Soulless (A Tanner Novel Book 43)

by Remington Kane

Tanner dived into the water before Henry or Jacques could speak, as he went on the hunt for Soulless.

  After hitting a depth of about ten feet, Tanner looked around. He saw nothing other than Gwen’s waterlogged boat as it sank lower. He swam toward it, but he was unable to keep up with the vessel’s speed as it raced toward the bottom of the sea.

  Tanner surfaced to look around, thinking he might spot Soulless that way. He did. Soulless was behind him and only a few yards away, floating amid scattered debris from the boat, such as seat cushions, empty bottles, and other trash.

  Soulless was facing away from him. Tanner inhaled a deep breath and went underwater to swim toward Soulless and take him by surprise. He’d covered only a fraction of the distance between them when Soulless took his own deep breath and submerged, perhaps to search for Gwen.

  Tanner spotted her. Below them, there was a shape in the murkiness of the deep. Tanner couldn’t make out her features, but Gwen’s long hair was spread out around her. At least he hoped it was Gwen, and not the female hostage that had been on the boat. There was no way to tell. Because of the lack of light, details were lost.

  Tanner caught up to Soulless and grabbed the man by the T-shirt he was wearing. Soulless spun around, saw who it was that had a grip on him, and pulled his gun from his waistband. Many guns don’t fire properly underwater, but Tanner figured that, water or not, if he were shot at point blank range there would be damage done.

  Tanner grabbed Soulless’s wrist to prevent him from aiming the gun at him. Soulless reached across his own body to claim the weapon with his other hand but couldn’t reach it because Tanner was holding his arm out straight. When Tanner attempted to strike Soulless with his free hand, Soulless latched onto his wrist, as he had gripped Soulless’s.

  Soulless struggled to get his gun hand free but lacked the strength to do so. When he tried kicking Tanner, his attempts were blocked with a knee, and because of how slow his movements were in the water, there was little force behind the strike.

  The men locked eyes. Men who were classed as the two best assassins in the world. When Tanner saw that there was confidence in Soulless’s gaze he looked around expecting to see a new attacker. There was no one. There was just the two of them locked in a struggle beneath the waves of the Mediterranean. Tanner understood then. The self-assurance glimpsed in Soulless’s eyes was his declaration that he was the better man.

  He would outlast Tanner, and when Tanner tried to surface for a breath, Soulless would hold onto him and keep him under, so that he would drown.

  It was a good plan. Tanner decided to make it his own. The men stared at each other as seconds ticked by and the precious air in their lungs diminished, bringing them both closer to death.

  “Help us!” Elliot said. He was calling to Henry and Jacques.

  Elliot was holding on to Seneca, who was bleeding from the gunshot wound to her side. The bullet fired by Gwen had ripped a tear in Seneca’s right side along her ribs. She was losing a lot of blood and was experiencing a great deal of pain. Elliot was in pain as well. Hitting the water had aggravated the injury to his own ribs. He was weak from lack of water and food. It was all he could do to stay afloat and maintain his grip on Seneca.

  Henry and Jacques pulled Seneca aboard first, then Elliot. Elliot knelt beside Seneca and took her hand. He spoke to her in Japanese.

  “You’re going to be all right. We’ll get you to a doctor.” He switched to English to talk to Henry. “Are there any medical supplies aboard?”

  There were. Tanner had made certain of it before heading out. Along with the weapons Jacques had provided for him and Henry, there were also medical supplies.

  Henry brought them over in a red bag that could be rolled out to reveal its contents. Elliot was elated to see it was well-stocked. The former nurse went to work assessing Seneca’s wound. He laughed with relief when he saw that the bullet wasn’t buried inside her, and that the damage, while considerable, wasn’t as bad as it would have been had a slug entered her intestines or liver. He cleaned the wound so he could apply a bandage.

  “Why are you laughing?” Seneca asked him.

  “Because your wound isn’t as bad as I feared it would be.”

  “I’m going to live?”

