Soul Meaning (A Seventeen Series Novel: An Action Adventure Thriller Book 1) (18 page)

A flush darkened her cheeks. She glared at me and extended her hand commandingly. ‘Give me the gun!’

Some time later, one of her shots finally struck the edge of the target board.

Anna lowered the Glock and bit her lip. ‘All right, what am I doing wrong?’

I suppressed a smile and walked up behind her. As with everything else she came across, it seemed that once Anna Godard made her mind up to do something, she was determined to be excellent at it.

‘Here.’ I closed my hands over the back of hers and lifted them gently. ‘Put your fingers high on the back strap.’

‘Like this?’ said Anna, correcting her grip.

‘Yes,’ I replied, glad my voice did not betray my inner turmoil; the smell of her hair and the touch of her skin were threatening to flood my senses. ‘Bend your knees more. Relax your elbows. Got your sights?’

Anna nodded.

‘Take a deep breath. Exhale. Now squeeze the trigger.’

The next two shots echoed loudly around the range. The bullets thudded into the scoring rings inches from the center of the board.

‘That was good.’ I stepped back and quietly let out the breath I had been holding.

Anna checked the magazine like I had taught her.

‘It seems wrong, shooting bullets into people,’ she said after a while, her hands stilling on the gun. She looked at me quizzically. ‘Did you know I was one of the first female surgeons in France?’

I shook my head.

She smiled. ‘Of course, in those days my male colleagues at the University of Paris were not too impressed that a woman had dared invade their exalted ranks.’

‘Why did you leave medicine?’ I said curiously.

‘Because I realized I could make a greater impact on its future if I dedicated my life to research.’ She raised the gun and fired another couple of shots at the target. ‘How’s that?’

She turned and stared at me when I didn’t reply. ‘Lucas?’

‘Er, good. That was…better,’ I murmured, trying to still the pounding in my chest.

There was a noise behind us.

Someone cleared their throat in a deliberate attempt to gain our attention. I closed my eyes briefly, already suspecting who it was going to be.

‘Am I interrupting something?’ said Reid in a suspiciously syrupy voice as he stepped onto the range.

‘No.’ Anna flushed and glanced from him to me. ‘Lucas was just showing me how to use a gun.’

‘Was he now?’ said Reid.

I avoided his calculating gaze. ‘Reid’s a great shot,’ I told Anna. ‘Why don’t you stay and practice with him?’

I turned and headed for the trees.

‘Why? Where’re you going?’ Reid called out.

I touched the handle of the katana. ‘I haven’t used the swords for a while.’

I could feel his narrowed eyes on my back as I exited the range. I turned east and walked to a deserted clearing half a mile from the manor. I removed the long blade from its scabbard and started to work through the basic steps of kendo.

In the distance behind me, the sound of shots carried faintly on the wind.

I had built up a healthy layer of sweat when a voice suddenly came from between the trees.

‘Those are some good moves you’ve got there.’

Chapter Seventeen

I
 lowered the katana and studied
the figure standing in the shadows on the edge of the clearing. ‘Thank you. I had a good teacher.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Roman Dvorsky. ‘Miyamoto Musashi was an excellent swords master.’

I straightened, my attention now totally focused on the Head of the Order of Bastian Hunters.

‘I never met the man myself,’ said the older man. He stepped out of the shade.

I tensed when I noticed the two-handed longsword he carried.

‘But I have to admit, I’ve always wanted to spar with someone who knew the art of Niten Ichi-ryu.’ Roman Dvorsky strolled to the opposite end of the glade and turned to face me. ‘Shall we?’

I considered the immortal’s inscrutable face for timeless seconds before slowly drawing the wakizashi from my waist.

‘I will not go easy on you,’ I warned in a low voice.

‘It would be an insult if you did,’ Roman retorted mildly.

Though the clearing stood a good distance from the manor house, the sounds of our clashing blades soon drew an audience. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Reid and Anna pause in the midst of a group of Bastian Hunters on the edge of the tree line. Reid lit a cigarette and inhaled lazily.

Despite the growing crowd, I could feel Anna’s gaze on me as if it was a dazzling beam of light cutting through inky darkness.

Victor appeared and propped himself against the trunk of a maple tree. He watched the fight with a neutral expression.

There was no time to study the other faces gathered around us; the older man’s sword had just missed my left eye by an inch.

Roman Dvorsky fought with a grace and deftness that belied his frail appearance. He countered my moves strike for strike, almost anticipating where my blade would fall next. Time and time again, the tip of his sword came within a whisper of my skin. In the end, I had to draw on all the knowledge and skills taught to me by my Edo master to get one over the leader of the Bastians.

‘Touché,’ Roman said in a strained voice. He stood frozen in the middle of the clearing, the edge of my katana over his heart. ‘However, I think you will find my blade is also touching your chest.’

‘Look lower.’

The immortal’s eyes moved to where the wakizashi hovered over his right femoral artery. ‘Well done,’ he said grudgingly.

