Life is for the Living

by S. C. Stokes

  “I like your optimism,” Kasey chuckled without humor. “You make it sound easy.”

  “No, easy would be leaving him in there. But then we’d need a new ME and training them is just the worst,” Bishop replied, setting off down the alley.

  “Hey!” Kasey called after her.

  “Come on, slowpoke. We don’t have any more time to waste.”

  Kasey took off after Bishop. They made their way along the alley toward where it met East 5th Street. At the alley’s end was the side entrance to the 9th Precinct.

  Bishop lifted her ID card from its place on a lanyard around her neck and slid it through the reader. There was a metallic click as the lock disengaged. She eased the door open an inch so that she could steal a peek inside the station’s lobby.

  Kasey angled for a look of her own but couldn’t make out anything with Bishop in front of her.

  “We have one shooter inside,” Bishop whispered. “He’s camped behind the counter watching the station’s main entrance. Anyone comes through the front door, they are going to have a less than friendly reception.”

  “Good thing we aren’t planning on walking through the front door, then,” Kasey said.

  “True, but when backup arrives, they will. He’s gotta go,” Bishop said, still peering through the crack. “You pull the door. I’ll take the shot.”

  “Got it.” Kasey stepped around Bishop and gingerly took the handle. “Tell me when.”

  “On three. One, two, three,” Bishop counted as she raised her Glock.

  Kasey pulled the door wide, and Bishop fired twice. The shooter keeled over.

  Bishop crouched low and entered the lobby. Kasey followed her in, scanning the lobby for signs of any other shooters.

  The lobby was a mess. She counted three officers down, though they had put up a fight. Two of the masked attackers had been dropped just inside the front door.

  “We’re clear,” Bishop called. “The rest of them must be upstairs still.” She released the clip on her Glock and loaded a fresh magazine. Then she halted, staring at the man she had just shot. “Hey Kasey, we need more firepower. Take my Glock.” She held out her weapon. “This needs to be the last time you’re not carrying yours.”

  “Got it,” Kasey answered, taking the weapon.

  Bishop strode over to the downed shooter. Bending over, she grabbed the man’s weapon. It was an MP5 sub-machine gun. Bishop checked the magazine. It was loaded.

  “This will do nicely. Let’s get Vida.”

  “Yep,” Kasey said, her Glock looking like a toy next to Bishop’s MP5. “Let’s get him out of there.”

  MP5 in hand, Bishop charged across the lobby, past the elevators to the station’s internal stairs. Kasey studied the floor readouts. They showed elevators on the second and third floor.

  Opening the door to the stairs, Bishop checked the landing. “We’re clear.”

  Bishop charged down the stairs, and Kasey followed after, guns raised and ready. Encountering no resistance, they arrived at the basement.

  “The elevators were on the 2nd and 3rd floor. We should be clear. Let’s grab Vida and get out of here,” Kasey said.

  “Yep, let’s move. The quicker the better.”

  Kasey cracked open the door. The corridor leading to the morgue was empty.

  She took it at a run. “Vida!”

  She burst into the morgue. It was empty, the bodies of Wendel Samson and his accomplice had been moved to the refrigeration units.

  “Vida, where are you?”

  The room was empty, but the door leading to his office was shut. She darted to it, then twisted the handle and pushed it open.

  She stopped short. “You have to be kidding me.”

  “What’s up?” Bishop asked, catching up to Kasey.

  “See for yourself,” Kasey said, stepping aside.

  Vida was sitting at his computer, headphones on, bobbing away as he pounded at his keyboard. Facing away from the door, he hadn’t seen them enter.

  Kasey made her way over to Vida and pulled on the earphones.

  “Hey, hey,” Vida yelled, swatting at Kasey’s hand.

  Vida turned in his chair and spotted Bishop. His eyes wandered from Bishop to the MP5 in her hands.

  “What on earth is going on?”

  “The station is under attack,” Bishop replied. “We need to get out of here. Now!”

  His eyes widened.

  “W-what? Who?” he stammered.

