King's Crusade (Seventeen) (35 page)

Still firing, Alexa stepped swiftly backward toward the opposite end of the wagon. She glanced over her shoulder.

Jackson was already at the exit door. He grabbed the handle and pulled; the door slid open half an inch before jamming in its tracks. He swore. It was locked.

Gunfire erupted from across the compartment. Alexa grabbed Jackson’s arm and ran into the shelter of the stall to the left. Bullets pummeled the boards in front of them as they landed heavily on the floor. Wood chips and splinters rained down on their heads and slashed across exposed skin.

She checked the magazines in the guns, rose on one knee, and shot at the three men framed in the doorway next to the tombs. A lightbulb exploded in a shower of shards in the other room. One of the figures cried out and fell under her bullets. The other two retreated in the gloom behind him. She dropped behind the shelter of the stall wall.

Jackson’s rapid breaths warmed the skin on the back of her neck in the deadly hush that followed. Alexa glanced at the skylight in the roof of the boxcar and formulated an escape plan.

A faint, metallic noise suddenly reached her ears. She looked over the top of the stall and saw the immortal with the pale blue eyes standing with a grenade launcher on the end of an AK-74 rifle. Instinct took over. She turned and pushed Jackson toward the second stall on the other side of the carriage.

A second later, the world went white around her.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

A
wareness slammed into her with
the force of an earthquake. Alexa gasped and sucked freezing air into her starving lungs. Deep, shuddering breaths wheezed past her numb lips as oxygen flooded her blood. She lay still for timeless moments as she concentrated on simply inhaling and exhaling.

Inch by slow inch, she became conscious of the cold shroud that encased her body. Her eyes fluttered open, dislodging a thin crust of frost from her lashes.

Snow fell thickly from a dark, overcast sky framed by a ring of trees. The flakes landed silently on her chilled skin and melted into icy trails. She turned her head slowly.

She was lying on her back in a shallow, frozen stream fifty feet from the edge of an embankment that ran alongside the railway line. The faint gurgle of flowing water reached her ears from beneath the inch-thick ice.

Pain suddenly washed over her in a blinding wave. She choked on her breath as dark spots danced across her vision. Wetness stung her eyes.

Alexa panted unevenly for several seconds. She gritted her teeth before slowly rolling onto her side. She froze and stared at the crimson stain spreading in an irregular circle across the whiteness around her. Beyond it, charred chunks of the wagon dotted the landscape in a semicircular blast radius. She looked down.

The fragments from the grenade had ripped through the snowsuit and slashed her body from her chest to her thighs. She was bleeding from dozens of cuts and jagged tears. She could make out a particularly large wound on her upper abdomen.

Alexa sat up unsteadily and bit her lip when fiery trails of agony stabbed through her once more. She had dislocated her left shoulder and broken a couple of ribs when she landed on the ground.

She took another deep breath, bent her left arm at the elbow, and rotated it out sharply. A hiss escaped her throat when the bone slipped back into the socket. Blood dripped from a slash on her forehead. She wiped the red drops from her eyes and scanned her surroundings.

She was in the middle of a forest that flanked the tracks. Metal glinted in a snowdrift about twenty feet ahead of her. She pushed herself onto her knees and slowly lurched to her feet.

The darkness swirled around her in hazy circles. Blood gushed from the wound in her abdomen.

Alexa stood still while she fought down a wave of nausea. It took all her willpower to raise one foot and put it forward in front of the other. By the seventh step, her gait was steadier.

Her Sigs had fallen some thirty feet from the rail lines. She picked them up and looked around. A frozen vista of trees stretched out before her for what seemed like miles. Although she suspected Perm lay somewhere to the southwest of her position, she could see no semblance of life through the blizzard and the solid barrier of pines and conifers.

She walked to a tree on the embankment and sat down against the trunk. Her breaths clouding the air with white puffs, she stared at the sky through the branches above her head before closing her eyes. Jackson’s face swam across her dark vision.

This time, the ache that shot through her had little to do with her injuries. The fact that she could not see his body next to the tracks meant he was still on the train—and probably still alive.

A slow, burning anger seeped into her heart and started to flow through her veins. Alexa allowed the rage to build up until it drowned out her physical discomfort. She looked down at the gaping gash in her abdomen, grabbed a handful of snow, and started to pack it methodically against the wound.

