.”
“I don’t know, I can’t reach anyone,” Cyrus said. Then his voice turned angry. “The Queen family is behind this madness, they admitted it on the news.”
“I know, I saw Mrs. Queen’s confession,” Sebastian said. “It’s Merlyn—somehow he’s responsible for this. I don’t know how, but he’s engineered an earthquake, and it’s confined to the Glades. The wealthy have been playing us all along, and we’re nothing but fodder for their ambitions. Our lives mean nothing to them, and it’s time for us to do something about it.” As if to punctuate his point, the ground shook again.
“Brother, it is time for retribution,” Cyrus replied.
It’s past time, and I finally know what to do, Sebastian mused with a cold fury. “It’s time for the one percent to feel as we have, Cyrus,” he agreed. “I
t’s time for a war to come, and for a new leader to guide us into safety.” He peered into the distance. The place he had worked so hard to save, to pull from the ashes, was being destroyed, brick by brick. Innocents were dying, and Sebastian knew now that what he had been doing could never have been enough.
“This ends now.”
He pulled out his cell phone and Slade Wilson’s business card. Then he punched in Slade’s number.
“I’m in,” he said. “Give me my city—give me my army.”
1
Night fell over the Glades, the moon full in a cloudless sky. Moonlight cascaded upon the neighborhood in ghost-like fingers, the eerie bands of luminescence threading themselves between the broken buildings, reflecting off glass and metal, then dissolving in alleys dark and menacing.
The area had been decimated by the earthquake. They called it the Undertaking—the unnatural event engineered by Merlyn and his confederates—and it had left an abyss of hopelessness and despair in its wake. Shortly after this devastation, Merlyn disappeared from Starling City. So did Oliver Queen, taking with him the vigilante who was his alter ego.
Now Slade drove through the neighborhood, the headlights from his Aventador cutting a swath through the darkness. He had been driving most of the day, digging deep, visiting locations personal to Oliver—his family’s mansion and sprawling estate, Queen Consolidated, even the graves of Sara Lance and Tommy Merlyn.
Finding nothing of value, he next targeted Queen’s closest allies, locating the apartments of John Diggle, Felicity Smoak, and Laurel Lance. Each was a dead end, yet he continued to explore, experiencing every inch he could of Starling City. This was the home Oliver loved, to which he had returned, and which he desperately sought to save. Slade was determined to know it intimately—so that when he crushed it to dust, he would know and revel in the depths of Oliver’s despair.
As Slade drove through the Glades, it made all the sense in the world that this forsaken place had been the domain of the vigilante. He had seen the killer Oliver had become, and knew the blackness at his core. That was the true Oliver Queen. It was natural that he would gravitate toward the area most overcome by the dark. Yet after Tommy Merlyn’s funeral, he had vanished without a trace.
Retreating like a coward, Slade thought. Abandoning his city.
He took a turn, his headlights illuminating graffiti on walls still standing among the destruction. He smirked as he read what it said. BLOOD FOR MAYOR. In the vacuum created by the vigilante’s departure, his new acquaintance, Mr. Blood, had stepped in, anointing himself as Starling City’s would-be savior.
Slade slowed as he neared the nightclub Verdant, the last stop on his tour through the city. To the unobservant eye, Oliver’s decision to convert his family’s old steel factory had seemed to make perfect sense. A rich playboy became an entrepreneur, catering to other rich ne’er-do-wells. The club was the plaything of a dilettante with nothing better to do.
Slade knew better.
The building was centrally located, tactically ideal for a certain hooded vigilante and his exploits. Blueprints of the property confirmed Slade’s suspicions, revealing an unaccounted sublevel beneath the club, easily missed below the dancing feet of Starling’s youthful elite. Oliver had hidden his operation in plain sight, using his reputation as an all-night party boy to cover his other nocturnal excursions.
Clever… thought Slade, a malicious smirk crossing his face. But not clever enough. Revving his engine, he peeled out and headed back toward downtown.
* * *
He stepped off the elevator, his dark suit gleaming under the warm lights of the hallway. A swath of dark red carpeting led him past thick octagonal columns on either side, and toward a lacquered oak desk at the suite’s center. Heavy and substantial, the piece was the focal point of the overtly masculine space, its dark cedar echoed in the surrounding décor. The windows behind it were obscured by floor-to-ceiling curtains, and there was a small bar off to the side. The overall effect was one of power and intimidation.
Slade smoothed the lapel on his tailored suit.
He found Isabel waiting for him, seated at one of two leather chairs opposite the desk. She had found the suite in an office building on the edge of downtown Starling City, easily secured in the post-Undertaking recession. Like Slade, she was dressed sharply and ready to get to work.
“As you requested,” she said. “Paid for with an account at Starling National, established under your name. It was an odd request, though, considering your desire for stealth.”
