My flashlight continued to explore the cave, finding a series of grotesque, demonic statues.
“Jesus,” Vittoria said, who had appeared behind me.
I slowly stepped up to one of the smooth ice walls. They made me think of the ramparts of an impenetrable, frozen fortress. My eyes raked across the occult carvings. Grotesque images of strange, bestial creatures with slitted eyes and fanged teeth. Monsters. Demons.
I swallowed hard. I didn’t like this one bit.
“What do you make of it?” Vittoria asked.
I shone my flashlight at the stone altar.
“Looks like this cave was a place of worship,” I said.
We retraced our steps and returned to the others. Norton appeared ready to detonate his charges. He eagerly eyed Vittoria, his hand on the detonator.
“Max and I are ready when Hans is. As soon as he switches off the town’s power, we can go ahead and blow a hole into that wall.”
Vittoria nodded and spoke into her headset. “The charges are in place, Hans” she said. “How are things on your end?”
“We’re good to go!” Hans’ voice was laced with static. I guessed the ice cave was messing with the comm’s signal.
Dimitri and the others started to move away from the explosives, seeking refuge behind a cluster of large rocks. Vittoria and I joined them. She nodded at Norton. “Do it!’
Norton punched the detonator, his eyes lighting up like a kid on Christmas eve, and…
KABLAAMM!
A deafening explosion ripped through the tunnel. The ceiling rained rocks and dust and ice.
My ears were ringing, the cave system having amplified the sound waves. I peered up from behind the protective rock formation and fought back a cough. Gradually, the smoke cleared, and my eyes found the newly formed opening in the tunnel.
Vittoria strode up to the dark crater. The darkness beyond the opening was abruptly replaced with light as the bank's power kicked back in. I didn’t hear any alarms, so I guessed that Hans' trick with the power had worked. We were one step closer to breaching the vault.
Vittoria waved me over. I joined her and peered through the fissure in the tunnel floor. The hole led directly into a large chamber. About thirty feet separated the opening from the bank floor below us. I took note of a series of desks with computers. There were tapestries on the walls, red marble floors, antique furniture. It was all very swanky.
Haru sidled up to us. Vittoria nodded at the Japanese woman. “Work your magic.”
A smile lit up Haru’s normally stoic face. There was a dangerous yet alluring quality about her gleeful expression. “I thought you'd never ask.”
With a daredevil grin, she hooked a carabiner clip onto her belt.
“Boys, want to give me a hand here?” She was eying me and Dimitri. The big Russian snatched the other end of the rope and I joined him. I hated being this close to the professional killer but decided it was better to play along at this point. The sooner we got what Taske was after, the sooner I could go home. Who knows what terrible evils plagued the Cursed City while I was wasting time out here? My city needed me, and so did Skulick and Archer. The two people I was closest to in the world had withdrawn into their own misery, constantly pushing me away, but I sensed they needed me to be there for them.
Haru brushed past us and slipped headfirst through the hole Norton had blasted into the tunnel floor. Hanging upside down, she descended like a spider toward the floor while we slowly payed out the rope, muscles straining.
Standing right at the edge of the hole, Vittoria monitored Haru’s descent. She held up a hand at Dimitri and me, and we jerked the rope to a stop right above one of the computer terminals.
Haru extended her hands, fingers reaching out for the computer’s keyboard. I could see her insert a USB drive into the machine. From the angle above the opening, I tried to figure out what she was up to. I received my answer a moment later when Haru’s brother joined us. Shoji took a seat at the edge of the hole and extricated a laptop from his backpack. He propped it up on his lap and wirelessly networked his machine with the bank’s main terminal below.
Shoji's fingers continued to dance across the keys in a dizzying blur. I didn’t need to be a computer geek to know that Haru's USB drive had provided Shoji with access to the bank computer’s network.
Computer schematics flashed across Shoji's laptop, the computer’s flickering terminal painting the tunnel in a bluish light. Data scrolled down the screen, but it meant nothing to me. Give me a summoning spell in Aramaic any day of the week over computer programming languages.