Something white fluttered out of her torn jacket and fell against her hand. Dark drops dripped past her eyes and landed on the fragment of paper. She picked it up slowly. Scarlet trails smudged the Cartesian coordinates scribbled across the dirty sheet.

She was still staring at it sometime later when someone shouted her name. Lights flashed through the heavy curtain of white. Seconds later, the beams of a four-by-four washed over the tracks and zeroed in on her. The vehicle crunched over the snow and came to a stop several feet away.

Alexa rose slowly from the ground.

The passenger door opened and Reznak stepped out. He ran to where she stood propped against the tree, his boots sinking awkwardly in the foot-deep drifts. His eyes grew wide with horror as he took in her injuries.

‘It looks worse than it—’ she started to say.

Reznak grabbed her shoulders and hugged her fiercely to his chest. Alexa winced and stifled a groan.

He stood back, a remorseful grimace flashing across his face. He suddenly went pale. ‘Did you die?’

‘No,’ Alexa said firmly. She wasn’t sure how she knew. She just did.

Carrington appeared behind Reznak. ‘Holy shit,’ the immortal said hoarsely. He turned to the Hunters spilling out of the other vehicles pulling up behind the first four-by-four. ‘Get the medical kit!’

‘How did you find me?’ asked Alexa.

As Reznak wrapped one arm around her shoulders and walked her to the open tailgate of the closest vehicle, she reached inside the snowsuit and took out her satellite phone. It had been smashed during the explosion and her subsequent landing. She looked at him with a frown.

A strangely defensive light dawned in her godfather’s eyes. ‘There’s a GPS tracking device in your Timex,’ he finally admitted. ‘I’m sorry we couldn’t get here any sooner. We had to take a detour across the river.’

Alexa stared at him for a moment before looking at the expensive and miraculously intact watch on her wrist. It had been a gift from him ten years ago, on the tricentennial anniversary of the day he had found her on the battlefield outside Narva. Her gaze shifted to his unrepentant face.

‘I’m not apologizing for it,’ Reznak said bluntly.

She mulled over his words and the unexpected feelings they engendered while he helped her remove the damaged snowsuit. A fortnight ago, the mere fact that Reznak had effectively tagged her would have enraged her beyond belief. Now, she felt differently.

Her short time with Zachary Jackson had changed her in ways that she could never have imagined in a hundred years.

A muscle clenched in her godfather’s jaw when he uncovered the dozens of gashes and tears that dotted her flesh.

Carrington studied her wounds with a low whistle. ‘God, Alexa, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this banged up.’ He grabbed a steel hip flask from the trunk of the vehicle and tossed it at her. ‘Here, drink up.’

She opened the cap of the container, got a whiff of strong spirits, and downed a mouthful of the liquid. Heat flooded her throat and spread flaming trails through her body. She took another mouthful as Carrington started to clean the worse of her injuries.

‘What happened?’ asked Reznak.

Alexa glanced at the suture kit that one of the Hunters had just opened. ‘Jackson found the tombs,’ she said steadily. ‘They were in one of the goods wagons on the train. Kronos surprised us when we were trying to get out of the carriage.’ She barely felt the needle when it pierced her cold skin. ‘He’s still on the train. As is Yonten.’

The only thing keeping her from losing her composure was the knowledge that the monk would protect Jackson. Of course, neither of them was bulletproof, but she had yet to see a single shot get close to striking the Asian man in the battles they had fought together thus far.

Reznak muttered an expletive in Czech. ‘The rest of our team are more than an hour out,’ he said at her quizzical expression. ‘And we have no idea where the train’s gone. Eva was unable to analyze the satellite images over this part of the plains.’

Alexa handed him the piece of paper with the Cartesian coordinates. ‘Jackson found this in Istanbul. The point of origin must be Perm,’ she said curtly.

Five minutes later, they were staring at a dot on a map on Reznak’s laptop. ‘That’s 180 miles northeast of here,’ he said thoughtfully. He studied the craggy terrain around the target. ‘It’s in the Ural Mountains.’