  “Yes. We both are. We got away from those crazies,” Elliot said, then looked at Henry and Jacques. He spoke to them in English. “Who are you two?”

  “I’m Henry, that’s Jacques. We came here with Tanner.”

  Elliot looked past Henry and saw no one. “Where is Tanner?”

  “He went after Soulless,” Henry said. He lifted the binoculars and scanned their surroundings. He caught sight of the skiff that had been cut free, saw the debris from the boat that sank, but no sign of Tanner or Soulless. A worried expression crept onto Henry’s young face, then vanished.

  Cody will be all right. He’s a Tanner.

  Four minutes had elapsed since Tanner and Soulless had gripped each other’s wrists and both men were still holding their breath at a depth of ten feet. The confidence that had been in Soulless’s eyes was gone. In it’s place was concern. He had been so certain he could outlast Tanner, and he had assumed that the man wouldn’t make it three minutes without needing to surface.

  Tanner was staring back at him with a placid expression, although those damn eyes of his were as intense as ever.

  His lungs burned, but Soulless held on to his belief that he was the better man, and that Tanner would break first. Tanner would become frantic with the primal and supreme need to take a breath and would attempt to break the grip Soulless had on his wrist. Better yet, he would release his own grip, freeing Soulless’s gun arm. When that happened, Soulless planned to jam his gun against the man’s head and fire. Even underwater, the result would be deadly.

  Ten more seconds passed, then twenty. Soulless’s lungs felt as if they were on fire and a dimness was creeping in around the edges of his vision.

  Tanner kept staring, watching him, as if willing him to break. Three seconds shy of the five-minute mark, it was taking all of Soulless’s self-control not to give in to the consuming need to open his mouth and take in a breath of air. There was no air, only water.

  He began kicking his legs faster to propel himself toward the surface while attempting to break the grip Tanner had on his wrist. His efforts to surface were ineffectual, and he couldn’t free his wrist. On the verge of panic, Soulless fired his gun until it was empty. The gases from the explosion of the gunpowder created expanding bubbles in the water, while the slugs moved lethargically until they began to break apart.

  Terror blossomed in Soulless’s eyes as he realized he would drown. He looked into Tanner’s eyes and saw his killer, his better, and his inescapable fate.

  Soulless opened his mouth wide, unable to deny the biological imperative to take in a breath. All that entered his lungs was seawater.

  Tanner kept his grip on Soulless as the man moved frantically in a dance driven by the agony of drowning. Tanner was seeing spots before his eyes and his lungs were ablaze, but he needed to see Soulless die. He didn’t have to wait long.

  Soulless’s frantic movements slowed, then ceased, and a look into his still open eyes revealed pupils that had dilated. The man was dead.

  Tanner let go of Soulless’s wrist and the body drifted downward, as he moved in the opposite direction, toward air, sweet air, and life.

  Henry had stripped down and was about to jump into the water when Jacques cried out.

  “I see him!”

  “Where is he?” Henry said, then followed Jacques’s pointing finger. There was a figure floating on its back two hundred feet away on the port side. It was Tanner.

  They headed the boat toward him. By the time they reached Tanner, he had turned over and was swimming in their direction.

  “He looks exhausted,” Henry said, and it was true. Tanner had been on the verge of passing out and came damn near to drowning.

  They helped him aboard, and Jacques handed him a tow
el. “Did you see them, Tanner?”

  Tanner took the towel and dried his face with it. “I saw Gwen far down below, But I watched Soulless drown. The man is dead.”

  Elliot rushed over. He looked at Tanner. His expression was like one seen on a child meeting Santa for the first time.

  “Thank you for saving us, Tanner. If you hadn’t come, Seneca and I would be dead.”

  Tanner looked past Elliot and saw Seneca lying across a cushioned surface. There was a bandage wrapped around her middle.

  “What is your name?” he asked her in Italian.

  “Seneca.”

  “I’m Tanner. How bad is your wound?”

  “Elliot says I will live but that I need a doctor.”

