Soul Meaning (Seventeen)

by AD Starrling

  Reid and the two Bastian immortals stared from me to the door: behind us, Benisek’s struggles doubled in effort. There was a buzz of static from the earpiece. ‘Shit,’ the voice finally said dully.

  ‘He said it,’ muttered Anatole.

  ‘Is he alone?’ I watched the doorknob turn again and tried to quieten the rapid thuds of my heart. Mixed in with dread at the inevitable battle that now faced us was an unexpected sense of anticipation: I was looking forward to meeting Thorne again. In fact, I could hardly wait.

  ‘Yes. But there are others close by.’

  My eyes narrowed. ‘How many?’

  Brief silence followed. ‘I count ten signals within twenty feet of your position,’ came the solemn response.

  ‘Okay. Thanks,’ I murmured.

  ‘Do you need back-up?’ the voice said hesitantly.

  I looked at Reid and the Bastians. They shrugged. ‘We’ll be fine,’ I said into the mouthpiece. ‘Just make sure Victor and Roman get through those gates safely.’

  ‘Will do.’ There was a pause. ‘And Soul?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Good luck.’

  I smiled faintly. ‘Sure.’ I took the earpiece out, strode across the study and turned to stare at the others. ‘When I open this door, I want you to run,’ I said in a tone that brooked no argument.

  Reid’s eyes widened. ‘What?’

  ‘Hey, look here—’ Anatole started in a disgruntled voice.

  ‘None of you stand a chance against Thorne,’ I interrupted bluntly. Silence followed my words. I could tell from their aggravated expressions that they knew this to be true and that they were not pleased about it. ‘We haven’t got time to argue. Here, catch.’ I threw the memory stick at Reid.

  He palmed the rectangular piece and glared at me. ‘So what, you’re saying you’re gonna fight all of them?’

  ‘No.’ I grinned wryly. ‘Just Thorne. The others are yours.’

  Bar the clothes, Felix Thorne was exactly as I remembered him. His tall frame was presently covered in a black evening suit and his ash-blonde hair gleamed brightly under the light of the chandeliers. Chilly, gunmetal eyes widened slightly as they focused on me.

  I stepped out in the corridor. ‘Hello, Uncle,’ I said in a pleasant enough voice. There was movement behind me while the others exited the room.

  Thorne barely glanced at them. Dark pupils dilated wildly within a sea of wintry grey. The thin lips pulled back in a sneer. ‘How is this possible? I watched you die.’

  ‘I’m afraid no one knows the answer to that yet,’ I said steadily.

  Thorne stared over my shoulder at Benisek and frowned heavily. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ I said with a shrug. ‘I just wanted to say hello.’ I paused deliberately. ‘After all, we are family.’

  An ugly expression dawned on the immortal’s face. ‘You are no relative of mine, half-breed!’ he hissed.

  A smile tugged at my lips. I finally recognised the unfamiliar feeling coursing through my veins: it was what a hunter probably experienced when he was closing in for the kill. The whine of bullets rose behind me. I ignored it and glanced at Thorne’s waist. ‘I see you have your sword with you.’ My smile widened, which only seemed to infuriate Thorne further. ‘Would you care for a rematch?’

  The Crovir noble glared at me for silent seconds. ‘I killed you once,’ he said grimly, removing the blade from its sheath. ‘I can kill you again.’ His first move was so fast I barely blocked his blow. I grunted and took a step back. ‘I see you’ve improved,’ he continued in the same condescending tone. ‘Still, you have far to go before you can hope to defeat me, boy.’

  ‘You forget, Uncle. This time, I’ll fight you without the benefit of bullet wounds,’ I retorted coolly. Thorne’s eyes narrowed.

  The next seconds were a blur of movement. As with our previous battle in Vilanec, the Crovir’s speed verged on the supernatural. Our blades clashed again and again, sparks rising from the gleaming steel edges. The tip of Thorne’s sword hummed past my face. I ducked, twisted on one heel and kicked out. He leapt backwards to avoid the blow.

  I rolled towards him, rose to one knee and thrust the wakizashi upwards. It slipped an inch past his guard and scored a gash across his chest.

