Soul Meaning (A Seventeen Series Novel: An Action Adventure Thriller Book 1) (23 page)

‘You need to go.’ This time, my tone was resolute.

The canister sailed across the corridor and hit me in the chest. A grunt left my lips.

‘You’ve gotta be kidding me.’ Reid stalked past in a huff.

I sighed, slipped the container inside the pack, and followed in his footsteps.

‘Where’re they going?’ said Anatole behind us.

‘To save Friedrich,’ Bruno replied bitterly.

I caught the immortal’s faintly murmured words as we turned the corner. ‘Goddamned bloody heroes.’

‘He called us heroes,’ I said after a while.

‘Shut up,’ said Reid.

There was another detonation elsewhere in the facility. The floor shuddered beneath our feet. We negotiated another two corridors before turning a corner and reaching an impasse.

A wall of debris obstructed our path. The billow of dust that had accompanied the collapse of the passage was only just settling.

‘Wasn’t this the way to the lab?’ said Reid.

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Is there another way around?’

I looked over my shoulder with a sinking feeling. ‘I don’t think so.’

A noise drew my gaze to the rubble. There was a disturbance near the bottom. Dirt trickled out in a minor landslide. Fingertips appeared in the gap.

Reid and I started to dig wordlessly. The hand became a flailing arm. We grabbed it and pulled out the buried man.

It was Friedrich. Blood oozed from a jagged wound on his grimy forehead. His left leg was twisted and looked broken in at least two places.

The Bastian Hunter blinked at me. His eyes suddenly widened. He tried to sit up and choked.

‘One of my men was behind me!’ he gasped between hoarse coughs.

It was another minute before Reid and I dug out the second immortal from the wreckage. The man had severe crush injuries to his chest and legs and was barely conscious.

The whole corridor shook violently as another explosion rocked the underground lab. The rubble shifted with a sinister groan.

‘I think now would be a good time to get out of here!’ said Reid.

We hauled the wounded men up and headed for the exit.

‘Why did you come back for us?’ Friedrich asked, his words punctuated by painful grunts.

‘We don’t make a habit of leaving our men behind,’ I replied, panting.

The immortal seemed to consider this. ‘That’s all very altruistic and admirable but still, kinda dumb,’ he muttered.

‘Yeah, well, dumb’s our middle name,’ said Reid. I smiled.

We reached the passage to the steel containment door and started up the stairs beyond. Four feet from the final landing, a detonation tore through the open stairwell above our heads.

I looked up. My eyes widened. ‘Run!’

Deadly debris smashed into the stairs seconds later.

We entered the boiler room in a thick billow of dust. The ground trembled. Pipes burst, releasing jets of steam around us. Tremors shook the walls from the impact of the wreckage pounding the stairwell.

We were halfway to the door leading to the elevator shaft when another explosion brought most of the ceiling down on us.

Buzzing stillness followed. I blinked and coughed dirt out of my mouth.

I was lying on my back under a thin layer of rubble. A jagged piece of metal protruded from the ground inches from my left eye.

I rolled over and crawled to my knees. Friedrich groaned somewhere in the gloom.

Reid was climbing to his feet a short distance to my right. He shook his head dazedly, looked up, and froze.

‘Hell. Talk about bad luck,’ he said leadenly.

I followed his gaze. The weak glow of an emergency light revealed the mound of shattered concrete and metal blocking the access to the elevator shaft. I rose unsteadily and stared at the impenetrable barrier, anger and fear knotting my stomach.

‘We’re trapped,’ Friedrich murmured.

I climbed across the rubble to the far wall and studied the obstruction with narrowed eyes; I was damned if a pile of bricks and mortar was going to stop us after all we had been through.

‘There’s a crack in the wall,’ I said after a moment, tracing the jagged lips of the fracture with my fingers. ‘We could blast our way through.’

Reid frowned. ‘That could bring the whole place down on our heads.’

‘Unless we decide to wait here in the hope that Victor will dig us out before the Crovirs blow this entire joint to hell and back, I don’t see that we have any other options,’ I retorted.

