Soul Meaning (A Seventeen Series Novel: An Action Adventure Thriller Book 1) (29 page)

Shots thudded into the rock next to me. Stone chips erupted from the walls and cut the skin on my face and hands. I blinked and kept going.

The last immortal fell under my sword a moment later. I crouched at the top of the stairs and scanned the hallway ahead. It was empty. We regrouped and headed silently down it.

Voices reached my ears after twenty feet. My knuckles whitened on the handle of the blade. I reached the end of the passage and turned the corner.

Shock immobilized my limbs. My breath froze in my throat.

A circular room crowned the top of the tower ahead. Lancet windows dotted its thick walls and looked out on what remained of the night. The sound of distant waves drifted from the ocean far below.

Agatha Vellacrus and Felix Thorne were almost at the other side of the chamber, Grigoriye close on their steps. A twin-engine Bell 222 stood waiting on a helipad in the middle of the terrace beyond an open doorway.

My heart thudded erratically as I stared at the other figures in the room.

Olsson was holding a gun to Anna’s head a dozen feet to my left.

‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured brokenly.

Fear formed a hard lump in my throat as I met her tortured gaze. ‘Reid?’

Olsson sneered. ‘He’s dead! I shot him and that other mongrel immortal!’

I was moving before he finished talking.

‘Put your weapon down or I’ll shoot her!’ Olsson shouted. He stepped back and dragged Anna with him.

She struggled in his grip and glanced frantically to where Vellacrus and Thorne were disappearing through the exit. ‘You have to stop them! They still have the virus!’

Victor and Costas charged across the room.

The wakizashi left my hand and spun through the air. It thudded into Olsson’s right shoulder a heartbeat later. He gasped and stumbled against the wall. His finger moved on the trigger of his Colt. The bullet left the barrel in a flash of light.

It hurtled past Anna’s head and struck the ceiling.

I lifted the Smith & Wesson and shot Olsson in the chest. Blood bloomed on his torso. His eyelids fluttered closed and he slumped to the floor.

Anna bolted across the room and fell into Godard’s waiting arms. ‘Grandfather!’

They hugged each other fiercely.

The sound of clashing blades erupted from the other side of the tower, where the two Bastian nobles had engaged Grigoriye and Thorne. There was no sign of Vellacrus.

I headed for the fighting men just as Grigoriye fell beneath Costas’s blade. My eyes widened. I opened my mouth to shout out a warning.

Thorne’s sword slipped past Victor’s guard and pierced his abdomen. A stunned gasp left the Bastian’s lips; he blinked and froze. Thorne pulled the blade out and moved to strike again.

The katana blocked the edge of his sword an inch from Victor’s neck.

‘This is between you and me, Uncle!’ I hissed.

Costas moved to Victor’s side and lowered the bleeding immortal to the floor.

Thorne glared at me. A twisted smile distorted his features. ‘Indeed it is,
Nephew!
’

His blade glided up mine and curved toward my chest. I jumped back and grasped the katana in a double-handed grip.

Thorne attacked viciously, his sword missing my flesh by a hairbreadth time and time again as we danced around the tower. I fought back just as savagely, the katana singing through the air and blocking his every move.

Motion caught my eyes. A figure had appeared in the doorway to the terrace.

It was Vellacrus.

Gun in hand, she strode toward Anna and my grandfather where they knelt on the ground and tended to Victor. My lips parted on a cry that never came.

Steel flashed ahead of me. Thorne’s blade hummed millimeters past my face. I ducked and dropped to the floor. He moved forward with a hungry expression and brought his sword down with a harsh grunt.

The blade glinted as it fell toward me. I rolled and felt sparks ignite against my skin when it struck the floor next to my head. Blood roared in my ears as I swung my foot around and kicked Thorne in the leg.

He staggered against the wall, a curse leaving his lips. He straightened, took a step forward, and rocked to a standstill. Gray eyes widened in dull incomprehension.

