Soul Meaning (A Seventeen Series Novel: An Action Adventure Thriller Book 1) (28 page)

I dipped my chin briskly, jogged down the hall, and turned left at the second intersection.

From what I recalled of the map of the facility, Anna was being held in a room somewhere in that passage.

Doors opened as I sprinted down the corridor; I paid no heed to the scientists fleeing past me. Another containment door appeared at the end. My pulse quickened.

Seconds before I reached it, four Crovir Hunters shot out of an opening to the right.

I snarled and raised the daisho. The immortals barely had time to lift their guns before they fell under my blades.

I lifted an access card from one of the dead men and moved it over the security display next to the door. It glided open with a soft, pneumatic noise.

Two figures in sterile suits looked up from the computer monitor in the room beyond. I ignored them and looked around wildly. My eyes finally found the figure I was searching for behind a glass partition on the left.

‘Open that door!’ I barked, indicating the sealed entrance in the wall.

One of the scientists reached for the phone next to him. He froze when the barrel of a gun touched the back of his head.

‘I would do as he says if I were you,’ said Reid.

The second man gulped and rose to his feet. He crossed the room and typed a code in the security panel, his hand shaking. The door slid aside.

I moved past him into the sterile chamber.

Anna’s eyes opened when I reached the side of the bed. Dark pupils dilated in an ocean of green. ‘Lucas?’

‘I’m here.’ I struggled to keep my voice steady against the wave of emotions surging through me.

A smile tugged at her lips. ‘I knew you’d come for us.’

I took in the dark circles under her eyes and the fresh bruises on her arms and legs. Rage replaced the joy inside my chest. With trembling hands, I undid the leather belts holding her down on the gurney before lifting her gently to my chest. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes,’ murmured Anna. Her body felt fragile under the hospital gown. The sun cross pendant gleamed at the base of her throat. ‘I’m just tired. They’ve taken a lot of blood from me.’ She laid her head on my shoulder and closed her eyes. ‘I thought I’d never see you again.’ A tear slid down her cheek. ‘I never got to tell how much I—’

‘I know.’ I was intensely aware of her heartbeat against my skin.

It felt like coming home.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

T
here was a noise from
the doorway.

‘I hate to rain on your touching parade here folks, but I think we should get going.’

Anatole flashed an awkward grin over his shoulder, the Steyr AUG aimed toward the main door of the lab.

Anna stiffened in my arms. ‘Grandfather!’

‘We haven’t found him yet.’

‘I know where he is,’ said Anna, her voice growing hard.

I turned and carried her to the door.

‘Wait!’ she barked when we crossed the threshold into the outer room.

I froze in my tracks.

‘Put me down,’ Anna commanded.

I hesitated before lowering her to the floor.

She took a few steps toward the scientist cowering behind the desk.

‘Give me your gun,’ she ordered, her eyes never leaving the man’s face while she extended a hand toward me.

I glanced at Reid. He shrugged with an ‘I’d-do-as-she-said-if-I-was-you’ expression. I slipped the Glock from the holster on my hip and slowly placed it in her grasp.

The scientist’s eyes widened behind the visor. A mumble of incoherent words left his lips when Anna raised the weapon and leveled it at his chest. Her arm moved as she fired the gun.

The bullet shattered the computer terminal next to the man. He cried out in shock and collapsed to the floor.

Anna turned to the second scientist and punched him on the jaw.

I stared at her. Anatole gaped. Reid grinned.

‘They’re lucky I didn’t shoot them,’ muttered Anna. She stormed past us.

We joined her in the passage outside and soon reached the intersection with the glass hall.

Anna indicated the passage on the left. ‘This way.’

The labs had emptied in our absence, the scattered paperwork and overturned chairs testimony to the haste of the scientists’ departure. We came to a fire exit. It opened onto an empty, stone stairwell.

‘Up or down?’ I asked Anna.

She frowned. ‘Down. Definitely down. They brought us here by boat.’

