The Dragon′s Mark
The Dragon's Mark
Alex Archer
Archaeologist Annja Creed and her sword have never been outmatched–until now. When a surprise party for her mentor Roux includes some uninvited guests, Annja finds herself fighting desperately for her life. The intruders escape but leave a sinister message behind.A legend has resurfaced about a sword that should be feared. A sword that seeks a master as bloodthirsty as itself. It is wielded by an assassin known as the Dragon who initiates a terrible game of cat and mouse. Eventually, the two swords–light and dark–must meet…and only one shall triumph.
There was one more attacker
Annja whirled, expecting her final opponent to be closing the distance between them while her attention was elsewhere.
But that wasn’t the case. The other man hadn’t moved.
He stood watching her, hands held behind his back, like an instructor evaluating her performance.
“Who are you and what do you want?” Annja asked, and was surprised at the depth of anger she heard in her voice.
Her opponent said nothing.
“I’ll give you one last—”
She never finished the sentence.
One second her opponent was standing in front of her with both hands behind his back, and in the next he was leaping forward, a Japanese long sword suddenly appearing in his hands.
Annja just barely managed to deflect the strike as she brought her own sword up.
Where the hell had that sword come from?
It was almost as if he’d conjured the thing out of thin air….
Titles in this series:
Destiny
Solomon’s Jar
The Spider Stone
The Chosen
Forbidden City
The Lost Scrolls
God of Thunder
Secret of the Slaves
Warrior Spirit
Serpent’s Kiss
Provenance
The Soul Stealer
Gabriel’s Horn
The Golden Elephant
Swordsman’s Legacy
Polar Quest
Eternal Journey
Sacrifice
Seeker’s Curse
Footprints
Paradox
The Spirit Banner
Sacred Ground
The Bone Conjurer
Tribal Ways
The Dragon’s Mark
Rogue Angel
The Dragon’s Mark
Alex Archer
www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)
THE LEGEND
…THE ENGLISH COMMANDER TOOK JOAN’S SWORD AND RAISED IT HIGH.
The broadsword, plain and unadorned, gleamed in the firelight. He put the tip against the ground and his foot at the center of the blade. The broadsword shattered, fragments falling into the mud. The crowd surged forward, peasant and soldier, and snatched the shards from the trampled mud. The commander tossed the hilt deep into the crowd.
Smoke almost obscured Joan, but she continued praying till the end, until finally the flames climbed her body and she sagged against the restraints.
Joan of Arc died that fateful day in France, but her legend and sword are reborn…
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
1
Ise Province, Japan
1603
Sengo Muramasa stormed about the room in a fit of rage. The furnishings around him bore silent witness to the strength of his anger; the black lacquer tea table had been smashed repeatedly against the floor until it shattered into pieces. The tatami mats had been ripped to shreds with his bare hands. The paintings on the walls had been torn down and stomped upon until the images they bore were unrecognizable. When one of his servants unwittingly entered the room, Muramasa had beat him to within an inch of his life and left him lying unconscious in one corner of the room.
The old swordsmith barely noticed the injured boy as his thoughts were on the edict that had arrived earlier that morning and the demands it had contained.
He still couldn’t believe it. That bastard Tokugawa Ieyasu had actually gone through with it!
He’d heard rumors about the shogun’s proposed stance for months, but had never actually believed he would put it into effect.
The words of the edict echoed around and around in his head.
All weapons crafted by the swordsmith Muramasa have been deemed illegal and banned from use by direct order of the shogun. Carrying such a weapon is now considered a crime and is punishable by death. Anyone caught possessing, hoarding, or transporting a weapon fashioned by Muramasa faces the same penalty.
He could not let this happen.
Deny his art? Banish his work? Never!
Already the germ of a plan was beginning to form in the back of his mind and he gave it free reign to grow and expand. He had no doubt the shogun’s men would be coming for him, to take his inventory and destroy his forge, to prevent him from creating any new blades. But with winter swiftly approaching, the mountain passes would soon be blocked and it would take months for them to thaw enough to be passable again.
Months he could put to good use.
He had just enough time to produce one final sword—the culmination of his career. He would create a sword to be feared and held in awe in equal measure, a blade to master all other blades, one that would strike terror in the hearts of those against whom it was drawn.
He would call it Juuchi Yosamu—Ten Thousand Cold Nights.
Ignoring the destruction behind him, Muramasa stalked out of the house and across the courtyard to his workshop. His heart was full of feelings of anger and vengeance and Muramasa intended to use them fully.
Entering the forge, he paused a moment to say a prayer at the small Shinto shrine in the corner. The forge was a sacred place and to deny the gods their due would only ensure that his blade would come out weak and brittle. He took the time to ask for blessings and to make the proper offering. When he was finished, he rose and got to work.
Muramasa had been preparing to produce a blade for a customer and so his smelting furnace had already been built. His apprentices had created a thick layer of ash and charcoal as a base and then had surrounded it with carefully made bricks of local clay, until they had a structure that was roughly three feet high with walls nearly one-foot thick. They were ready to begin the smelting process.
The master swordsmith shouted at his apprentices and they came running, eager to begin. Word of the master’s fall from favor had already passed through the household and they were as keen as he was to stand in defiance of the shogun’s order. After all, their livelihoods were at stake, as well—for who would commission a weapon from their hands when it was revealed that they learned the art at Muramasa’s knee? Their futures were at stake, too, and they took to their tasks with all of the energy and attention at their disposal.
For the next three days they stoked the fire, ensuring that it burned at a steady temperature of fifteen hundred degrees. Shovels of iron sand were fed into the mouth of the furnace every thirty minutes—nourishment for the hungry beast—the iron mixing with the carbon and charcoal already in the smelter to create a unique kind of steel. Muramasa watched over the proceedings with an eagle eye, carefully monitoring the molten slag that was vented through the holes at the bottom of the furnace, waiting for just the right consistency and color to appear.
When at last he was satisfied, he ordered his apprentices to tear down the walls of the furnace, revealing a large mass of molten steel in the center, known as the kera. Roughly six feet long by one foot wide and weighing nearly two tons, the kera was carefully moved by rolling it atop a series of logs to the other side of the workshop where it would be allowed to cool. Once it had, his apprentices would break up the massive block into fist-size fragments that he would personally scrutinize, searching for those that shone with a silvery brightness from the outer edge. The selected pieces would then be hammered flat by his workers, coated with a thin mixture of clay and charcoal to prevent oxidation, and then reheated to thirteen hundred degrees to melt them all together into a single block. After that he would begin the process of forming the blade, hammering the steel and folding it over, again and again and again, making the steel uniform throughout. Eventually he would combine the softer, more flexible core with an outer edge of harder steel, then heat the blade all over again to meld the two layers into one. Later would come the grinding and polishing.
For now, however, it was enough that he had begun.
IT WAS FINISHED.
Muramasa stared at the highly polished blade and could almost feel it watching him, in turn. For three months he had poured his soul into its creation, imbuing it with all the hatred, anger and desire for vengeance he felt toward the shogun, giving it a personality of its own, one that would devour any weapon that dared to stand against it. Like the dragon for which it had been named.
It was the culmination of his life’s work.
The door to his workshop burst open and a servant rushed in. Muramasa recognized him as one of those who had been tasked with keeping an eye on the pass in the mountains above. The boy’s face was ruddy from the cold and a long gash ran across his brow.
Pausing to catch his breath, the boy finally gasped out the message he’d rushed there to deliver.
“The shogun’s troops…”
That was all that was necessary.
The spring thaw had come early and Muramasa had been expecting word of their arrival for days. It wouldn’t take them long to negotiate the pass and descend down to the valley floor. He had one hour, two at the most.
But it would be enough.
Juuchi Yosamu was finished. All he needed was to see to its delivery.
After that, let them come.
The old swordsmith sprang into action.
“Quickly,” he shouted to the boy. “Find me Yukasawi!”
Still struggling to catch his breath, the boy turned and rushed out the door, intent on doing what his master commanded.
While he waited for his man, Muramasa crossed the room and selected a worn and battered saya from a barrel in the corner of the room. He lifted the blade, intent on securing it safely inside the scabbard.
As he did so the weapon seemed to twist in his hands of its own accord and he felt the sting of its bite as the razor edge sliced cleanly along the underside of his forearm. Blood dripped onto the floor and gleamed wetly against the edge of the blade. But rather than being angry at his carelessness, if that was indeed what caused the injury, Muramasa simply smiled.
The sword hungered for blood, just as it had been created to. Who better than to provide its first taste than the man who had fashioned it?
A noise at his back caused him to turn and he saw Yukasawi enter the workshop. Muramasa took a moment to study him.
The man was a ronin, one of those samurai from the lesser houses who had recently lost his station when his master had gone down in defeat at the hands of the shogun. This is a man who has almost as much reason to hate Tokugawa as I do, the swordsmith thought. It was for this reason that he had been selected. If anyone could get the weapon to safety, Yukasawi could.
It would be the soldier’s job to take the sword out of the mountains, past the shogun’s troops and into the hands of the samurai in Kyoto Muramasa had selected to receive it.
The man in question, Ishikawa Toshi, was ruthless and wanted nothing more than to ascend to the position of shogun. He was already amassing his army against Tokugawa and his allies, and Muramasa was confident that his gift would be put to good use in the future. All the swordsmith had to do was get it to him.
“Is it time?” Yukasawi asked, his face tight with concern for his benefactor.
Muramasa nodded. “The shogun’s troops have been sighted at the top of the pass. They will be here shortly.”
“Then there is still time. If we leave now, we can—”
“No.” The swordsmith cut him off. “There is no time left for running. Nor will I give that dog Tokugawa the satisfaction. By remaining behind I will delay them long enough to allow you to escape and deliver Juuchi Yosamu as we discussed.”
He thrust the now-sheathed weapon into the hands of his vassal. “On your honor and your life, do not fail me.”
“Hai!” the ronin shouted. Taking the weapon in hand, he bowed low, then rushed out of the workshop to where his horse was waiting.
The trip down the mountain would be hazardous, but Muramasa was confident his man could handle the task. His other creations might be rounded up and destroyed, but in the depths of his heart he knew that this one would survive.
As his blood continued to drip onto the floor beneath his feet, the swordsmith knew that the world would not soon forget the savage bite of a Muramasa blade.
His legacy would live on.
And Juuchi Yosamu would devour the hearts of his enemies.
A shout sounded from outside and Muramasa knew that that the shogun’s troops were near. It was time to meet death.
The old man reached out and picked up a sword. He gave it a few experimental swings, getting the feel for this particular blade, and then turned toward the door with a spring in his step that he hadn’t felt for years.
THE BATTLE HAD BEEN SHORT but brutal. His men had fought well and the snow was stained crimson with their blood and the blood of their foes. Of the thirty-eight men who had remained behind to face the shogun’s troops, only Muramasa himself still lived. He had intended to die with a sword in his hands, but apparently the shogun had ordered otherwise. His men had surrounded the swordsmith and attempted to overwhelm him, a move that had cost ten of them their lives before the older man had been beaten into unconsciousness.
Now, with his hands bound behind his back, Muramasa stood before his enemies and waited for the end.
The captain of the shogun’s troops had been apologetic. This was no way to die for a man of Muramasa’s stature, he’d said, but he had his orders and if he did not carry them out as intended, his own life would be forfeit. Muramasa assured him that he understood.
“Do as you must,” he’d told the man, and had meant it.
It didn’t matter. The resistance, the pronouncement of the verdict against him, the execution to come—none of it mattered, really. It was all stage dressing, anyway—a deliberate attempt to get the shogun’s men to focus their attention on what was going on around them rather than searching the countryside for those who might have gotten away. Every hour he delayed them meant another hour that Yukasawi could use to get over the mountains and escape with his precious cargo.
Muramasa had given him as much time as he could.
Two soldiers approached. They each took an arm and led him forward to the clearing in the center of the compound, where what was left of his household staff were assembled as witnesses in front of the massed arrangement of the shogun’s troops.
As they drew closer, Muramasa shook off the guards and walked forward on his own. He was not afraid to meet death and he would not go forward to face it looking as if he did not have the courage to do so on his own.
The captain he’d spoken to earlier was waiting for him, naked steel in hand. Muramasa had requested that he be allowed to commit seppuku, but apparently even that last honor was to be denied him.
So be it, he thought. He would still have the last laugh.
Without waiting to be told Muramasa knelt in the snow at the captain’s feet.
“Do not worry,” the younger man said, whispering so that those assembled around him would not overhear. “I will make certain that the blade strikes deep. There will be no need for a second blow.”
Muramasa bowed his head, exposing his neck.
He ignored the long recital of his supposed crimes and the pronouncement of his sentence—death. He’d heard it all before.
As he waited for that final blow, something caught his eye in the distance.
He raised his head slightly, just enough so that he could lift his gaze toward the mountain slopes in the distance. On the side of the mountain, where the trail led to the pass that was used to exit the valley and travel to the world outside, a dark speck moved against the snow. It was barely visible at this distance, and had Muramasa not turned his head at precisely the right moment, he might never have seen it. But he had and deep in his heart he had no doubt at all as to what that speck represented.
Yukasawi had made it. He had managed to work his way past the blockade of the shogun’s troops and climb the mountain to the pass high above. From there it would be easy for the ronin to lose himself in the open country on the other side while he made the journey to Kyoto and delivered the blade.
And with that delivery, Muramasa’s revenge would begin.
Suddenly filled with satisfaction, Muramasa barely noticed as the captain of the guard brought his sword high above his head.
I curse you with ten thousand cold nights, the swordsmith thought. As the blade descended in a swift, razor-sharp blow designed to separate his head from his shoulders, a smile crossed the old man’s face.
2
Paris, France
Annja took the steps two at a time, calling her sword to her hand as she went. The weapon responded, emerging from the otherwhere fully formed and fitting neatly into her grasp as if it had been fashioned for her alone. She remembered the first time she’d seen the sword. It had been in this very house, lying in pieces in the case Roux had fashioned for it. She remembered the heat coming off the fragments of the broken blade and the rainbow-colored light that had exploded from it when she grasped the hilt and lifted it free of its case, somehow reformed. Then, as now, she knew the sword was hers; knew it down to the core of her very soul. Just having it with her made her feel more confident about the confrontation that lay ahead.
She kept her eyes on the landing above, not wanting to be surprised by the sudden appearance of an intruder. She made it to the top of the staircase without incident. She found herself faced with a long corridor that ran in opposite directions. She knew the area to the right held a series of guest bedrooms, for she had stayed there in the past and was even using one of them now. The left side of the hallway held a bathroom, an office and a small gallery for some of Roux’s art. She ignored all of them; the crashing sound had come from the room at the far end of the hall, the one now facing her, and as she moved toward it, she tried to remember just what it was used for.
A spare bedroom? Another office? Maybe a study?
Then it came to her.
A display room.
The room held a portion of the weapons collection Roux had accumulated over the course of his extended lifetime. There were many more rooms just like it scattered throughout his home. But this room was special, Annja recalled. She had spent some time in it during a previous visit, for it contained a certain type of weapon that she had grown rather attached to lately.
Swords.
The collection contained both working blades and a few museum-quality relics, but nothing that was overly valuable and certainly not much that could be moved easily on the open market. The thieves, if that was indeed what they were, were in for a rude surprise if they thought differently.
And they still had to contend with her.
She raced to the door and flattened herself against the wall beside it. She put her head against the wall, listening, but Roux’s mansion had been built in the days when they had used quality building materials rather than the cheap substitutes that had become so common today. She couldn’t hear anything but her own breathing.
She was going to have to do this the hard way.
Gripping her sword in one hand, Annja grabbed the doorknob with the other, took a deep breath and then pulled it open, slipping inside with barely a sound.
She’d been right; it was one of the display rooms. Swords lined the walls by the hundreds—long swords, short swords, broadswords, cutlasses, épées, scimitars—every make, model and size, it seemed. The carefully polished blades shone in the spotlights that had been artfully arranged to draw attention to the weapons, and here and there the wink of precious gems gleamed back at her from scabbards or hilts.
But Annja barely noticed the swords on the walls, for her attention was captured by those held in the hands of the intruders facing her.
One week earlier
ANNJA WAS CARRYING SEVERAL bags of groceries up the stairs to her Brooklyn loft when her cell phone rang.
“Hang on, hang on…” she said to it as she juggled the bags, managed to get the key in the lock and kicked the door open with her foot.
Her phone continued to ring.
“I’m coming, just hang on!” she told it again, as if the inanimate hunk of metal and plastic could actually hear her. She rushed to the island in the kitchen, dumped the bags on the counter and grabbed for her phone.
Just as she managed to pull it from the front pocket of her jeans it stopped ringing.
“You have got to be kidding!” She scowled at it, ready to fling it across the room in a pique of anger, only to have it ring again.
“Hello?” She practically shouted it into the tiny device.
A deep, rich voice answered her back. “Annja, did I catch you at a bad time?”
There was no mistaking the voice. That teasing tone, that undercurrent of danger—only one man in her life sounded like that.
“What do you want, Garin?”
All that rushing? For him? It said something about her social life, that was for sure, she thought.
“Now is that any way to treat an old friend?”
“Old, yes. Friend, that remains to be seen.”