Strength was steadily flowing back into Alexa’s limbs. The pain that stabbed through her body had turned into a dull ache; her wounds were already healing. ‘They needed the diesel locomotive to reach their final destination,’ she said as she stepped into a spare snowsuit. ‘They must be using sections of non-electrified tracks to get there.’

Reznak turned to one of the Hunters. ‘Give the guys who’re joining us the new coordinates. We’ll meet them there.’ His gaze shifted to the snow-covered railway line next to the vehicles. ‘Let’s go.’

They drove alongside the tracks for eighty miles before turning to follow a branch line that veered north by northeast into the wooded wilderness. Although the freezing winds that howled across the plains eased slightly, there was no respite from the steady snowfall.

Boreal forests draped in heavy white blankets rose around them as they headed through the foothills toward the soaring peaks of the Urals. Apart from the empty tracks and the occasional power cable, they saw no signs of civilization.

The snowstorm finally abated around five thirty. At six in the evening, a signpost appeared in the beams of their headlights. They rolled to a stop next to it and studied the Russian wording under the coating of ice and snow.

‘“Danger. Mining area ahead. Trespassers will be prosecuted”,’ translated Carrington. He glanced at the computer screen on her lap.

They were four miles from their target.

‘We go on foot from here,’ said Alexa coldly.

The excitement of the impending hunt sent a burst of adrenaline through her veins. Injuries long forgotten, her muscles tightened in readiness for battle.

In her long, immortal life, she had never wanted a fight as much as she wanted this one.

Reznak spoke to the team leader of the forty Crovir Hunters waiting for his instructions ten miles northwest of their position. With the blizzard finally easing, Eva had managed to beam some useful satellite pictures their way.

‘Your target is in the mountain ahead. To reach it, you will have to go through a narrow valley,’ said the AI smoothly over the laptop speakers.

Alexa studied the infrared images on the display. ‘Can you see any structures that look like buildings?’

‘No. There are no visible signs of human habitation above the tree line,’ said Eva. ‘The rail tracks follow the banks of a river to the south face of the mountain at the head of the valley. Apart from some evidence of animal life, the area appears deserted.’

‘What’s below the mountain?’ asked Alexa.

Static came across the speakers while the AI communicated with the Crovir satellite network. ‘Interestingly enough, the ground-penetrating radar is showing impressions of a vast network of underground caves and tunnels,’ said Eva moments later. ‘The first two levels seem to be supported by reinforced concrete. The underlying rock appears to be limestone. I cannot tell you how deep the complex is.’

‘Are the caves man-made structures?’ said Reznak.

‘It is difficult to ascertain this with absolutely certainty,’ said Eva. ‘Some look like natural formations. Others have a more traditional, symmetric design.’

‘Can you access any computer network in the area?’ said Alexa.

‘No,’ said Eva. ‘But I am detecting underground power cables running into the mountain.’

Moments later, they finished gearing up, parked the vehicles under the cover of the trees, and headed into the forest on foot.

Apart from the occasional thud of snow falling from the laden branches and the faint crunch of their steps in the white drifts that covered the rising land, the silence around them was complete. The wind soon died down.

Alexa stared through the overhead canopy. Stars appeared in the clearing skies above, diamond-bright in the darkness.

She would have preferred the cover of the blizzard for their assault.

The sound of rushing water finally broke the stillness of the night. A mile after they started out, they came to the confluence of two rivers hedged by the conifer forests. A low bridge carried the rail tracks over the shallow rapids.

They crossed the waterway a hundred feet down from the overpass.

The gradient increased steeply when they reached the mouth of the valley. Shadowy slopes rose on either side of the thinning river, great blocks of rock that blotted out the stars. The rail line followed the curve of the canyon toward the north.

Fifteen minutes later, Alexa stopped abruptly and put a hand up to signal the others to halt.

An owl hooted in the unearthly hush that shrouded the forested inclines.

She studied the pile of snow next to a tree, crouched down, and gently cleared the base with a gloved hand. A small, black, metallic device strapped to the trunk was exposed.

They stared at the sensor through their night vision goggles.

‘Tell the rest of the team that there’s a wireless, infrared, perimeter intrusion system within one and a half miles of the target,’ said Alexa to one of the Crovir Hunters, her gaze shifting to the gloom ahead. The immortal nodded and spoke quietly into the microphone transmitter on the hood of his snowsuit.