Part 33 (2/2)
Air swirled down from the huge cooling duct overhead. The smallest of sc.r.a.pes against metal made Kurt c.o.c.k his head to the side. ”Scheisse- something's up there.” something's up there.”
Suddenly, a dark shape swooped down, dragging Kurt up into the duct above their heads. The pistol clattered to the floor and the bag containing his laptop dropped beside it.
Joe ran to retrieve the gun. ”He's got Kurt!”
Mia was by his side in an instant. ”Where's this lead? He won't kill him. Gaius needs us alive to get those discs back.”
”It goes all through the building... he might have taken him to the cafeteria, where the bomb is.”
”Come on!”
They ran inside toward the atrium with weapons poised. Joe panted to keep up with Mia, as she easily outran him to the cafeteria to look inside. ”Not here!”
Something scuttled above their head towards the atrium. ”They're still in the ductwork,” Mia whispered. They moved cautiously. Joe looked around, but didn't see anything. Then a drop of blood hit the floor at their feet. Mia growled, raising her weapon above their heads. ”Put him down, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d!”
A refined, slightly accented voice called down, ”I'll drop him if you shoot. His brains will spatter over the floor.”
Mia's face went still, ”It can't be... Brovik? Brovik?”
Joe's eyes followed up to the steel armature supporting the gla.s.s ziggurat atop the atrium. A vampire, his face seared like melting wax, with long, pale hair, clutched Kurt to him in a death grip.
”I thought he was dead.”
Brovik laughed. ”A few hours of sunlight can't kill one as old as me, Doctor Ansari. Yes, I know all about you. Very clever of the Amazon to put you to work on Mia, did you learn all of her intimate intimate secrets?” secrets?”
”The body on the boat?” Mia gasped.
”That was one of my dogs you set adrift and burnt with Ethan. Kurt dearest, I was touched at the poetic gesture, but even you, my love, knew nothing about the air raid shelter I'd dug on the island before the war. Give me what I want, and I'll let you fend for yourselves as long as you can against The Wolf. Try anything Mia, and I'll kill the boy. Now, where are those discs, cara mia cara mia?”
Mia raised the rifle to her shoulder, taking aim.
Joe grabbed her arm. ”He'll kill him!”
”f.u.c.king liar will kill him anyway.” Mia squeezed the trigger. ”Sorry about the discs Brovik, but here's a little something from Sanjivani!”
Brovik roared as Mia fired. His head exploded in a spray of tissue and blood. The elder's hands clung to Kurt for an instant before his corpse tottered and fell. With a desperate movement, Kurt wrenched free, catching the supporting structure, and hanging there as Brovik's body plummeted ten stories to the terrazzo floor. The impact sounded like a melon splitting open. A vast pool of blood spread from the mangled body as burst guts spilled out onto the floor. Joe couldn't look away, wondering what one thousand year old entrails would look like, but to his surprise they looked like any other.
”This body should be autopsied,” Joe mused.
”No time! We don't know how soon that bomb will go off. Kurt, let's go!”
Kurt climbed down the armature, an agile spider monkey, leaping lightly to the floor, his face covered in blood and brain matter.
”Yuck,” said Mia. A distant rumble shook the building. ”Run!”
The three of them took off through the lobby and down the hall to the rear of the building. Mia and Kurt sped by Joe as if he stood still, a blur. Kurt opened the door onto the loading dock, scooping up his dropped laptop as Mia ran to the van, starting it up. Panting, Joe caught up with them and threw his bag in the back as he slipped into the driver's seat. Kurt and Mia, not even winded, piled in the back, sitting on a pile of moving mats.
”What's this?” Kurt asked, examining Joe's bag.
”My research and other data I was given, notes of my sessions with Mia and a first aid kit. There are alcohol wipes in it. Clean yourself up. You look disgusting.”
Kurt smiled through the gore. ”You're all right, Doctor.”
Joe released the brake, hitting the gas. Just as the van screeched away from the building a huge explosion rocked them, fire and smoke poured out behind. Joe floored the ignition, clearing the building just as the side collapsed in a cloud of thick dust and debris. Another explosion went off and another until the entire building caved in. Brovik had imploded a tomb for himself and the dead guards. Joe sped out of the parking lot, cras.h.i.+ng through the gate, noticing no guard posted there. ”Brovik must have killed the guards here too.”
”Where you taking us?” Mia asked.
”Maryland. My friend Carol works for the NIH. She has some powerful friends. If they can't protect you, no one can.”
Kurt protested. ”Gaius has government people in his pay!”
”It's our only chance. Leisha was going to move you, but after what Brovik did there isn't any more Genpath, the project is dead.”
Kurt leaned over the seat. ”Doctor, take us to Virginia, to Ethan's house. We'll hide there until you can speak with your friend. It belongs to Mia now. We need to fetch something. There's nothing in that locker in New York but a letter saying we're through with Leisha. I suspected something like this might occur and we planted it there before we came here. We were planning to escape- with your help of course. The discs are at Caithness.”
”Won't she'll figure where you are?”
”She's never been there,” Mia said. ”But we'll have to be careful. The Wolf might be watching the house.”
Joe looked over the dash to the lightening sky. ”Sun's starting to rise, better take cover.”
Kurt spread out the moving pads to make a bed. Mia leaned over the seat ”You must be exhausted.”
”Soon as it gets dark we'll head to an airport. I'll call Carol to warn her.”
Kurt peered over the seat. ”Joe, we appreciate the great risk you're taking.”
”You never called me anything but Doctor before. Why the sudden familiarity?”
”We're partners now, whether you want it or not.”
”s.h.i.+t, got to call my wife. She'll think I'm dead.” Joe pulled out his phone and hit the speed dial. He spoke rapidly to Rima, his voice tense, telling her there was an explosion but he was safe. He had to go to Was.h.i.+ngton for a while, but not to tell anyone where he was. He couldn't tell her more, but he'd be in touch.
Joe glanced back. The two vampires huddled together on the pile of moving pads, like a couple of kids, their fate in his hands. He turned his eyes to the road ahead. The sun bled red over the horizon. Bad weather ahead. Joe turned the van up the ramp onto the interstate, heading east into the storm.
BLURB FOR TWILIGHT OF THE G.o.dS.
BOOK TWO OF THE IMMORTYL REVOLUTION:.
Narrowly escaping the implosion of Genpath Laboratories, vampire lovers, Mia Disantini and Kurt Eisen are on the run from their rival in the ”Forbidden Science”, Immortyl elder Gaius Lupus. When Kurt is captured by Gaius and rescued with the aid of feral child and teen vampires known as sewer rats, Mia witnesses first hand the charismatic spell her lover casts over these would-be revolutionaries who vow to join Kurt in his mission to bring down the house of Gaius. Meeting obstacles to government funding to support the research that will one day allow them to walk in the sun, Kurt builds his forces, while Mia navigates the minefield of rat politics, where she is distressed to be shunted into the background and viewed merely as an overly ambitious concubine who stands between the beloved ”Loki” and his followers, particularly the oddly timid, but beautiful Arturo who threatens to sever the deep bond between Mia and Kurt.
Will Kurt and Mia defeat Gaius's brutal attacks and realize their dream of a cure for their condition? Will the new order they establish survive betrayal from within? And will their love adapt to the challenge of a third partner?
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