“You wound me, Annja, you really do.”
She kicked off her shoes, wandered into the living room and dropped onto the couch.
Garin Braden. Empire builder, artifact hunter, rogue—he had a thousand different faces. The problem was, you never really knew which one you were dealing with, and by the time you did, it was often too late to save yourself. Annja had seen him ruthlessly kill more than one individual and yet had also known him to be charming and tender. She still wasn’t sure just what she felt about him; he was larger than life, with his rakish good looks, thick black hair and piercing gaze, but at the same time he had the heart of a devil.
“So be wounded,” she said. “Then when you’ve finished feeling sorry for yourself maybe you could tell me what you want.”
Garin swore under his breath and the sound of his frustration made Annja smile. She wasn’t the only one with mixed feelings, she realized.
“I am calling,” he said, “to invite you to Paris.”
Paris? That was a surprise.
“What for?” she asked.
“Can’t I just invite you to Paris?”
“You could, but you know I wouldn’t come, so what’s the real reason?”
Garin was silent for a moment, and then grudgingly said, “It’s the old man’s birthday.”
Annja knew there was only one individual Garin could legitimately refer to that way.
Roux.
Old was right, she thought. More than five hundred years old, if the truth were told. Garin himself wasn’t that far behind, for only a few decades separated the two men. The same mystical force that had preserved the sword of Joan of Arc, the sword that Annja now carried as her own, had also given the two of them an extended lifetime. One measured in centuries, rather than decades.
“It’s Roux’s birthday?”
“I just said that, didn’t I?”
Yes, yes, he had. Despite Roux’s long life, Annja knew that he wasn’t the type to celebrate birthdays, so that only increased rather than eased her suspicions.
“You’re going to throw Roux a birthday party?” She couldn’t mask the incredulity in her voice.
Garin had apparently lost his patience with her for he let loose a stream of curses that could have burned the hair off a pirate’s chest.
Annja waited him out and then said, “Okay. I’m in. When is it?”
Still grumbling, he named a date only three days away.
“Nothing like giving a girl time to think it over,” she said.
“What? Like you’ve got something else on your social calendar?” Garin shot back and from his tone Annja knew he was rather pleased with himself for that one. Before she could think of a retort, he went on. “I have tickets reserved in your name on the 9:00 p.m. flight out of Kennedy on the twelfth. My driver will pick you at DeGaulle, take you to Roux’s for the party and drive you back to your hotel afterward.”
And with that, he hung up.
“Garin? Garin!”
Hanging up the phone, she went back to putting away the groceries. While doing so she glanced at her calendar. The bare white spaces stared back at her. Well, what did you expect? she asked herself. Given your lifestyle, it is amazing you have any friends at all.
She had to admit, she’d never been one to stay in one place for long before she’d taken up Joan’s sword, never mind afterward. If she wasn’t headed off to some remote spot to film a new episode of Chasing History’s Monsters, the cable television show she cohosted, then she was off volunteering at some dig site in the back end of nowhere just to satisfy her love of history and her need to feel the thrill of discovery. That didn’t leave much time for friendships, never mind romantic entanglements longer than a few days in length.
While she occasionally wondered what it would be like to have a normal life, when she really got down to it, she found that she didn’t mind all the craziness. After all, boring was the last thing you could call her life.
The party was on the thirteenth. On the sixteenth she was due in studio to shoot some green-screen work for her next episode and to wade through the piles of footage she’d brought back from her last trip. Both would be necessary to cut the raw material into a show worth watching, and while she knew the guys in the editing room could do it without her, she preferred to keep an eye on them to help tone down the inevitable “suggestions” her producer, Doug Morrell, was constantly trying to fill their ears with. Doug was a good guy, but he’d be just as happy to have a show revolving around blood-sucking alien chupacabras as he would some ancient civilization most people had never heard of. He’d once gone so far as to produce and distribute a memorial video of her final moments when she’d lost touch with him during a tsunami in India. That fact that she’d called in shortly thereafter, clearly alive and well, had only added fuel to his marketing efforts and had him envisioning a second volume highlighting her “miraculous” survival. If she’d been closer at the time she might have strangled him herself.
So she’d make the party, but had to be sure to be back in New York by the sixteenth, come hell or high water.
ANNJA WAS FIVE FEET TEN inches tall with chestnut hair and amber-green eyes. She had an athlete’s build, with smooth rounded muscles and curves in all the right places. Dressed as she was in a pair of jeans, leather boots and a lightweight tank top, she knew she probably made quite a sight rushing helter-skelter through the airport with her long hair flying out behind her, but it just couldn’t be helped. She’d gotten absorbed in research and hadn’t left herself enough time. If she didn’t make it to the gate on time, Garin would never let her forget it.
As was her usual luck, after convincing her cab driver to set new land-speed records in making it to the airport and then dashing through the terminal after clearing security, she reached the gate only to discover that her flight had been delayed due to a mechanical problem. At least the ticket was for first class, which let her pass the time in the executive lounge while she waited. Once she did board the plane almost an hour later, she popped on her iPod, stretched out and slept through most of the trip, determined to arrive ready to enjoy Roux’s party.
Garin had a driver and car waiting, just as he’d said he would, and as she relaxed in the backseat and she watched the Paris streets roll by out her window, she had to admit that the whole thing made her feel a bit special.
Until she remembered just who was waiting for her on the other end.
It’s for Roux, she reminded herself, for Roux.
As they drove, she thought about the circumstances that were bringing the three of them—Roux, Annja and Garin—together again. Despite her misgivings, she had to admit to being surprised, pleasantly so, that Garin was going out of his way for Roux; that wasn’t something Garin was particularly known for. Ruthlessness, arrogance, a sense of entitlement ten miles wide—yes, he had more than his share of those qualities. But doing something just because it would make another person happy? Not so much.
Still, anyone could turn over a new leaf and in the past several months it was obvious that Garin was trying, in his own way, to smooth over some of the damage from the past, so she supposed she had to give him credit. It wasn’t easy for anyone to change, least of all someone so set in their ways as Garin Braden.
The party they were throwing for Roux was, of course, a surprise. Or rather, Garin was throwing the party, with Annja and Henshaw, Roux’s butler and majordomo, as the only guests. It pained Annja to think that after such a long life they were the only people Roux could claim as friends, but she didn’t consider it too deeply lest she see the glaring similarities with her own life.
That the party was all Garin’s idea was equally unusual, given the history between the two men. After all, they’d tried to kill each other on more than one occasion and no doubt would try again at some point in the future. On any given day they could go from friends to enemies in the space of a heartbeat. Still, there was a bond between them that transcended such petty squabbles, and as fate would have it, Annja had become part of their inner circle.
After all, who better to understand just what it meant to carry the sword that had belonged to Joan of Arc than the two men who had once been responsible for protecting Joan herself from the hands of her enemies? The same mystical force that had preserved the sword and ultimately brought it into Annja’s possession had also given them their extended life span. It was also part of the discord between them. Neither of them knew what would happen should the sword somehow come to harm. Would they at last be able to live out the rest of their natural lives, free from the influence of the sword, or would time suddenly catch up to them, exacting its toll then and there for all the years they’d escaped its grasp? They didn’t know and so, as a result, they had different ideas about how to handle the situation. Roux wanted the sword to remain with Annja, its chosen bearer, while Garin had made it clear he felt the sword should be locked away and protected. If that was even possible.
Annja shifted her attention from the scenery outside the car to the sword itself. It rested there in the otherwhere, just as it always did, glimmering faintly as it waited for her to call it forth with just a thought. For a moment she was tempted, for she loved to feel its weight in her hand, loved the sensation it gave her as she carried it forth into battle, but her good sense reasserted itself before she did so; having a huge broadsword suddenly appear in the back of the limousine probably wouldn’t be a good thing for the upholstery, never mind the driver’s sense of reality.
It was enough that it was there, waiting for her, and that she could claim it when necessary. She’d had to do so more times than she could count since taking possession of it and she knew that there would be plenty of other such situations in the future. It had become a part of her and she could no more give it up now than she could marry a pig farmer and retire to the country.
The celebration was being held at Roux’s estate outside of Paris and it took them about half an hour to reach their destination.
Roux’s house was huge, so huge that the word home just didn’t seem to do it justice. Palace might have been better. Ivy clung to the stone walls and helped the structure blend into the trees that surrounded it. It butted up against a hill and the overall effect was as if the house itself were a part of the natural environment around it, and from past experience Annja knew that the design was deliberate. Roux was a man who liked his privacy and went to some lengths to see that it remained protected.
The driver must have called ahead, as Garin was waiting for her on the front steps when they pulled up. Standing with him was Henshaw.
“Welcome back, Ms. Creed,” Henshaw said, giving her a small nod of welcome as she stepped from the car.
She grinned. That was Henshaw, positively overwhelming with his emotional displays, she thought.
“Good to see you,” she told him. She turned her attention to his companion. “Hello, Garin.”
“Annja,” he answered just as solemnly, but his eyes twinkled with mischief behind his unruffled exterior.
With her ever-present backpack slung over her shoulder, Annja entered the house with Garin while Henshaw got her overnight bag from the trunk. She could already imagine his scowl as he saw the size of her suitcase. She wasn’t the type to travel with more than the few basic items she needed, while he was a firm believer in a woman’s right to be prepared for anything and to travel with a wardrobe large enough to let her do so, especially a woman as attractive as Annja. He’d never come right out and said so—the sun would stop revolving around the earth when that happened—but she’d managed to piece together the gist of his viewpoint from the few comments and frowns he’d made to her over the years.
The knowledge that he’d scowl all the more should he discover that she intentionally packed as light as she could just to tease him when coming here made her laugh aloud.
Maybe this was going to be a fun three days, after all.
Annja stepped into the foyer, with its vaulted ceiling and Italian marble floors. No matter how many time she visited, it never ceased to amaze her at the luxury Roux had surrounded himself with over the years. He seemed to be trying to forget the long, hard years he’d served in the field with nothing more than his arms and armor for material possessions and she had to admit he was doing an excellent job of it.
Garin led her through the lower floor to Roux’s personal study, one of the largest rooms in the entire house. It was two stories tall and stuffed to the gills with shelves full of books, artifacts and artwork. Stacks of paper streamers rested on a nearby table, along with a pile of balloons. A tank of helium gas stood beside it.
“Roux is out at a high-stakes poker game for the afternoon,” Garin told her. “Henshaw will be picking him up around dinnertime, which means we only have a couple of hours to get the place decorated and…”
He trailed off at seeing her expression. “What?” he growled.
Annja laughed; she couldn’t help it. Imagining him with those blue and yellow streamers in his huge hands was just too much. It was so not Garin. From cold-blooded killer to interior decorator—would wonders never cease?
When at last she could find her voice again, she said, “I’m sorry, Garin, really, I am. I just never expected you to go to so much trouble for Roux and the change is a bit, um, unexpected. Nice, but unexpected.”
He accepted her apology with a shrug and the two of them got to work. By the time Henshaw came in an hour later to check on them, they had finished strewing paper streamers throughout the room, even draping them on the massive stone sarcophagus that occupied one corner and wrapping them around the stuffed and mounted corpse of an Old West gunfighter that stood in the other, turning him from a cigar-store Indian-style display to a blue-and-yellow mummy. They were getting started on tying the balloons together into bunches.
Henshaw gave the room a once-over, his only discernible reaction the slight raising of an eyebrow as he took in the steamerwrapped gunfighter in the corner. Turning back to his partners in crime, he said, “I’m off to get Mr. Roux. I shall return in approximately one hour. We shall dine shortly after that.”
Garin had several phone calls to make so Annja spent the time wandering through Roux’s house, looking at the variety of artifacts that he had on display. While she might not agree with his methods of acquisition, since he had several items that were on current lists of objects either stolen or banned from being removed from their countries of origin, she could appreciate the beauty of the collection itself. She was examining a vase that had apparently been discovered in the remains of Knossos, the king’s palace on the island of Crete, when her phone chirped. Pulling it out of her pocket, she saw that she had a text message from Garin.
They’re here, was all it said.
She dashed back through the halls, slipping through the main foyer only seconds before Henshaw and Roux entered the house, and joined Garin in the study. There they waited for the guest of honor.
“Surprise!” they shouted when Henshaw led Roux into the room.
The older man started, then scowled first at the two of them and then back over his shoulder at Henshaw.
“Traitor!” he said, “I suppose you’re in on this, too, then? What are they doing here?”
Henshaw gave one of his rare smiles. “Celebrating your birthday, of course, sir.”
Garin smiled easily, ignoring Roux’s brusque manner. “Did you think we’d forget?”
“It’s not a question of forgetting. You’ve never bothered with my birthday before. What’s so different this year?”
But he accepted the surprise good-naturedly and even began to enjoy himself as the evening wore on. They ate together in the dining room down the hall—braised duck in a pear chutney, which Annja thought was exquisite—then returned to the study for drinks and conversation.
Garin and Roux had lived so long and seen so much that Annja could listen to them for hours. Roux was entertaining them all with a tale of the time he’d slipped inside a royal palace for a rendezvous with a visiting princess when what sounded like gunfire split the night air outside.
“Did you hear that?” Annja asked.
The other three had for they were already in motion. A lifetime spent in dangerous situations had fine-tuned their senses, including Henshaw’s, and they all recognized the sound of guns when they heard them. Annja did, too; she was just surprised to be hearing them at Roux’s secluded estate.
Henshaw went straight to the computer sitting on a nearby desk. As he settled into the seat in front of it an alarm began to sound throughout the house. He silenced it with the touch of a button and then pressed another. A section of the wall to the left of where he sat split apart as a result, revealing sixteen security monitors in four rows of four. Each of them showed a different part of the manor grounds and on several of them Annja saw gray shapes racing across the lawn, firing at the hired security force as they came.
The hiss of hydraulics captured Annja’s attention and she turned away from the monitors to see both Roux and Garin waiting impatiently for the vault at the back of the room to finish opening. Annja hadn’t been inside that room since her first visit to the estate but remembered the treasure trove of multiple currencies and weapons it contained.
Roux could have armed and financed a small private army with what was in room.
It was the weapons stored in the vault that her two companions were going for. Garin armed himself with a pair of heavy pistols while Roux took a rifle for himself and then carried another over to Henshaw.
Garin held up a pistol for Annja. “Here, take this.”
She shook her head. “Thanks but I’m already carrying all the weaponry I need.”
“Suit yourself,” Garin replied, then joined the others at the security station where Roux was trying without much success to reach the head of his security detail on the radio.
When he was unable to get a response, Henshaw gestured to the escape tunnel at the back of the vault. “If we leave now, sir, there will still be time to get you off the estate.” Annja knew that it led up to the third floor and from there out onto the slope of the hill against which Roux’s mansion had been built. A Jeep waited on the road above, ready to take the master of the house to safety at a moment’s notice. Once before, when the estate had come under attack, all four of them had used the tunnel to get to safety. It sounded like a good plan to her now.
Roux was silent for a moment, considering, and then looked over at Garin for his opinion.
The other man hefted the weapon he carried and grinned at Roux. “It’s your call, but if I were in your shoes, I’d be a little pissed. After all, it is your birthday.”
There was no missing the challenge in Garin’s answer and Annja bristled to hear it. He was practically daring Roux to make a stand! And of course, given the history between the two men, there was almost no way Roux was going to ignore that and do the right thing, which was to get the hell out of there while they still had a chance.
She was opening her mouth to advise against taking on the intruders themselves when Roux did precisely what she expected him to.
“Garin’s right. This is my home and I’ll be damned if I’m going to run like a rabbit at the first sign of trouble.”
And that was that. Annja knew any further discussion was futile. Roux had made up his mind and, being the good manservant that he was, Henshaw would carry out his instructions to the last. With it being three against one, there wasn’t even any sense in arguing.
Annja shot a murderous look in Garin’s direction, but he was studying the images on the monitor and didn’t see it. Or if he did, he chose to ignore it, which would certainly be in keeping with his usual behavior.
If something happens to Roux…
She would just have to ensure that it did not.
They quickly devised a plan that, when it came down to it, was pretty basic. The four of them would take up position inside the foyer and defend the house against anyone who tried to enter.
Annja just hoped it would work.
They left the study and quickly made their way through the house toward the front entrance. Roux led the way, followed by Henshaw and Garin, with Annja bringing up the rear. They were just passing a wide staircase that led to the second floor when Annja skidded to a halt.
The others ran on, but her attention was caught by the landing on the second floor. Her intuition was calling to her, telling her the problem was above her, on the second floor, rather than out front where the others were headed. Ever since taking possession of the sword she’d been subject to heightened senses and her intuition was just one of them. Right now it was telling her that there was a problem on the second floor, one that would come back to bite them in the ass if they didn’t deal with it right away, and she had learned to trust such instincts.
Were they too late? she wondered. Were the intruders already inside the manor house?
Leaving a potential enemy at their backs could prove disastrous, so when she shouted at the others to come back and received no response, she made the decision to check things out on her own.
Turning away from the others, Annja charged up the stairs.
3
There were six of them.
They were dressed in dark, loose-fitting outfits with hoods pulled up right around their heads and ninja masks covering the lower parts of their faces, making it impossible for her to identify them.