  A shocked grunt escaped Thorne’s lips. His hand rose slowly and he fingered the cut. ‘You’ll regret this,’ he whispered, staring at his bloodied palm. He touched the scar on his right cheek absent-mindedly and left a crimson trail on his pale skin. ‘Your father marked me once.’ A savage grin crossed his face. ‘He paid for it with his life.’

  A wave of blind rage shook me to my core; it took all my self-control not to rush the immortal there and then. I inhaled deeply and forced my fingers to relax on the handles of the daisho. My feet shifted into the starting stance of kendo. I felt my heart rate slow down. ‘Let’s do this,’ I said coldly.

  A snarl ripped from Thorne’s throat as he attacked. I blocked his first blow. He attacked again. I blocked his second, then his third blow. His eyes narrowed. He struck over and over again, his tip of his sword slicing through the air in invisible moves. With every swing of the blade, his breathing grew more erratic. I deflected all his strikes with an ease that enraged him to no end. That was when I realised something astounding.

  I was faster and stronger than he was.

  Before I could assimilate this shocking fact and ponder whether it had something to do with surviving my seventeenth death, the doors at the end of the gallery opened. A murmur of muted voices washed over the threshold from the front of the mansion at the same time as a figure in a ice-blue evening gown stepped through. I felt my heart stutter in my chest.

  I knew without a doubt that I was looking at Agatha Vellacrus.

  The woman’s silver hair was coiled in an elegant bun at the back of her head. She wore diamonds in her ears and at the base of her throat, the gems catching the light and fracturing it into a thousand brilliant sparks. Her face was pale and as ancient as the stars. Set within it were grey eyes an identical shade to my father’s. But whereas my father’s eyes had been smoky and warm, hers were as cold and bleak as the depths of space.

  She paused and studied us with a faint frown. ‘Felix? What’s going on?’

  Thorne never looked away from me. ‘Why, don’t tell me you don’t recognise him, mother,’ he spat out. ‘It’s your grandson, the half-breed!’ The words had barely left his lips when he swung his sword round in a double-handed grip.

  I broke his attack with the katana and forced him back a step. My gaze shifted to the woman in the doorway. Her mouth was pinched in a bitter expression. ‘You said you killed him,’ she murmured in a voice devoid of emotion.

  ‘I did,’ said Thorne with a scowl. The woman’s frown deepened.

  Until that moment, despite what I had been told by my grandfather and Victor Dvorsky, I had clung to a slim hope. The Bastians had to be wrong: how could the woman who gave birth to my father want me dead? The very thought struck a discordant chord deep within my soul.

  Then, the moment passed and the sliver of hope shattered into a million shards that pierced my heart with blinding pain. I should have blinked back tears. Instead, my vision had never been clearer. I moved.

  The katana slid along Thorne’s sword and entered his chest in a single blow. The immortal grunted, the grey eyes widening in shocked incredulity.

  There was a barely audible gasp from the woman at the end of the passage.

  I pulled the blade out of Thorne’s ribcage and watched him fall to his knees. Blood soaked rapidly through his shirt and dripped onto the expensive Venetian carpet. He coughed and took a rasping breath, a stream of red bubbles staining his lips. ‘I could kill you now,’ I said dispassionately. ‘But I won’t.’ I stared from him to the woman in the blue gown. ‘Not until I get to the bottom of whatever it is that you’re up to.’ I turned and calmly walked away, my steps even and my grip steady on the handles of the daisho.

 
Reid and the Bastians had cleared a path to the cellar. I stepped over the bodies of fallen Crovirs and caught up with them in the service tunnel under the gardens.

  Reid blinked when he saw me and slowly lowered the Glock. His gaze skimmed over my bloodied swords while he loaded a fresh magazine into the gun. ‘You ready?’ he said steadily.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied grimly. Voices rose in the distance behind us. ‘Let’s go.’

  We were almost at the lake when the first wave of Crovir Hunters reached us. The ricochet of gunshots erupted around the gardens. Bullets sang through the night and peppered the ground at our heels, raising clumps of soil and grass and causing deadly shards to erupt from the marble statues that populated the grounds.

  I sheathed the daisho, lifted the guns from the holsters on my hips, turned, dropped to one knee and squeezed the triggers. Reid paused at my side and fired the Glock in rapid succession. Shadows fell in the darkness behind us; more appeared to replace them. I rose and followed Reid to the woods.