Shoji's face remained stoic, but his eyes glittered with a triumphant fire. “We're in,” he said at last. “The bank’s cameras and surveillance systems are down.”
Down below, Haru unhooked the cable and gracefully landed on the marble floor, arms extended for balance. The beautiful Japanese girl was part ballerina, part ninja. My inner teenage boy was impressed as hell.
Now it was our turn to follow her into the belly of the beast. One by one, we all rappelled into the chamber. My heart hammered wildly in my chest and adrenaline surged—this was my first bank robbery. If we were caught, I’d be spending at least a few decades behind bars. The thought of the law succeeding where Hell had failed was depressing. But, as Skulick liked to remind me, the main difference between a good demon hunter and a dead one was the ability to stay focused on the task at hand. I figured the same thing was true for bank robbers, and I ditched the negative thoughts.
Shoji was the last one to touch down on the bank floor. He glanced at his sister with big, devoted eyes.
“Thanks, babe,” he said.
“You did good,” she told him.
“You're my muse,” Shoji proclaimed.
I turned away from the twins and took in my surroundings. The bank’s account processing office was ornate and impeccably furnished, decorated with classical paintings that most museums in the world would kill for. A gauntlet of statues, which appeared to depict Greek and Roman generals, lined the main corridor, but there were also state-of-the-art computers on every desk and sleek glass panels set into the walls. The place was both modern and archaic in a way that made me feel deeply unsettled, as if I’d fallen out of time.
“I bet those are all originals,” Max said, pointing at a portrait that looked a hell of a lot like a Rembrandt. I had been thinking the same thing.
“Most of this art was stolen by the Nazis and has been lost ever since,” Vittoria explained. Her aloof mask slipped a little as she stared at a painting of a Dutch girl bathed in beautiful golden light. Even the ice queen seemed impressed.
A sudden sound behind us made us all whip our heads around at once. Eight pairs of eyes ticked toward a tall, blond guard as he barreled into the office, machine-pistol leveled at yours truly. Before he could unload his weapon into me…
PFFT, PFFT. Two muffled pops.
The guard's chest erupted, and he collapsed on the floor in a string-cut sprawl.
I whirled. My rescuer turned out to be none other than Dimitri. His brutal features were empty of all emotion as he regarded me.
“Just looking out for my own interests,” he explained. “If Taske is right, only you can break into the vault. And I only get paid if the boss gets what he wants.”
Ah, the simple logic of a born pragmatist.
Vittoria regarded Dimitri, her face all business again. “You know what you and your men have to do.”
Dimitri grinned savagely at her. “You didn't bring me along for my charming personality.”
Dimitri, McManus, and Sanchez jogged out of the exit, weapons leveled.
“So I guess the guards won't be a problem,” Max said, trying to be funny but failing miserably. I wasn’t laughing. I felt complicit. People were dying, and I was on the side of the bad guys. I tried to tell myself I had no choice, that as long as I didn’t pull the trigger myself I wasn’t responsible, but it still bothered me. In a way, I was as much a victim as these guards.
But it didn’t feel that way. Innocent men were dead or dying while I was still here.
Still alive.
Well, at least for the time being. For the moment, they needed me. If Taske was right—and who was I to question the wisdom of a billionaire—only I could grant them final access to the bank’s vault. What would happen once these killers got what they wanted? There was no logical reason for them to keep me alive once I was of no further use to them.
I had to figure a way out of this mess. Fast. One that didn’t end up with Archer dead.
I stared at the bullet-riddled guard sprawled near my feet before shifting my gaze to Vittoria. She had watched the bloodbath in stony indifference. What was her story? Why was she helping Taske? She didn’t strike me as career criminal the way the other members of the team did. Taske must have something on her, and if I found out what, I might be able to use it to my advantage.
“Is all this necessary?” I asked.
“I never took you as the squeamish sort.”
“I kill monsters, not people.”