Five of them stood in a rough semicircle facing the door, swords in hand. The sixth stood behind the first group, watching, and Annja didn’t need to be told that this was their leader. If she was going to get some answers, Annja suspected she was going to have get past the first ranks and confront him herself.
So be it.
They didn’t give her time to think, never mind formulate a plan. No sooner had she taken it all in, then they were upon her, the first three rushing forward while the other two closed up ranks in front of their commander.
It was almost as if they had been waiting for her.
The lead swordsman was quicker than the other two, eager for the chance to confront her. As he came forward she sized him up, her mind processing a hundred tiny details in the space of an eye blink, from the position of the sword in his hands to the angle of his hips to the length of his stride.
She moved to meet him.
He struck as soon as he was in range, intending to overpower her with his strength and speed. The tip of his sword came slashing in at her side, then rose at the last second in an attempt to reach her neck.
Annja brought her own sword up in her standard two-handed grip, parried his blow and, using his momentum against him, jammed an elbow into his face as his speed prevented him from stopping in time.
There was an audible crack, blood spurted from the intruder’s nose and he dropped to the floor.
Annja kept going, moving in on the other two.
They were a bit more cautious than their comrade, splitting up and moving to either side as she continued forward. Annja knew they intended to force her to confront one of them and allow the other to strike at her exposed back, so she didn’t hesitate, choosing instead to rush the one closest to her.
Sword met sword, the blows ringing in the air, as they flew through a flurry of exchanges. From the corner of her eye Annja could see the other intruder getting ready to make a strike, so when her current foe used a horizontal strike to parry her blow, she went with the motion, pivoting on one foot and driving the other directly into her attacker’s gut, knocking him to the floor.
Even as he was falling backward, Annja was continuing the turn and bringing her sword around in a sweeping arc, taking the third attacker’s blow along its length and letting it slide harmlessly to the side. She let her momentum carry her into a full three-hundred-sixty-degree turn, swiveling sharply around to smack the intruder on the side of the skull with the flat of her blade.
He went down without a sound.
Three down, three to go, she thought.
Gunfire sounded from downstairs, indicating that Roux and the others had encountered the enemy themselves, but Annja couldn’t worry about them right now; she had her hands full.
Seeing how well their comrades had done against her, the two attackers now facing her chose a different strategy. With a sudden shout they rushed her as one, blades out and ready to strike from either side.
Annja waited until they were nearly upon her and then jumped upward with one powerful shove of her muscular legs.
The swords passed harmlessly beneath her as she somersaulted over their heads, twisting in midair to land behind them, facing their exposed backs. Her sword was already in motion as she landed on catlike feet and she slashed the backs of their legs without a second thought, taking them out of the fight.
One more…
She whirled, expecting her final opponent to be closing the distance between them while her attention was elsewhere.
That wasn’t the case.
The other man hadn’t moved.
He stood watching her, his hands held calmly together behind his back, like an instructor evaluating her performance.
“Who are you and what do you want?” Annja asked and was surprised at the depth of anger she heard in her voice.
Her opponent said nothing.
“I’ll give you one last—”
She never finished the sentence.
One second her opponent was standing in front of her with both hands behind his back and in the next he was leaping forward, a Japanese katana suddenly appearing in his hands. He lashed out in a vicious strike even before he landed, using his forward momentum to add force to the blow.
Annja just barely managed to deflect the strike as she brought her sword up, backpedaling as she did to give her some much-needed room, her mind grappling all the while at what she thought she’d just seen.
One minute his hands were empty and the next…
Where the hell had that sword come from? It was almost as if he’d conjured the thing out of midair….
The very notion was unthinkable.
She didn’t have time to dwell on it as her opponent pushed his attack forward, the ferocity and force of his blows driving her backward across the floor as she sought to defend herself.
She had faced off against talented swordsmen before, but this guy was in another league. It was all she could do to protect herself from harm as she twisted and turned, keeping her weapon between her body and her opponent’s deadly blade. Several times he managed to get the tip of his weapon past her defenses, leaving minor wounds in its wake. It didn’t take her long to realize that he was toying with her; that, had he chosen to do so, he could have dispatched her more than once during their engagement. In no time at all she found herself backed into a corner, fighting for her life.
She could see several of the fighters she had already dispatched getting back to their feet and she knew it wouldn’t be long before she was again horribly outnumbered.
If you’re going to do something, Annja, you’d better do it now, she thought.
She gave a shout, putting everything she had into it. It distracted her opponent for the split second she needed to duck his current blow and strike out with her own.
For a moment she thought she’d done it, that she’d punctured his defenses and would score a strike against him, perhaps even a fatal one, but then his weapon came around impossibly fast and caught the hilt of her own. Annja was left watching in dismay as her sword spun out of her hands and away from her, tumbling through the air to clatter against the floor several yards to one side.
As soon as the sword struck the ground that it vanished into the otherwhere.
But even as Annja called it to hand once more, she realized that her assailant’s strike was already inside her defenses and time seemed to slow as she caught sight of that shining steel blade arcing toward her.
The gleaming blade grew in her vision, descending in a lightning-quick strike aimed at her exposed neck. But rather than take her head off at the shoulders, as Annja fully expected it to do, the sword was diverted at the last second so that it merely cut free a lock of her hair.
For a moment Annja’s gaze met that of her opponent and she could have sworn the other was silently laughing at her. I could have taken you at any time, those eyes said. And for the first time since taking up Joan’s sword, Annja felt outclassed.
Then Garin was looming in the doorway, pistols in hand, and gunfire filled the room. He mercilessly cut down those Annja had been unwilling to slay only moments before, their bodies twisting and jerking like marionettes as the bullets thundered into them. He was firing with both hands, so he wasn’t as accurate as usual and a few stray shots whined in Annja’s direction, forcing her to dive to the floor to avoid being hit.
When she looked up again, her attacker had turned from her and was already halfway across the room, headed for an open casement window that she had failed to notice when she’d first arrived.
So that’s how they got inside, she thought. And apparently that’s how they intended to get out again. But not if she could help it.
“Garin! The window!” she shouted.
Garin spun in her direction and brought his arms up, the guns roaring in the small confines of the room. Bullets split the air and slammed into the area all around the window, but Annja’s attacker managed to slip through the opening without being hit.
Annja wasn’t ready to let him get away that easily.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said through gritted teeth, angry at having been bested so handily. With her sword in hand she ran for the window herself, trusting Garin to stop firing when he saw her move.
Garin shouted something at her, but Annja didn’t hear. She was almost to the window itself when a hand appeared from outside and tossed something dark into the room in front of her.
It hit the floor and rolled toward her.
She had a split second to think, Grenade! and throw herself to the side before the explosive device went off.
4
It felt as if a giant hand picked her up and threw her against the floor, the concussion hammering her senses until her head reeled. She bounded off the marble floor and slid into the wall with enough force to nearly knock her senseless.
Only the fact that it had been a concussion grenade, rather than an explosive one, saved her life. She was still trying to figure out which way was up when Garin rushed to her side.
“Annja! Are you all right?” he asked, his voice seeming to come from miles away as the roaring in her ears continued.
She nodded, still too caught up in the emotion of the moment to speak. Her heart was beating like crazy and she fought to get her breathing under control as Garin helped her into a sitting position.
At last she found her voice.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’m all right.”
Using his arm for support she pulled herself all the way to her feet and then stood on still-wobbling legs. Her gaze landed on the lock of hair that the intruder’s sword had cut from her head.
Too close.
She glanced over at the intruders. Or rather, what was left of them. Garin hadn’t spared any ammunition it seemed; every body was riddled with bullet holes and blood leaked across the marble floor beneath them.
“Did you have to kill them all?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Now why didn’t that surprise her? “But if you had managed to only wound one or two, we might have been able to question them. Learn who they were and why they were here.”
Garin grunted. “Or they might have managed to kill us both. Thank you, but I’ll take the safer way out every time, particularly where my life is concerned.”
Annja did not doubt that in the slightest. When it came to protecting his long life, Garin was exceedingly ruthless.
At any rate, it was too late now to argue about it.
Garin stepped over to the window and cautiously looked out, but the intruder must have been long gone for he turned away, shaking his head. He was on his way back to Annja’s side when Roux and Henshaw arrived.
“Is everyone all right?” Roux asked as he stepped into the room, surveying the death and destruction before him.
“We’re fine,” Annja replied as Garin nodded in assent.
“What happened up here?” Roux asked.
Annja explained how she’d arrived to find the intruders already in the room and what had happened after that. She didn’t mention her near defeat at the hands of the final swordsman; that was for her and her alone. No one was too surprised at the realization that Annja had held off six attackers on her own; they had all seen her wield Joan’s sword at one time or another in the past and they knew just how deadly she could be with the weapon in hand.
“Did they say anything? Do anything that gave you some idea what they might have been after?”
Annja shook her head.
“I don’t get it,” Roux said. He glanced around the room, a puzzled expression on his face. “The assault force at the front of the house seems to have been a diversion. They made no attempt to take the manor itself and only put up just enough of a fight to keep the security force occupied.”
“Given what we know at this point, I’d say the whole thing was a diversion to allow this group to enter the house from the back,” Henshaw suggested.
“A logical assumption, I agree, but why? What was it they were after?” Roux glanced at the weapons decorating the walls and Annja could see him silently cataloging each one, gauging whether there was something valuable enough among them to warrant such an attempt. By the confused look on his face she could guess that the answer to that question was a solid no.
As the others looked on, Garin squatted next to one of the bodies. Reaching out, he pulled off the dead man’s ninja mask and hood, revealing his face.
The man was Asian. Somewhere in his thirties or so, was Annja’s guess. He was dressed in a dark blue coverall, similar to those worn by special forces units all around the world, with dark combat boots on his feet. A quick check showed that any identifying tags or markings had been stripped from the uniform.
“Recognize him?” Annja asked, only half-jokingly.
Garin scowled at her, annoyed by the comment apparently. “No, I don’t recognize him,” he replied. “Do you?”
Annja snorted. She wasn’t the one who dealt in the shadow world of dirty tricks and ruthless competition.
Neither Roux nor Henshaw had ever seen the man. With Henshaw’s help, Garin lined the bodies up next to one another and then he began to methodically search them for information while the other three looked on. He stripped them of their masks and pulled back their hoods, gazing at each face as if it might be able to tell him something. He went through their pockets, checked the labels on their clothing and even looked inside the boots they all wore.
Finally he stood, a disgusted look on his face.
“Nothing,” he said. “They’re as clean as a whistle.”
“Professionals, eh?” Henshaw asked, and the expression on his face told Annja how he felt about that revelation. A random break-in was one thing, but the knowledge that this had been planned and executed to within a fair chance of success was something else entirely.
Garin nodded. “Seems to be,” he replied. “Though that doesn’t tell us what they were after.”
“Or whom,” Roux added.
Annja had been content to listen in on the exchange but broke in at this point. “What do you mean ‘whom’?”
“Seems rather obvious, doesn’t it?” Garin answered for him. “They slip a group in the back door while the security team is otherwise occupied dealing with the assault out in front. With all of our attention in that direction, the second group would have had the opportunity to move through the house at will. Probably could have ambushed any one of us before we even knew they were there.”
Henshaw glanced over at Annja. “Seems you saved the day, Ms. Creed.”
“But that still doesn’t tell us what they were after.” Roux scowled down at the bodies in front of him. From his expression Annja knew he would have killed them himself had they lived through the assault.
She caught Garin staring at their host and recognized that mischievous expression in his eye.
Uh-oh.
“Pissed anyone off lately, Roux?” he asked, perhaps with a bit more force than he’d intended.
The damage was done, however. Roux noticeably stiffened, then shot back with, “No more than usual. Perhaps they were after someone with a bit less scrupulous business dealings.”
Now it was Garin’s turn to bristle. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just what I said. You have a far greater capacity for annoying others than I do! Maybe they were here to settle a debt with you.”
The younger man threw up his hands in annoyance and took a step toward his former companion. “Oh, I get it. It is your home that is attacked, your security that is penetrated, but suddenly I’m the one to blame.”
Rather than back down, Roux moved to meet him. “You’re right—it is my home that was attacked, my security that was penetrated. And I suppose it is just a strange coincidence that it happened on the evening that you planned a surprise party for me, now, isn’t it?”
Annja watched as Garin’s face grew red with anger. “You think I had something to do with this? That I would stoop so low as that? To try and kill you in your own home?” He was shouting now, and Roux was shouting right back, throwing accusations back and forth like some misguided game of catch.
Henshaw stepped between the two men, hands up, holding them back, trying to dissipate the anger before the two went after each other with more than words. The goodwill generated earlier in the evening was gone. If she didn’t do something quickly, Annja realized, there would be blood on the floor soon.
“Stop it, both of you!” she said sharply, and much to her surprise, they actually did.
“Given the incredible number of artifacts and pieces of art inside this house, the most reasonable assumption is that this was nothing more than a well-staged robbery. Lucky for us and unlucky for them, they just happened to choose the wrong night.”
Both men backed off but it was clear that no one was happy with the situation. After a few minutes of angry silence, Roux pulled Henshaw aside and spoke to him quietly, occasionally casting glances in Garin’s direction.
Garin, on the other hand, pretended to ignore him, then announced that he was returning to the study downstairs. Annja went with him. It was a good ten minutes before Roux joined them, which was probably for the best as it gave both men some time to cool down.
Within minutes of his arrival it was clear that the night was over. What had made the evening enjoyable was gone and the chances were slim that they would be able to recapture it. It wasn’t so much the armed assault on Roux’s home, though that would normally be enough to put anyone off their game, but the suspicions that had been tossed around afterward that made their continued conversations strained and uncomfortable. After a short period of time Garin excused himself, claiming a business engagement early in the morning, and offered to give Annja a ride back to her hotel.
When she refused, he said, “Suit yourself,” and left the estate without even a goodbye to their host.
What had started so well had ended badly and Annja couldn’t help but wonder how many times over the years the same thing had happened.
No wonder the two of them were reluctant to spend any time together, she thought.
To fill the silence after Garin’s departure, Annja asked Roux whether he had called the local authorities or those in Paris. “Detectives from the city would probably be better equipped to handle this kind of thing,” she reasoned.
Roux stared at her. “Why on earth would I want to do something so…counterproductive?”
Annja was almost certain that the word on his lips had been stupid, not counterproductive, but she let it go in order to deal with the issue at hand. “Your estate has been attacked. People have died. How can you not call the police?”
“Quite simply, really. We’ll deal with this internally, just as we always do.”
“But—”
He cut her off. “I said no police, Annja. I don’t need incompetent idiots poking around my house, touching my things, when my staff is perfectly capable of handling this on their own.”
At that moment Henshaw stuck his head in the door. “The room’s been cleared, sir. The cleaning crew will be in first thing in the morning to scrub the blood off the floor and to patch the bullet holes by the window.
“Very good, Henshaw. Thank you.”
Annja was aghast. “You can’t just destroy evidence like that!”
Roux laughed and this time it was an ugly sound. “This is my home, Annja. I can do whatever I want in it, including shooting armed intruders foolish enough to enter it. You and your friend Garin would do well to remember that I am not the feeble old man you appear to think I am.”
With that he got up and left the room, leaving Annja staring openmouthed in amazement that he had felt the need to threaten her, of all people. Just what had this night come to?
Deciding she’d had her share of five-hundred-year-old egos for the evening, she strode through the house and back to the second floor, intending to collect her backpack from the room she’d stored it in and get the heck out of there before she said something she would regret later.
But once on the second floor, she felt herself drawn back to the room where she’d come close to losing her life, as if called there by the secrets they were trying so hard to figure out.
5
Annja Creed stood inside the doorway and let her gaze just wander about, without focusing on anything in particular. Her thoughts kept returning to those few moments just before the fight, when she’d first entered the room. She could still see them in her mind’s eyes, the first five men arranged in two precise rows, their swords out and ready, providing the most protection possible for their leader. They had all been standing still, eyes forward, almost as if they had been…
Waiting.
That was what was bothering her.
They hadn’t been moving throughout the room. They hadn’t been actively looking through the artifacts on the walls or heading toward the door to join their colleagues at the front of the house.
They’d been standing still.
Waiting.
But for what?
She didn’t have a clue.
She looked past the bloodstains on the floor and the pile of extra sheets that had been set there in case more were needed to transport the bodies out of the house, and tried to see the place through fresh eyes.
She was missing something and she knew it. It hovered there, on the edge of her mind, like a presence felt but not seen, a watcher in the darkness. There was something here for her to find, something important, but all she could see was row upon row of swords and the fragments of the window scattered across the floor thanks to the combination of Garin’s bullets and the concussion wave of the grenade.
Finally, frustrated and more than a bit annoyed at everyone involved, she turned away, intending to arrange a ride back to her hotel and call it a night.
That was when her eye caught something out of place, a slight anomaly in the otherwise orderly arrangement of the collection.
She turned back and began going over the rows of weapons again, one item at a time, piece by piece, until she could rule each out.
There!
Standing on the hilt of a broadsword that was remarkably similar to the one that had come to her through the centuries was a small figure. When she stepped closer to get a better look, she discovered that it was made from paper. The origami figure was in the shape of a dragon, with swept back wings and a long winding tail.