  “Skyler’s friends,” Kasey replied knowingly. “And they aren’t playing games. We have officers down, maybe a dozen. The fighting is still going on upstairs, but when they are done there, they are going to come looking for Skyler. We can’t be here when they do.”

  Vida whipped the headphones off and looked about frantically. Standing up, he grabbed his bag and began to stuff paperwork into it.

  Bishop stepped in. “Vida, none of that matters now. Leave it. We’ll be back.”

  “R-right,” Vida said.

  Kasey wrapped her arm around Vida’s shoulders and steered him to the door. “Let’s go.”

  Together, Kasey and Bishop guided him out of his office and through the morgue.

  “Come on, Vida,” Bishop said as they stepped into the hallway. “We have to pick up the pace. We’re sitting ducks in here. We need to make it to the services entrance.”

  “Too late,” Kasey said, pointing to the elevators.

  They stopped dead. The elevator’s floor readout was on the move.

  Kasey’s heart pounded in her chest. Her palms went clammy as she recalled the masked assailants that burst from the lift on the second floor.

  She measured the distance to the elevator. The service entrance sat just beyond it.

  There is no way we’ll make it in time.

  “Back into the morgue, Kasey,” Bishop shouted. When Kasey didn’t move, Bishop pushed her. “Now!”

  “There’s no way out,” Kasey said. “We’ll be stuck.”

  “We’re better off in there than out here. It’s a solid box of steel and concrete. We’ll hold down the fort until backup arrives. Henley will have reached dispatch already. Reinforcements will be here in minutes. Ten at the most,” Bishop reassured them.

  “I remember the gala,” Kasey whispered. “Ten minutes will be an eternity when the bullets start flying.”

  Bishop nodded. “Better get inside then.”

  Kasey watched as Bishop grabbed Vida and pushed him back into the morgue. Bishop paused at the door. Reaching over, she cut the lights in the hallway, plunging it into semi-darkness. Only the faint green glow of the exit sign provided any illumination.

  Turning, Bishop pulled the door until it was almost closed.

  Against the silence of the morgue, the crisp ding of the elevator rang clearly.

  The Shinigami were here.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Bishop raised her MP5 to shoulder height and sighted her weapon on the elevator. As the elevator doors began to open, Bishop’s trigger finger tightened. Bishop’s mouth drew into a thin line.

  “Welcome to the Ninth Precinct, you…”

  The rest of Bishop’s sentence was cut off by the sound of the MP5 opening up on the elevator. Even under pressure, Bishop was cool, calm, and collected, firing three round bursts into the elevator with clinical precision. Where others might have gone to town on elevator on full-auto, Bishop was making the most of every shot. Her calculated bursts turned the elevator into a death trap. The sound of the MP5 echoed around the morgue. The noise was deafening.

  Kasey couldn’t see the elevator with Bishop blocking the door, but every moment Bishop fired, her spirits soared.

  Suddenly, gunfire erupted from the elevator.

  Clearly, some of the Shinigami had survived Bishop’s onslaught. Now they were pissed.

  Bishop pushed the morgue’s steel door shut. Bullets slammed into the other side of the door, setting off a cacophony of ricochets. The darkened corridor leading to the morgue was being shred
ded. Bishop slid the door’s lock into place.

  “That ought to give them something to think about,” Bishop said as she turned to Kasey. Bullets continued to hammer into the door.

  “How many are there?” Kasey asked.

  “There was half a dozen. Now I’d say three, four tops. I dropped two of them for sure. If the third is still breathing, he won’t be happy.”

  Another round of bullets slammed into the door.

  “They can see the door’s shut, so why do they keep firing?” Kasey asked.

  “It’s covering fire,” Bishop replied not taking her eyes off the door. “If they want to advance on the morgue, they have little to no cover. They are trying to discourage me from opening the door and taking another shot at them.”

  “Will you?” Kasey prompted.

  Bishop shook her head. “No, too great a risk. Hard to tell where they are situated until we crack the door, and when we do they will be ready for it. We’re better off bedding down in here and waiting for reinforcements. They’ll still have to breach the door and I didn’t see any explosives, just guns. It may hold.”

