The noise of gunfire grew louder. One hundred and sixty feet after we started our descent, the elevator opened onto a scene of chaos.
Bullets crisscrossed the smoke wreathed air of a large vestibule ahead. Gabriel, Anatole, and a dozen Schwatz Hunters had taken cover behind a makeshift barricade to the left of the lobby.
Some twenty Crovirs stood at the opposite end, semi-automatics singing in their hands.
‘Take him!’ I shoved Chapman toward Ashely, sheathed the swords, and drew my guns.
I stepped out of the lift.
Time slowed. I breathed steadily while I emptied the magazines into the enemy. Ten seconds passed. I reloaded the guns. A stray bullet grazed my cheek. Another nicked the top of my left ear. One struck my body vest. I finished sliding the fresh clips into place and raised the weapons once more, my stride unbroken.
The final shell casings clattered to the floor a moment later. I blinked through the clearing haze and observed the bodies covering the vestibule.
There were footsteps behind me.
‘Well, that seems to be it for the time being.’ Gabriel stopped at my side and changed the magazine in his gun. ‘Though I’m sure there’ll be plenty more where they came from.’
The Schwatz Hunters started to divest the fallen Crovirs of their weapons.
‘You look like shit,’ Ashely told Anatole.
‘Traveling in a sub is not exactly my favorite mode of transportation,’ the ashen-faced immortal muttered. ‘Give me the high road anytime.’ A gleam appeared in Anatole’s eyes when he looked past Ashely. ‘Why, look who we have here. We meet again, asshole.’
Chapman stood nursing a wounded leg, a scowl darkening his face.
I cocked an eyebrow at Ashely.
He shrugged. ‘One of his own men shot him. Go figure.’
‘Sheila and your grandfather are somewhere through there.’ Gabriel indicated the steel doors at the end of the lobby. ‘Costas and Bruno are covering the lower floors to the dock. I don’t know how much longer they’ll be able to stall the Crovirs. Gazmuuk and his men are still inside the main fortress.’
Faint explosions from above punctuated the end of his statement. ‘And Friedrich?’
‘He’s fighting his way into the command room with the help of one of the Crovir nobles,’ said Gabriel. ‘Once they’re in, we’ll be able to get the rest of our men on the island.’
While we had been making our way to the Crovir fortress by air and by sea, Roman Dvorsky had finally contacted his son with the Councils’ decision; the rest of the Schwatz army was on its way from Europe to assist us.
I feared they would be too late. The expression on Gabriel’s face mirrored my own doubts. I suppressed the dread coursing through me and turned to study the doors blocking our path. A complex security display stood to the left of the metal panels.
It was going to take more than an access card to get us inside the core of the Crovir fortress.
My eyes rose to the ceiling.
Gabriel followed my gaze to a large, square panel. ‘What are you thinking?’
‘From the floor plans I saw earlier, there’s a ventilation duct right above us. It leads inside the facility.’ I frowned. ‘It won’t be practical for all of us to go that way.’
I glanced from Chapman to the security panel next to the doors. It was similar to the one I had in my apartment in Boston.
‘I suspect Mikolo’s fingerprint and retinal scan will get you through there,’ I told Gabriel. ‘We’ll create a diversion to give you a fighting chance.’
Ashely linked his fingers into a foothold. I climbed onto his shoulders and unscrewed the paneling above our heads.
I was in the vent within seconds and pulled him up after me. Anatole followed.
‘See you on the other side,’ Gabriel said from below.
The passage inside the duct was hot and tight. We crawled silently along it and came to a grated opening in the floor some thirty feet later. I unbolted the cover and peered carefully out of the hole.
A crowd of Crovir Hunters stood before the steel doors at one end of the passage, their guns at the ready. An empty, white-walled corridor disappeared into the facility in the opposite direction.
I gripped the edge of the ventilation shaft and slowly lowered myself to the tiled floor. Ashely and Anatole dropped down silently beside me.
The Schwatz immortal removed the pair of Steyr AUG rifles strapped to his back and handed one of the weapons to Ashely. He pressed the safety button, grinned, and waved wildly at the Crovirs.
‘Hey, assholes! We’re right here!’
The Crovirs turned. Their eyes widened.