‘No!’ screamed Vellacrus from across the floor.

Thorne’s gaze dropped to the katana buried in his chest.

Vellacrus’s features crumpled in a mask of fury. She raised her gun and shot Godard in the back. The latter gasped and collapsed on the floor. Anna cried out in horror.

My head whipped round at a low chuckle.

‘Looks like you still lose, half-breed,’ Thorne gasped mockingly.

Rage darkened my vision. I yanked the katana out of his heart and watched him drop to his knees. He fell forward with a thud. Blood pooled in a growing crimson tide beneath his body.

I turned and strode toward my grandmother.

Vellacrus’s hand shifted.

My eyes widened. I started to run.

Anna rose in front of our grandfather’s still form and glared defiantly into the barrel of the pistol.

My heart leapt in my throat. Arms and legs pumping through air that suddenly felt too thick, I waited for the sound of the shot, knowing I would be too late to stop it.

It never came.

Agatha Vellacrus froze. Blood drained from her face.

‘That necklace! Where did you get it?’ she shouted, pointing the gun at the sun cross pendant on Anna’s chest.

I staggered to a halt several feet from the frozen tableau.

Anna’s necklace had fallen out of the top of the hospital gown. She raised a hand and touched the thick gold with the tips of her fingers. ‘It belonged to my mother,’ she retorted.

‘Impossible!’ barked Vellacrus. ‘I gave Cecil that pendant on his eighteenth birth—’ She stopped abruptly. Her eyes widened. She turned to Tomas Godard.

Our grandfather’s eyes opened. There was a triumphant look in his blue gaze.

‘You knew?’ said Vellacrus, disbelief dropping the pitch of her voice.

‘Yes,’ Godard replied with more than a trace of satisfaction.

‘Knew what? What is it?’ said Anna. She stared in confusion from our grandfather to Vellacrus.

Godard turned his head toward Anna.

‘I’m sorry, child,’ he murmured, his expression sorrowful.

‘What do you mean?’ Anna whispered.

Godard coughed and took a labored breath. ‘Do you recall how I told you all those years ago that I didn’t know who your father was?’

Anna nodded tremulously.

Godard gripped her hand. ‘I lied.’

‘What?’ gasped Anna. ‘But—but why?’

A sudden intuition blasted through my consciousness. My heart thudded erratically inside my chest.

‘Because your father was Cecil Thorne, Agatha’s eldest son,’ breathed Godard. Tears shimmered in his eyes.

Anna stared at our grandfather. ‘That’s—I—I don’t understand!’

‘Cecil and Lily met when Balthazar and Catarine married.’ Coughs racked Godard’s thin frame once more, air leaving his throat in harsh rasps. A sliver of blood trickled past his lips. ‘They kept their relationship a secret for almost two hundred years.’

Anna sagged on the floor, her expression stunned.

‘Shortly after your birth, Cecil passed away. Your mother followed him to the grave two years later.’ Godard raised a bloodied hand and touched Anna’s face with shaking fingers. ‘I’m sorry I never told you, child,’ he whispered, anguish distorting his voice. ‘After what happened with Lucas, I thought it best to keep your existence a secret.’

Realization dawned on Vellacrus’s face. She glanced from Anna to me, her eyes wild. ‘Then that means—’

‘Yes!’ hissed Godard. ‘The precious blood you wanted, the one that would have made your plans come true? It was running through our grandson’s veins all along!’

At these words, Agatha Vellacrus finally snapped. A savage cry left her throat and she leveled the gun at Godard’s head.

Her finger never squeezed the trigger.

She turned slowly and stared at me for fathomless seconds. My vision blurred when I looked into gray eyes that were a mirror copy of my father’s.

It was the closest I had ever been to my grandmother.

I stepped back and pulled the katana out of her chest. She crumpled to the ground, anger clouding her face even in death.

My fingers loosened on the handle of the blade. The sword clattered to the stone floor.