The stairs ended at a thick oak door three floors below. The corridor on the other side looked to have been carved out of the very core of the island and was lined with bare rock. Flame torches sat in metal brackets on the walls, casting an eerie, yellow light over the passage.

This far down, the alarms resonating through the facility and the fortress above it were barely audible.

‘Not that I’m complaining or anything, but we haven’t seen anyone for a while now,’ Reid murmured after we had crossed a series of deserted passages. ‘I’m not sure whether to take that as a good sign or a bad one.’

Anatole and I glanced at one another.

‘It’s bad,’ said the red-haired immortal with a firm nod.

‘The Crovirs must be regrouping,’ I said in a low voice.

Though I was elated to have found Anna, nervous anxiety was building inside my chest once more. Our battle was far from over.

‘Yes, but where?’ murmured Anna.

We got our answer sooner than we expected.

Forty seconds later, the corridor ended abruptly on a metal gangway. A vaulted roof appeared some twenty feet above us. The ground dropped away precipitously on either side of the narrow platform. A low rumble of voices rose from below.

We pulled back in the shadows near the opening and looked over the edge of the walkway.

An enormous atrium unfolded beneath us. Wide, circular terraces not dissimilar to those of a Roman amphitheater were spread out over its four levels.

Scores of Crovir Hunters with guns and swords patrolled the floors.

‘The room where they took Grandfather must be somewhere down there,’ said Anna guardedly.

A round, steel and glass cage on metal castors stood in the epicenter of the marble floor at the bottom of the arena. A crowd of Crovir nobles dressed in formal evening wear milled around it, heads bowed while they engaged in muted conversation.

The air was fraught with tension.

An icy premonition rose in my mind as I studied the cage. It was large enough to hold a man.

‘No!’ Anna whispered shakily. I saw my own horror reflected in her eyes.

Anatole frowned. ‘What?’

Reid remained silent, his expression grim.

A hush fell below, drawing our stares. The voices of the Crovir nobles slowly died down; as one, they turned toward a doorway on the left. Footsteps emerged in the distance and grew closer. Several figures appeared over the threshold and crossed the polished floor.

Anna stiffened beside me. I gripped her hand tightly.

My eyes never left the man in the middle of the small procession.

Tomas Godard was led inside the room in chains. Although he looked gaunt and pale, the former leader of the Bastians walked with stiff pride within a circle of Crovir Hunters, his head held high and his limp more evident without the ivory-headed cane.

He stopped when he spotted a familiar face in the crowd. ‘Grigoriye.’ Sadness tinged Godard’s voice. ‘I never imagined that you of all people would betray us so.’

The Bastian noble held the older man’s gaze and shrugged. ‘I’m afraid we need to move with the times, Tomas. What Vellacrus is offering is the future. I would’ve been a fool to refuse her.’

‘Still, I fear you have made a grave mistake,’ said Godard. ‘Vellacrus is not to be trusted.’

Grigoriye frowned.

A storm of murmurs broke across the chamber as more guards filed inside the room; it rose to fever pitch when Agatha Vellacrus and Felix Thorne appeared in the doorway. Although a good proportion of the Crovir nobles still bore anxious expressions, scattered applause erupted in the crowd.

A wave of rage flooded my body.

Vellacrus stopped at the head of the arena and raised her hand.

‘My friends,’ she said once the clapping dwindled to a stop. ‘I am pleased to see you in such good spirits.’

It was the second time I had ever heard my grandmother’s voice; it still sounded cold to my ears.

‘Today is a special day for us Crovirs, for it is the start of a new adventure for our race,’ Vellacrus continued, a zealous expression distorting her features. ‘And what could be a more befitting beginning to this chapter in our immortal history than the death of one of our oldest and most hated enemies?’ She indicated Godard with a hand. ‘I present to you the former leader of the Bastian Hunters, Tomas Godard.’

Applause rose again at her words. Some of the Crovir nobles exchanged troubled glances.

