Prologue: Kristallnacht
“Almost done yet?”
“I’m going as fast as I can.”
“Then go faster.”
The man grumbled and went back to work at the windows, tracing his fingers along the smooth surface of the glass seemingly without purpose while the woman kept watch for opposition.
The man was clothed simply in a black jacket over a black shirt, with black trousers to match. The true anomaly was his shoes, scuffed black and white things with red and blue laced through the surface.
The woman was dressed more elegantly in a knee length black skirt and neat black boots. The dress showed off her tall, thin body perfectly, the rest of her pale legs covered by black fishnet stockings. A scuffed ivory mask with a claw like hole carved down the left cheek held back her hair painfully but efficiently, allowing only a few white gold locks to sift through. What could be seen of her face was masked in a thick white powder, and her lips adorned with black lipstick.
Looking up to the night sky, she was surprised to see there were actually a few stars visible, and the sky was a dark navy as opposed to its usual impenetrable black. It was a clear night, but cold, and her attire wasn’t helping in keeping the chill out. But that was the least of her concerns right now.
There was a small tinkle from behind, almost inaudible had it not been so late at night that the streets were abandoned. The woman wheeled around instantly, eyes narrowed and cautious as she saw a small crack form on the window. The man who had been working on it looked almost like a deer caught in the headlights of an approaching car as the crack expanded, white spiderwebs crawling rapidly along the once smooth surface, making it rough and ugly.
Before the woman could do anything, though of course the window was shivering in its efforts to hold the fragmented glass together at this point, a siren blared from the structure, deafening the two figures standing outside. The woman winced, causing her ivory mask to slip a little, but the man took his finger off the window and fell on his rear with a grunt, scrambling backwards as the piercing shriek continued ceaselessly.
At that exact moment, any hope of the glass maintaining its composure vanished, and the window collapsed into dozens of glazed shards, reflecting the gaudy orange haze from the streetlights looming above.
The woman grunted softly as the man scrambled to his feet and into the building, a silver suitcase in hand. The sounds of banging and crashing could be heard, melding into a practical crescendo with the still blaring alarm.
While the man went to his noisy work, the woman kept an eye on the roads. Mist was beginning to gather in the night sky, smearing out the stars so that only the dim streetlights gave any possibility of vision.
And yet, the mists on the gravel roads were changing. A gold tinge not created by the streetlights was forming, swirling in beautiful yet distorted patterns, as though it was more smoke than wind. The woman had learned to read these patterns, and was immediately wary.
“Company,” she called, her deep, clear voice just about clearing the sounds from within the building. The man was clumsy, but at the very least instinctive. He heard her and made his way out, careful not to hurt himself on the glass shrapnel littering the ground.
The woman reached for a thick leather belt keeping her dress in form, flipping open a small object and holding it tightly in her fist.
The golden smoke began to glow, thinning and evaporating into a radiant golden ray of light; a hole torn in the fabric of space itself. And from this tear stepped three figures. All tall, heavily built, and dressed entirely in black. Thick jackets and t-shirts to protect from cold, and black boots, durable and designed for longevity. They looked almost like the man who had broken into the store just now, but more streamlined. Cleaner, somehow.
The woman stepped forward, one fist clenched; the right. “Go on. I’ll be right behind you.” Her voice was almost an inaudible whisper, particularly with the alarm still echoing into the streets, but he heard it, and immediately took off at a run, suitcase swinging behind him. The men who had just emerged from the tear immediately produced silver handguns from their dark garbs, pointing them at the man’s retreating back.
“Ah ah ah.” The woman stepped in the line of fire, and the men faltered at the sudden intervention, but quickly took a firm grip of the cold holsters again, aiming them at her face. “Your opponent is little old me.” She paced up and down, smiling softly through her mask at the trio as the barrels of the gun followed her slow, concentrated movements. “Now which one of you will I drag to hell with me?”
At this the men hesitated, their rigid training given over to human uncertainty as they looked at each other, and at this the woman made her move, throwing the object in her fist to the ground. A small hissing sound, inaudible over the siren, emerged from the point of contact as the smoke bomb hit the ground and burst open, releasing copious plumes of black gas that obscured even the streetlights and sank over the mist, and the men, unprepared, immediately inhaled in shock, delivering the smoke straight to their lungs and unleashing a violent hack of a coughing fit.