  We entered the shadows beneath the trees in a hail of gunfire. Our breaths plumed the chilly air with small white clouds as we raced towards the boundary of the estate. A crescent moon shone brightly in the clear autumn sky and bathed the woods in a silvery light. Footsteps sounded behind us as the Crovirs gave chase.

  We were a hundred feet from the outer perimeter wall when the second wave of Hunters appeared ahead of us.

  ‘I hate to say it, but this is not looking good,’ said Reid while we took cover within a narrow thicket. I glanced around anxiously. There were no visible exit routes. Shots thudded into the undergrowth around us. Chips of bark and plant debris rapidly clouded the air.

  As I crouched and contemplated drawing the Crovirs away from the others long enough to give them a chance to escape, a gust of wind suddenly blew leaves and branches down onto our heads. The sound of rotors followed a moment later.

  A beam of light cut through the night and danced across the ground close to where we hid. I squinted upwards and blinked dust out of my eyes.

  A black chopper appeared in the sky and pulled up sharply above the treetops. The cabin doors opened and a rope ladder dropped down on either side, swinging violently in the downdraught.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ shouted the voice in my earpiece. ‘Get on!’

  We rose, ran the few steps to the ropes and jumped. Bullets crisscrossed the air around us. They were echoed by the stutter of machine guns from above. Shots riddled the forest floor and several Crovir Hunters. The rest retreated swiftly under the cover of the trees.

  The helicopter rose with the four of us still clinging to the rope ladders and banked sharply to the left. Moments later, we were over the wall of Benisek’s estate.

  I reached the door of the aircraft’s cabin behind Reid and was pulled inside. ‘Thanks,’ I gasped gratefully and looked up into Costas’s grim face.

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ grumbled the Bastian noble. ‘Someone had to get your sorry asses out of there.’ Grigoriye sat opposite him. He smiled at me faintly.

  I had just started to get my breath back when the co-pilot passed me a set of headphones. ‘Are you guys okay?’ said a voice anxiously in my ears. It was Victor.

  I looked at the others. Except for some scratches, everyone appeared to be in one piece. ‘Yes, we’re fine,’ I replied.

  There was an audible sigh. ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Victor. ‘We stalled for time as long as we could. I think Vellacrus suspected something.’

  I stared into the darkness outside the cabin window. ‘I met her,’ I said, my voice devoid of emotion. The numbness that had shrouded me since my encounter with Thorne and Vellacrus was starting to fade.

  There was silence from the headphones. ‘Did she say anything to you?’ Victor said finally.

  I hesitated briefly. ‘She watched me fight Thorne.’

  This time, the silence was short-lived. ‘Did you kill him?’ The tension in Victor’s voice was mirrored in the strained looks on the faces of the immortals inside the helicopter.

  ‘No,’ I replied quietly. ‘I wounded him.’

  Bruno glanced at me with a troubled expression. I could feel the question in the air. Victor was the one who voiced it. ‘Could you have?’

  I leaned back against the headrest and gazed at the roof of the helicopter. ‘Yes,’ I said bluntly.

  This time, Victor’s sigh was barely perceptible above the noise of the rotors. ‘I’ll see you back at the house.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Tomas Godard was waiting for us in the foyer of the mansion. ‘We heard what happened from the Bastian Hunters,’ he said gruffly when we walked through the doors. He strode across the floor and pulled me roughly into his arms. Caught off-guard, I stiffened in his embrace. If the older man noticed, he did not give any indication of it. He stood back and looked me over with an anxious frown. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes. I’m fine,’ I murmured self-consciously. I glanced over his shoulder and saw Anna smiling from the doorway of the study.

  ‘We have the data you sent,’ she said.

  ‘Good,’ I said with a brief nod. ‘Have you looked at it yet?’

  Anna shook her head. ‘We were waiting for you.’

  A group of Bastian Hunters entered the hallway behind us. Roman, Victor, Costas and Grigoriye were in their midst. ‘Well done,’ said Roman with a broad smile. ‘For a moment there, I thought you weren’t going to make it.’