I dropped to my knees by my grandfather’s side, my heart hammering painfully inside my ribcage. Blood still poured from the wound in his back.

‘How—’ I whispered brokenly, glancing at Anna.

Tears pooled in her eyes and ran down her cheeks. ‘He has already died sixteen times.’

Anna cradled our grandfather’s head in her lap, the crystal drops landing softly on his face.

Tomas Godard blinked. A small smile stretched his lips.

‘It’s my time to go,’ he said with a trace of relief. ‘I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long.’

The blue eyes shifted to me, pupils dilating darkly as he beheld something I could not see. He reached out and squeezed my hand.

‘I’m so glad we had this time together. I want you to know that I always loved…you.’ The words left his lips on a sigh. His arm dropped to the floor.

Anna buried her face in his chest, her muffled sobs filling the room.

Numbness spread through me as I gazed at the man who had come to mean so much to me.

Victor reached across and clasped Godard’s fingers tightly, his face pale with grief.

‘We should—’ Costas started in a gruff voice a moment later.

A gunshot blasted through the tower. I spun around, the Smith & Wesson in one hand while my fingers closed on the handle of the katana.

Reid stood inside the entrance to the castle. He lowered the Glock with a wince and clutched at the wound beneath his left clavicle.

My gaze shifted to the far side of the chamber.

Olsson slumped against the wall, his eyes wide beneath the bullet wound in his forehead.

‘I told him I was gonna shoot him,’ Reid muttered.

Shocked relief washed over me, taking away some of the numbness. ‘You’re alive.’

Reid grimaced. ‘Yeah, well, it’ll take more than a bunch of immortals to get rid of me. Besides, someone has to watch your back.’

His face darkened when he saw the still figure between Anna and me.

Anatole appeared behind him. Blood oozed from a nasty wound in the immortal’s right flank.

‘What did we miss?’ he asked with a grin. His expression sobered when he looked around the room. ‘Oh. A lot, by the looks of it.’

Footsteps pounded the corridor outside the tower. Reznak and Friedrich rushed in with a crowd of Crovirs and Bastians.

‘The rest of your father’s army just arrived!’ Reznak told Victor. ‘We’ve secured the island!’

He stopped when he saw the bodies on the floor. A sad light dawned in the Crovir noble’s eyes as he beheld Tomas Godard’s unmoving form.

Victor pushed away the helping hands around him and slowly climbed to his feet, his fingers clasped to his abdomen.

‘Make sure we destroy the virus,’ he ordered. ‘Vellacrus still had some with her.’

He joined me when I rose silently from the floor with the body of my grandfather cradled in my arms. We walked out onto the rooftop, Anna on my other side.

Up ahead, the sun rose on a new day, pale fingers of light flaring across the horizon and turning the sea crimson. A dark spot appeared on the bright orb.

It grew rapidly as a flock of crows descended from the heavens.

Part Three: Resolution

Epilogue

T
he sound of an engine
disturbed the lazy silence of the afternoon. I looked up from the paper in front of me and shaded my eyes with one hand. Cornelius’s ears twitched. The cat raised its head from my lap and followed my gaze.

Sunbeams danced across emerald-green waters, the light almost blinding in its radiance. A breeze rippled over the ocean surface and raised an army of small, foam-tipped waves that crashed onto a white beach.

The roar of the motor grew louder. A black speedboat appeared around the head of the cove and headed for the jetty in the lagoon a few hundred feet to my left.

I lowered the cat to the ground before rising from the wicker chair and strolling to the edge of the veranda that fronted the two-hundred-year-old colonial house I now called my home.

‘Anna?’ I called out over my shoulder.

Soft steps sounded behind me.

‘Yes?’ Anna came out through the patio doors. ‘Oh. Our visitors are here.’ She smiled. ‘I’ll make some drinks.’ She kissed me and disappeared inside the house.

‘Did I hear someone mention the word “drinks”?’ someone gasped on my right. Reid appeared around the corner of the house. ‘Could I have a splash of whisky in mine?’