  “We’ll get you one,” he said in Italian, before switching to English. “You drive, Jacques. There should be some sort of medical facility on that resort island we passed earlier.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Jacques said. “When we get there, I’ll put in a call for someone to search this area for the bodies of Soulless and Gwen, although the sea will probably claim them.”

  Elliot went back to Seneca and sat beside her. As Tanner was putting his clothes back on, he noticed the woman had taken Elliot’s hand.

  “Elliot.”

  “Yes.”

  “I met the woman you know as Megan. She said that you considered yourself to be my number one fan. How is it you came to be in Italy with Soulless?”

  Elliot sighed. “That’s a long story. And if I wasn’t your biggest fan before, I sure as hell am now.”

  “We’ll talk once we get Seneca to a doctor. What about you, do you need one? You look like you took some beating.”

  “I ache all over, but nothing inside hurts other than my ribs. Thank you for killing that bastard Soulless.”

  “It was my pleasure,” Tanner said.

  Jacques made a slow turn, increased their speed, and headed them away from the tiny island.

  28

  From The Ashes

  As the boat carrying Tanner sped away, two figures emerged from the sea.

  One of the figures was Gwen. She was wearing flippers on her feet, had a tank on her back, and a breathing apparatus in her mouth. She had barely managed to grab her scuba diving equipment before the boat sank.

  Gwen dragged Soulless along until they were clear of the surf. Then removed her equipment. Soulless wasn’t breathing, his lips were blue, and when she placed an ear to his chest, she didn’t hear a heartbeat. She flipped him onto his side and was shocked by the amount of water that spilled from his mouth. When the flow ceased, she went to work giving him chest compressions between bouts of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. There was no response, and after trying for several minutes, Gwen lay in the sand beside Soulless and wept, as she grieved the loss of the man she loved.

  When she heard the sound of a wheezing breath come from the corpse at her side, she thought she had imagined it, or that it was the sound of gases escaping Soulless’s body after death. But then she saw his chest move and there came the sounds of a hacking cough as Soulless revived.

  Gwen stood up in a rush, staring at him in amazement. The man at her feet had been dead. He had no pulse, no breath. How was it possible he was moving?

  A memory came to her of a news story she had heard several years earlier. A boy had been playing with his friends and had fallen into a canal, where his foot became stuck. The boy eventually spent over forty minutes submerged before rescuers were able to free him. The boy lived, and his survival was credited to something the doctors called the “Diving reflex.”

  The diving reflex can slow the heart rate dramatically and redirect the flow of blood to the brain and other vital organs to conserve oxygen. Whatever the cause, Soulless had revived.

  Soulless had rolled over onto his hands and knees as he coughed up the last of the water he had swallowed. When he was done, he sat up and looked around, saying nothing.

  “Soulless?”

  He looked up at Gwen and once again she was shocked. The expression on his face was one she’d never seen there. It was one of absolute peace, of serenity. It only deepened when he smiled at her.

  Gwen sat beside him. “I thought you were dead.”

  Soulless said, “I was dead.” And the voice also carried that strange calm he displayed.

  “Are you saying you really died?”

  He nodded.

  “Shit. What did you see? Angels? Dead relatives? What?”

  “I saw nothing. I was nothing, and there was peace, such incredible peace. I lacked nothing, had no desires. I needed nothing… such sweet peace.”

  They sat in silence and looked out at the ocean. The skiff they had been towing was being drawn toward the island by the waves. If a riptide didn’t grab it, it would eventually wash up on shore.

  When Gwen began laughing, Soulless turned his head to look at her. She kissed him.

  “Tanner thinks we’re dead and so will the authorities. We can still go ahead with our plans and start over. Once we find a plastic surgeon and change our looks, there won’t be any way to connect us with who we are now.”

  Soulless went back to staring out at the sea. “Tanner killed me.”

  “He thinks he did, yeah. That’s what’s so perfect.”