I stood back and lowered the swords.

The older man relaxed. ‘I’m surprised you lost to Felix Thorne. You’re as skilled as he is.’

‘I’ll be more prepared next time.’

The silence suddenly registered. I looked around.

Some sixty Hunters lined the perimeter of the clearing. Among them were the Bastian nobles who made up the First Council. Many of the immortals wore frowns. Others looked strangely thoughtful.

Tomas Godard stood slightly to the side, his face full of a nameless emotion. He turned without a word and walked back toward the mansion. Anna cast an apologetic glance at me before taking off after him. The rest of the Hunters and the Bastian nobles slowly dispersed.

Victor and Reid walked out from beneath the trees.

‘That was quite a show,’ said Victor.

Roman leaned on the longsword. ‘Your old man still has it in him.’

Victor chuckled. ‘I never doubted it.’

Roman looked at me curiously. ‘By the way, that’s an interesting design you have on your katana.’

I glanced at the engraving. ‘Miyamoto was fascinated by my birthmark. He had it carved into the blade.’

Roman watched me with an inscrutable expression before nodding.

I looked questioningly at Reid.

‘I don’t think you need to worry about the lady,’ he drawled. ‘She’s a scarily fast learner.’

Sundown came too fast. As we made our final preparations, I finally cornered Godard on the stairs of the manor house. ‘There’s something I need to ask you.’

‘Yes?’ said Godard.

‘Do you know a man by the name of Mikael Olsson?’

He frowned. ‘No, I can’t say that I do. Why?’

I told him about Olsson and the circumstances behind his apparent death in Boston ten years previously, as well as his recent appearance in my life.

‘I knew a Johan Olsson once,’ said Godard after a thoughtful pause. ‘He worked for the Order of the Bastian Hunters during the 1600s. I was still an advisor for the First Council at the time. As I recall, he was one of the immortals who perished at the Second Battle of Khotyn, during the Great Turkish War.’ A sigh left his lips. ‘I’m afraid many of us lost lives during our conflicts with the Ottoman Empire.’

I thought of my own gruesome deaths during the Battle of Vienna. The irony that both my grandfather and I fought on the same side during those tumultuous years and yet were unaware of each other’s presence did not escape me.

‘Were you at Khotyn at the time?’

Godard shook his head. ‘No. Although I helped High Commander Sobieski coordinate the battle, my presence was needed in Lwów. The King of Poland had died only the day before.’

An unexpected wave of relief washed over me at his words. Olsson’s assertion was evidently misguided. ‘Thank you.’

The blue eyes so alike to mine widened slightly. ‘You’re welcome,’ murmured Godard.

We left the manor house when the last of the light was draining out of a red sky.

A group of fifty Hunters were staying back to guard the Godards. As the convoy barreled down the driveway, I caught a glimpse of Anna at the window of the study.

‘How are you doing?’ said Reid after a while.

We were in the back of a van, along with Bruno, Anatole, and four other Hunters. The immortals were chatting among themselves.

I finished fitting a suppressor to the Smith and Wesson. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Really?’ Reid countered. ‘So, you’re telling me that finding out that you have a grandfather and a cousin who are still alive, that you’re probably truly immortal in every sense of the word, and that your long-lost grandmother is trying to kill you, is
not
freaking you out?’

‘Well, to be honest, the bit about my grandmother kinda sucks.’

A crooked smile dawned on Reid’s lips. ‘All right,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You know where I am if you wanna talk.’

I nodded gratefully.

Kazimir Benisek’s manor house was located on eight hundred acres of land north of the village of Drhovy, in the
Příbram District twenty-five miles outside Prague. The plot was enclosed by an impressive stone wall topped with barbed wire fencing. Beyond it, a further half-mile of dense woodland lay between the boundaries of the property and the extensive lawn that fronted the mansion. A pair of thick, wrought iron gates with ornate latticework barred the entrance to the grounds. To the left of it, a metal plate read “Private Property: Trespassers will be prosecuted” in Czech. A driveway lined with rows of well-established evergreens bisected the lawn neatly before ending in a graveled forecourt.

We entered the estate from the northwest. Thermal images taken just before we left the safe house had indicated that that section of the property harbored the least number of guards and had almost no surveillance cameras. There was also a cool breeze blowing in from the south that would help mask the sounds of our approach.

The land at the rear of the mansion was taken up by extensive manicured gardens dotted with Roman sculptures, arbors, and stone seats. The gardens stretched down a series of shallow terraces to an orchard and a small, artificial lake rimmed on three sides by trees.

We paused in the gloom beyond the still waters and waited for the signal.

At exactly seven pm, there was a flurry of activity around the property. Dozens of figures left their posts on the grounds and hurried toward the mansion. Startled voices rose to the dark skies.

The Dvorskys had arrived at the gates.

We used the cover of the shadows and moved silently up the incline. Seconds later, we dropped down by a water fountain set in a circular stone terrace.

