The Boy Who Glowed in the Dark (35 page)

He was dying.

Luo’s mind raced. He’d never speak with Eva. She’d never look into his eyes. Their souls would never connect. At least not above ground.

It didn’t matter.

He was dead, but she was alive and would survive. The boy would see to that. No matter what the obstacles ahead of them, the boy would protect her. Luo’s final vision was of the boy scaling the wall. He’d never seen anything like it.

The boy would be able to protect her.

The boy was no longer human.

The boy was something more.

CHAPTER 53

B
OBBY AND
E
VA
rose from the floor. They’d dropped to their stomachs as soon as they’d heard the gunshot, seen the bodyguard firing at Luo from behind.

The bodyguard’s third bullet pierced Luo’s chest. Luo collapsed to the floor, his body limp. The bodyguard dropped his gun and fell down the stairs. He remained limp on the floor, a hole in his head just above the eyes.

Bobby jumped to his feet to help Luo. He was Eva’s father. He was Bobby’s friend. Bobby wanted to save him, whatever the cost. Without Luo, Bobby would have been dead twice already. But a calmer voice prevailed. It was the voice of his father, instructing him to stop indulging in sentiment and focus on his own survival.

Eva was already rising to her feet. Bobby reached out with his hand. As she took it, Bobby saw Nadia and Simeonovich getting up, too. The latter held a gun in his right hand.

“More guards upstairs,” Bobby said. “Down is better.”

Eva passed Bobby. He didn’t wait for a reaction from Nadia. He raced to catch up with her. It dawned on Bobby that he hadn’t seen Victor or Milanovich. They were probably still on the ground, he thought. Still hiding.

The bodyguard’s corpse lay beside Luo’s body on the upward staircase. Eva rounded the corner to the downward stairwell. Bobby was two steps behind her.

Another guard rounded the flight of stairs from below. He was nine steps away from Eva. The guard looked up.

His eyes met Eva’s.

The guard raised his rifle.

Bobby leaped down the staircase. He pushed off his right knee and propelled himself with all his might. His gut resisted the leap. It was too long a distance to cover. His instincts told him he’d land at the man’s feet just as he was ready to fire.

His gut was wrong. His instincts were wrong.

The thrust from his thigh catapulted him onto the man in a flash. The guard’s rifle got caught between their bodies.

Bobby plunged the knife through the guard’s left eye. Rolled off his body and looked up at Eva.

“Come on,” he said.

The sound of the blade sliding through wet and soft flesh echoed in his ears. Bile rose up his throat.
What had he done? Killed a man. Why had he done it? To protect Eva.
Bobby willed the bile back down to his stomach. Resisted the urge to glance at his wreckage.

Eva sidestepped the body without taking her eyes off Bobby. She appraised him with a mixture of awe and fear. Awe was good, Bobby thought. He wasn’t sure about the other part.

They raced down the stairs. The second floor opened up into a corridor. Bobby spied the entrance to an enormous kitchen on one side, a dining room on the other. Voices shouted from the opposite sides of the walls. Transmitters squawked.

Bobby made a downward motion with his head. Eva followed him another flight down the stairs. They emerged on the first floor from a side entrance. A second staircase—a grand one fit for a king—wound its way up to the second floor. In front of it was a foyer with marble floor. The door outside was thirty feet away but Bobby could spy guards through the windows.

An explosion rocked the castle.

CHAPTER 54

N
ADIA SENSED THE
man behind her. She couldn’t hear, see, or smell him. But she knew he was there. Simmy must have experienced the same sensation because he started to turn.

“Don’t turn around,” Victor said. Nadia saw the gun pressed to the back of Simmy’s head. “You heard what the boy said. Downstairs is better. Run. Both of you.”

Victor had ulterior motives. Nadia realized this immediately, but Simmy didn’t. How could he? He didn’t know Victor as well as she did.

Nadia stepped forward, but Simmy hesitated. The muscles in his gun hand twitched. No doubt he didn’t like being given orders. She wondered when he’d last been in a position where he was forced to yield to another man’s will.

“Live to play another day,” Nadia said.

Simmy pressed his lips tight, as he’d done in the car when he told her about Milanovich. He’d survived and prospered in the new Russia for a reason. A second later he was running across the room beside Nadia. He didn’t bother to look over his shoulder.

“Faster,” he said. “I gave my men the signal to attack a minute ago.”

They found a dead guard in the middle of the stairwell. A knife protruded from his eye. Nadia recognized the knife. It was the one Bobby had pulled from a sheath wrapped around his calf. How had he overpowered a man with a rifle? Where had he found the fortitude to perform such a gruesome task?

Eva, she thought. The girl was most definitely Eva. He’d killed the man for Eva.

As she rounded the stairwell, a deafening noise filled the house. Nadia stopped in her tracks. The castle trembled.

Bomb, Nadia thought.

She wondered if the place where she was standing was about to blow up next. The thought sent a wave of fear down her spine.

A pair of sturdy hands grabbed her shoulders.

She turned.