By then, our bullets had already struck ten of them. The steel doors opened. Gabriel and the Schwatzs rushed inside the passage.
Rapid footfall pounded the ground behind me. More Crovirs appeared from the direction of the facility.
‘Go! We’ll take the front!’ Anatole shouted over his shoulder.
I turned to face the approaching wave of immortals. A heartbeat later, the daisho started its lethal dance through the air. A couple of bullets thudded into my body vest. Another skimmed past my right eye and grazed my temple. My steps did not waver as the blades carved into flesh again and again.
Half a minute later, we had secured the access to the underground facility.
‘Don’t stop! We’ll cover you!’ Gabriel yelled as a fresh surge of Crovirs arrived at the steel doors.
I nodded and started to run, Ashely and Anatole on my heels.
More guards materialized in our path as we advanced inside the island. They fell swiftly beneath our bullets and my blades. White corridors unrolled before us, walls blindingly bright under the harsh fluorescent strips in the ceiling. All the while, the alarms echoed around us.
Biohazard signs started to appear overhead. We turned a corner and skidded to a stop in front of a pair of containment doors.
‘The labs must be through here!’ I gasped.
My stomach plummeted when I saw the security display next to the doors. I had never seen one like it before.
There was a noise behind us. A group of Crovir Hunters came into view at the opposite end of the passage.
Ashely scowled. ‘Hurry up and do your stuff!’
I unscrewed the panel while Ashely and Anatole laid down cover fire. I grabbed a pen torch from my backpack and shone it on the microcircuits inside the unit. A sliver of sweat dripped over my right eye. I blinked, stuck the torch between my teeth, and raised the wakizashi. The blade sliced through two wires. I rapidly twisted the ends together.
The light above the lintel turned green. The doors opened with a hiss of escaping air.
‘Let’s go!’ I shouted.
We crossed the threshold into a hall lined with glass walls. Figures in white biohazard suits were visible behind the sterile partitions. They looked up at the sound of the gunfire, their eyes widening behind their visors.
I turned and stabbed the wakizashi into the access panel on the wall. Sparks erupted from the unit. The containment doors closed on the approaching Crovir Hunters, their shots thudding dully into the reinforced metal.
Ashely raised an eyebrow. ‘That should buy us what, ten minutes or so?’
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, Sheila 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 noi
se.
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 Ashely.
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.
Sheila’s eyes opened when I reached the side of the bed. Dark pupils dilated in an ocean of green. ‘Adam?’
‘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 Sheila. 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
There 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.
Sheila stiffened in my arms. ‘Grandfather!’
‘We haven’t found him yet.’
‘I know where he is,’ said Sheila, 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,’ Sheila 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 Ashely. 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 Sheila 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.
Sheila turned to the second scientist and punched him on the jaw.
I stared at her. Anatole gaped. Ashely grinned.
‘They’re lucky I didn’t shoot them,’ muttered Sheila. She stormed past us.
We joined her in the passage outside and soon reached the intersection with the glass hall.
Sheila 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 Sheila.
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,’ Ashely 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 Sheila, nervous anxiety was building inside my chest once more. Our battle was far from over.
‘Yes, but where?’ murmured Sheila.
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 Sheila 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!’ Sheila whispered shakily. I saw my own horror reflected in her eyes.
Anatole frowned. ‘What?’
Ashely 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.
Sheila 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 Schwatzs 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 Schwatz noble held the older man’s gaze and shrugged. ‘I’m afraid we need to move with the times, Tomas. What Santana 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. ‘Santana 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 Christie Santana and Amos 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.
Santana 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,�
� Santana 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 Schwatz 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 Santana’s words. The corners of her lips lifted in a chilling smile. ‘Today, my friends, we shall watch the first of many Schwatzs die from the Red Death.’
Among the roar of approving voices that followed, one spoke up.
‘Really Christie, is now the time to be engaging in such dreadful theatrics? We’ve heard rumors that the Schwatz 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.
Santana cocked an eyebrow. ‘My dear Sylviana, to not wish to see the death of a Schwatz 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, Christie.’
Santana stared at her with an unreadable expression. ‘Good,’ she said with a dismissive nod. ‘Then we shall proceed as planned. Amos.’ 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.’
Chased Down Page 31
