One Last Breath

by S. C. Stokes

  “None of the above,” Sanders replied. “I'm going to need you to open that safe though.”

  The man laughed, hitting his palm against the table. "Not on your life, my friend. The alarm has already been raised. Reinforcements will be here in moments. You may as well leave while you still have a chance. Rest assured I will not be opening the safe. It would be worth more than my life to do so.”

  "It will cost you your life if you don't,” Kasey said. “So be about it quickly.”

  “Very well,” the man replied. “I’ll need my key card.” He lowered his hands and reached under the desk. Kasey looked to Sanders, but he had already made up his mind.

  As the lieutenant raised his pistol, Sanders bellowed his incantation. “Beadumaegen!”

  The spell hit the Lieutenant full force. The desk flipped and threw the lieutenant with so much energy that he sailed straight through the glass window behind him.

  The lieutenant screamed all the way down, his terrified shrieks ending abruptly a few short seconds later.

  "Why do they never learn?” Sanders asked.

  "Well, I'm sure if he knew what magic was, he might have reconsidered his decision,” Kasey replied. “But he had no way of knowing what was coming next. To him we looked unarmed.”

  "Be that as it may, he died in vain. We hardly need him to open the safe.” Sanders approached the steel structure. "I think we have found what we are looking for."

  Kasey nodded. “You have to admire their preparation. This is some serious hardware for a safe house.”

  "Indeed, with guns and drugs in these volumes, their cash-flow must be insane.”

  "We’re about to find out,” Kasey said. “Do you want to do the honors, or shall I?"

  Sanders looked at the safe. "Steel is a lot more draining than plasterboard to attempt to pass through, I think I might just carve this one open.”

  Approaching the vault, he raised his hands and began chanting. A thin beam of red energy leapt out from his outstretched palm and struck the vault. Where the lance hit the safe, the steel glowed red.

  Kasey looked at Sanders. Sweat ran down his brow as he continued his assault. She could feel the heat radiating from the safe even from a distance, but Sanders continued undeterred.

  Under the searing heat, the steel wall began to liquefy. Great sloughs of molten steel ran free and slumped to the floor as Sanders moved the focus of his spell in an ever-increasing circle. He continued until the chamber beyond became visible through the expanding rend in the safe's wall.

  In less than a minute, there was a hole in the wall large enough for them to pass through. Sanders closed his fist, ending his enchantment.

  Kasey stepped forward but Sanders put his arm out. “Just give it a moment to cool. If you touch one of those molten flecks, it will be a world of pain. That's several thousand degrees of heat right there. It will melt straight through your boots.”

  Kasey swept a hand before her. "Gwynt Oer."

  A blast of super chilled vapor washed from her outstretched hand, bathing the devastated wall. The molten steel hissed as the vapor struck it.

  In a matter of moments, Kasey dropped the temperature in the room to almost freezing. The vault hissed in angry protest as the superheated steel was snap frozen by the plunging temperature.

  Kasey shivered as she started toward the hole.

  "Don't mind if I do,” she called, ducking into the vault.

  As the mist cleared, Kasey stopped.

  The vault had to be at least 30 feet long and 20 feet wide. Lining the vault was row upon row of pallets. Each of the pallets contained a mountain of cash. The notes had been neatly stacked, bound, and then shrink-wrapped to keep their shape.

  Kasey let out a low long whistle. Sanders was only a step behind her.

  He surveyed the vault and then shook his head. "That must be almost one hundred million dollars. If they aren't hundreds, it may be a little less. Blows your mind to see how profitable a life of crime is, doesn’t it?"

  "It didn’t work out for these guys,” Kasey replied.

  “True,” Sanders replied. “But, whoever the Night Lord is, with this much cash, his reach must be enormous.”

  "Yup, we better get a move on. Reinforcements will be here any minute. I doubt our friend the Lieutenant was bluffing. We need to get as much of it as we can carry and get out of here.”

  Sanders picked up a box cutter from on top of a nearby pallet and attacked the shrink wrap. Then, he placed his duffel on top of the stack and began loading it with cash.