She stared at it, trying to figure out how it had gotten there.
Annja had been around Henshaw enough times to know that he ruled the cleaning staff with an iron hand. None of them would have dared leave something like the origami dragon behind, no matter how innocuous it seemed. Certainly Henshaw would never do such a thing himself.
The lack of dust on the weapons meant that the display had been cleaned recently, probably in the past day or two. In turn, logic dictated that the paper figurine could only be that old, as well; after all, had the cleaning crew found it they would have thrown it away, if only to save themselves from Henshaw’s ire if he found it himself.
While there was certainly nothing innately threatening about a small piece of paper folded into the shape of a mythical creature, something about this one made Annja distinctly uncomfortable.
It was so unexpected and so out of place that it made her skin crawl, the same way hearing a voice in a darkened room when you think you are alone will.
It was almost as if it had been purposely left behind. A small token to remind them that someone other than themselves had been here, in this place, where no outsider should be.
She reached out to pick it up and then thought better of it and swiftly withdrew her hand. If it had been left by the intruders, then she needed to take care to preserve whatever evidence might have been left behind.
She needed to treat it as carefully as she might a thousand-year-old artifact just recently exposed to the light.
Annja left the display room and walked down the hall to the room, where she’d left her backpack. Retrieving her digital camera, she returned to the display room.
She half expected the origami dragon to be gone when she got back—having it disappear would be about par for the course that evening—but it was still there, right where she left it. She turned on her camera and went to work. She took close-up pictures of the figure from as many angles as possible and then made certain to get some positioning shots, as well, to illustrate just where on the wall the sword on which it stood was hung.
When she was finished, she used a pair of tweezers to lift the paper sculpture off the shelf.
Now it was time to do some serious research.
Roux had already refused to bring the intrusion to the attention of the Paris police, but that didn’t mean that Annja was out of options.
Far from it, in fact.
FROM A PUBLIC PAY phone in Paris the call was routed through a number of middlemen and cutouts, designed to hide the origin of the contact should anyone be listening in, until it was at last picked up via cell phone in the back of a limousine.
“Yes?”
“She’s an interesting opponent. Perhaps even a worthy one.”
“I didn’t hire you to evaluate her abilities. Can you carry out the task we discussed or not?”
There was a soft, mocking laugh. “Of course I can. Am I not the Dragon, myth incarnate and legend made flesh?”
“Don’t be overconfident. She’s survived far too often when the odds were arrayed against her. You’d do well to remember that.”
Again the laugh. “Let me worry about the odds. You just be sure the money is in the account as agreed. You have the hotel information?”
“Yes. She’s staying at the Four Seasons.”
“Oh, fancy. Nothing but the best, I see.”
The other ignored the jibe. “Remember, she must give up the sword voluntarily. Anything else will defeat our purposes.”
“I know the details. You remember the money and we won’t have any issues.”
The call ended as quickly and as anonymously as it had begun.
Just the way both parties preferred it.
6
Because Henshaw was still involved in the cleanup at the estate, Roux had one of his other men drive Annja back to her hotel in the city. She was fine with that; if she had seen Henshaw again that night she would have had to tell him just what she thought of his participation in eradicating a crime scene and that wouldn’t have gone over well with either of them.
Once back at the hotel, she checked her messages at the front desk and then rode the elevator to the sixth floor. Not satisfied with anything as simple as a basic hotel room, Garin had booked her into a three-room suite, complete with a spa bath, a comfortable sitting room and a separate bedroom.
As soon as she was safely ensconced inside, Annja fired up her laptop and hooked her digital camera to it, downloading the pictures she’d taken of the origami dragon. Once she was finished she chose four of the best images and then attached them to an e-mail to her friend, Bart McGille.
A Brooklyn detective who was also a dear friend, Bart had helped her in the past when she needed information, and he was as good a source as any to start with.
Dear Bart,
Attached are several photos of an origami figure that was left behind by a thief who broke into a friend’s apartment in Paris. Due to the owner’s reluctance to involve the police, I can’t have the authorities here examine the figure but it has certainly sparked my curiosity. Can you do an Interpol search for me and let me know if anything similar has turned up at other crime scenes?
Thanks,
Annja
Her explanation seemed plausible enough to her and she was hopeful Bart would take it at face value and do some digging on her behalf. If he came up with anything, she’d use that to get to the bottom of the attack on Roux’s estate. She knew there was more going on there than met the eye, but with Garin and Roux on the outs with each other it was going to take a crowbar to get either of them to talk more about it.
Finished, she suddenly realized how tired and sore she was. Her body ached from a combination of the effort of hand-to-hand combat and the physical hammering she’d taken from the concussion grenade. Never mind the long flight from New York. A hot bath and a decent night’s sleep would do her some good, she decided.
The hotel had kindly supplied a selection of bath crystals and she selected one jar at random and threw a handful in while the water was running. Soon the sweet scent of jasmine filled the room.
Annja sighed as she slid naked into the hot water and for the next twenty minutes did nothing but bask in its heated embrace.
Once she had managed to soak some of the soreness from her bones, she got out, dried off and wrapped herself in one of the big, fluffy bathrobes the hotel provided. Not wanting to go to sleep with wet hair, she took the time to comb it out and blow it dry. When she finished, she slipped into a pair of comfortable cotton pajamas and climbed into bed.
Sleep came quickly.
THE LATCH ON THE French doors that led to the balcony in the sitting room snapped open with a soft click about an hour later. The door opened silently from the outside. A shadow detached itself from the others that hugged the exterior wall and slid inside the room without making any more noise than the door had.
The intruder stood to one side once inside the room, waiting for eyes to adapt to the level of light and listening for any sound or sense of movement.
There was none.
The guest slept on in the bedroom next door.
The intruder crossed the sitting room with a few quick, sure steps, almost as if passing from shadow to shadow. At the bedroom door the intruder paused, listening again.
The door to the bedroom swung open and a shadow slipped inside the room as swiftly and quietly as it had entered the suite itself.
On the bed, the sleeping form of Annja Creed could be seen in the dim light coming in through the window’s half-drawn curtains.
The intruder carefully walked around the bed until Annja’s face was in sight and stared down at it for several long moments.
Why you?
What makes you so special?
Annja did not reply.
As the intruder looked on, Annja mumbled something in her sleep and flailed about with one arm.
The Dragon watched for a long time, a wraith standing in the darkness beside the bed, eyes alert and ready.
It would be so easy to end it here, the Dragon thought silently. A sudden thrust and it would all be over but the dying. The Dragon could then search the suite in a leisurely manner; no doubt the sword was here somewhere.
But the sensei’s instructions had been clear. The sword must be given voluntarily or it was useless to him. Disappointing the sensei was not something the Dragon wanted to do, ever.
It would seem that the easy solution was off the table for now. The Dragon would have to wait to claim its next victim.
The intruder bent close.
“Until next time, Annja Creed.”
A SWORD CAME WHISTLING in toward her unprotected throat and Annja knew that this was it. She was about to die…
She awoke, bolting upright in bed, her heart hammering like a thousand kettledrums all at once, a thunderous booming sound. Her eyes were already searching the interior of the room for her opponent, her hand tight on the hilt of her sword as she called it into existence from the otherwhere.
But there was no one there.
The room was empty.
Realization came roaring in.
A dream, just a dream, she told herself.
She pushed back the sheets and got out of bed. With the tip of her sword she checked to see if anyone was hidden behind the curtains, then turned to look out the window, expecting at any moment for a face to press itself up against the glass, horror-movie style, and announce that it was coming for her. But the glass remained empty, the space around her silent.
Satisfied that no one was in the room with her, Annja turned, intending to investigate the rest of the hotel suite, only to come up short when she saw the door leading from the bedroom to the living area was open.
Her mind whirled as she tried to remember—had she left it open or closed it behind her?
She was certain that she had closed it before going to bed.
Or, at least, ninety-five percent certain that she had.
She moved toward it with panther-light steps and carefully eased past, taking in the sitting room just beyond.
It, too, was empty.
The hotel room door was securely shut and locked, as were the French doors leading to the balcony outside.
Despite what her gut was telling her, it appeared that no one had been in the room.
Still, just to be safe, she took another few minutes to search the entire suite, including the closets, the bathroom and even under her bed.
Then and only then, satisfied that she was indeed alone, did she release the sword back into the otherwhere and return to bed.
This time she made certain to shut the bedroom door firmly.
Her last thought, as she drifted off to sleep, was that someone was watching.
7
When she checked her e-mail late the next morning, she discovered a very succinct note from Bart in reply to her.
Call me, was all it said.
A glance at the clock told her that it was early back in the States but she picked up the phone and dialed his number.
A sleepy male voice answered. “McGille.”
“Hi, Bart. It’s Annja.”
“Hey! How’s Europe?”
“Not too bad.” They chatted for a few moments about what they’d been up to recently and then Bart turned the conversation to the reason she had called.
“So what’s this about a robbery?”
Annja gave him the fake story she’d concocted about how her friend’s apartment had been vandalized by a thief who’d left behind the origami figure as “payment” for what he’d stolen.
“Sounds like a job for the Paris police. Why send the pictures to me?”
“My friend is subletting the place from the current tenant without the owner’s permission. If she goes to the police, the owner finds out and that will be that.”
Annja knew that was all she had to say. As a veteran New Yorker, Bart would understand the need to keep the sublet a secret; real-estate prices were so outrageous that subletting rent-controlled apartments had become a thriving black market in the Big Apple and Bart would no doubt believe the same about Paris. For all Annja knew, the situation in Paris might even be the same.
“Say no more,” he said good-naturedly.
On the other end of the line Annja breathed a sigh of relief. “So what did you find out?”
“To tell you the truth,” Bart replied, “not much. I made a few phone calls, had some folks check some records for me, and what they came up with were all negatives. No similar crimes in your area. No record of origami figures being involved in any crime, regardless of the type, in more than seven years. Basically they found nothing to tie this burglary to any other, in France or elsewhere. Maybe your cat burglar just has a sense of humor.”
Annja digested that for a moment, knowing that she was partially hampering Bart’s ability to get her information by not telling him the entire story. Still, it couldn’t be helped.
Something Bart said jumped out at her. “What do you mean you didn’t find any link to crimes committed in the past seven years? Were there some before that with the same M.O.?” she asked.
Bart laughed. “That’s where you nearly gave me a heart attack. Ever hear of the Dragon?”
Annja frowned. “Wasn’t there a Bruce Lee movie with that name?”
“No, that was Enter the Dragon. Great movie, too. But that’s not the Dragon I’m thinking of. This one is an international assassin who likes to leave little folded origami figures at the scenes of his kills.”
He said it so matter-of-factly that at first Annja didn’t think she’d heard him correctly.
“Did you just say ‘assassin’?”
“Yeah, an international hit man, if you can believe that. Responsible for more than eighteen deaths in half a dozen countries, including France. Real son of a you know what.”
Annja felt her stomach do a slow roll as she remembered Garin’s words from last night. Probably could have ambushed any one of us before we even knew they were there.
Bart wasn’t finished, though. “And talk about someone who loves their job, this guy managed to get up close and personal to each and every one of his victims. They say he took it as a personal challenge. He’d get in, do the deed and vanish before anyone even knew he’d been there. The police had nothing on him for years, except for those stupid little paper dragons he would leave behind with the bodies in his wake.”
Bart laughed. “You sure there wasn’t a dead body lying next to that origami, Annja?
Anger flared. “Jeez, Bart, that’s not funny!”
“What? Okay, come on, Annja, lighten up a little. Do you think I’d still be yammering away on this end of the phone if I thought you and your friend were being targeted by some crazed international assassin?”
That was the problem. He thought they were still talking about some harmless burglary.
She couldn’t tell him the truth now; he’d be worried sick. “No, I guess you wouldn’t,” she said instead, laughing it off, while inside she was burning to know more.
Luckily Bart was a talker. “And talk about old-fashioned. Guy manages to pull off eighteen major hits and not once does he use a gun? Come on! What is he, stupid?”
A shiver ran up Annja’s spine. Hesitantly she asked, “If he didn’t use a gun, what did he use?”
“A big-ass sword apparently. One of those curved Japanese blades, like the one Sean Connery carried in Highlander.”
Annja hadn’t seen the movie, but there was no mistaking what Bart was talking about. “A katana?” she asked, dreading the answer but needing to know, anyway.
“Yep, that’s it. A katana. Can you imagine getting close enough to a major political figure to try and take him out with a freakin’ sword? When everybody else has guns? What a maniac!”
This was getting worse by the minute.
“Did they ever catch him?”
“Of course they did. Why do you think I’m not worried about you, given the kind of trouble you get yourself into?”
She had to admit he was right; ever since taking possession of the sword, she had a knack for getting herself into the biggest messes possible.
Like now.
“So what happened to him?”
Bart snorted. “Got blown up when he tried to take out the British prime minister at a summit in Madrid back in 2003. There wasn’t enough left of him to fill a Baggie.”
Just when she started to feel better about the situation Bart had go and ruin things again.
“So they never found a body?”
“What did I just say? There wasn’t anything left of him to bury, Annja. But trust me, you and your friend can rest easy. Whoever it was that broke into your friend’s flat was probably just trying to be funny.”
“Some sense of humor,” she said, and laughed along with him while inside she was getting more and more nervous by the minute.
She made small talk for a couple of moments more, thanked Bart for what he had dug up and then got off the phone as quickly and as gracefully as she could without raising his suspicions.
As soon as she had, she headed for her laptop.
A quick search online turned up a decent number of feature stories and news reports from the eighties through the nineties that talked about the mysterious Dragon. All of them told the same basic story Bart had—assassin for hire, no one knew his background or what he looked like, or even if the Dragon was a man or a woman, only that he always killed with his weapon of choice, a katana, and would leave a piece of rice paper folded into the shape of a dragon at the scene of every killing. The press had given him the moniker “the Dragon” when word of the origami figures leaked out, and to this day it was the only name they had for him. The Dragon’s identity vanished in the same explosion that had claimed his physical body.
She sat back, staring off into space, as she pondered the similarities. An international assassin who killed with a Japanese katana and left origami figures in his wake, and an unknown intruder who broke into a rich man’s home, carried a katana and left an origami figure in his wake. They were too alike to be just a coincidence. Either someone had decided to take up the killer’s mantle or the killer himself had never actually died.
After all, there hadn’t been a body, she reminded herself.
Maybe the Dragon had spent the past few years in hiding, recovering from injuries sustained from his last assassination attempt, and had only recently chosen to come out of hiding.
But why would a political assassin be after Roux? she wondered.
The most logical answer would be that he wasn’t. After all, Roux took considerable effort to stay out of the limelight and something like politics was anathema to a man like him. But what if the Dragon had decided to forgo political assassinations in favor of a mercenary lifestyle? Killing for hire, perhaps? That was a different story entirely.
Garin had been right; Roux had angered enough people over the years that a list of those who held a grudge strong enough to try and kill him would be very long indeed.
More than a few of them had the means to do it, too.
This was not good—not good at all.
8
Given that she was starting to suspect the attack on the estate might actually have been an attempt to assassinate Roux, Annja decided that she was going to take another stab at discussing it with him and see if she could learn anything further that might help her fend off what she was beginning to see as a growing threat to his life.
But when she called the estate, she was informed by Henshaw that Roux was out and wouldn’t return until evening. Annja explained that she needed to talk with him, but the majordomo guarded his boss’s whereabouts like a mother grizzly guards her cubs and wouldn’t tell her where he had gone or exactly when he was expected to return. Rather than spend any time arguing with him, she simply made an appointment to see Roux that evening and that was that.
She spent the next hour pacing back and forth in her hotel room, watching the minute hand creep around the clock and wishing it would go faster. When she couldn’t stand it anymore, she decided to get out of the hotel and play tourist for a bit—try to take her mind off her pending meeting with Roux. It had been some time since she’d had the opportunity to wander through the city at her leisure and she vowed that she’d make good use of what little time she had; after all, who knew when she’d be back this way again?
After a quick shower she threw on a pair of khaki shorts, a deep blue T-shirt and her usual pair of low-rise hiking boots, grabbed an apple out of the fruit basket on the table and headed for the concierge’s desk in the lobby. Arranging for a rental car to be available upon her return took only a few minutes thanks to the concierge’s help, and with that taken care of, she was ready to enjoy the day.
Her first stop, she decided, was going to be Sainte-Chapelle, the palatine chapel in the courtyard of the royal palace on the Île de la Cité. Originally built by Louis IX to store the many holy relics he had purchased from the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople, Baldwin II, including the supposed Crown of Thorns worn by Christ during his crucifixion, the chapel was best known for its fifteen stained-glass windows, each one nearly fifty feet high and picturing Biblical stories from Genesis to Revelation. Annja was as interested in the architecture of the restored chapel—the original having been heavily damaged during the French Revolution—as she was in the artifacts it had once contained. She had always wanted to visit, but had never found the time.
