Cara MIA - By Book One of the Immortyl Revolution - By Denise Verrico Page 0,110
the steel armature supporting the glass 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 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?”
Mia raised the rifle to her shoulder, taking aim.
Joe grabbed her arm. “He’ll kill him!”
“Fucking 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, crashing 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.”