  Kasey followed suit, ignoring the stacks of tens and ones in favor of the fifties and hundreds. It took less than two minutes for her to completely fill her bag. As she slung the duffel back over her shoulder, she realized it was a lot heavier now and would certainly impede her movement.

  "I can't say that I've ever carried enough cash to be weighed down by it,” Kasey stated.

  “It’s a first for me too,” Sanders replied. “It may weigh a ton, but we’re going to need it. As for the rest of it, I don't think we should leave anything for the Night Crew, do you?”

  He headed out of the vault and stopped just outside of it.

  Kasey followed him through the hole. Straightening up, she cracked a smile. "I agree. Besides, I’ve never had cash to burn.” She focused her energy on the pallets laden with cash and shouted, "Pêl Tân."

  Her spell set the pallets alight. She and Sanders stood side by side, transfixed as they watched tens of millions of dollars go up in flames.

  After a moment, Kasey said, "I have to be honest. I can’t help but think of all the good it could have done."

  Sanders nodded. “It’s true, but we were never getting that much out of here before reinforcements showed up.”

  The sound of screeching tires drew their attention outside. Kasey ran to the window that the Lieutenant had abruptly exited through minutes earlier and looked down.

  More than a dozen black SUVs had pulled up outside.

  "What is it, Kasey? Sanders asked.

  "Reinforcements." Kasey replied, shaking her head. "Lots of them."

  Chapter Seven

  Kasey looked down through the shattered window, taking in the army of Night Crew that was converging on the battered stash house. A dozen vehicles had pulled up in front of the abandoned apartment complex. She could also make out members of the Night Crew picketed along the street. Doubtless there would be others that she couldn't see.

  Sanders approached the window and studied the street below.

  "I was hoping it would have taken them a little longer to respond," Kasey said.

  "Yes, it seems this particular stash house was nearer and dearer to their heart than we might have hoped. With the mountain of cash that was in there, it's hardly a surprise." Sanders patted his duffel bag.

  "Any ideas on how we can get out of this?" Kasey asked.

  “The same way we got into it,” Sanders said. “One level at a time.”

  As the Night Crew filed out of the vehicles, they began arming themselves with an assortment of semiautomatic weapons, submachine guns, and even a handful of assault rifles.

  The Night Crew was ready to do battle.

  Kasey searched the stash house’s inner sanctum and spotted the weapons crates that still lay open.

  "We need to thin the herd,” Kasey called, racing to the nearest crate. “If we use their weapons until they get closer, they'll have no idea what to expect. Let’s hold our magic in reserve, just in case.”

  Sanders nodded and rushed over to the weapons cache. He reached into the black polymer crate and drew out an AR-15 assault rifle and three magazines. After jamming one magazine into his rifle, he shoved the other two into his pockets for later.

  Kasey had other ideas. Her crate contained MP5 submachine guns. She'd seen them in action at the Met Gala and knew they were brutally efficient. Drawing one, she prepped it and racked it, ready for action. She was about to leave when a crate beside her caught her eye.

 
; "That will do nicely,” Kasey whispered to herself. She reached into the crate, and began shoving the MK II fragmentation grenades into her pockets before hurrying back to the window.

  "What are you doing?” Sanders called out.

  "Slowing them down,” Kasey replied as she studied below.

  The Night Crew was preparing to breach the first floor. Kasey lifted the grenades. Pulling the pin on two of them, she tossed them at the street below, one at a time. Before they had hit the sidewalk, she sent another pair sailing through the broken window.

  She watched the grenades bounce off the sidewalk. The Night Crewman nearest one of the grenades shouted a warning, but it was too late. The grenade detonated mere feet from the gathering thugs. The blasts filled the air with lethal shards, obliterating the thugs. Their shrill screams filled the night air.

  A second blast detonated as the third and fourth grenades bounced under the nearest SUVs. The results were deafening. Night Crewmen went down like wheat before the scythe, while the grenades that landed under the nearest SUV detonated with spectacular style. The SUV had largely shielded the Night Crew behind it until the car itself exploded, adding its own deadly shrapnel to the mix.