Annja was thankful that the cab ride was reasonably short, for the traffic was terrible and terrifying. When the driver announced that they had arrived, she practically leaped out of the cab and had to suppress a smile at his bewildered expression. She thanked him for the speedy arrival and paid the fare, then turned her attention to the ominous-looking building behind her, with its dark stone towers and conical roofs circa the thirteenth century, known as the Palais de Justice. Now housing several French courts, this wing of the building had once been home to the Conciergerie, the oldest prison in Paris, and had held such infamous prisoners as Robespierre and Marie Antoinette. It was now a museum, but that didn’t do much to change the vibe that Annja picked up off the place. Just looking at it made her shiver, as she imagined what it must have been like to be a prisoner there, locked away in a cold, dark, vermin-infested cell.
She walked down the street until she came to the entrance that served the majority of the complex. After buying an admission ticket, she slipped through the gates and made her way in the direction of the chapel.
The royal palace had once stood on the spot the Palais de Justice now occupied and Annja knew it had connected directly to the chapel via a narrow corridor. It was designed that way to allow King Louis IX to pass directly into it without leaving the palace, in much the same way the Holy Roman Emperor in Constantinople had been able to enter the Hagia Sophia from his own residence. The king, who had died of a plague while on crusade, had been canonized by the pope and was now known as Saint Louis. The palace itself had disappeared ages ago, leaving the two-level church on its own, surrounded by the less sophisticated buildings of the Palais de Justice.
There was a fair-size crowd in attendance. Annja worked her way through it, intent on pursuing her own agenda and not wanting to get caught up in any of the guided tours that were taking place. Once inside the lower chapel, she pushed her way past the souvenir stand that seemed to occupy most of the space near the entrance and made her way out into the center of the floor. The high vaulted ceilings rose above her, the beams covered in red and gold, which provided a sharp contrast with the deep royal blue of the ceiling panels. The soft lighting gave the place a gentle and welcoming atmosphere. Annja knew that the lower chapel had served as a parish church for the inhabitants of the palace. It was rather plain, at least in comparison to the grandeur of the upper chapel, but she found a sense of peace and tranquility wrapping about her as she stood, gazing about. There was almost a sense of humility about the place, as if it knew not to overshadow its more famous cousin above, and Annja found that she liked the place despite its lack of sophistication.
Enjoying what she had seen so far, Annja made her way toward the stairs to the upper chapel.
UNNOTICED AMID THE CROWD by the souvenir tables, the Dragon watched Annja as she crossed the chapel floor, headed for the stairs to the upper level. The decision to follow her from the hotel had been an impulsive one. Watching her the night before had generated a certain amount of curiosity and, after some deeper reflection, it seemed that a bit of prudent observation might be in order at this point.
But so far, the target hadn’t done anything but play tourist, something the Dragon found rather annoying.
Why would anyone waste time on such ridiculousness? Time was too precious to be squandered away in fruitless pursuits; every moment wasted here could have been spent accomplishing something of value.
Still, there was something intriguing about the woman and when Annja at last reached the stairwell to the upper level, the Dragon headed in that direction, as well.
HALFWAY UP THE STEPS Annja felt a chill wash over her. Bone deep, it seared her with its intensity. It felt as if Death himself had suddenly taken a particular interest, his gaze pausing on her for a heartbeat too long, letting some of the coldness of the grave seep into her flesh as a result, and instinct told her to run, to get away as fast as she could.
She shuddered, trying to shake off both the uncomfortable feeling as well as the solution that it had evoked, and then she casually turned to look back down the stairs behind her. She let her gaze travel across the floor of the lower chapel, searching for the source of that feeling, but as far as she could tell no one was looking at her and nothing seemed out of place. The interior of the church was just as it had been moments before, full of tourists taking in the sights and spending their money on souvenirs and cheap baubles.
Her hand twitched and the image of the sword formed in her mind, but she quickly banished it away, disturbed that her first thoughts had been of violence. Equally disturbing, however, was the persistent feeling that she was in danger, and she had learned to trust those feelings. They had saved her life on more than one occasion.
Annja reached the top of the stairwell and moved to the side in order to let those behind her continue forward into the upper chapel. As they did, she watched their faces, but she didn’t see anyone who looked even vaguely familiar.
Shrugging it off, she went back to enjoying her visit.
The upper chapel was far more ornate than the lower one; after all, this had practically been the king’s private worship area. Supported by slender piers, the ceiling seemed to float high above the collection of magnificent stained-glass windows, giving the whole place a feeling of fragile beauty. The brochure she had been given along with her entrance ticket told Annja that there was more than six and a half thousand feet of stained glass around her, and within the deep reds and blues of the glass were some eleven hundred illustrated figures from the Bible.
Annja spun in a circle, drinking it all in. It was truly beautiful, there was no doubt about that, and her only regret was that she hadn’t come to see it in the late afternoon when the setting sun would have been blazing through the colored glass, setting the room alight with its glow.
The huge rose-shaped window at the back of the church drew her attention and she was headed in that direction when that cold, uncomfortable feeling from several minutes before swept over her again, making her skin tingle.
Determined to get to the bottom of it, Annja stopped where she was and spun in another slow circle, ostensibly drinking in the view but actually checking out the area on all sides.
Across the chapel, in the shadow of one of the pillars that lined the walls, someone stood watching her.
Whoever it was—and from this distance she couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman—wore a gray sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. The hood on the sweatshirt was pulled up, hiding the person’s face, but even through the shadows Annja could feel the other’s eyes upon her.
As if sensing her attention, the watcher suddenly stepped back and disappeared behind the column.
Almost before she’d thought about it, Annja found herself in motion, headed across the church at an angle, trying to intercept whoever it was that she had seen. There was only one exit from the upper level, the stairs by which she’d entered, and so she knew if she could reach them first she’d have a chance.
The gray sweatshirt flashed into view again. Her watcher was hugging the rear wall, headed for the stairs just as she’d suspected, and she quickened her own pace, trying not to lose sight of her quarry in the process.
She was almost upon him when a group of tourists spilled out of the stairwell onto the main floor, obscuring her view and making it difficult to move forward as quickly as she had been. She pushed her way through, ignoring the looks she was getting in return. No way was she letting him get away at this point!
But when she reached the stairs she was alone.
Her quarry was nowhere to be seen.
She turned slowly about, searching through the crowd, ignoring the stares and the resentful looks as she tried to figure out just where he could have gone.
She saw a flash of gray slipping between two tourists and rushed to catch up.
“Hey!” she shouted, startling those around her. “Hold it right there!”
Annja pushed her way through the crowd, determined not to let him get away a second time. She was going to get to the bottom of this right now!
She could see him, just a few people in front of her. He had not once looked back, which in itself was suspicious to her. Didn’t he hear her calling? If he was innocent, wouldn’t he look back and see what she was shouting about, just like so many of the others around them were now doing?
They were only a few steps away from the staircase when Annja put on a little extra burst of speed, pushed past a family of four who suddenly froze directly in her path like a bunch of deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car and reached out.
“Hey!” she said, grabbing his arm and spinning him around. “I said, hold it!”
She had been expecting resistance and so was surprised when the other person turned suddenly toward her, nearly throwing them both off balance. A kid of about eighteen stared out at her in bewilderment from under the hood of the sweatshirt he wore. He shrugged her off and let out a stream of rapid-fire French. Although fluent in French Annja didn’t need to know the language to understand what he was saying. “What the hell is wrong with you?” sounded pretty much the same in any dialect, given the tone and the look that went along with it.
Annja stepped back, holding her hands up as if to show they were empty and that she wasn’t a threat. Clearly she had made a mistake. This wasn’t the guy.
“Uh, sorry,” she said, and then repeated it in French. “Pardon, pardon. I thought you were someone else.”
A male voice spoke up immediately behind her. “Mademoiselle? Is there something wrong?”
Annja jumped at the sound, not having seen anyone approach, and turned to find a gendarme standing nearby, his gaze on both of them. The officer’s hand was uncomfortably close to his pistol and it didn’t seem to be the kid who had him upset.
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Alex Archer
Archaeologist Annja Creed and her sword have never been outmatched–until now. When a surprise party for her mentor Roux includes some uninvited guests, Annja finds herself fighting desperately for her life. The intruders escape but leave a sinister message behind.A legend has resurfaced about a sword that should be feared. A sword that seeks a master as bloodthirsty as itself. It is wielded by an assassin known as the Dragon who initiates a terrible game of cat and mouse. Eventually, the two swords–light and dark–must meet…and only one shall triumph.
There was one more attacker
Annja whirled, expecting her final opponent to be closing the distance between them while her attention was elsewhere.
But that wasn’t the case. The other man hadn’t moved.
He stood watching her, hands held behind his back, like an instructor evaluating her performance.
“Who are you and what do you want?” Annja asked, and was surprised at the depth of anger she heard in her voice.
Her opponent said nothing.
“I’ll give you one last—”
She never finished the sentence.
One second her opponent was standing in front of her with both hands behind his back, and in the next he was leaping forward, a Japanese long sword suddenly appearing in his hands.
Annja just barely managed to deflect the strike as she brought her own sword up.
Where the hell had that sword come from?
It was almost as if he’d conjured the thing out of thin air….
Titles in this series:
Destiny
Solomon’s Jar
The Spider Stone
The Chosen
Forbidden City
The Lost Scrolls
God of Thunder
Secret of the Slaves
Warrior Spirit
Serpent’s Kiss
Provenance
The Soul Stealer
Gabriel’s Horn
The Golden Elephant
Swordsman’s Legacy
Polar Quest
Eternal Journey
Sacrifice
Seeker’s Curse
Footprints
Paradox
The Spirit Banner
Sacred Ground
The Bone Conjurer
Tribal Ways
The Dragon’s Mark
Rogue Angel
The Dragon’s Mark
Alex Archer
www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)
THE LEGEND
…THE ENGLISH COMMANDER TOOK JOAN’S SWORD AND RAISED IT HIGH.
The broadsword, plain and unadorned, gleamed in the firelight. He put the tip against the ground and his foot at the center of the blade. The broadsword shattered, fragments falling into the mud. The crowd surged forward, peasant and soldier, and snatched the shards from the trampled mud. The commander tossed the hilt deep into the crowd.
Smoke almost obscured Joan, but she continued praying till the end, until finally the flames climbed her body and she sagged against the restraints.
Joan of Arc died that fateful day in France, but her legend and sword are reborn…
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
1
Ise Province, Japan
1603
Sengo Muramasa stormed about the room in a fit of rage. The furnishings around him bore silent witness to the strength of his anger; the black lacquer tea table had been smashed repeatedly against the floor until it shattered into pieces. The tatami mats had been ripped to shreds with his bare hands. The paintings on the walls had been torn down and stomped upon until the images they bore were unrecognizable. When one of his servants unwittingly entered the room, Muramasa had beat him to within an inch of his life and left him lying unconscious in one corner of the room.
The old swordsmith barely noticed the injured boy as his thoughts were on the edict that had arrived earlier that morning and the demands it had contained.
He still couldn’t believe it. That bastard Tokugawa Ieyasu had actually gone through with it!
He’d heard rumors about the shogun’s proposed stance for months, but had never actually believed he would put it into effect.
The words of the edict echoed around and around in his head.
All weapons crafted by the swordsmith Muramasa have been deemed illegal and banned from use by direct order of the shogun. Carrying such a weapon is now considered a crime and is punishable by death. Anyone caught possessing, hoarding, or transporting a weapon fashioned by Muramasa faces the same penalty.
He could not let this happen.
Deny his art? Banish his work? Never!
Already the germ of a plan was beginning to form in the back of his mind and he gave it free reign to grow and expand. He had no doubt the shogun’s men would be coming for him, to take his inventory and destroy his forge, to prevent him from creating any new blades. But with winter swiftly approaching, the mountain passes would soon be blocked and it would take months for them to thaw enough to be passable again.
Months he could put to good use.
He had just enough time to produce one final sword—the culmination of his career. He would create a sword to be feared and held in awe in equal measure, a blade to master all other blades, one that would strike terror in the hearts of those against whom it was drawn.
He would call it Juuchi Yosamu—Ten Thousand Cold Nights.
Ignoring the destruction behind him, Muramasa stalked out of the house and across the courtyard to his workshop. His heart was full of feelings of anger and vengeance and Muramasa intended to use them fully.
Entering the forge, he paused a moment to say a prayer at the small Shinto shrine in the corner. The forge was a sacred place and to deny the gods their due would only ensure that his blade would come out weak and brittle. He took the time to ask for blessings and to make the proper offering. When he was finished, he rose and got to work.
Muramasa had been preparing to produce a blade for a customer and so his smelting furnace had already been built. His apprentices had created a thick layer of ash and charcoal as a base and then had surrounded it with carefully made bricks of local clay, until they had a structure that was roughly three feet high with walls nearly one-foot thick. They were ready to begin the smelting process.
The master swordsmith shouted at his apprentices and they came running, eager to begin. Word of the master’s fall from favor had already passed through the household and they were as keen as he was to stand in defiance of the shogun’s order. After all, their livelihoods were at stake, as well—for who would commission a weapon from their hands when it was revealed that they learned the art at Muramasa’s knee? Their futures were at stake, too, and they took to their tasks with all of the energy and attention at their disposal.
For the next three days they stoked the fire, ensuring that it burned at a steady temperature of fifteen hundred degrees. Shovels of iron sand were fed into the mouth of the furnace every thirty minutes—nourishment for the hungry beast—the iron mixing with the carbon and charcoal already in the smelter to create a unique kind of steel. Muramasa watched over the proceedings with an eagle eye, carefully monitoring the molten slag that was vented through the holes at the bottom of the furnace, waiting for just the right consistency and color to appear.
When at last he was satisfied, he ordered his apprentices to tear down the walls of the furnace, revealing a large mass of molten steel in the center, known as the kera. Roughly six feet long by one foot wide and weighing nearly two tons, the kera was carefully moved by rolling it atop a series of logs to the other side of the workshop where it would be allowed to cool. Once it had, his apprentices would break up the massive block into fist-size fragments that he would personally scrutinize, searching for those that shone with a silvery brightness from the outer edge. The selected pieces would then be hammered flat by his workers, coated with a thin mixture of clay and charcoal to prevent oxidation, and then reheated to thirteen hundred degrees to melt them all together into a single block. After that he would begin the process of forming the blade, hammering the steel and folding it over, again and again and again, making the steel uniform throughout. Eventually he would combine the softer, more flexible core with an outer edge of harder steel, then heat the blade all over again to meld the two layers into one. Later would come the grinding and polishing.
For now, however, it was enough that he had begun.
IT WAS FINISHED.
Muramasa stared at the highly polished blade and could almost feel it watching him, in turn. For three months he had poured his soul into its creation, imbuing it with all the hatred, anger and desire for vengeance he felt toward the shogun, giving it a personality of its own, one that would devour any weapon that dared to stand against it. Like the dragon for which it had been named.
It was the culmination of his life’s work.
The door to his workshop burst open and a servant rushed in. Muramasa recognized him as one of those who had been tasked with keeping an eye on the pass in the mountains above. The boy’s face was ruddy from the cold and a long gash ran across his brow.
Pausing to catch his breath, the boy finally gasped out the message he’d rushed there to deliver.
“The shogun’s troops…”
That was all that was necessary.
The spring thaw had come early and Muramasa had been expecting word of their arrival for days. It wouldn’t take them long to negotiate the pass and descend down to the valley floor. He had one hour, two at the most.
But it would be enough.
Juuchi Yosamu was finished. All he needed was to see to its delivery.
After that, let them come.
The old swordsmith sprang into action.
“Quickly,” he shouted to the boy. “Find me Yukasawi!”
Still struggling to catch his breath, the boy turned and rushed out the door, intent on doing what his master commanded.
While he waited for his man, Muramasa crossed the room and selected a worn and battered saya from a barrel in the corner of the room. He lifted the blade, intent on securing it safely inside the scabbard.
As he did so the weapon seemed to twist in his hands of its own accord and he felt the sting of its bite as the razor edge sliced cleanly along the underside of his forearm. Blood dripped onto the floor and gleamed wetly against the edge of the blade. But rather than being angry at his carelessness, if that was indeed what caused the injury, Muramasa simply smiled.
The sword hungered for blood, just as it had been created to. Who better than to provide its first taste than the man who had fashioned it?
A noise at his back caused him to turn and he saw Yukasawi enter the workshop. Muramasa took a moment to study him.
The man was a ronin, one of those samurai from the lesser houses who had recently lost his station when his master had gone down in defeat at the hands of the shogun. This is a man who has almost as much reason to hate Tokugawa as I do, the swordsmith thought. It was for this reason that he had been selected. If anyone could get the weapon to safety, Yukasawi could.
It would be the soldier’s job to take the sword out of the mountains, past the shogun’s troops and into the hands of the samurai in Kyoto Muramasa had selected to receive it.
The man in question, Ishikawa Toshi, was ruthless and wanted nothing more than to ascend to the position of shogun. He was already amassing his army against Tokugawa and his allies, and Muramasa was confident that his gift would be put to good use in the future. All the swordsmith had to do was get it to him.
“Is it time?” Yukasawi asked, his face tight with concern for his benefactor.
Muramasa nodded. “The shogun’s troops have been sighted at the top of the pass. They will be here shortly.”
“Then there is still time. If we leave now, we can—”
“No.” The swordsmith cut him off. “There is no time left for running. Nor will I give that dog Tokugawa the satisfaction. By remaining behind I will delay them long enough to allow you to escape and deliver Juuchi Yosamu as we discussed.”