  “I died, Gwen. I died and he killed me. I’m back, but I still died.”

  Gwen placed an arm around Soulless. “I was so scared that I’d lost you. I… I love you.”

  Soulless slipped an arm around Gwen, then he guided her to stand as he stood up too. Gwen raised her head in preparation to kiss, only to feel Soulless’s fingers wrap around her throat. He dragged her into the surf, bent her backwards, and held her underwater. Her mouth was open as it happened, for she had been shocked by what he was doing.

  Gwen kicked and clawed at him but Soulless held her down until she stopped moving. Her face was visible beneath the water. It wore an expression of sheer astonishment.

  Elliot had told her that Soulless didn’t love her and that he would hurt her. Elliot knew that because he had come to know what Soulless was. For one thing, he was aptly named, for the man had no soul, or none most would recognize as human.

  Gwen was useful, fun in bed, and had been a good companion, but she was also the only person who knew Soulless was still alive. Now that she was dead, Soulless’s secret was safe.

  Soulless dragged her body out of the waves to a spot where the high tide wouldn’t claim her. Afterward, he hid the scuba diving equipment by burying it. Gwen would be found dead, a victim of drowning, while his body would be assumed to have been lost to the sea.

  Soulless looked down at Gwen one last time. Unlike himself, she wouldn’t be returning from the dead.

  Soulless plunged into the water and recovered the skiff. The motor roared to life after two tugs, and he pointed the small boat toward Greece.

  The sky behind him darkened as a storm approached from the north. However, the sea was calm, as was he, and a new life awaited him.

  29

  Lost Love. Found Love?

  The resort hospital was a white one-story building that was used to dealing with the minor injuries and stomach ailments incurred by the tourists who frequented the island. They were startled when Seneca arrived with her gunshot wound.

  Fortunately, the physician on duty was an older man who had been an emergency room doctor in Rome. He’d treated gunshot wounds before, and Seneca was in good hands.

  Elliot stayed at her side after Seneca asked him to do so. At one point, having fallen asleep, she woke up and smiled at Elliot. Elliot’s glasses were gone, they’d been lost to the sea when he dived in. He could still see well enough but would have trouble reading anything that wasn’t printed in large letters.

  “Hello, handsome.”

  “Handsome? They must have given you some powerful painkillers. You’re hallucinating.”

  Seneca laughed. “I think you’re cute. I was also lucky you were there for me.”

  “I did
n’t have much of a choice. I was being held hostage too, remember?”

  They became quiet. The TV was on, but the sound was down. The old movie that had been playing disappeared and a newsroom took its place. Elliot and Seneca saw an aerial view of the small island, where it had begun to rain. The story was out that Soulless was dead.

  When the movie returned, Elliot asked Seneca a question. “What now?”

  “For me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t want to stay here anymore. Maybe I’ll travel to Japan and visit the city that my grandparents were from. My grandmother always wanted to go back there, but she never made it.”

  “What’s the name of the place?”

  “Nikkō.”

  Elliot grinned. “I’ve been there. I went on a tour of shrines while I was in Japan and one of them was in Nikkō. It’s a beautiful place.”

  “Have you ever wanted to go back?”

  “I wouldn’t mind,” Elliot said.

  Seneca reached out and took his hand. “And I wouldn’t mind having company on the trip.”

  In Milan, Italy, Henry ran a hand through his hair and checked his breath by blowing into his cupped hand. He was standing before the glass front door of the home belonging to Makayla’s parents. Tanner had traveled with him to Milan but was waiting for him back at their hotel.

  Henry was nervous. He hadn’t seen Makayla in years and now here he was showing up on her doorstep. He couldn’t help himself. Makayla was the one girl he’d never been able to get out of his mind.

  Henry rang the doorbell and heard a series of chimes sound off from within the house. That was followed by the barking of a small dog. The leaded glass darkened as a shape behind it grew closer. When the door opened, Henry smiled at Makayla’s mother. At her feet was a fluffy white dog wearing a thin red collar.