Reid held my eyes for long seconds. A sigh left his lips. ‘That’s all fine and dandy, but where are you gonna get your hands on explosives down here?’

My gaze switched to Friedrich.

The Hunter raised an eyebrow. ‘How did you know?’

I shrugged. ‘I suspected Victor would’ve instructed you to destroy the lab before getting out.’

The Bastian Hunter grunted. ‘That was a good guess.’ He reached inside his backpack and brought out a slim, rectangular block of C4.

It took several minutes to dig a trench in the debris on the opposite side of the room. I stuck the explosive inside the crack in the elevator shaft wall and joined the others behind our makeshift barricade.

‘Ready?’ I said tensely.

‘Not really,’ said Reid. Friedrich shrugged and coughed.

‘Here goes.’ I took a deep breath and depressed the switch on the remote control detonator.

A thunderous boom reverberated ahead of us. Fragments of plaster and concrete filled the room. The ceiling groaned.

I lifted my head from my arms and peered over the lip of the trench.

‘Did it work?’ said Reid.

The dust started to clear. A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth.

Reid rose on his elbows. ‘Well, I’ll be damned.’

The explosion had created a hole large enough for a man to pass through. We made our way across the uneven floor and crawled into the space beyond.

A few bricks had fallen to the base of the elevator shaft. It was otherwise intact. My heart sank as I looked from the wounded immortals to the metal rungs rising up the wall.

‘It’s a long way up,’ said Friedrich. He met my gaze steadily. ‘It might be best to leave us here.’

There was the sound of another distant explosion. A fine blanket of dust rained down around us. I looked questioningly at Reid.

He shrugged. ‘Hell, we haven’t gone through all of that just to abandon them here.’

In the end, we secured the injured men to our harnesses and hoisted them up the ladder. By the time we made it to the hatch, my arms and legs shook with effort, and my breaths came in harsh gasps. Sweat dripped down Reid’s pale face; he looked as exhausted as I felt.

We reached the ventilation shaft moments later and found the zip line intact.

Reid looked from the unconscious immortal in his arms to the tunnel on the other side. ‘How’re we gonna do this?’

Friedrich took a thin coil of climbing rope from his belt bag. ‘Here. If you go over first, you can use this to pull him across,’ he panted.

Reid crossed the ventilation shaft with one end of the rope while Friedrich and I secured the lifeless man to the cable.

‘You’re next,’ I told Friedrich once the unconscious immortal had made it to the opposite tunnel safely.

The Bastian Hunter nodded and leaned heavily against the wall, sweat and blood streaming down his ashen face.

I attached him to the line, tugged on his harness to make sure it was secure, and watched anxiously while he winched himself to the other side. Reid grabbed him seconds later and helped him to the ground.

I had just locked myself onto the cable when a violent blast shook the walls around me. A jagged crack tore through the east side of the ventilation shaft. The ground shifted beneath my feet.

‘Lucas!’ Reid shouted from across the way.

There was no time to think. Heart thudding erratically in my chest, I launched myself across the gaping space.

Chunks of concrete pelted down around me as the walls started to collapse. A grunt left my lips when debris hit the zip line. The wire suddenly sagged.

I looked over my shoulder, alarm twisting through my gut; the steel arrow was almost out of the ceiling.

‘What the hell are you waiting for?’ Reid barked. ‘
Move!
’

I needed no further prompting.

Six feet from the mouth of the tunnel, the arrow finally gave. I felt the abrupt slack in the line, grabbed it with both hands, and fell through empty space.

I slammed into the wall of the shaft. Air left my lungs in a stunned hiss. I slipped a couple of inches, the wire cutting into my palms.

A thunderous noise erupted above me. I looked past Reid’s anxious face at the distant roof. My eyes widened.

The entire structure was caving in.

I placed my feet against the wall and started to climb at the same time Reid pulled frantically on the other end of the line. He grabbed my shoulders and heaved me inside the tunnel.

A large section of concrete and the twisted remains of a metal fan crashed against the space where I had been a second ago. I rose on my elbows and stared at the falling debris.

Reid scowled down at me. ‘What took you so long?’

‘I was admiring the view,’ I said drily in between coughs. Further explosions rocked through the earth around us.