He thrust the now-sheathed weapon into the hands of his vassal. “On your honor and your life, do not fail me.”
“Hai!” the ronin shouted. Taking the weapon in hand, he bowed low, then rushed out of the workshop to where his horse was waiting.
The trip down the mountain would be hazardous, but Muramasa was confident his man could handle the task. His other creations might be rounded up and destroyed, but in the depths of his heart he knew that this one would survive.
As his blood continued to drip onto the floor beneath his feet, the swordsmith knew that the world would not soon forget the savage bite of a Muramasa blade.
His legacy would live on.
And Juuchi Yosamu would devour the hearts of his enemies.
A shout sounded from outside and Muramasa knew that that the shogun’s troops were near. It was time to meet death.
The old man reached out and picked up a sword. He gave it a few experimental swings, getting the feel for this particular blade, and then turned toward the door with a spring in his step that he hadn’t felt for years.
THE BATTLE HAD BEEN SHORT but brutal. His men had fought well and the snow was stained crimson with their blood and the blood of their foes. Of the thirty-eight men who had remained behind to face the shogun’s troops, only Muramasa himself still lived. He had intended to die with a sword in his hands, but apparently the shogun had ordered otherwise. His men had surrounded the swordsmith and attempted to overwhelm him, a move that had cost ten of them their lives before the older man had been beaten into unconsciousness.
Now, with his hands bound behind his back, Muramasa stood before his enemies and waited for the end.
The captain of the shogun’s troops had been apologetic. This was no way to die for a man of Muramasa’s stature, he’d said, but he had his orders and if he did not carry them out as intended, his own life would be forfeit. Muramasa assured him that he understood.
“Do as you must,” he’d told the man, and had meant it.
It didn’t matter. The resistance, the pronouncement of the verdict against him, the execution to come—none of it mattered, really. It was all stage dressing, anyway—a deliberate attempt to get the shogun’s men to focus their attention on what was going on around them rather than searching the countryside for those who might have gotten away. Every hour he delayed them meant another hour that Yukasawi could use to get over the mountains and escape with his precious cargo.
Muramasa had given him as much time as he could.
Two soldiers approached. They each took an arm and led him forward to the clearing in the center of the compound, where what was left of his household staff were assembled as witnesses in front of the massed arrangement of the shogun’s troops.
As they drew closer, Muramasa shook off the guards and walked forward on his own. He was not afraid to meet death and he would not go forward to face it looking as if he did not have the courage to do so on his own.
The captain he’d spoken to earlier was waiting for him, naked steel in hand. Muramasa had requested that he be allowed to commit seppuku, but apparently even that last honor was to be denied him.
So be it, he thought. He would still have the last laugh.
Without waiting to be told Muramasa knelt in the snow at the captain’s feet.
“Do not worry,” the younger man said, whispering so that those assembled around him would not overhear. “I will make certain that the blade strikes deep. There will be no need for a second blow.”
Muramasa bowed his head, exposing his neck.
He ignored the long recital of his supposed crimes and the pronouncement of his sentence—death. He’d heard it all before.
As he waited for that final blow, something caught his eye in the distance.
He raised his head slightly, just enough so that he could lift his gaze toward the mountain slopes in the distance. On the side of the mountain, where the trail led to the pass that was used to exit the valley and travel to the world outside, a dark speck moved against the snow. It was barely visible at this distance, and had Muramasa not turned his head at precisely the right moment, he might never have seen it. But he had and deep in his heart he had no doubt at all as to what that speck represented.
Yukasawi had made it. He had managed to work his way past the blockade of the shogun’s troops and climb the mountain to the pass high above. From there it would be easy for the ronin to lose himself in the open country on the other side while he made the journey to Kyoto and delivered the blade.
And with that delivery, Muramasa’s revenge would begin.
Suddenly filled with satisfaction, Muramasa barely noticed as the captain of the guard brought his sword high above his head.
I curse you with ten thousand cold nights, the swordsmith thought. As the blade descended in a swift, razor-sharp blow designed to separate his head from his shoulders, a smile crossed the old man’s face.
2
Paris, France
Annja took the steps two at a time, calling her sword to her hand as she went. The weapon responded, emerging from the otherwhere fully formed and fitting neatly into her grasp as if it had been fashioned for her alone. She remembered the first time she’d seen the sword. It had been in this very house, lying in pieces in the case Roux had fashioned for it. She remembered the heat coming off the fragments of the broken blade and the rainbow-colored light that had exploded from it when she grasped the hilt and lifted it free of its case, somehow reformed. Then, as now, she knew the sword was hers; knew it down to the core of her very soul. Just having it with her made her feel more confident about the confrontation that lay ahead.
She kept her eyes on the landing above, not wanting to be surprised by the sudden appearance of an intruder. She made it to the top of the staircase without incident. She found herself faced with a long corridor that ran in opposite directions. She knew the area to the right held a series of guest bedrooms, for she had stayed there in the past and was even using one of them now. The left side of the hallway held a bathroom, an office and a small gallery for some of Roux’s art. She ignored all of them; the crashing sound had come from the room at the far end of the hall, the one now facing her, and as she moved toward it, she tried to remember just what it was used for.
A spare bedroom? Another office? Maybe a study?
Then it came to her.
A display room.
The room held a portion of the weapons collection Roux had accumulated over the course of his extended lifetime. There were many more rooms just like it scattered throughout his home. But this room was special, Annja recalled. She had spent some time in it during a previous visit, for it contained a certain type of weapon that she had grown rather attached to lately.
Swords.
The collection contained both working blades and a few museum-quality relics, but nothing that was overly valuable and certainly not much that could be moved easily on the open market. The thieves, if that was indeed what they were, were in for a rude surprise if they thought differently.
And they still had to contend with her.
She raced to the door and flattened herself against the wall beside it. She put her head against the wall, listening, but Roux’s mansion had been built in the days when they had used quality building materials rather than the cheap substitutes that had become so common today. She couldn’t hear anything but her own breathing.
She was going to have to do this the hard way.
Gripping her sword in one hand, Annja grabbed the doorknob with the other, took a deep breath and then pulled it open, slipping inside with barely a sound.
She’d been right; it was one of the display rooms. Swords lined the walls by the hundreds—long swords, short swords, broadswords, cutlasses, épées, scimitars—every make, model and size, it seemed. The carefully polished blades shone in the spotlights that had been artfully arranged to draw attention to the weapons, and here and there the wink of precious gems gleamed back at her from scabbards or hilts.
But Annja barely noticed the swords on the walls, for her attention was captured by those held in the hands of the intruders facing her.
One week earlier
ANNJA WAS CARRYING SEVERAL bags of groceries up the stairs to her Brooklyn loft when her cell phone rang.
“Hang on, hang on…” she said to it as she juggled the bags, managed to get the key in the lock and kicked the door open with her foot.
Her phone continued to ring.
“I’m coming, just hang on!” she told it again, as if the inanimate hunk of metal and plastic could actually hear her. She rushed to the island in the kitchen, dumped the bags on the counter and grabbed for her phone.
Just as she managed to pull it from the front pocket of her jeans it stopped ringing.
“You have got to be kidding!” She scowled at it, ready to fling it across the room in a pique of anger, only to have it ring again.
“Hello?” She practically shouted it into the tiny device.
A deep, rich voice answered her back. “Annja, did I catch you at a bad time?”
There was no mistaking the voice. That teasing tone, that undercurrent of danger—only one man in her life sounded like that.
“What do you want, Garin?”
All that rushing? For him? It said something about her social life, that was for sure, she thought.
“Now is that any way to treat an old friend?”
“Old, yes. Friend, that remains to be seen.”
“You wound me, Annja, you really do.”
She kicked off her shoes, wandered into the living room and dropped onto the couch.
Garin Braden. Empire builder, artifact hunter, rogue—he had a thousand different faces. The problem was, you never really knew which one you were dealing with, and by the time you did, it was often too late to save yourself. Annja had seen him ruthlessly kill more than one individual and yet had also known him to be charming and tender. She still wasn’t sure just what she felt about him; he was larger than life, with his rakish good looks, thick black hair and piercing gaze, but at the same time he had the heart of a devil.
“So be wounded,” she said. “Then when you’ve finished feeling sorry for yourself maybe you could tell me what you want.”
Garin swore under his breath and the sound of his frustration made Annja smile. She wasn’t the only one with mixed feelings, she realized.
“I am calling,” he said, “to invite you to Paris.”
Paris? That was a surprise.
“What for?” she asked.
“Can’t I just invite you to Paris?”
“You could, but you know I wouldn’t come, so what’s the real reason?”
Garin was silent for a moment, and then grudgingly said, “It’s the old man’s birthday.”
Annja knew there was only one individual Garin could legitimately refer to that way.
Roux.
Old was right, she thought. More than five hundred years old, if the truth were told. Garin himself wasn’t that far behind, for only a few decades separated the two men. The same mystical force that had preserved the sword of Joan of Arc, the sword that Annja now carried as her own, had also given the two of them an extended lifetime. One measured in centuries, rather than decades.
“It’s Roux’s birthday?”
“I just said that, didn’t I?”
Yes, yes, he had. Despite Roux’s long life, Annja knew that he wasn’t the type to celebrate birthdays, so that only increased rather than eased her suspicions.
“You’re going to throw Roux a birthday party?” She couldn’t mask the incredulity in her voice.
Garin had apparently lost his patience with her for he let loose a stream of curses that could have burned the hair off a pirate’s chest.
Annja waited him out and then said, “Okay. I’m in. When is it?”
Still grumbling, he named a date only three days away.
“Nothing like giving a girl time to think it over,” she said.
“What? Like you’ve got something else on your social calendar?” Garin shot back and from his tone Annja knew he was rather pleased with himself for that one. Before she could think of a retort, he went on. “I have tickets reserved in your name on the 9:00 p.m. flight out of Kennedy on the twelfth. My driver will pick you at DeGaulle, take you to Roux’s for the party and drive you back to your hotel afterward.”
And with that, he hung up.
“Garin? Garin!”
Hanging up the phone, she went back to putting away the groceries. While doing so she glanced at her calendar. The bare white spaces stared back at her. Well, what did you expect? she asked herself. Given your lifestyle, it is amazing you have any friends at all.
She had to admit, she’d never been one to stay in one place for long before she’d taken up Joan’s sword, never mind afterward. If she wasn’t headed off to some remote spot to film a new episode of Chasing History’s Monsters, the cable television show she cohosted, then she was off volunteering at some dig site in the back end of nowhere just to satisfy her love of history and her need to feel the thrill of discovery. That didn’t leave much time for friendships, never mind romantic entanglements longer than a few days in length.
While she occasionally wondered what it would be like to have a normal life, when she really got down to it, she found that she didn’t mind all the craziness. After all, boring was the last thing you could call her life.
The party was on the thirteenth. On the sixteenth she was due in studio to shoot some green-screen work for her next episode and to wade through the piles of footage she’d brought back from her last trip. Both would be necessary to cut the raw material into a show worth watching, and while she knew the guys in the editing room could do it without her, she preferred to keep an eye on them to help tone down the inevitable “suggestions” her producer, Doug Morrell, was constantly trying to fill their ears with. Doug was a good guy, but he’d be just as happy to have a show revolving around blood-sucking alien chupacabras as he would some ancient civilization most people had never heard of. He’d once gone so far as to produce and distribute a memorial video of her final moments when she’d lost touch with him during a tsunami in India. That fact that she’d called in shortly thereafter, clearly alive and well, had only added fuel to his marketing efforts and had him envisioning a second volume highlighting her “miraculous” survival. If she’d been closer at the time she might have strangled him herself.
So she’d make the party, but had to be sure to be back in New York by the sixteenth, come hell or high water.
ANNJA WAS FIVE FEET TEN inches tall with chestnut hair and amber-green eyes. She had an athlete’s build, with smooth rounded muscles and curves in all the right places. Dressed as she was in a pair of jeans, leather boots and a lightweight tank top, she knew she probably made quite a sight rushing helter-skelter through the airport with her long hair flying out behind her, but it just couldn’t be helped. She’d gotten absorbed in research and hadn’t left herself enough time. If she didn’t make it to the gate on time, Garin would never let her forget it.
As was her usual luck, after convincing her cab driver to set new land-speed records in making it to the airport and then dashing through the terminal after clearing security, she reached the gate only to discover that her flight had been delayed due to a mechanical problem. At least the ticket was for first class, which let her pass the time in the executive lounge while she waited. Once she did board the plane almost an hour later, she popped on her iPod, stretched out and slept through most of the trip, determined to arrive ready to enjoy Roux’s party.
Garin had a driver and car waiting, just as he’d said he would, and as she relaxed in the backseat and she watched the Paris streets roll by out her window, she had to admit that the whole thing made her feel a bit special.
Until she remembered just who was waiting for her on the other end.
It’s for Roux, she reminded herself, for Roux.
As they drove, she thought about the circumstances that were bringing the three of them—Roux, Annja and Garin—together again. Despite her misgivings, she had to admit to being surprised, pleasantly so, that Garin was going out of his way for Roux; that wasn’t something Garin was particularly known for. Ruthlessness, arrogance, a sense of entitlement ten miles wide—yes, he had more than his share of those qualities. But doing something just because it would make another person happy? Not so much.
Still, anyone could turn over a new leaf and in the past several months it was obvious that Garin was trying, in his own way, to smooth over some of the damage from the past, so she supposed she had to give him credit. It wasn’t easy for anyone to change, least of all someone so set in their ways as Garin Braden.
The party they were throwing for Roux was, of course, a surprise. Or rather, Garin was throwing the party, with Annja and Henshaw, Roux’s butler and majordomo, as the only guests. It pained Annja to think that after such a long life they were the only people Roux could claim as friends, but she didn’t consider it too deeply lest she see the glaring similarities with her own life.
That the party was all Garin’s idea was equally unusual, given the history between the two men. After all, they’d tried to kill each other on more than one occasion and no doubt would try again at some point in the future. On any given day they could go from friends to enemies in the space of a heartbeat. Still, there was a bond between them that transcended such petty squabbles, and as fate would have it, Annja had become part of their inner circle.
After all, who better to understand just what it meant to carry the sword that had belonged to Joan of Arc than the two men who had once been responsible for protecting Joan herself from the hands of her enemies? The same mystical force that had preserved the sword and ultimately brought it into Annja’s possession had also given them their extended life span. It was also part of the discord between them. Neither of them knew what would happen should the sword somehow come to harm. Would they at last be able to live out the rest of their natural lives, free from the influence of the sword, or would time suddenly catch up to them, exacting its toll then and there for all the years they’d escaped its grasp? They didn’t know and so, as a result, they had different ideas about how to handle the situation. Roux wanted the sword to remain with Annja, its chosen bearer, while Garin had made it clear he felt the sword should be locked away and protected. If that was even possible.
Annja shifted her attention from the scenery outside the car to the sword itself. It rested there in the otherwhere, just as it always did, glimmering faintly as it waited for her to call it forth with just a thought. For a moment she was tempted, for she loved to feel its weight in her hand, loved the sensation it gave her as she carried it forth into battle, but her good sense reasserted itself before she did so; having a huge broadsword suddenly appear in the back of the limousine probably wouldn’t be a good thing for the upholstery, never mind the driver’s sense of reality.
It was enough that it was there, waiting for her, and that she could claim it when necessary. She’d had to do so more times than she could count since taking possession of it and she knew that there would be plenty of other such situations in the future. It had become a part of her and she could no more give it up now than she could marry a pig farmer and retire to the country.
The celebration was being held at Roux’s estate outside of Paris and it took them about half an hour to reach their destination.
Roux’s house was huge, so huge that the word home just didn’t seem to do it justice. Palace might have been better. Ivy clung to the stone walls and helped the structure blend into the trees that surrounded it. It butted up against a hill and the overall effect was as if the house itself were a part of the natural environment around it, and from past experience Annja knew that the design was deliberate. Roux was a man who liked his privacy and went to some lengths to see that it remained protected.
The driver must have called ahead, as Garin was waiting for her on the front steps when they pulled up. Standing with him was Henshaw.
“Welcome back, Ms. Creed,” Henshaw said, giving her a small nod of welcome as she stepped from the car.
She grinned. That was Henshaw, positively overwhelming with his emotional displays, she thought.
“Good to see you,” she told him. She turned her attention to his companion. “Hello, Garin.”
“Annja,” he answered just as solemnly, but his eyes twinkled with mischief behind his unruffled exterior.
With her ever-present backpack slung over her shoulder, Annja entered the house with Garin while Henshaw got her overnight bag from the trunk. She could already imagine his scowl as he saw the size of her suitcase. She wasn’t the type to travel with more than the few basic items she needed, while he was a firm believer in a woman’s right to be prepared for anything and to travel with a wardrobe large enough to let her do so, especially a woman as attractive as Annja. He’d never come right out and said so—the sun would stop revolving around the earth when that happened—but she’d managed to piece together the gist of his viewpoint from the few comments and frowns he’d made to her over the years.
The knowledge that he’d scowl all the more should he discover that she intentionally packed as light as she could just to tease him when coming here made her laugh aloud.
Maybe this was going to be a fun three days, after all.