  Bishop approached one of the examination tables. Without hesitation she threw her weight against the table, flipping it over. It slammed into the ground, the hollow clang reverberating through the morgue.

  “What was that for?” Vida asked.

  Bishop didn’t slow down. Instead, she tipped over the second table. Surgical implements skittered across the floor as she replied, “Cover, Vida. We’re going to need something to shield us just in case they make it through the door.”

  “Oh, they are coming through it,” Kasey answered. “It’s only a lock. That’s not going to hold them for more than a few moments.”

  “What makes you so sure?” Bishop replied. “I just dropped two of them. Maybe three. That is going to slow them down.”

  “I don’t think so. These are the guys that set Samson on the gala, and then gunned him down when they were through with him. They aren’t going to care that we killed a few of their lackeys. They think we have Skyler, and when they work out she’s dead, they are going to make sure we join her.”

  Bishop stopped and turned on Kasey. “What makes you so sure? We know next to nothing about this crew. They don’t seem to give a damn about killing people, so what makes you think they care that much about one of their own? What makes her worth more than the three I just shot?”

  Kasey shifted her weight slowly, leaning away from Bishop. She had answers to those questions, but there was no way Bishop would believe her, and Kasey wouldn’t risk the ADI coming after Bishop.

  It was bad enough that Vida had discovered her secret. She still hadn’t worked out what she was going to do about him. If the Arcane Council discovered Vida, the consequences would be dire. They had warned as much after the incident with Brad Tescoe. If she kept up her current pattern, the whole Ninth Precinct would know her secret in no time.

  If the Shinigami come through that door, I may not have a choice. The council’s wrath beats certain death at this point.

  With no answers she was willing to give, Kasey looked at Vida.

  He simply stared back at her, his head tilted to one side. He seemed to be mouthing the words ‘tell her’ as his eyes bored into hers.

  “Kasey,” Bishop nudged. “What is it you aren’t telling me?”

  “Um,” Kasey stalled, not sure what to say, she plunged her head into her hands.

  “Kasey,” Bishop pressed. “what’s with the secrets? We’re a team, remember?”

  “It’s got nothing to do with those gun toting maniacs, Bishop,” Kasey said as she ran her hand through her hair to get it out of her face.

  “Well, that’s not entirely true,” Vida interjected. “Come on, Kasey. It’s Bishop. She needs to know, before they kill us all.”

  Bishop turned on him. “What do I need to know? You better tell me, Vida, or I swear…”

  “You’ll what?” he asked. “Kill me? Pretty sure the folks in the hall have that one covered.”

  Bishop fumed, pacing back and forward behind the upturned tables. “I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it. I’m here risking my life and you two can’t even tell me what is going on.”

  “Not every secret is meant to be shared, Bishop. Some things you are better off not knowing,” Kasey said. Running for the other examination table.

  Vida got the hint and scurried after her.

  “If we get out of here, I’m not going to forget about this, Kasey. You’re going to have to spill it eventually.”

  Kasey shook her head. “If we make it out of here alive, it’s proof you didn’t need to know in the first place.”

  Bishop’s face was red, and her scowl deepened. It seemed as if she was about to break, but Kasey held out. She’d had no choice with Vida. She would not endanger Bishop if she could avoid it.

  Surely backup will be here any moment.

  Awkward silence descended on the morgue. Kasey strained to hear if there was any activity in the hallway. If the Shinigami were moving, they were doing so silently. All she could hear was the steady thumping of her own heart in her chest.

  The handle on the door began to turn. Kasey gulped. Time was up.

  A metallic click issued from the door as the handle stopped. The lock held.

  Three heavy thuds rang out from the door.

  “They’re knocking?” Vida whispered. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Shhh,” Bishop replied, holding up a finger. “Don’t answer. They are fishing for information.”

  There was a gurgling retch as someone in the hallway cleared their throat.