‘Yeah, well, now’s not the time to sit and reminisce about it.’ He yanked me to my feet.

We pulled the wounded men upright and headed into the mine.

After what felt like a lifetime of obscurity and a silence that was only broken by the blasts from the underground facility and our increasingly labored breathing, a dim light grew in the distance ahead of us.

‘We’re almost there!’ I gasped to Friedrich.

Sweat drenched my face and clothes, turning the dirt coating my skin into grimy rivulets. My muscles burned from the strain of carrying the injured immortal.

The Bastian Hunter did not respond. His eyes closed and he slipped into unconsciousness once more. I grunted and lifted him under the shoulders, my gaze focused on Reid’s back as I took one heavy step after the other.

The elevator shaft to the upper mine appeared in the gloom. A group of figures stood bathed in the glow of torches next to the wire cage. They turned at our footsteps.

Anatole grinned. ‘You must have the lives of a thousand cats.’

Relief flashed across Bruno’s face. ‘I’ll let Victor know you’re safe. He’ll be—’

His words were drowned by a rising rumble. I stiffened and looked over my shoulder.

Shadows shifted behind us. Violent tremors shook the floor of the tunnel.

‘Go!’ I shouted at Reid, my heart thundering inside my chest.

We raced the final twenty feet to the elevator shaft just as the roof of the passage collapsed behind us. I gritted my teeth and pushed Friedrich forward a second before debris hit my back. I stumbled and fell.

Darkness engulfed me as I was buried beneath a pile of rock and dirt. I lay stunned for long seconds before blinking and choking on a mouthful of dirt. I tried to move.

The rubble above me barely shifted.

Light suddenly stabbed through the gloom. A pair of hands reached in and dragged me out of my earthy tomb. I gasped and rolled over, air entering my parched lungs in giant gulps.

‘For a minute there, I really thought you were a goner,’ said Reid.

He was sitting on the ground a couple of feet away, his breathing heavy and fast. Blood oozed from a wound on his head and the fresh scrapes on his knuckles.

The immortals were slowly climbing to their knees behind him.

I smiled weakly through the cloud of dust settling around us and grabbed Reid’s hand. Something clattered to the ground as he pulled me upright. I turned.

The canister from the lab had slipped from my backpack.

Icy fear filled my veins when I saw the dent in the side of the container. The cooling liquid inside was already leaking through and stained the dirt a dark brown.

Reid reached down.

‘Don’t!’ I shouted, stilling his hand.

His eyes widened. ‘Lucas?’

I was surprised at the steadiness of my own fingers when I crouched and lifted the canister. I twisted the cap open and carefully removed the shattered remains of the inner holder.

There was a small fracture in the wall of the syringe. The split widened under my frozen gaze.

My heart slammed dully against my ribs. I looked from Reid and the frozen immortals to the cracking, blood-filled tube and the attached hypodermic needle. It took but seconds to reach the inevitable conclusion. There was only one thing I could do.

Chapter Twenty-Two

‘H
e did what?!’

Anna’s outraged shriek was audible even through several layers of insulated glass.

I grimaced and gazed through the sealed port at the section of the interior ceiling panel visible above me.

Victor drifted into my field of view. He was talking on his cell.

‘Uh-huh,’ he said while he studied me. ‘How does he look? Guilty. No, no, he seems fine otherwise.’

A litany of Czech issued from the other end of the line; I recognized several choice expletives.

Victor brought the cell back to his ear. ‘I’ll get in touch when we land,’ he said drily. He ended the call, his eyes never leaving my face.

‘That was an extremely foolish thing you did.’ His voice was muffled by the protective glass. ‘Brave, but foolish.’

I shifted in my steel prison and remained silent.

We were on a private plane bound for the States.

After I injected myself with the contaminated blood and burned the remains of the syringe and needle, I sat in the twilight at the bottom of the mine and waited for Reid and the Bastians to return. It had taken them a couple of hours to locate a suitable high containment transport pod and the necessary equipment they needed to move me. During that time, I prayed fervently that I would get to see the Godards again.