  ‘So did we,’ drawled Reid. ‘You never told us about the helicopter.’

  Victor grinned. ‘It was Costas’s idea. He thought it might come in handy.’

  The Bastian noble scowled in the face of our stares. ‘They were nearly at the wall anyway,’ he muttered grudgingly, his ears reddening. ‘So, we looking at this data or what?’

  Moments later, we gathered in the study. The Bastians had been busy in our absence; the room now resembled the control deck of a modern warship. ‘These are the folders that you sent us,’ said the Bastian tech seated behind a set of keyboards. He was working several monitors simultaneously, his glasses reflecting the light from the screens; on the wall ahead of him was a large projector screen. ‘They were encoded with another layer of encryption, but we managed to decipher most of it.’ He paused and clicked on a mouse. ‘Here’s the first file.’

  We stared at the information on display. Anna frowned. ‘That’s the data from Hubert’s latest research,’ she said impatiently. ‘We know this already.’

  ‘Okay.’ The Bastian’s fingers moved over the keys. ‘Here’s the second one.’

  A familiar image filled the screen. It was the black and white photograph of Anna and Hubert Strauss from Burnstein’s computer. More data streamed down the display. The tech whistled softly under his breath. ‘I have to say, they got a helluva lot of info on you Miss.’

  A scowl darkened Anna’s face. ‘They even have details of the Zurich account,’ she muttered.

  ‘They probably hacked into the bank’s computer system,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘According to the Head of Accounts, no one else had asked to see it.’

  ‘All right, let’s look at the next file,’ said Victor.

  Burnstein’s folder contained stacks of financial information about his corporation and the various projects he was involved in. Strauss’s chronicled the progress of the scientist’s research and held detailed personal background information on him and his colleagues.

  The one entitled GeMBiT was still encrypted. It took several more minutes to decipher the code. The Bastian tech finally leaned back from the keyboards. ‘That’s the best I can do.’

  We studied the screen. It was filled with reams of scientific jargon. A second later, I saw Anna stiffen. I tensed slightly.

  ‘What does it mean?’ said Victor. He glanced from her still face to the projected data.

  Anna was quiet for some time. ‘May I?’ she murmured eventually. She looked at the Bastian tech and gestured towards the keyboards.

 
‘Be my guest,’ said the immortal.

  Anna took the seat he vacated, reached for the mouse and slowly scrolled down the pages on the display. ‘If I’m correct, this is a programme of GeMBiT’s principal areas of activities as planned by Burnstein over the next few months.’ Her tone was dull while she read out the details. ‘The first stage appears to be aimed at manufacturing a number of transfusions of the genetically modified cells from Hubert’s research for use on test subjects in their labs in Washington.’

  ‘Transfusions?’ Victor interrupted with a frown.

  ‘The process is very similar to stem cell transplant,’ Anna explained. ‘You can introduce cells that have the ability to evolve into different types of tissues into the body, to carry out specific functions.’

  A sick feeling formed in the pit of my stomach. I suddenly knew what the Crovirs were planning to do. ‘Like making someone immortal?’ I said darkly.

  Anna glanced at me. ‘Yes.’

  Victor’s frown deepened. ‘What’s the next step?’

  Anna gazed at the information on the screen. ‘If the trial works, they plan to mass produce the serum.’ The significance of her words finally started to dawn on everyone else in the room. Restless murmurs rose from the Bastian Council members.

  ‘Are they planning to give this transfusion to the Crovirs?’ said Victor harshly.

  Anna’s fingers moved on one of the keyboards. Lists appeared on the screen. Her eyes narrowed. ‘Not all of them. Just the people on here.’

  We stared at the display. There were some five hundred odd names on it. I frowned. Olsson’s was halfway down the sixth list.

  It was Roman who spoke next. ‘That’s most of the nobles and other significant figures in Crovir society, as well as two hundred Hunters or so,’ said the Bastian leader. ‘Basically, anyone who supports Vellacrus is on that list.’

  ‘How generous of her,’ murmured Grigoriye.

  Costas frowned. ‘If she does this, she will—’ He paused, scowling while he struggled for words.

  ‘She will have a truly immortal army at her feet,’ Victor continued coldly. ‘One that would be eternally loyal to her.’