Bruno lifted the iron grating behind the water feature and exposed a narrow hole in the ground. We climbed down the metal ladder beneath it and descended into darkness.

There was a faint click. The beam from Bruno’s torch cut through the murk and cast a ghostly glow on damp, moss-covered stone walls.

Anatole grimaced. ‘This place stinks.’

We were in an underground service tunnel that ran all the way beneath the gardens. From the plans of the estate that Victor had procured, it led to one of four cellars underneath the mansion.

Bruno nudged something with the edge of his boot. ‘There’s a dead rat.’ He moved the beam around. ‘Make that a lot of dead rats.’

‘Great,’ Anatole muttered. ‘I hate rats.’

We headed south along the passage, occasionally crossing thin bars of pale light streaming through narrow grilles in the roof. A quarter of a mile later, the tunnel ended at a locked, rust-colored metal door.

‘We’re here,’ I said quietly in the microphone pinned to my Kevlar vest.

The earpiece in my ear crackled.

‘You’re good to go,’ said a voice after several seconds.

When the first commercial satellites were launched into space in the nineteen sixties, the Bastians and Crovirs privately acquired dozens of the machines and placed them in orbit all over the world. The cluster of Bastian satellites above Europe was currently tracking the movement of anything with a heat signal within a two-mile radius of Benisek’s property. To make life less complicated for the Bastian technicians monitoring the area, the Dvorskys, the Bastian Hunters on the ground, and our team of four all carried a transmitter with a specific thermal reading.

Bruno cut through the lock on the door with a small blowtorch, oiled the hinges, and carefully pushed it open. Cool air washed over us. The darkness beyond hinted at a large space. He crossed the threshold and directed the torch beam in a grid pattern across the shadows.

Wine racks appeared in even rows that extended to a low ceiling. On the left, an entire wall was stacked high with beer barrels. Bottles of expensive spirits glowed briefly in the torchlight.

We were halfway down the middle aisle when Anatole rocked to a halt and stared into the gloom.

Bruno froze. ‘What is it?’

‘Damn.’ Anatole pointed at a crate. ‘That’s a whole case of Chateau Latour 1886!’

There was a pregnant pause. Bruno muttered something under his breath and started walking again.

‘Oh, come on!’ hissed Anatole, trotting after him. ‘Do you
know
how much a bottle of that would fetch on the open market?’

We reached a thick, iron-plated oak door at the other end of the cellar.

‘You’re still good to go,’ said the voice in my ear.

Reid picked the lock; we could not risk using the blowtorch with the smoke alarms in the cellar. My fingers gripped the handle of the katana when the door swung open. Darkness and silence greeted us on the other side.

We exited the basement and ascended shallow stone steps to a deserted corridor at the rear of the mansion.

Muted voices rose south of our position. From what we had seen of the thermal images before we entered the property, the Crovir First Council was gathered in the reception rooms at the front.

‘Take the service stairs fifteen feet to your right,’ murmured the voice in my earpiece. ‘It should take you to the first floor.’

We turned and headed swiftly along the passage to a flight of carpeted steps. We were almost at the top when the voice barked an abrupt ‘Stop!’ in our ears.

We froze in the gloom.

‘There’re four bodies heading your way, two from above and two from below,’ the voice said tensely. ‘They’re not friendlies.’

I signaled to Reid and Bruno. They headed back down the stairs.

Anatole and I ran up the last steps, guns in hand. We had barely pressed ourselves into the shallow recesses on either side of the door when it opened. Two Crovir Hunters stepped over the threshold.

They never heard our shots.

We dragged the bodies to the cellar and found Bruno and Reid tying up the other two Hunters.

Bruno glanced from me to the still immortals. ‘You could finish them off with your sword. That will leave less of them for us to contend with.’

I finished securing the man at my feet with a pair of cable ties before rising to my full height.

‘I have never killed in cold blood.’

The Bastian immortal observed me for a beat. ‘All right.’

We disposed the Hunters of their weapons and headed swiftly up the stairs to the first floor of the mansion. According to the blueprints, Benisek’s study was located on that level.

I glanced at my watch.

Fifteen minutes had elapsed since we entered the service tunnel under the gardens. With each precious second that passed, our chances of successfully completing our mission grew smaller.

My earpiece crackled again just as we entered the corridor at the top of the steps. ‘Three bodies moving toward you from the front of the house. ETA ten seconds.’

‘Thanks,’ I murmured, studying the passage we stood in.

Thick curtains framed the French windows lining one aspect of the gallery. Crystal chandeliers dangled from the high, ornately corniced ceiling and shed a muted light across the oil portraits adorning the walls.

We slipped in a shadowy alcove a moment before the doors at the end of the gallery swung open. Two Crovir Hunters crossed the threshold. A third man appeared behind them.

Bruno sucked in air through his teeth. ‘This is our lucky day.’

‘Why?’ I muttered.

‘That’s Kazimir Benisek.’