Night had fallen by the time we reached the military airfield outside the town of Plzeň, fifty-six miles west of Prague. A C-40 Clipper stood waiting for us on the tarmac.

I watched the plane fill up with Bastian Hunters and crates of hardware before the container I lay in was hoisted onto the main deck.

‘Where’s Reid?’ I said presently.

Victor glanced toward the back of the aircraft’s cabin. ‘I don’t think he’s ready to talk to you yet.’

‘That bad, huh?’ I grimaced. ‘How many has he smoked so far?’

A wry light appeared in Victor’s eyes. ‘Five. And counting.’ He disappeared from view.

Reid’s irate face materialized through the glass window some time later. ‘You’re a jackass.’

I sighed. ‘It was the only option available,’ I explained for the tenth time. ‘We couldn’t afford to lose the virus.’

‘That still doesn’t change the fact that you’re a jackass,’ he retorted, a muscle jumping in his cheek. ‘How’re you feeling?’

‘The injection site is a bit sore.’ I glanced at the red halo surrounding the needle mark at my left elbow.

Reid went pale. ‘Any fever? Headache?’

I shook my head. Another wave of remorse hit me as I studied his anxious expression. He rubbed his face and exhaled loudly.

‘You should get some rest,’ I said.

Reid glowered at me, opened his mouth to say something, stopped, and stormed off. One disadvantage about being confined to an isolation pod was that I could hardly follow people when they stamped away in a huff.

Anatole appeared a couple of minutes later.
And neither can I control the people staring in at me
, I thought tiredly.

The immortal was grinning. ‘That was quite a show you put on for us.’

‘It wasn’t meant to be,’ I said coldly.

Anatole’s grin widened. ‘The lady didn’t sound very happy.’

I considered this for a second. ‘No, she didn’t, did she?’

‘Look on the bright side,’ said the immortal with a carefree shrug. ‘The plague might kill you first. I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes when she gets her hands on you.’

Strangely enough, this thought occupied my mind for the remainder of the flight.

We touched down somewhere on the US eastern seaboard six hours later. It was still early evening. A star-dotted night sky filled my field of vision when the pod was unloaded from the plane. It disappeared as I was lifted into the back of a truck.

‘How are you doing?’ said Victor above me while my steel and glass prison was securely latched into place.

‘I’m fine.’

He looked relieved at my words. ‘We’re not far from the compound.’

Twelve hours had passed since I had injected myself with the virus. I wondered how long it would be before I started to experience symptoms of the infection. An image of the three dead, bleeding bodies in the Crovir lab flashed through my mind. I grimaced.

The truck’s engine roared into life. It rolled across the tarmac and gathered speed.

A dim feeling of claustrophobia soon surfaced at the edge of my consciousness; my view was limited to the ceiling and the sidewall of the vehicle. Although I was aware that the truck was full of Bastian Hunters and that Reid and Victor were among them, I could not quell the unsettling sensation.

An hour passed. The truck started to climb.

The vibrations from the suspensions suddenly increased; we had left the main road. The gradient grew steeper, the ground more uneven. The pod rocked on its metal bed, jarring me along with it.

The truck braked briefly before setting off again. The land leveled out after a mile. We finally rolled to a stop.

Footsteps scuttled past and shadows played across the glass port. The doors of the truck opened, bringing a flood of light. From the way the vehicle suddenly rose on its wheels, a number of people had exited it. Muffled voices rose close by. The floor shuddered as someone approached.

A face appeared through the window of the containment pod. It was Anna.

Relief washed over me at the sight of her. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy; the rest of her features were dominated by a scowl. She said something in Czech. It did not sound particularly flattering.

Reid and Victor materialized next to her. Muted words reached me through the glass.

‘Has he complained of any symptoms?’ said Anna.

‘Apart from some pain where he injected himself, no,’ Reid replied.

‘I can hear you, you know,’ I said mildly.

‘I’m not ready to talk to you yet!’ she snapped. Movement outside the truck drew her gaze. She turned and spoke to an unseen person before addressing Victor. ‘The lab’s ready. Let’s get him there.’