‘For such an esteemed adversary, one must reserve a truly unique death.’ Silence fell once more at Vellacrus’s words. The corners of her lips lifted in a chilling smile. ‘Today, my friends, we shall watch the first of many Bastians die from the Red Death.’

Among the roar of approving voices that followed, one spoke up.

‘Really Agatha, is now the time to be engaging in such dreadful theatrics? We’ve heard rumors that the Bastian army is on its way to this fortress. Shouldn’t we be making plans to evacuate the island?’

The speaker was an elderly woman with pale blonde hair and sharp eyes. She stood her ground defiantly in the face of the critical stares around her.

‘Sylviana is right,’ said a distinguished middle-aged man next to her.

Mutters arose from the gathering. Several nobles nodded in agreement.

Vellacrus cocked an eyebrow. ‘My dear Sylviana, to not wish to see the death of a Bastian could be interpreted as an act of treason against our race. Should I construe it as such?’

The Crovir noblewoman scowled. ‘I will not have you question my loyalty to my race so readily, Agatha.’

Vellacrus stared at her with an unreadable expression. ‘Good,’ she said with a dismissive nod. ‘Then we shall proceed as planned. Felix.’ She turned to Thorne.

The guards removed Godard’s chains. He did not put up a fight when he was escorted inside the cage. The door closed on him with a final, somber toll.

A guard handed Thorne a silver flask. The man who once killed me walked to the side of the glass prison and opened a small compartment built in the steel support. He placed the container inside it.

‘With this, I hope to finally see the end of the Godards.’ A bitter smile twisted the scar on Thorne’s cheek as he gazed at the man inside the cage. ‘Of course, I still need to take care of your delightful granddaughter and that bastard half-breed grandson of yours. Rest assured, I shall take the greatest pleasure in killing them both.’

At this, Godard’s composure finally broke. He took a step toward the wall of his prison, a scowl clouding his face.

‘Don’t you dare lay a finger on them, you monster!’ He turned to Vellacrus. ‘If you have any feeling at all left in that cold heart of yours, Agatha, then let Anna and Lucas live!’

Vellacrus studied Godard impassively. ‘My dear Tomas, why ever should I do that?’

She dipped her chin at Thorne. He pressed a button on the control panel in the metal frame.

The flask moved up into an airlock. A needle came down and perforated the rubber top of the container. There was a faint electronic hum when the liquid inside was aspirated into a glass tubing and started to move up a narrow pipe.

My heart raced against my ribs when I tracked the course of the conduit to a box in the roof of the cage. I slipped my bag off my shoulders.

Reid frowned. ‘What’re you doing?’

I removed a harness from the backpack, stepped inside the straps, and fastened them swiftly to my body. ‘I’m going in.’

Anatole’s jaw sagged. ‘Are you mad?’

I tied one end of a climbing rope to the harness, looped the other to a carabiner, and turned to Anna. I cradled the back of her head with one hand and kissed her fiercely.

The heat of her body warmed my frozen core.

‘I have to do this,’ I whispered against her lips. I pulled back and stared into her eyes.

Anna nodded, her breath catching in her throat. She slipped the Glock in my hand and wiped a tear angrily from her cheek.

‘Live,’ she ordered stiffly.

I looked at Reid. ‘Get off the island if you can.’

‘Will do,’ he murmured with a grimace.

I walked to the middle of the walkway, locked the carabiner onto the handrail, and climbed over. I took a deep breath and gripped the guns tightly in my hands before jumping off the edge of the metal platform.

As I plummeted head down toward the floor of the atrium, I dropped both arms and fired.

The bullets smashed into the ceiling of the cage a second before the liquid in the pipe reached the box in the roof. A fine mist rained down on Tomas Godard.

I squeezed the triggers rapidly, shooting round after round into the cracking glass.

It shattered seconds before I reached it.

I pulled up sharply, hurtled through the jagged opening, and landed in a crouch in the middle of the shard-strewn floor. I raised my head and straightened slowly in the shocked silence that followed.

Panic washed across the faces of the Crovir nobles beyond the glass wall. Terrified cries erupted around the arena. The Crovir Hunters raised their guns and fired at the cage.