Annja stepped into the foyer, with its vaulted ceiling and Italian marble floors. No matter how many time she visited, it never ceased to amaze her at the luxury Roux had surrounded himself with over the years. He seemed to be trying to forget the long, hard years he’d served in the field with nothing more than his arms and armor for material possessions and she had to admit he was doing an excellent job of it.
Garin led her through the lower floor to Roux’s personal study, one of the largest rooms in the entire house. It was two stories tall and stuffed to the gills with shelves full of books, artifacts and artwork. Stacks of paper streamers rested on a nearby table, along with a pile of balloons. A tank of helium gas stood beside it.
“Roux is out at a high-stakes poker game for the afternoon,” Garin told her. “Henshaw will be picking him up around dinnertime, which means we only have a couple of hours to get the place decorated and…”
He trailed off at seeing her expression. “What?” he growled.
Annja laughed; she couldn’t help it. Imagining him with those blue and yellow streamers in his huge hands was just too much. It was so not Garin. From cold-blooded killer to interior decorator—would wonders never cease?
When at last she could find her voice again, she said, “I’m sorry, Garin, really, I am. I just never expected you to go to so much trouble for Roux and the change is a bit, um, unexpected. Nice, but unexpected.”
He accepted her apology with a shrug and the two of them got to work. By the time Henshaw came in an hour later to check on them, they had finished strewing paper streamers throughout the room, even draping them on the massive stone sarcophagus that occupied one corner and wrapping them around the stuffed and mounted corpse of an Old West gunfighter that stood in the other, turning him from a cigar-store Indian-style display to a blue-and-yellow mummy. They were getting started on tying the balloons together into bunches.
Henshaw gave the room a once-over, his only discernible reaction the slight raising of an eyebrow as he took in the steamerwrapped gunfighter in the corner. Turning back to his partners in crime, he said, “I’m off to get Mr. Roux. I shall return in approximately one hour. We shall dine shortly after that.”
Garin had several phone calls to make so Annja spent the time wandering through Roux’s house, looking at the variety of artifacts that he had on display. While she might not agree with his methods of acquisition, since he had several items that were on current lists of objects either stolen or banned from being removed from their countries of origin, she could appreciate the beauty of the collection itself. She was examining a vase that had apparently been discovered in the remains of Knossos, the king’s palace on the island of Crete, when her phone chirped. Pulling it out of her pocket, she saw that she had a text message from Garin.
They’re here, was all it said.
She dashed back through the halls, slipping through the main foyer only seconds before Henshaw and Roux entered the house, and joined Garin in the study. There they waited for the guest of honor.
“Surprise!” they shouted when Henshaw led Roux into the room.
The older man started, then scowled first at the two of them and then back over his shoulder at Henshaw.
“Traitor!” he said, “I suppose you’re in on this, too, then? What are they doing here?”
Henshaw gave one of his rare smiles. “Celebrating your birthday, of course, sir.”
Garin smiled easily, ignoring Roux’s brusque manner. “Did you think we’d forget?”
“It’s not a question of forgetting. You’ve never bothered with my birthday before. What’s so different this year?”
But he accepted the surprise good-naturedly and even began to enjoy himself as the evening wore on. They ate together in the dining room down the hall—braised duck in a pear chutney, which Annja thought was exquisite—then returned to the study for drinks and conversation.
Garin and Roux had lived so long and seen so much that Annja could listen to them for hours. Roux was entertaining them all with a tale of the time he’d slipped inside a royal palace for a rendezvous with a visiting princess when what sounded like gunfire split the night air outside.
“Did you hear that?” Annja asked.
The other three had for they were already in motion. A lifetime spent in dangerous situations had fine-tuned their senses, including Henshaw’s, and they all recognized the sound of guns when they heard them. Annja did, too; she was just surprised to be hearing them at Roux’s secluded estate.
Henshaw went straight to the computer sitting on a nearby desk. As he settled into the seat in front of it an alarm began to sound throughout the house. He silenced it with the touch of a button and then pressed another. A section of the wall to the left of where he sat split apart as a result, revealing sixteen security monitors in four rows of four. Each of them showed a different part of the manor grounds and on several of them Annja saw gray shapes racing across the lawn, firing at the hired security force as they came.
The hiss of hydraulics captured Annja’s attention and she turned away from the monitors to see both Roux and Garin waiting impatiently for the vault at the back of the room to finish opening. Annja hadn’t been inside that room since her first visit to the estate but remembered the treasure trove of multiple currencies and weapons it contained.
Roux could have armed and financed a small private army with what was in room.
It was the weapons stored in the vault that her two companions were going for. Garin armed himself with a pair of heavy pistols while Roux took a rifle for himself and then carried another over to Henshaw.
Garin held up a pistol for Annja. “Here, take this.”
She shook her head. “Thanks but I’m already carrying all the weaponry I need.”
“Suit yourself,” Garin replied, then joined the others at the security station where Roux was trying without much success to reach the head of his security detail on the radio.
When he was unable to get a response, Henshaw gestured to the escape tunnel at the back of the vault. “If we leave now, sir, there will still be time to get you off the estate.” Annja knew that it led up to the third floor and from there out onto the slope of the hill against which Roux’s mansion had been built. A Jeep waited on the road above, ready to take the master of the house to safety at a moment’s notice. Once before, when the estate had come under attack, all four of them had used the tunnel to get to safety. It sounded like a good plan to her now.
Roux was silent for a moment, considering, and then looked over at Garin for his opinion.
The other man hefted the weapon he carried and grinned at Roux. “It’s your call, but if I were in your shoes, I’d be a little pissed. After all, it is your birthday.”
There was no missing the challenge in Garin’s answer and Annja bristled to hear it. He was practically daring Roux to make a stand! And of course, given the history between the two men, there was almost no way Roux was going to ignore that and do the right thing, which was to get the hell out of there while they still had a chance.
She was opening her mouth to advise against taking on the intruders themselves when Roux did precisely what she expected him to.
“Garin’s right. This is my home and I’ll be damned if I’m going to run like a rabbit at the first sign of trouble.”
And that was that. Annja knew any further discussion was futile. Roux had made up his mind and, being the good manservant that he was, Henshaw would carry out his instructions to the last. With it being three against one, there wasn’t even any sense in arguing.
Annja shot a murderous look in Garin’s direction, but he was studying the images on the monitor and didn’t see it. Or if he did, he chose to ignore it, which would certainly be in keeping with his usual behavior.
If something happens to Roux…
She would just have to ensure that it did not.
They quickly devised a plan that, when it came down to it, was pretty basic. The four of them would take up position inside the foyer and defend the house against anyone who tried to enter.
Annja just hoped it would work.
They left the study and quickly made their way through the house toward the front entrance. Roux led the way, followed by Henshaw and Garin, with Annja bringing up the rear. They were just passing a wide staircase that led to the second floor when Annja skidded to a halt.
The others ran on, but her attention was caught by the landing on the second floor. Her intuition was calling to her, telling her the problem was above her, on the second floor, rather than out front where the others were headed. Ever since taking possession of the sword she’d been subject to heightened senses and her intuition was just one of them. Right now it was telling her that there was a problem on the second floor, one that would come back to bite them in the ass if they didn’t deal with it right away, and she had learned to trust such instincts.
Were they too late? she wondered. Were the intruders already inside the manor house?
Leaving a potential enemy at their backs could prove disastrous, so when she shouted at the others to come back and received no response, she made the decision to check things out on her own.
Turning away from the others, Annja charged up the stairs.
3
There were six of them.
They were dressed in dark, loose-fitting outfits with hoods pulled up right around their heads and ninja masks covering the lower parts of their faces, making it impossible for her to identify them.
Five of them stood in a rough semicircle facing the door, swords in hand. The sixth stood behind the first group, watching, and Annja didn’t need to be told that this was their leader. If she was going to get some answers, Annja suspected she was going to have get past the first ranks and confront him herself.
So be it.
They didn’t give her time to think, never mind formulate a plan. No sooner had she taken it all in, then they were upon her, the first three rushing forward while the other two closed up ranks in front of their commander.
It was almost as if they had been waiting for her.
The lead swordsman was quicker than the other two, eager for the chance to confront her. As he came forward she sized him up, her mind processing a hundred tiny details in the space of an eye blink, from the position of the sword in his hands to the angle of his hips to the length of his stride.
She moved to meet him.
He struck as soon as he was in range, intending to overpower her with his strength and speed. The tip of his sword came slashing in at her side, then rose at the last second in an attempt to reach her neck.
Annja brought her own sword up in her standard two-handed grip, parried his blow and, using his momentum against him, jammed an elbow into his face as his speed prevented him from stopping in time.
There was an audible crack, blood spurted from the intruder’s nose and he dropped to the floor.
Annja kept going, moving in on the other two.
They were a bit more cautious than their comrade, splitting up and moving to either side as she continued forward. Annja knew they intended to force her to confront one of them and allow the other to strike at her exposed back, so she didn’t hesitate, choosing instead to rush the one closest to her.
Sword met sword, the blows ringing in the air, as they flew through a flurry of exchanges. From the corner of her eye Annja could see the other intruder getting ready to make a strike, so when her current foe used a horizontal strike to parry her blow, she went with the motion, pivoting on one foot and driving the other directly into her attacker’s gut, knocking him to the floor.
Even as he was falling backward, Annja was continuing the turn and bringing her sword around in a sweeping arc, taking the third attacker’s blow along its length and letting it slide harmlessly to the side. She let her momentum carry her into a full three-hundred-sixty-degree turn, swiveling sharply around to smack the intruder on the side of the skull with the flat of her blade.
He went down without a sound.
Three down, three to go, she thought.
Gunfire sounded from downstairs, indicating that Roux and the others had encountered the enemy themselves, but Annja couldn’t worry about them right now; she had her hands full.
Seeing how well their comrades had done against her, the two attackers now facing her chose a different strategy. With a sudden shout they rushed her as one, blades out and ready to strike from either side.
Annja waited until they were nearly upon her and then jumped upward with one powerful shove of her muscular legs.
The swords passed harmlessly beneath her as she somersaulted over their heads, twisting in midair to land behind them, facing their exposed backs. Her sword was already in motion as she landed on catlike feet and she slashed the backs of their legs without a second thought, taking them out of the fight.
One more…
She whirled, expecting her final opponent to be closing the distance between them while her attention was elsewhere.
That wasn’t the case.
The other man hadn’t moved.
He stood watching her, his hands held calmly together behind his back, like an instructor evaluating her performance.
“Who are you and what do you want?” Annja asked and was surprised at the depth of anger she heard in her voice.
Her opponent said nothing.
“I’ll give you one last—”
She never finished the sentence.
One second her opponent was standing in front of her with both hands behind his back and in the next he was leaping forward, a Japanese katana suddenly appearing in his hands. He lashed out in a vicious strike even before he landed, using his forward momentum to add force to the blow.
Annja just barely managed to deflect the strike as she brought her sword up, backpedaling as she did to give her some much-needed room, her mind grappling all the while at what she thought she’d just seen.
One minute his hands were empty and the next…
Where the hell had that sword come from? It was almost as if he’d conjured the thing out of midair….
The very notion was unthinkable.
She didn’t have time to dwell on it as her opponent pushed his attack forward, the ferocity and force of his blows driving her backward across the floor as she sought to defend herself.
She had faced off against talented swordsmen before, but this guy was in another league. It was all she could do to protect herself from harm as she twisted and turned, keeping her weapon between her body and her opponent’s deadly blade. Several times he managed to get the tip of his weapon past her defenses, leaving minor wounds in its wake. It didn’t take her long to realize that he was toying with her; that, had he chosen to do so, he could have dispatched her more than once during their engagement. In no time at all she found herself backed into a corner, fighting for her life.
She could see several of the fighters she had already dispatched getting back to their feet and she knew it wouldn’t be long before she was again horribly outnumbered.
If you’re going to do something, Annja, you’d better do it now, she thought.
She gave a shout, putting everything she had into it. It distracted her opponent for the split second she needed to duck his current blow and strike out with her own.
For a moment she thought she’d done it, that she’d punctured his defenses and would score a strike against him, perhaps even a fatal one, but then his weapon came around impossibly fast and caught the hilt of her own. Annja was left watching in dismay as her sword spun out of her hands and away from her, tumbling through the air to clatter against the floor several yards to one side.
As soon as the sword struck the ground that it vanished into the otherwhere.
But even as Annja called it to hand once more, she realized that her assailant’s strike was already inside her defenses and time seemed to slow as she caught sight of that shining steel blade arcing toward her.
The gleaming blade grew in her vision, descending in a lightning-quick strike aimed at her exposed neck. But rather than take her head off at the shoulders, as Annja fully expected it to do, the sword was diverted at the last second so that it merely cut free a lock of her hair.
For a moment Annja’s gaze met that of her opponent and she could have sworn the other was silently laughing at her. I could have taken you at any time, those eyes said. And for the first time since taking up Joan’s sword, Annja felt outclassed.
Then Garin was looming in the doorway, pistols in hand, and gunfire filled the room. He mercilessly cut down those Annja had been unwilling to slay only moments before, their bodies twisting and jerking like marionettes as the bullets thundered into them. He was firing with both hands, so he wasn’t as accurate as usual and a few stray shots whined in Annja’s direction, forcing her to dive to the floor to avoid being hit.
When she looked up again, her attacker had turned from her and was already halfway across the room, headed for an open casement window that she had failed to notice when she’d first arrived.
So that’s how they got inside, she thought. And apparently that’s how they intended to get out again. But not if she could help it.
“Garin! The window!” she shouted.
Garin spun in her direction and brought his arms up, the guns roaring in the small confines of the room. Bullets split the air and slammed into the area all around the window, but Annja’s attacker managed to slip through the opening without being hit.
Annja wasn’t ready to let him get away that easily.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said through gritted teeth, angry at having been bested so handily. With her sword in hand she ran for the window herself, trusting Garin to stop firing when he saw her move.
Garin shouted something at her, but Annja didn’t hear. She was almost to the window itself when a hand appeared from outside and tossed something dark into the room in front of her.
It hit the floor and rolled toward her.
She had a split second to think, Grenade! and throw herself to the side before the explosive device went off.
4
It felt as if a giant hand picked her up and threw her against the floor, the concussion hammering her senses until her head reeled. She bounded off the marble floor and slid into the wall with enough force to nearly knock her senseless.
Only the fact that it had been a concussion grenade, rather than an explosive one, saved her life. She was still trying to figure out which way was up when Garin rushed to her side.
“Annja! Are you all right?” he asked, his voice seeming to come from miles away as the roaring in her ears continued.
She nodded, still too caught up in the emotion of the moment to speak. Her heart was beating like crazy and she fought to get her breathing under control as Garin helped her into a sitting position.
At last she found her voice.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’m all right.”
Using his arm for support she pulled herself all the way to her feet and then stood on still-wobbling legs. Her gaze landed on the lock of hair that the intruder’s sword had cut from her head.
Too close.
She glanced over at the intruders. Or rather, what was left of them. Garin hadn’t spared any ammunition it seemed; every body was riddled with bullet holes and blood leaked across the marble floor beneath them.
“Did you have to kill them all?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Now why didn’t that surprise her? “But if you had managed to only wound one or two, we might have been able to question them. Learn who they were and why they were here.”
Garin grunted. “Or they might have managed to kill us both. Thank you, but I’ll take the safer way out every time, particularly where my life is concerned.”
Annja did not doubt that in the slightest. When it came to protecting his long life, Garin was exceedingly ruthless.
At any rate, it was too late now to argue about it.
Garin stepped over to the window and cautiously looked out, but the intruder must have been long gone for he turned away, shaking his head. He was on his way back to Annja’s side when Roux and Henshaw arrived.
“Is everyone all right?” Roux asked as he stepped into the room, surveying the death and destruction before him.
“We’re fine,” Annja replied as Garin nodded in assent.
“What happened up here?” Roux asked.
Annja explained how she’d arrived to find the intruders already in the room and what had happened after that. She didn’t mention her near defeat at the hands of the final swordsman; that was for her and her alone. No one was too surprised at the realization that Annja had held off six attackers on her own; they had all seen her wield Joan’s sword at one time or another in the past and they knew just how deadly she could be with the weapon in hand.
“Did they say anything? Do anything that gave you some idea what they might have been after?”
Annja shook her head.
“I don’t get it,” Roux said. He glanced around the room, a puzzled expression on his face. “The assault force at the front of the house seems to have been a diversion. They made no attempt to take the manor itself and only put up just enough of a fight to keep the security force occupied.”
“Given what we know at this point, I’d say the whole thing was a diversion to allow this group to enter the house from the back,” Henshaw suggested.
“A logical assumption, I agree, but why? What was it they were after?” Roux glanced at the weapons decorating the walls and Annja could see him silently cataloging each one, gauging whether there was something valuable enough among them to warrant such an attempt. By the confused look on his face she could guess that the answer to that question was a solid no.
As the others looked on, Garin squatted next to one of the bodies. Reaching out, he pulled off the dead man’s ninja mask and hood, revealing his face.
The man was Asian. Somewhere in his thirties or so, was Annja’s guess. He was dressed in a dark blue coverall, similar to those worn by special forces units all around the world, with dark combat boots on his feet. A quick check showed that any identifying tags or markings had been stripped from the uniform.