Sweat poured down his face and he breathed heavily from his run around the island. The golden retriever puppy panting at his side stopped in its tracks and turned toward the approaching boat. The animal’s back visibly stiffened. It let out a series of sharp barks, its tail tracing frantic circles in the air while it jumped back and forth.

Reid grimaced and shook his head. ‘I don’t know whether that means “Stay off my island or I’ll bite you” or “Please come and play with me”. And who the hell names a dog Peanut?’

‘I heard that!’ Anna shouted through an open window.

The speedboat glided to a stop behind the hundred-foot luxury yacht already moored at the landing. A man jumped out and secured the vessel to the pier. A second man climbed onto the wooden jetty and looked around with evident interest.

The pair made their way up toward the house.

‘This is a nice place you’ve got here,’ said Dimitri Reznak as he climbed the steps to the veranda.

‘Thanks.’ I shook his hand briskly and turned to the man behind him. ‘It’s good to see you again.’

Victor Dvorsky hugged me and smiled. ‘Same here.’ He looked to my left. ‘Hello, Reid.’

Reid nodded at the two men. Anna came out of the house with a tray of drinks.

Victor crossed the deck, kissed her on the cheeks, and took the tray off her. ‘My dear, you look as lovely as ever.’

A month had passed since the death of Tomas Godard.

Ironically, Olsson’s demise at Reid’s hands had also been his final one.

Following the release of the Red Death on the Crovirs’ island fortress, those who had been exposed to the virus were quarantined and successfully treated with an antiserum Anna made from a sample of my blood.

There were many changes in the immortal world in the weeks after the battle. Roman Dvorsky retired as the head of the Order of Bastian Hunters and passed the mantle on to his son without any objections from the Councils, though he continued in his role as a senior advisor. Dimitri Reznak was temporarily appointed the leader of the Order of Crovir Hunters until a suitable replacement could be voted in.

After the unprecedented menace posed by Vellacrus and her army of faithful followers, both immortal First Councils had committed to working closely together in an attempt to subvert any similar future threats. It said a lot for Victor’s and Dimitri’s influences that such an unparalleled agreement had been made in so short a time. There were many still among both factions who disapproved of this new alliance between the Bastians and the Crovirs. There would undoubtedly be challenges ahead for the two leaders, but so far, the fragile peace was holding.

As for Anna and I, we left Europe the day after we buried our grandfather’s ashes in Prague. We spent a week in my apartment in Boston while we finalized the purchase of our new home, a private island in the Pacific Ocean.

The location was known to only six people: the Dvorskys, Pierre and Solange Vauquois, Reid, and now Dimitri Reznak.

Two days ago, Victor called to say that the Crovir noble wished to meet with us urgently; Reznak apparently had some important information to impart and he wanted to do it in person.

‘Are you visiting for a while?’ Victor asked Reid presently.

Reid shook his head. ‘I leave tomorrow, I’m afraid. I have business to take care of in Boston. We’ve just taken on some new employees.’

The Hasley and Soul Agency had grown a fair bit in the last month. There were now three more detectives working full-time with Reid, two of them old friends from the police force. A larger office had become vacant in our building and we moved premises a week ago. We even had a new secretary; it was Mrs. Trelawney’s daughter, Izzie.

Although I still co-owned the business, I had opted out of working in the field for the time being. Most of my tasks were currently research-based and I performed them more than adequately from the new state-of-the-art study in our home.

We had also started constructing Anna’s new lab on the other side of the island.

‘I see your scar has almost faded.’ Victor indicated the mark under Reid’s left clavicle.

‘Yes, it has.’

Reid and I exchanged guarded glances.

Something else had started to become evident since before the final battle with Vellacrus’s army; from the time that he received Anna’s blood in Prague, Reid’s wounds had all healed at an alarmingly accelerated rate. Although it was not yet as fast as an immortal’s regenerative abilities, it was still greater than that of a human. Even more astounding was what was happening to the injuries he had sustained before the transfusion: his old scars were also slowly disappearing.