Simmy tilted his head up a notch and squeezed her. His men were coming, Nadia thought.

No, she realized.

His men were here.

CHAPTER 55

V
ICTOR STUCK HIS
gun inside the waistband of his pants beneath his jacket. He looped around the back of the sofa. He’d seen Milanovich take cover behind it as soon as the heads had started to roll.

“It’s me, Sergei,” Victor said. “Do you hear me?”

“Victor?”

The boss was partially deaf in his left ear. Victor raised his voice. “Yes, Sergei. It’s me. Don’t shoot.”

Milanovich had pulled out his own pistol as he’d taken cover. He suffered from tremors, the kind that could cause a man to inadvertently squeeze a trigger, especially when he was scared out of his wits. And Victor would have bet a million in Atlantic City that the boss of bosses was more terrified than any of his soldiers could have imagined.

All rich men shared one thing in common, regardless of the source of their wealth: an obsession with eternal life. It was the one thing they absolutely could not buy. Thus the second obsession most of them shared: sexual relationships with much younger women. They could be bought, and provided a temporary nirvana that came closest to approximating what the rich man thought immortality might be like.

“Did you hear me, Sergei?”

“Yes, Victor. I heard you.”

Victor took a deep breath for good measure and glanced behind the sofa.

Milanovich sat on the floor cowering behind foam and fabric, neither of which would have stopped a bullet. The gun shook in his hands. It was aimed squarely at Victor’s chest.

Victor smiled. “The coast is clear. They’re all trying to make their escape. By now the guards are swarming the grounds. They’ll be captured or killed immediately.”

“They have instructions not to kill the children. We need them for their blood. What if the formula is in their blood? We need them alive to ensure a constant supply. We need them alive.”

Victor stifled his repulsion. He was a
Thief In Law
, a member of a loose association of criminals from the countries that once comprised the Soviet Union. A thief could not dictate his opportunities. He had a moral obligation to put thievery above all else. He was not allowed to have a family, yet Victor had discovered he was a father and grandfather a year ago. He’d kept this discovery a secret. He would keep his repulsion for Milanovich’s plan a secret as well. If someone had tried to conduct a biological experiment on his grandson, he would have buried him alive in a grave filled with flesh-eating worms.

“Of course they will remain alive,” Victor said. “They are
Genesis II
. They are destined to remain alive.” Victor reached out with his hand. “Here. Let me help you up.”

Milanovich put his gun in his jacket pocket. Victor grabbed his boss’s right hand and helped him up.

“Where is Simeonovich?” Milanovich said.

Victor nodded toward the staircase. “Gone with the others.”

“He’s an amateur. It’s easy to tell when an enemy arrives at your front door pretending to be your friend.”

“I agree. It’s much harder to tell when a friend arrives at your front door and he’s actually your enemy.”

Victor pulled the gun from his waistband and shot him in the head.

He walked to Milanovich’s study behind the great room and pressed a button on a bookshelf. A wall of books opened up to reveal a secret chamber. Victor stepped into the chamber and pressed another button to close the door behind him. He found his protégés waiting for him. One of them was the Gun, the other the Ammunition. Victor could only identify them by the tattoos on their arms. He’d recruited the Timkiv twins out of prison in Ukraine. Computer hackers who looked like California surfer boys with sociopathic tendencies. Perfect companions for an aging thief.

One of the Timkiv twins led the way down the narrow stairs. The other followed behind. Floor lights built into the edges of the steps illuminated their descent. Milanovich had bragged about the secret passageway he’d built as soon as Victor had arrived. He’d spent the equivalent of three million American dollars to build an escape route in the event the Russian FSB or another criminal organization came to assassinate him. The stairs led to a tunnel that would deposit them at an underground garage. A fully fueled Mercedes-Benz truck awaited them. The ground above the garage was heated by the power plant at the Swallow’s Nest. The garage would open up with the press of a button. The Timkiv twins would drive him to the airport in Irkutsk. The three of them would be back in New York City in less than twenty-four hours.

Milanovich’s death would create a power struggle in his organization. The only way to avoid mass bloodshed would be a division of the empire. Such a negotiation would take a year or more to materialize. It would be preceded by threats, challenges, and skirmishes. During that time frame, Victor would solidify his hold on his businesses in the New York City area. Instead of paying roof to Milanovich or anyone else, his hard-earned cash would go into a savings account for his grandson. No longer would his heir be denied part of his rightful inheritance because of a greedy old man’s insatiable appetite for money.

Victor had begun plotting his coup as soon as he was jailed in New Jersey a week ago. His lawyer had acted as conduit, relaying instructions to his men in New York and Kyiv. Victor’s mission had been threefold: get the charges against him dismissed, kill Milanovich, and acquire the formula. He’d accomplished two out of his three goals, and they were the most important. The formula was a luxury. He didn’t need it to survive, but it would have been the crowning moment of his career if it had happened. His earlier talk of revenge was mere theatre. Victor was a thief. Revenge was an emotion. Based on Victor’s experience, emotions weren’t going to enrich his grandson.