  Sanders raised the AR-15 to his shoulder. With Sanders’ elevated position, the Night Crew below were horrendously exposed. With clinical efficiency, Sanders went to work emptying the first of his magazines in disciplined bursts.

  He dispatched dozens of members of the Night Crew before ducking back inside the window. He pulled Kasey down next to him. Seconds later, the entire window, along with the roof of the room, was bracketed with automatic weapons fire.

  Sanders hunkered down, unable to lend any more fire to the fray without presenting an easy target in the window. The element of surprise had been lost.

  "Into the building. Get inside now!" an angry voice shouted from below. In spite of the terrible toll that had been wreaked on their number, the Night Crew were unperturbed.

  The wail of their wounded comrades filled the air, but the Night Crew paid them no heed. They were far more intent on storming the building.

  “We need to get out of here, Kasey,” Sanders replied. “The longer we stay, the worse it is going to get. You heard the Lieutenant—they have no shortage of manpower. What we need to do is get past them as quickly and efficiently as possible.”

  Kasey nodded. “The sooner we get out here, the better.”

  Remaining low, they scrambled, with their duffel bags, out of the room. Once in the hallway, they straightened and darted for the stairs. As they bounded down them, voices rose from below.

  Down they ran, closing the distance to the ground floor as quickly as they could. They had almost reached the second-floor landing when they were met with voices on the stairs directly beneath them.

  The Night Crew sweeping the building were making swifter progress than Kasey had hoped.

  As rapid footsteps drew nearer, Kasey raised her weapon. Two Night Crewmen rounded the corner, racing up the stairs toward them.

  In their haste, they ran right into the waiting mouth of Kasey's MP5. Gritting her teeth, Kasey squeezed the trigger. Both of them slumped to the ground as the submachine gun cut them down.

  Furious shouting rose from the floor beneath. "They are on the stairs, take them out."

  Kasey and Sanders turned and ducked into the second floor. A brutal fusillade smashed into the stairs right behind them.

  “There is no getting out that way," Sanders replied. “The bottom floor is overrun. We’re going to need another exit, or a distraction.”

  As Kasey considered their quandary, more Night Crew appeared on the stairs. Sanders dispatched the Night Crewmen with a short burst.

  The Night Crewman fell, but not before he dropped a round object onto the landing.

  “Grenade!” Sanders shouted.

  As the grenade skittered across the floor, Kasey shouted an incantation: "Gwthio!"

  Her spell caught the grenade and drove it back toward the stairs. The grenade slipped back through the banister and dropped to the floor beneath. There was a deafening explosion as the frag grenade unleashed its lethal payload among the advancing Night Crew.

  "That was close,” Sanders replied, panting. “Way too close. We need to move."

  "Well, we can't go down there. Not yet, there are way too many of them,” Kasey answered.

  "Then we go back up,” Sanders said. “We use the building and spread them as thin as possible. When they split up to search the building, we try to break through their ranks.”

  Kasey and Sanders raced back up the stairs.

  The Night Crewmen approached more cautiously now. Periodically, Sanders would lean over the balustrade and fire his assault rifle down the staircase. Each time, the Night Crew would halt and unleash a withering salvo of return fire.

  Twice more as they retreated upstairs, Kasey and Sanders picked off the advance scouts of the Night Crew who had grown overconfident.

  Reaching the fourth floor, Kasey racked her brain. Soon they would be pinned down in much the same manner as the Lieutenant had been. There was plenty of firepower in cases on the fourth floor, but they would eventually be overrun.

  Beneath them, the advance of the Night Crew echoed through the building. Floor by floor, they swept with single-minded purpose. If Sanders and Kasey had hid in one of the rooms below, the Night Crew would already have rooted them out.

  As the Night Crew moved steadily upward, Kasey seized on the one avenue they had yet to try.

  “Sanders,” she called, "the elevator.”

  "It's suicide,” Sanders replied. “The second the doors open, we’re going to be cut to shreds.”