She almost smiled. “At least now you know what to title your memoirs.” The black humor left her voice. “We can't take any chances here. We have to get out clean.”
There was nothing clean about this job. Machine gun fire echoed through the chamber as the killing continued unabated in other parts of the bank. I clenched my fists in silent, helpless rage. I faced the forces of darkness every day, and I was all too aware of the many horrors they were capable of. Dimitri and his crew served as a sharp reminder that not all monsters were demons borne from the deepest pits of Hell. Man could give the underworld a run for their money any day of the week.
The sound of three sets of approaching footsteps thrust me from my grim musings. Dimitri and his men had returned from their killing spree. Judging by their calm, almost relaxed expressions, their bloodlust had been sufficiently satiated.
McManus patted the stock of his rifle lovingly. “Who the fuck needs pussy when you have an AK-47?”
The Irishman thought he was being funny and perhaps even charming as he leered at Vittoria and Haru. The ladies were smart enough to ignore the bastard, though Vittoria looked like she wanted to punch him. The man was a brute and an idiot, but that didn’t make him less dangerous.
Dimitri rolled his eyes. “It’s done. Now lets’ break into this fucking vault.”
10
Our boots clicked across the bank’s polished marble floor. Vittoria and Dimitri led the way, with me trailing them. Norton, Max, Haru, and Shoji all followed behind us. Sanchez and McManus brought up the rear. Everywhere I looked, I spotted dead bodies. The bank floor looked like a battlefield after the slaughter. Most of the sprawled corpses sported guns, and I figured they had to be the guards. But not everyone had been armed. How many of these people had simply been working late tonight?
As I inhaled cordite and copper, my stomach lurched. This was the cost of Taske’s heist. So many lives had been snuffed out so the old man could carve out a few more years on this planet.
Our group stopped, having reached a dead end. We were facing a stone wall covered in ornately sculpted tiles which almost looked as though they spelled out words in an ancient language. Intrigued, I took a closer look. Up until this point, I had been merely an observer in this heist. My gut told me that was about to change.
In other words, showtime.
The stone wall in front of us radiated an alien energy, somehow out of place in the high-tech banking facility. I couldn’t shake the feeling we were entering a crypt.
“What is this?” Judging by the tone in Dimitri’s voice, the Russian shared my sentiment. His questioning gaze turned toward Vittoria. Her answer was to pull the serpent medallion from her neck and place it in a slot in the wall's pattern of exotic tiles. It was a perfect fit.
Nothing happened. Vittoria had the key, but it would take someone who had been touched by darkness to open the tomblike door.
Someone like me.
My scar had been throbbing ever since we entered the tunnel system and the skin around the old wound felt raw and hot to the touch. Mild discomfort was quickly edging into pain. Black magic forces were at work here.
Frowning, Vittoria handed the serpent medallion to me.
“Your turn.”
No pressure.
I reluctantly accepted the strange, snake-shaped key. This was what they’d brought me along on this crazy ride for in the first place.
Only I could get them past this doorway. Get them into the bank’s inner sanctum. Into the vault.
I weighed the mysterious key in my hand and studied it for a beat. I couldn’t tell what material it was made from. Its surface felt rough and warm to the touch. There was a strangely organic quality to the amulet, almost as if it had been made from bone and skin and was still alive in some inexplicable way. Holding the serpent key in my hand sent waves of agony through my scar. I gnashed my teeth against the pain. I would have to act fast because I couldn’t bear to hold the cursed thing for much longer.
I turned toward the strange doorway and, without further hesitation, inserted the snake talisman into the keyhole. The serpent key seemed to come alive in my hand and elongated as it approached the lock. I bit my lips and stifled the cry building in my throat.
I twisted the key, and the doorway’s magically reinforced locking mechanism gave way with agonizing slowness. My scar was on fire now, the pain as bad as it had been the night the demon had ripped open my chest. Somehow the key was drawing energy from Morgal’s mark, using its vestigial demonic energy to open the door.