“Crumbs meant to draw out the rats,” Slade said, settling in behind the large desk.
“In that case, why not open the curtains and enjoy the very expensive view?”
“Because, Ms. Rochev,” he said, with matter-of-fact confidence, “when next I gaze upon the skyline, it will be from the penthouse of your Queen Consolidated, while the city burns.”
A rare smile crossed Isabel’s face. She had worked with many a successful CEO, but none had Slade’s level of foresight and cunning. She relished the thought of dismantling the company Robert Queen had spent his life building.
“What of Mr. Blood?” Slade asked. “Have you found anything else?”
Isabel shook her head. “If he has secrets beyond the brotherhood, they’re well hidden.” She handed him a dossier.
“For his sake,” Slade said, “let’s hope they stay buried.”
“He’ll have questions,” she said. “What do you plan on telling him?”
Slade opened the folder, staring at Blood’s life, laid out in text.
“I will tell him exactly what he wants to hear.”
* * *
Sebastian strode in and was immediately taken aback by the suite’s opulence. Seeing the expensive clothes worn by Wilson and Rochev, he was reminded of the Starling City elite—the ones who had destroyed the Glades and left its residents to suffer. Reminding himself that he needed these people, he tried to shake off the thought.
For the most part, he succeeded.
“Welcome, Mr. Blood,” Wilson said, standing to extend his hand. “You remember Ms. Rochev?”
“Of course.” Blood nodded to Isabel, standing at the small bar.
“Can I interest you in a drink?” she asked.
“I’m okay, thank you,” Blood said.
“We insist,” Wilson said. “To mark the occasion.” He nodded, Isabel poured two fingers of Scotch, and handed Blood the glass. He took it reluctantly.
“A toast,” Wilson said, raising his own glass. “To changing Starling City for the better.”
Blood took a sip of the golden liquor, recognizing it as the same eighteen-year-old Macallan he kept under his desk for special occasions. He didn’t think this was a coincidence. Slade noticed his reticence.
“You seem on edge,” he said. “Is something the matter?”
Blood took a moment, debating internally what to say. Resolved, he went on the offensive.
“That is a very nice suit you’re wearing… and all this?” Blood said, gesturing to the surrounding suite. “Impressive. But if I’m being honest, it all reeks of the very wealth I’m trying to expel from this city.”
Wilson nodded. “I assure you, our intentions are aligned.”
Blood set his glass of Scotch on the massive desk, where it landed with a thud.
“You know the Scotch I drink, the brotherhood I lead, the mask I wear,” he said pointedly. “Yet I know nothing about either of you. So excuse me for being a little wary of our arrangement.”
“Then allow us to put your mind at ease,” Wilson said. “What would you like to know?”
“What’s in it for you?” Blood asked. “What do you gain by making me mayor?”
“Revenge.” Wilson smiled, and his voice was tinged with malice. The answer caught Blood by surprise. “The people who betrayed your city wronged me… wronged us, as well. Together, we will make them pay for those transgressions.”
“How?”
Wilson nodd
ed to Rochev, who pulled a briefcase out from beside her chair. She opened it, revealing five vials of incandescent green liquid.
“That is mirakuru,” Wilson explained. “This serum grants power beyond measure. With it, you can build an army of the worthy, strong enough to bring Starling City to its knees. Then the fat cats won’t be able to hide from reality—they will finally know the plight of the Glades.”
The screams from the Undertaking were still fresh in Blood’s mind. As he thought about the lives lost in the earthquake, and people left behind to suffer, his reservations began to recede. Wilson was right. Blood did want revenge.
“And when the city cries out for its savior,” Wilson continued, “you will answer, reshaping the city as you see fit.”
“What about the vigilante?” Blood asked, taking the case from Rochev. “I doubt he’ll stand idly by as an army overtakes his city.”
“That supposes that he’s not too preoccupied,” Wilson said, lacing his fingers together and placing them on the desk, “being hunted as Starling City’s public enemy number one.”
“Have you heard of the Copycat Hoods, Mr. Blood?” Rochev asked. She handed him a copy of Starling City’s newspaper, The Star. On the front page was a headline. “THE VIGILANTE GANG STRIKES AGAIN.” The article detailed the murder of a local businessman with ties to the Merlyn Global Group, the sixth such death since the Undertaking. The group of men responsible were masked, dressed like the vigilante, and assumed to be acting on his behalf.
“Of course,” Blood said, glancing at the paper. “I know of them through the brotherhood.” He put the paper down on his lap. “But you already know this, don’t you?”
“We would like you to make contact with these men,” Rochev said, pushing ahead. “Point them toward a new target.”
“Who?”
“Mayor Altman.”
Arrow--Vengeance Page 14