  "Exactly,” Kasey replied. “That's why we’re not going to be in it.”

  Kasey mashed the button for the waiting elevator. Its aluminum doors parted and Sanders reluctantly followed her inside. Slinging the strap of her MP5 over her shoulder, Kasey pushed the elevators service hatch. The hatch popped open, revealing a pitch-black cavernous space above.

  Sanders caught on quickly. Intertwining his hands, he boosted Kasey into the space above the elevator, then pressed the button for the ground floor.

  As the lift descended, Sanders handed his AR-15 to Kasey. She pulled it up, then reached down for him. He took her outstretched hand, and she helped hoist him up through the hatch and onto the roof of the elevator.

  She had expected the elevator to be stopped in its descent as soon as the Night Crew discovered it on the move. Angry shouts filled the air as they rocketed downward, but the journey from the fourth to the first floor was swift.

  With an eerie chime the elevator doors opened. As they parted, the elevator was rocked by a merciless burst of weapons fire. Bullets shredded the aluminum walls like paper as the Night Crew unleashed their anger.

  Kasey waited on top of the elevator, next to Sanders. She could barely breathe.

  "It's empty," A thug shouted. “It’s just a distraction. Radio upstairs and let them know to keep searching. They’re up there somewhere, and we need to find them and kill them, or the boss will have all our heads."

  As the thugs returned to their search, Kasey lifted the elevator hatch and peered down through the gap. Several Night Crew congregated before the elevator. She reached into her pocket and drew out the last of the frag grenade that she had looted from the weapons cache upstairs.

  She pulled the pin and hurled it through the open hatch.

  The grenade skittered along the floor into the waiting Night Crew.

  "Grenade!" someone shouted, but it was too late. The grenade detonated with terminal intensity in the confined space of the hallway. The waiting Night Crew were annihilated.

  Kasey dropped down through the open hatch and whipped her MP5 up to her shoulder.

  Sanders dropped down behind her, AR-15 at the ready.

  The hallway, however, had been decimated. More than a dozen bodies were scattered down its length, some from Kasey's most recent grenade, others from the earlie
r gunfight at the staircase. The Night Crew had fared poorly.

  “Let's go,” Sanders called, leading the way down the hallway, rifle at the ready.

  "Not that door,” Kasey replied. “There are others waiting out front. Let's head out the back, the same way we came in.”

  "They could just as well be waiting for us there too,” Sanders replied.

  Kasey slid a fresh magazine into her MP5. "I have no doubt they will but there is going to be less of them, and we won't be nearly as exposed. We'll only have to watch the alley ahead and the door behind us. We’ll have fewer surprises that way.”

  Kasey led the way toward the alley. Above them, the Night Crew milled about in confusion. She and Sanders made it to the back door without encountering any other resistance. At the door, she hurriedly slipped out into the alley. Sanders followed right behind her.

  She froze.

  Up ahead, two vehicles sat across the mouth of the alleyway. Behind them, half a dozen Night Crew waited, their weapons raised and ready, pointed directly at her.

  The Night Crew opened fire. Kasey dove behind a nearby dumpster, dragging Sanders with her. The steel vessel took the worst of the fire. Bullets ricocheted wildly around the confined alley.

  “Kasey, we can't stay here,” Sanders hissed. “We’ll be killed.”

  "I know. We’re going to have to clear that alleyway.”

  “I need a second to catch my breath,” Sanders panted. “Do you think you can shield us for a few moments while I gather my strength?”

  Crouching behind the dumpster, Kasey was less than enthusiastic, but there was no way out except through the blockade.

  "I can, but I won't be able to hold them for long," she said.

  Sanders sucked in a deep breath. He was fit but clearly not as fit as Kasey. Sweat ran down his brow as he rested against the brick wall.

  Kasey focused her mind and summoned her shield. “Tarian!”

  A shimmering red shield materialized around them.

  If the gangsters were confused by the glowing red shield growing behind the dumpster, it didn't show. They simply continued pumping firepower down the alley in a bid to destroy their elusive targets.