  A man’s voice filled the morgue. “We have come for Mina. Give her to us and we will leave. No one else needs to die today.”

  “That must be Skyler’s real name,” Bishop whispered. “Finally, a lead.”

  “Fat lot of good it will do us now,” Kasey replied.

  When no one responded, the voice called again. “This is your last chance. Give us Mina, or we will kill you and clamber over your corpse to get her back. The result will be the same.”

  Bishop racked her MP5 and readied it. Before Kasey could stop her, Bishop ignored her own advice and hurled her retort at the steel door. “Well, that’s a shame. Your poor Mina got hit by a cab and now she’s roadkill, or at least she was until these two clowns incinerated what was left of her.”

  “Your lies are pointless. We can sense her even now. Send her out, or we will come in and take her,” the man said.

  What do they mean sense? Kasey wondered.

  “I would take the former. You won’t live through the latter,” a woman’s voice added.

  “Sense her?” Bishop asked. “Who the hell are these wierdos?”

  “Shinigami,” Vida answered. “Some bizarre Japanese death worshippers...”

  “Vida!” Kasey clamped her hand over his mouth to cut him off.

  “Enough, Kasey,” Bishop snapped. “What’s he talking about?”

  The voice called again from the hall. “This is your last chance. Release Mina or die.”

  Bishop turned to Kasey. “Why are they so certain she’s here? You guys sent the body to be destroyed, right?”

  Vida looked at Kasey. “Well…”

  “It was destroyed, but we didn’t send it out,” Vida replied. “We did it here just to be sure. What’s left of her is in the medical incinerator.”

  Bishop’s face was aghast. “Here? What? How?”

  “It doesn’t matter right now,” Kasey replied. “She’s gone. Nothing but ashes left, I assure you.”

  The woman’s voice called again. “What is your choice? Your time is up. Mina or your lives.”

  “Bishop, even if we had her, they would still kill us. They have killed everyone they have come across. We just need to stall them for as long as we can.”

  “That, or trick them into doing something stupid,” Bishop replied, taking aim at the door.

  “What are you doing?” Kasey wh
ispered.

  Bishop paid her no heed. Instead, she hollered at the morgue’s door, “We’d love to send Mina out. There’s just one problem. She’s dead.”

  “I think not,” the husky voice replied. “As I told you before, we can sense her presence.”

  “I hate to disappoint you, but this is the morgue. All you can sense is her barbecued remains and there isn’t much of them either. I could probably cram the ashes into a cup for you.”

  The voice bellowed through the door. “Enough! Surrender now. Your deaths, while certain, need not be painful.”

  Bishop was relentless. “Come on, guys, we’re a police force not a funeral parlor. What will you do with them anyway? Bury them or scatter her at sea?”

  The woman’s voice lilted through the door. “Silence! I promise you will beg for mercy, and it will not come.”

  “Tempting,” Bishop said, sighting her MP5 on the door. “Final offer, we’re fresh out of urns, but if you give me a moment, I’ve got a half-finished Frappuccino here. I’ll polish it off and we’ll send out what’s left of Mina.”

  The hall was silent.

  “Hmm,” Bishop muttered. “I was thinking that would have done the trick.”

  “What were you hoping for?” Vida whispered.

  “I was hoping they would be angry enough to beat in the door. The less coordinated their assault, the better the chance we have of living through it.”

  “And now?” Vida asked.

  “They are likely mustering their forces and preparing to blow the door,” Bishop replied. “Keep your head down.”

  A tingle ran down Kasey’s spine. Closing her eyes, she focused her mind on the sensation to be sure.

  Magic, and it’s building in power.

  With one hand, she yanked Vida down until his butt hit the tile floor of the morgue.

  “Ow,” he protested.

  “Bishop, get down. It’s about to blow!” Kasey shouted.

  “How do you know?” Bishop asked.

  “Trust me!” Kasey pleaded.

  “Says the one keeping secrets,” Bishop replied, eyes fixed on the morgue’s door.

  “This is not the time, Bishop. If they blow that door, where do you think the shrapnel’s going?”