A single, whip like crack sounded from somewhere above, and a gargled yell could be heard, before a streak of scarlet shot through the air and burst on the woman’s mask, sending a smear of lifeblood across her mask and neck, staining a free lock of whie blond hair a rusty scarlet.
Good, the sniper had lived up to his word. His aim was remarkable. One down.
Turning her back on the other two men, still coughing, she set off at a remarkable pace, leaving the smoke and the alarm in her wake as she ran through deserted streets, parked cars gathering water vapour as her feet smacked on asphalt. However, no immediate escape route presented itself. To her left and her right, there were only buildings, and she couldn’t climb one fast enough.
And behind her was the sound of two more sets of footsteps, meaning the men had escaped the smoke cloud and the sniper. How galling. For their hesitation earlier, they certainly caught on fast.
A second crack exploded from the rooftops, louder without the alarm to mar it. But instead of the satisfying thunk of lead of flesh and the splatter of crimson blood, there was only the repeated sound of glass shattering, and the woman intensified her pace. That would be the last shot the sniper could get in. They were almost out of range.
And now the sounds of smaller, blunter thuds could be heard. Her pursuers were firing their own handguns into the night. Thanks to the fact that both she and they were on the move, it wasn’t an easy shot, and she zigzagged to make their accuracy worse still, before an opening presented itself and she dived into the alleyway, making such a sharp ninety degree turn that she would have fallen with even the slightest lack of precision.
The black asphalt changed to grey rock as she stepped onto a path, running through the alleyway and tipping over trashcans to slow her pursuers, keeping short, rhythmic breaths to maintain her running speed as best she could. The new surface gave her better traction, but she couldn’t keep it up forever. Making another sharp turn, she streaked to the right, running through the narrow space and-
Dead end.
A large granite wall stopped her on all 3 sides. Deciding hastily to retrace her steps, she turned back to find her pursuers hurtling down the alleyway towards her.
The hail of bullets was immediate and shocking, and the woman threw herself to the side as the hot lead surged towards her, behind a large dumpster that had been miraculously pushed out a little. The impact jarred most of her body and ripped open her fishnet stockings, elbows and knees, releasing a font of thin blood. She reached for her own gun, a thin black pistol; so thin it seemed almost fragile, ignoring the unwelcome wellspring of pain.
As she prepared for a shootout, the sounds of a third pair of footsteps reached her ears, and she looked out from the corner of her eye to see who it was without putting herself in a vulnerable position.
After doing so, she immediately stood up and strode towards the men, just in time to see the taller of the two struck down by a heavy silver blur. As the smaller one turned around, yelling in shock, the woman took her chance, grabbing the man by his chest and pulling him close to her. The last attack had left him so disoriented he didn’t resist, and the black handgun was raised, placed and fired through his throat with little resistance, sending messy spurts of blood through the air.
As her rescuer looked up, shaking from behind his bloodstained briefcase, she smiled shortly with a nod. “How much did we get?”
“A-about a thousand. M-maybe more,” he murmured, before turning his fearful gaze towards the taller pursuer, who had landed on his back, eyes closed, blond hair covered in dust and stones. “I-is he dead?”
The woman looked at the man for a brief second, making him look away in discomfort before she bent down beside the prone form, feeling his neck with her two longest fingers before standing back up.
A bullet slammed into his skull, and his eyes opened, lolling for a brief second in the short death throe he was permitted before his head tilted to the side, a small pool of red spreading out from the corpse. “Now he is.”
The man paled visibly at this, mouth opening and closing wordlessly for a few moments before he came out with; “What do we do with the bodies?”
“We do nothing,” replied the woman nonchalantly, putting the pistol away. “Except get out of here as fast as possible. They’ll have a tracker on you quicker than you can blink if you hang around the dead ones too long. They sent em and they can clean them up too. Let’s move.”
Without another word, she made her way out of the narrow space, wiping nonchalantly at the blood on her mask as she did so. Hesitating for a brief moment, the man followed her, holding the suitcase in one hand and his arm in the other, clearly uncomfortable. But he wouldn’t say anything. After all, it was him or them. Yes. That was what he had been taught.
Him or them.