The pod was transferred to a trolley. I had a brief vision of a dark, star-speckled heaven before a lintel appeared above me. A series of fluorescent light strips followed. A hundred feet or so later, I was wheeled into a service elevator. The doors closed behind me.

They opened again seconds later somewhere underground. I was aware of a cavernous space as I was maneuvered across the floor. Victor appeared at my side.

‘Where are we?’

‘Inside one of our bunkers,’ said Victor. ‘Anna and the other scientists set up their lab down here. We thought it would be the safest place on the compound.’

I drifted past a high containment glass wall and was wheeled through a decontamination chamber and into an inner sterile room. The pod was lifted from the gurney and secured onto a metal-framed bed.

I was patiently studying the gray paneling above my head when I detected movement to my left. The bed slowly tilted upright by ninety degrees. A wall appeared in front of me. Several figures were visible behind the window that occupied the breadth of it.

Someone punched a code in the access panel on the side of the pod. Almost half a day after I first entered it, the door of my steel and glass prison hissed open. I stepped out onto a tiled floor.

Anna was the only other person in the room. She wore a white decontamination suit. Her green eyes regarded me steadily from behind a visor. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi,’ I murmured. I studied the window ahead.

Men and women in white coats milled about the room beyond the glass. Victor and Reid stood in their midst. Tomas Godard and Roman Dvorsky appeared behind them.

‘How are you feeling?’ said Anna.

I dragged my gaze from Godard’s stricken face. ‘I’m okay.’

Anna carefully inspected me from head to toe. ‘You haven’t experienced any fever or chills?’ she said insistently.

‘No.’

She reached out and lifted my left arm in her gloved hands. Her fingers slowly traced the small red mark at my elbow.

‘Of all the—’ She stopped, her shoulders shaking, and punched me in the chest.

I grunted in surprise.

Someone chuckled behind the glass. I recognized Reid’s laughter.

Anna handed me a hospital gown.

‘Put this on,’ she instructed curtly. ‘There’s a bathroom through there where you can change.’ She indicated a steel door in a corner of the sterile chamber. ‘Place your clothes in the plastic carrier inside and give them to me.’

I was poked and prodded by Anna and the other scientists for the next hour. They took samples of my blood and swabs from my throat and the injection site on my arm before attaching me to a series of monitors.

I sat on the edge of the bed and scrutinized the array of equipment around me. ‘Is this strictly necessary?’

Anna paused at the door; she was the last one to leave the room. ‘Yes,’ she snapped.

‘Oh.’ My stomach grumbled loudly in the silence that followed. I made a face. ‘Could I at least have something to eat?’

Her expression softened. ‘Sure.’

The meal was hot and filling. Anna returned and took another sample of blood from my arm.

‘Any idea how long I’m going to be in here?’ I asked patiently.

It was a while before she answered.

‘I don’t know.’ Her eyes met mine steadily. ‘So far, all your observations are stable.’ She bit her lip. ‘We should know within the next twenty-four hours if you develop any symptoms. The incubation period is quite short.’

I digested this information with a sinking feeling. ‘Can you make a vaccine from the samples you’ve taken from me?’

Anna nodded, her face brightening. ‘It might take some time, but it’s feasible.’ She glanced over her shoulder at the wall that separated us from the outer lab. ‘I can’t tell you how relieved Grandfather is that you’re okay.’ She stared at me. ‘Were you aware that our grandmother died during the first plague?’

My gaze shifted from her to the room beyond. Another ripple of remorse fluttered through my conscience. ‘No. I didn’t know that.’

No wonder Godard had looked so shaken.

A sad smile flitted across Anna’s face. ‘We’ve only just found you. We can’t lose you now.’ She turned and left the room.

I closed my eyes and lay back on the bed, her words playing over in my mind.

It was another four hours before the fever started. By then, a pounding headache was already hammering at my temples. Chills soon racked my body and sweat soaked the bed sheets beneath me.

I started to drift in and out of consciousness, barely aware of the people entering and leaving the room. At one stage, I opened my eyes and saw Anna at my side.

‘Hang in there,’ she said shakily, glancing at the monitors above me. Her face was ashen behind the visor.

Next to her, someone was injecting a straw-colored liquid into my IV.