Anna assured us that such a thing had never happened on the rare occasions when a human had received immortal blood.

We had yet to tell Victor and Dimitri of this intriguing phenomenon.

I turned a questioning gaze on Reznak. ‘Victor said you had something you wanted to tell us?’

‘Indeed, I did, although I’m not quite sure where to start,’ Reznak admitted with a grimace. He looked to the clear waters beyond the veranda and the puppy playing on the beach before turning to me. ‘How much do you know of the history of the immortals?’

The question surprised me.

‘Not a lot,’ I said with a shrug. ‘As far as I recall, our races appeared in Europe some time around the mid-tenth century BC. They seem to have been at war pretty much since.’

Reznak leaned back in his chair and watched me with narrowed eyes. ‘What if I were to tell you that this was not always the case? And that we’ve been around since well before that time?’

‘What do you mean?’ I said after a short silence.

Reznak did not answer the question directly. ‘What do you know about the Book of Genesis?’

I glanced at Anna. She appeared as puzzled as I felt.

‘It’s the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament,’ I replied.

The Crovir nodded. ‘Good. Do you have any knowledge of the specifics of the third and fourth chapters?’ His eyes gleamed with a mysterious light.

‘You mean the accounts of how Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden and the subsequent stories of their descendants?’ said Anna with a faint frown.

Reznak smiled his approval. ‘Correct again. Of course, there’s more to it than that.’

Anna raised an eyebrow. ‘There is?’

‘Yes. You’re aware that most of the Dead Sea Scrolls are kept in the Shrine of the Book, in Jerusalem?’ said Reznak.

Anna nodded, green eyes shining with intellectual curiosity.

‘As far as mortals are concerned, they’re the oldest scriptures ever discovered that reflect the actual wordings of the Old Testament and the Bible,’ added the Crovir noble.

A stunned hush fell across the veranda. The puppy yipped in the distance.

‘What d’you mean, as far as “mortals” are concerned?’ said Reid.

‘It’s exactly as it sounds.’

Anna inhaled sharply. ‘Are you saying that
immortals
possess documents older than the Dead Sea Scrolls?’

Reznak did not reply immediately. Instead, he fixed me with a shrewd stare. ‘Do you recall where I was at the time Victor called me, after the compound in Virginia was attacked?’

I frowned. ‘Yes. You were in Egypt.’

Reznak stared blindly into his glass. ‘The origin of our immortal races is a subject that has always fascinated me, even as a child.’ A wry grimace flashed across his face. ‘Although I’ve been the Head of our Immortal Culture and History Section for several centuries, I’ve spent a considerable amount of my own fortune before and during those years trying to satisfy my personal obsession with discovering where we truly came from.’ He sighed. ‘Ironically, the breakthrough I had been yearning for took place just after I discovered the whole unpleasant affair with Vellacrus and her scheme of true immortality. My team of archaeologists found a cave in Egypt, in the mountains of the Eastern Desert. It was deep underground, which explains why the contents we discovered within were so well preserved. What with recent events and the need to reorganize the Crovir Councils, you can appreciate that I’ve been otherwise occupied of late. It’s only been in the last couple of weeks that I was able to start analyzing the materials we found.’

He met our gazes steadily. ‘The discovery is broadly made of two parts. The first is a series of scriptures that narrate the origins of the immortal races. They have been dated to approximately three thousand years BC.’

My eyes widened at his words. I felt my pulse start to race.

Reznak looked from Anna to me. ‘The second, and by far the most extraordinary finding, are the biological remains we found with the scriptures.’

‘That’s impossible,’ Anna stated flatly in the silence that followed.

Reznak shrugged. ‘The evidence doesn’t lie. Victor has seen the relics and can confirm my findings. We have of course moved the scriptures to a more secure location.’

The Bastian leader nodded at our questioning gazes.