Click, click, click. Stone and metal moved inside the mechanism, and the tiles on the massive doorway shifted. They slid in all directions, rearranging themselves until they found the perfect pattern and then, with a clatter, the door opened. Beyond, a narrow corridor stretched into darkness. I sagged against the wall, fighting the urge to wipe my fingers on my pants. I could still feel the horrible warmth of the key in my hand.
“About time,” Vittoria said as she surged past me. There was an eagerness in her eyes, but beneath that there was another emotion. Fear. She wanted to retrieve the object for Taske and get out of this place as quickly as possible.
I couldn’t blame her.
One by one, we all stepped into the hallway. After a minute or so, we moved around a bend in the corridor. Max slowed down next to me, a near religious fervor washing over his face as he let out a low whistle.
The cause was the vault up ahead. Ten feet of titanium alloy glittered in front of us. The vault door was huge, round, and complex in a way that reminded me of a torpedo tube on a submarine.
Max stepped up to the vault like some devout pilgrim approaching the wall of Mecca. His hands touched the steel, admiring its beauty, the challenge inherent in its construction.
“Can you do it?” Vittoria asked, unable to hide her impatience.
Max’s answer was to snap open his backpack and extricate a power drill and a welder torch.
“Will you require any explosives?” she asked.
“People who rely on nitro are bums, not professional safe men,” Max declared with a confidence which bordered on cocky.
Was he that good? Taske surely thought so. A man like him would only hire—or kidnap—the best.
Max paced around the vault, considering it from various angles. Rubbed his knuckles together. He was getting into the zone. Soon, the bluish flame was eating its way through steel. White hot iron sparked.
CLANG! A layer of steel dropped off the door, revealing the mechanical innards of the vault.
Max killed the flame and put the burner down. He reached for the drill while we all watched, selected a bit, changed his mind, and selected another.
“Get the fuck on with it,” McManus growled in his thick Irish brogue.
Haru shushed him with a finger to her lips. The drill began to whine. I followed his every move, completely absorbed in the safecracker’s hypnotic process. In a weird way, Max’s atten
tion to detail made me think of Skulick. Max wore the same look of focused concentration my mentor did when he drew the wards and protective glyphs around our loft. One wrong brushstroke could render them ineffective. Precision was crucial. Max was navigating a world where every detail mattered, where the slightest misstep could spell the difference between success and failure.
I doubted a bomb going off would have pulled Max out of his zone. He was a changed man, his reality reduced to the duel unfolding between his tools and the vault’s locking mechanism.
Vittoria’s face twitched as her eyes impatiently ticked back and forth. She glanced at her watch, a worry line etched between her brows, and then stared at Max’s back as he meticulously selected another tool from his kit.
What is she afraid of? I wondered. Dimitri and his murder squad had taken care of the guards. So what was there to still fear in this bank?
11
I lost all sense of time as the battle between Max and the vault raged on. It had to have been at least an hour since he first turned on the welding arc and began probing the mysteries of the door’s locking mechanism. Vittoria was now pacing, her tension infectious. The other team members, myself included, watched in nervous silence.
Max pressed his ear against the vault door and turned the combination lock. I could almost see the tumblers moving. A beat later, a cocky grin flashed over his face. He obviously liked what he was hearing.
Eyes gleaming with triumph, he turned the vault wheel with all his might, and the massive titanium door slowly swung open.
“Piece of cake,” Max said, beaming.
Vittoria pressed past him and barged into the vault. We all fell into step behind her. I noticed the trepidation on Norton’s face and remembered how he felt about tight spaces. Prison sure had done a number on the guy.
Inside the vault, fluorescent lights illuminated a wall of shiny safety deposit boxes. Thousands of them honeycombed the gleaming steel walls, the rows upon rows of identical boxes dizzying to behold. Vittoria scanned the numbers for a specific box, her lips moving as she silently counted.
Shawdow Detective Box Set, Vol. 2 [Books 4-6] Page 6