The tone of her words alarmed me more than anything happening to my own body. I blinked moisture out of my eyes and tried to focus on her face.

‘It’s all right,’ I stammered, my teeth shattering uncontrollably. ‘I’ll be okay.’ I was stunned at the weakness of my voice.

‘No, it’s not!’ Anna’s eyes glistened wetly.

It took all of my willpower to reach out and take her gloved hand into my own shaking one. ‘I’m going to be fine.’

Her fingers curled around mine. A single tear spilled down her face. My eyelids fluttered closed and I sank into oblivion.

The fever broke thirty-six hours later. How I lasted until then, I was not sure myself; the details were more than a little hazy. Apart from a sore head and some general grogginess that hung around for most of the next day, I was back to my normal self.

It was another twenty-four hours before Anna returned to give me the news.

‘Your body mounted a response in the form of an elevated white cell count. Otherwise, all the other parameters have stabilized.’ For the first time in days, her eyes were bright with barely concealed excitement. ‘I’ve got the results of your latest tests.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s over.’ Anna smiled at my puzzled expression. ‘The infection. It’s gone.’

My eyes widened. I was unsure I had heard her correctly. ‘Gone?’

Anna nodded.

‘Completely?’ I said insistently.

‘Yes. There’s no trace of active disease.’

I digested this incredible fact slowly. ‘How is that possible?’

Anna hesitated. ‘I—I don’t know.’

I observed her troubled expression. ‘Did you manage to isolate the virus?’ I said finally.

‘Yes. And it’s definitely the one Burnstein was working on. You already have significant levels of protective antibodies in your blood.’

‘That’s good, isn’t it?’

‘It is.’ Anna’s tone was wary. ‘It’s also incredibly fast.’

The meaning behind her words sank in. Coldness spread through me.

‘You think this has something to do with surviving the seventeenth death?’

It was her turn to be quiet. ‘Yes, I suspect it does,’ she eventually murmured. Her eyes grew shuttered. ‘You may be truly invincible after all.’

I stared at the floor, uncertain how I felt about that statement.

‘Am I still contagious?’ I said distractedly.

‘No. The virus is no longer detectable in your blood stream or your swabs. This is the final all clear.’

I looked up. ‘Does this mean I can get out of here?’ I asked, unable to mask the hope in my voice.

Anna smiled. ‘Yes.’

The first person to greet me was Reid. Godard and Victor followed closely on his heels.

‘How do you feel?’ said my partner.

‘I’m okay.’ More than anything, I was relieved to be out of the containment room.

Godard pulled me toward him and engulfed me in a tight hug. I stiffened for a moment, before relaxing in his grip.

‘You’re a very silly boy,’ the old man said gruffly. ‘Silly, but brave.’

‘Yeah, I get that a lot,’ I murmured. I ignored Reid’s knowing grin and turned to Victor. ‘Any news on Burnstein and the Crovirs?’

‘Burnstein’s holed up in DC, along with the rest of Vellacrus’s scientists,’ he replied. ‘It appears they have another research facility there.’

An image of the tower we had followed the CEO of GeMBiT Corp to on Pennsylvania Avenue flashed in my mind. Our trip to Washington felt like a lifetime ago.

‘And the vaccine?’

Victor’s expression hardened. ‘They’ve completed the trial. Reznak called a few hours ago. Vellacrus started the inoculation yesterday.’

Shock darted through me. I was stunned at the speed of events. Only three days had passed since we broke into the Crovirs’ lab in Germany. ‘That’s not good.’

Victor sighed. ‘No, it isn’t.’

I looked around the lab, aware of the curious stares of the scientists and several Hunters. ‘Where’s your father?’

Victor exchanged a meaningful glance with Godard.

‘In Europe,’ he said in a low voice. ‘The Councils and Assembly are proving more difficult to persuade than we originally anticipated. We suspect some of them are deliberately delaying the process.’

I studied him for a moment. ‘What’s the plan?’

‘I’m glad you asked. Walk with me.’

Half an hour later, I stood back from the table that dominated the crowded operations room in the main lodge of the Bastian compound.