‘What are these…“remains” you’ve alluded to?’ I said after a while.

Reznak’s eyes darkened. ‘Before I tell you about those, I must add that there were in fact
two
caves. The first one had unfortunately been ransacked when we discovered it. The second cave was located in a different rock formation.’

Lines creased Anna’s brow. ‘Have you found out who looted the first cave?’

Reznak shook his head. ‘No. But I’ve got my best agent on it.’

He gazed at us with a guarded expression. ‘The remains were a pair of hearts, embalmed in individual clay pots. I believe they belonged to the original Crovir and Bastian, although this is difficult to ascertain without the rest of their bodies. Crovir and Bastian were not just the names of our races. They were men born in the thirty-eighth century BC.’

He paused at our stares. ‘I know. I found it hard to believe myself at first. The genetic analysis we’ve carried out on the hearts shows that they were most likely brothers, a fact which is also supported by the translations of the scriptures. The texts tell most of their story and that of their father before them, a man named Romerus.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Now, this is where we all have to take a leap of faith.’

‘Really? I thought we did that a while ago,’ said Reid dully.

‘This one requires a lot more of it, I’m afraid,’ said Reznak. ‘According to the scriptures, Romerus was probably a descendant of Adam and Eve. We cannot confirm this, as part of the texts are missing.’ He frowned. ‘I suspect they were stolen from the first cave.’

The crash of the surf on the shoreline and the puppy’s playful barks were the only sounds that interrupted the heavy silence that followed.

An eerie premonition started to take shape at the back of my mind.

‘Adam’s descendants are said to have lived hundreds of years,’ said Anna. ‘Is that where the concept of immortality arose?’

‘Possibly,’ said Reznak. ‘But I believe that Crovir and Bastian were truly special beings, born with abilities that even their forefathers had not possessed. The clues, although we have yet to fully analyze the information, are in their genes.’ He shared a cautious glance with Victor before turning to Anna and me. ‘This is where the two of you come in.’

Anna’s eyes widened.

My presentiment grew stronger at his words. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I obtained a small sample of your blood before the research materials at the Crovir labs were destroyed,’ Reznak told Anna. His gaze shifted to me. ‘I asked Victor to do the same with yours. Don’t worry,’ he added hastily at our expressions, ‘there isn’t enough for anyone to attempt anything like what Vellacrus had planned. All I wanted was to study your genetic material.’

‘Why?’ I asked stiffly, although I had a suspicion what his answer was going to be.

‘To compare them with the samples we found in the cave,’ said Reznak. ‘Victor and I have both personally researched the extensive genealogy of the noble families of our two immortal societies. As far as we can establish, the Godards and the Thornes were true purebloods in every sense of the word—Bastians and Crovirs descended from pureblood Bastians and Crovirs all the way back as far as our scrolls go. As you’re probably aware, Bastians and Crovirs have successfully mated in the past, but—’

‘Never a pureblood with a pureblood,’ Anna said breathlessly, her eyes glazed with shock.

Reznak nodded. ‘And not just any purebloods. Your parents were direct descendants of Crovir and Bastian,’ he said solemnly. ‘The molecular studies we carried out on your samples and the tissues we found in the cave confirm that you both possess the same distinctive genetic variations as the two original immortals.’ He stared at me. ‘We also found the alpha and omega designs that make up your birthmark in the scriptures from the cave in Egypt.’

His words confirmed my gut feeling. I suddenly felt light-headed.

‘That’s—’ Anna started after a while.

‘The kind of news that requires several stiff drinks?’ Reid interrupted, his face pale.

Reznak’s expression grew inscrutable. ‘The two of you are unique,’ he said quietly. ‘As far as I’m aware, there are no other direct pureblood descendants of Crovir and Bastian alive today. Agatha Vellacrus, Felix Thorne, and Tomas Godard were the last ones left.’ He hesitated. ‘I suspect that Anna would also survive her seventeenth death. And I believe she shares your other ability.’