‘Stop!’ Thorne roared. ‘The virus is still inside!’

‘Lucas?’ Godard whispered behind me.

I unclipped the rope from my harness, shot through the lock on the door, grabbed my grandfather’s arm, and pulled him out of the prison.

Chaos reigned inside the atrium as the Crovir nobles surged toward the exits; it was obvious from the fear thrumming the air that not all of them had received the vaccine.

A group of Crovir Hunters surrounded us. I holstered the guns and drew the daisho.

‘Stay behind me!’ I barked at my grandfather. He nodded reluctantly.

I shifted into the starting stance of kendo and raised the swords.

The blades flashed under the lights, blocking bullets and slicing through flesh. Three Hunters fell, then five and ten. Another wave appeared. A bullet slipped past my guard and thudded into my vest. Another grazed my thigh. I ignored the wound and took out four more immortals.

Gunfire erupted on the upper floors of the atrium just as the third wave of Crovirs materialized before me. I glanced up. The Bastians had arrived.

Victor soon entered the arena with Bruno and Costas. They fought their way across the floor and were with us in seconds.

‘Glad to see you’re still alive, old man!’ Victor told Godard.

My grandfather smiled weakly.

Costas scowled. ‘Where’s Vellacrus?’

‘She went that way with Thorne.’ I indicated an opening to the left.

‘Anna?’ said Victor.

‘She’s safe. Reid and Anatole are getting her out of here.’

Godard sagged. ‘Thank goodness for that,’ he murmured.

I scanned the faces beyond Victor’s shoulder. ‘What happened to Olsson?’

‘He escaped when we were making our way here,’ came the grim reply.

‘Have you seen Grigoriye?’ asked Costas.

‘Yes. He left with Vellacrus and Thorne.’

Victor hesitated. ‘We have Anna and your grandfather. And we’ve destroyed the labs.’ He looked at me steadily. ‘What we do next is up to you.’

Costas reddened. Before the Bastian noble could burst in a tirade of angry words, I spoke quietly. ‘Let’s finish this.’

‘I agree,’ said Godard darkly.

We left Bruno and the rest of the Bastians inside the arena and headed for the door through which my grandmother and uncle had disappeared. More Crovir guards blocked our path. They perished quickly at our hands.

Victor and Costas lifted swords from the dead men.

A pair of elevators appeared at the end of a corridor. The indicator panel on the left glowed as the cabin ascended into the fortress.

I frowned. ‘There’s a helipad on one of the towers.’

Victor looked at the second lift. ‘They’ll be expecting us if they see this one light up.’

I pressed the call button. The doors slid aside. I entered the cabin and studied the access panel in the ceiling.

‘I have an idea.’

The elevator opened with a soft ping on the highest floor of the castle a short while later. Bullets riddled the interior.

I waited until the roar of gunfire died down before dropping my upper body through the hatch in the ceiling. My shots did not miss a single target.

I stared at the fallen Hunters through the clearing gun smoke before jumping inside the lift. I helped the others down.

We proceeded swiftly along a deserted corridor. A narrow, spiral staircase appeared at the far end. Ominous silence drifted from the turret above.

I poked my head past the opening of the stairwell and pulled back sharply. A bullet whistled past my ear and struck the floor by my feet.

‘Looks like this is the only way up,’ I said grimly.

Further shots pinged off the walls and the steps.

Costas moved toward the stairs. ‘I’ll go first.’

I put a hand on his arm and stopped him in his tracks. ‘I’m the better shot.’

The Bastian noble glared at me for several seconds. ‘Well, I can’t exactly argue with that,’ he muttered in a disgruntled tone.

I clipped a fresh magazine into the chamber of the Smith & Wesson and unsheathed the katana.

‘Be careful,’ warned my grandfather.

I nodded and stepped into the stairwell.

Bullets bounced off the blade as I raced up the steps, Victor and Costas at my back. I raised the gun and fired at the Crovir Hunters on the landing above.