“Recognize him?” Annja asked, only half-jokingly.
Garin scowled at her, annoyed by the comment apparently. “No, I don’t recognize him,” he replied. “Do you?”
Annja snorted. She wasn’t the one who dealt in the shadow world of dirty tricks and ruthless competition.
Neither Roux nor Henshaw had ever seen the man. With Henshaw’s help, Garin lined the bodies up next to one another and then he began to methodically search them for information while the other three looked on. He stripped them of their masks and pulled back their hoods, gazing at each face as if it might be able to tell him something. He went through their pockets, checked the labels on their clothing and even looked inside the boots they all wore.
Finally he stood, a disgusted look on his face.
“Nothing,” he said. “They’re as clean as a whistle.”
“Professionals, eh?” Henshaw asked, and the expression on his face told Annja how he felt about that revelation. A random break-in was one thing, but the knowledge that this had been planned and executed to within a fair chance of success was something else entirely.
Garin nodded. “Seems to be,” he replied. “Though that doesn’t tell us what they were after.”
“Or whom,” Roux added.
Annja had been content to listen in on the exchange but broke in at this point. “What do you mean ‘whom’?”
“Seems rather obvious, doesn’t it?” Garin answered for him. “They slip a group in the back door while the security team is otherwise occupied dealing with the assault out in front. With all of our attention in that direction, the second group would have had the opportunity to move through the house at will. Probably could have ambushed any one of us before we even knew they were there.”
Henshaw glanced over at Annja. “Seems you saved the day, Ms. Creed.”
“But that still doesn’t tell us what they were after.” Roux scowled down at the bodies in front of him. From his expression Annja knew he would have killed them himself had they lived through the assault.
She caught Garin staring at their host and recognized that mischievous expression in his eye.
Uh-oh.
“Pissed anyone off lately, Roux?” he asked, perhaps with a bit more force than he’d intended.
The damage was done, however. Roux noticeably stiffened, then shot back with, “No more than usual. Perhaps they were after someone with a bit less scrupulous business dealings.”
Now it was Garin’s turn to bristle. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just what I said. You have a far greater capacity for annoying others than I do! Maybe they were here to settle a debt with you.”
The younger man threw up his hands in annoyance and took a step toward his former companion. “Oh, I get it. It is your home that is attacked, your security that is penetrated, but suddenly I’m the one to blame.”
Rather than back down, Roux moved to meet him. “You’re right—it is my home that was attacked, my security that was penetrated. And I suppose it is just a strange coincidence that it happened on the evening that you planned a surprise party for me, now, isn’t it?”
Annja watched as Garin’s face grew red with anger. “You think I had something to do with this? That I would stoop so low as that? To try and kill you in your own home?” He was shouting now, and Roux was shouting right back, throwing accusations back and forth like some misguided game of catch.
Henshaw stepped between the two men, hands up, holding them back, trying to dissipate the anger before the two went after each other with more than words. The goodwill generated earlier in the evening was gone. If she didn’t do something quickly, Annja realized, there would be blood on the floor soon.
“Stop it, both of you!” she said sharply, and much to her surprise, they actually did.
“Given the incredible number of artifacts and pieces of art inside this house, the most reasonable assumption is that this was nothing more than a well-staged robbery. Lucky for us and unlucky for them, they just happened to choose the wrong night.”
Both men backed off but it was clear that no one was happy with the situation. After a few minutes of angry silence, Roux pulled Henshaw aside and spoke to him quietly, occasionally casting glances in Garin’s direction.
Garin, on the other hand, pretended to ignore him, then announced that he was returning to the study downstairs. Annja went with him. It was a good ten minutes before Roux joined them, which was probably for the best as it gave both men some time to cool down.
Within minutes of his arrival it was clear that the night was over. What had made the evening enjoyable was gone and the chances were slim that they would be able to recapture it. It wasn’t so much the armed assault on Roux’s home, though that would normally be enough to put anyone off their game, but the suspicions that had been tossed around afterward that made their continued conversations strained and uncomfortable. After a short period of time Garin excused himself, claiming a business engagement early in the morning, and offered to give Annja a ride back to her hotel.
When she refused, he said, “Suit yourself,” and left the estate without even a goodbye to their host.
What had started so well had ended badly and Annja couldn’t help but wonder how many times over the years the same thing had happened.
No wonder the two of them were reluctant to spend any time together, she thought.
To fill the silence after Garin’s departure, Annja asked Roux whether he had called the local authorities or those in Paris. “Detectives from the city would probably be better equipped to handle this kind of thing,” she reasoned.
Roux stared at her. “Why on earth would I want to do something so…counterproductive?”
Annja was almost certain that the word on his lips had been stupid, not counterproductive, but she let it go in order to deal with the issue at hand. “Your estate has been attacked. People have died. How can you not call the police?”
“Quite simply, really. We’ll deal with this internally, just as we always do.”
“But—”
He cut her off. “I said no police, Annja. I don’t need incompetent idiots poking around my house, touching my things, when my staff is perfectly capable of handling this on their own.”
At that moment Henshaw stuck his head in the door. “The room’s been cleared, sir. The cleaning crew will be in first thing in the morning to scrub the blood off the floor and to patch the bullet holes by the window.
“Very good, Henshaw. Thank you.”
Annja was aghast. “You can’t just destroy evidence like that!”
Roux laughed and this time it was an ugly sound. “This is my home, Annja. I can do whatever I want in it, including shooting armed intruders foolish enough to enter it. You and your friend Garin would do well to remember that I am not the feeble old man you appear to think I am.”
With that he got up and left the room, leaving Annja staring openmouthed in amazement that he had felt the need to threaten her, of all people. Just what had this night come to?
Deciding she’d had her share of five-hundred-year-old egos for the evening, she strode through the house and back to the second floor, intending to collect her backpack from the room she’d stored it in and get the heck out of there before she said something she would regret later.
But once on the second floor, she felt herself drawn back to the room where she’d come close to losing her life, as if called there by the secrets they were trying so hard to figure out.
5
Annja Creed stood inside the doorway and let her gaze just wander about, without focusing on anything in particular. Her thoughts kept returning to those few moments just before the fight, when she’d first entered the room. She could still see them in her mind’s eyes, the first five men arranged in two precise rows, their swords out and ready, providing the most protection possible for their leader. They had all been standing still, eyes forward, almost as if they had been…
Waiting.
That was what was bothering her.
They hadn’t been moving throughout the room. They hadn’t been actively looking through the artifacts on the walls or heading toward the door to join their colleagues at the front of the house.
They’d been standing still.
Waiting.
But for what?
She didn’t have a clue.
She looked past the bloodstains on the floor and the pile of extra sheets that had been set there in case more were needed to transport the bodies out of the house, and tried to see the place through fresh eyes.
She was missing something and she knew it. It hovered there, on the edge of her mind, like a presence felt but not seen, a watcher in the darkness. There was something here for her to find, something important, but all she could see was row upon row of swords and the fragments of the window scattered across the floor thanks to the combination of Garin’s bullets and the concussion wave of the grenade.
Finally, frustrated and more than a bit annoyed at everyone involved, she turned away, intending to arrange a ride back to her hotel and call it a night.
That was when her eye caught something out of place, a slight anomaly in the otherwise orderly arrangement of the collection.
She turned back and began going over the rows of weapons again, one item at a time, piece by piece, until she could rule each out.
There!
Standing on the hilt of a broadsword that was remarkably similar to the one that had come to her through the centuries was a small figure. When she stepped closer to get a better look, she discovered that it was made from paper. The origami figure was in the shape of a dragon, with swept back wings and a long winding tail.
She stared at it, trying to figure out how it had gotten there.
Annja had been around Henshaw enough times to know that he ruled the cleaning staff with an iron hand. None of them would have dared leave something like the origami dragon behind, no matter how innocuous it seemed. Certainly Henshaw would never do such a thing himself.
The lack of dust on the weapons meant that the display had been cleaned recently, probably in the past day or two. In turn, logic dictated that the paper figurine could only be that old, as well; after all, had the cleaning crew found it they would have thrown it away, if only to save themselves from Henshaw’s ire if he found it himself.
While there was certainly nothing innately threatening about a small piece of paper folded into the shape of a mythical creature, something about this one made Annja distinctly uncomfortable.
It was so unexpected and so out of place that it made her skin crawl, the same way hearing a voice in a darkened room when you think you are alone will.
It was almost as if it had been purposely left behind. A small token to remind them that someone other than themselves had been here, in this place, where no outsider should be.
She reached out to pick it up and then thought better of it and swiftly withdrew her hand. If it had been left by the intruders, then she needed to take care to preserve whatever evidence might have been left behind.
She needed to treat it as carefully as she might a thousand-year-old artifact just recently exposed to the light.
Annja left the display room and walked down the hall to the room, where she’d left her backpack. Retrieving her digital camera, she returned to the display room.
She half expected the origami dragon to be gone when she got back—having it disappear would be about par for the course that evening—but it was still there, right where she left it. She turned on her camera and went to work. She took close-up pictures of the figure from as many angles as possible and then made certain to get some positioning shots, as well, to illustrate just where on the wall the sword on which it stood was hung.
When she was finished, she used a pair of tweezers to lift the paper sculpture off the shelf.
Now it was time to do some serious research.
Roux had already refused to bring the intrusion to the attention of the Paris police, but that didn’t mean that Annja was out of options.
Far from it, in fact.
FROM A PUBLIC PAY phone in Paris the call was routed through a number of middlemen and cutouts, designed to hide the origin of the contact should anyone be listening in, until it was at last picked up via cell phone in the back of a limousine.
“Yes?”
“She’s an interesting opponent. Perhaps even a worthy one.”
“I didn’t hire you to evaluate her abilities. Can you carry out the task we discussed or not?”
There was a soft, mocking laugh. “Of course I can. Am I not the Dragon, myth incarnate and legend made flesh?”
“Don’t be overconfident. She’s survived far too often when the odds were arrayed against her. You’d do well to remember that.”
Again the laugh. “Let me worry about the odds. You just be sure the money is in the account as agreed. You have the hotel information?”
“Yes. She’s staying at the Four Seasons.”
“Oh, fancy. Nothing but the best, I see.”
The other ignored the jibe. “Remember, she must give up the sword voluntarily. Anything else will defeat our purposes.”
“I know the details. You remember the money and we won’t have any issues.”
The call ended as quickly and as anonymously as it had begun.
Just the way both parties preferred it.
6
Because Henshaw was still involved in the cleanup at the estate, Roux had one of his other men drive Annja back to her hotel in the city. She was fine with that; if she had seen Henshaw again that night she would have had to tell him just what she thought of his participation in eradicating a crime scene and that wouldn’t have gone over well with either of them.
Once back at the hotel, she checked her messages at the front desk and then rode the elevator to the sixth floor. Not satisfied with anything as simple as a basic hotel room, Garin had booked her into a three-room suite, complete with a spa bath, a comfortable sitting room and a separate bedroom.
As soon as she was safely ensconced inside, Annja fired up her laptop and hooked her digital camera to it, downloading the pictures she’d taken of the origami dragon. Once she was finished she chose four of the best images and then attached them to an e-mail to her friend, Bart McGille.
A Brooklyn detective who was also a dear friend, Bart had helped her in the past when she needed information, and he was as good a source as any to start with.
Dear Bart,
Attached are several photos of an origami figure that was left behind by a thief who broke into a friend’s apartment in Paris. Due to the owner’s reluctance to involve the police, I can’t have the authorities here examine the figure but it has certainly sparked my curiosity. Can you do an Interpol search for me and let me know if anything similar has turned up at other crime scenes?
Thanks,
Annja
Her explanation seemed plausible enough to her and she was hopeful Bart would take it at face value and do some digging on her behalf. If he came up with anything, she’d use that to get to the bottom of the attack on Roux’s estate. She knew there was more going on there than met the eye, but with Garin and Roux on the outs with each other it was going to take a crowbar to get either of them to talk more about it.
Finished, she suddenly realized how tired and sore she was. Her body ached from a combination of the effort of hand-to-hand combat and the physical hammering she’d taken from the concussion grenade. Never mind the long flight from New York. A hot bath and a decent night’s sleep would do her some good, she decided.
The hotel had kindly supplied a selection of bath crystals and she selected one jar at random and threw a handful in while the water was running. Soon the sweet scent of jasmine filled the room.
Annja sighed as she slid naked into the hot water and for the next twenty minutes did nothing but bask in its heated embrace.
Once she had managed to soak some of the soreness from her bones, she got out, dried off and wrapped herself in one of the big, fluffy bathrobes the hotel provided. Not wanting to go to sleep with wet hair, she took the time to comb it out and blow it dry. When she finished, she slipped into a pair of comfortable cotton pajamas and climbed into bed.
Sleep came quickly.
THE LATCH ON THE French doors that led to the balcony in the sitting room snapped open with a soft click about an hour later. The door opened silently from the outside. A shadow detached itself from the others that hugged the exterior wall and slid inside the room without making any more noise than the door had.
The intruder stood to one side once inside the room, waiting for eyes to adapt to the level of light and listening for any sound or sense of movement.
There was none.
The guest slept on in the bedroom next door.
The intruder crossed the sitting room with a few quick, sure steps, almost as if passing from shadow to shadow. At the bedroom door the intruder paused, listening again.
The door to the bedroom swung open and a shadow slipped inside the room as swiftly and quietly as it had entered the suite itself.
On the bed, the sleeping form of Annja Creed could be seen in the dim light coming in through the window’s half-drawn curtains.
The intruder carefully walked around the bed until Annja’s face was in sight and stared down at it for several long moments.
Why you?
What makes you so special?
Annja did not reply.
As the intruder looked on, Annja mumbled something in her sleep and flailed about with one arm.
The Dragon watched for a long time, a wraith standing in the darkness beside the bed, eyes alert and ready.
It would be so easy to end it here, the Dragon thought silently. A sudden thrust and it would all be over but the dying. The Dragon could then search the suite in a leisurely manner; no doubt the sword was here somewhere.
But the sensei’s instructions had been clear. The sword must be given voluntarily or it was useless to him. Disappointing the sensei was not something the Dragon wanted to do, ever.
It would seem that the easy solution was off the table for now. The Dragon would have to wait to claim its next victim.
The intruder bent close.
“Until next time, Annja Creed.”
A SWORD CAME WHISTLING in toward her unprotected throat and Annja knew that this was it. She was about to die…
She awoke, bolting upright in bed, her heart hammering like a thousand kettledrums all at once, a thunderous booming sound. Her eyes were already searching the interior of the room for her opponent, her hand tight on the hilt of her sword as she called it into existence from the otherwhere.
But there was no one there.
The room was empty.
Realization came roaring in.
A dream, just a dream, she told herself.
She pushed back the sheets and got out of bed. With the tip of her sword she checked to see if anyone was hidden behind the curtains, then turned to look out the window, expecting at any moment for a face to press itself up against the glass, horror-movie style, and announce that it was coming for her. But the glass remained empty, the space around her silent.
Satisfied that no one was in the room with her, Annja turned, intending to investigate the rest of the hotel suite, only to come up short when she saw the door leading from the bedroom to the living area was open.
Her mind whirled as she tried to remember—had she left it open or closed it behind her?
She was certain that she had closed it before going to bed.
Or, at least, ninety-five percent certain that she had.
She moved toward it with panther-light steps and carefully eased past, taking in the sitting room just beyond.
It, too, was empty.
The hotel room door was securely shut and locked, as were the French doors leading to the balcony outside.
Despite what her gut was telling her, it appeared that no one had been in the room.
Still, just to be safe, she took another few minutes to search the entire suite, including the closets, the bathroom and even under her bed.
Then and only then, satisfied that she was indeed alone, did she release the sword back into the otherwhere and return to bed.
This time she made certain to shut the bedroom door firmly.
Her last thought, as she drifted off to sleep, was that someone was watching.
7
When she checked her e-mail late the next morning, she discovered a very succinct note from Bart in reply to her.
Call me, was all it said.
A glance at the clock told her that it was early back in the States but she picked up the phone and dialed his number.
A sleepy male voice answered. “McGille.”
“Hi, Bart. It’s Annja.”
“Hey! How’s Europe?”
“Not too bad.” They chatted for a few moments about what they’d been up to recently and then Bart turned the conversation to the reason she had called.
“So what’s this about a robbery?”
Annja gave him the fake story she’d concocted about how her friend’s apartment had been vandalized by a thief who’d left behind the origami figure as “payment” for what he’d stolen.
“Sounds like a job for the Paris police. Why send the pictures to me?”
“My friend is subletting the place from the current tenant without the owner’s permission. If she goes to the police, the owner finds out and that will be that.”
Annja knew that was all she had to say. As a veteran New Yorker, Bart would understand the need to keep the sublet a secret; real-estate prices were so outrageous that subletting rent-controlled apartments had become a thriving black market in the Big Apple and Bart would no doubt believe the same about Paris. For all Annja knew, the situation in Paris might even be the same.
“Say no more,” he said good-naturedly.
On the other end of the line Annja breathed a sigh of relief. “So what did you find out?”
“To tell you the truth,” Bart replied, “not much. I made a few phone calls, had some folks check some records for me, and what they came up with were all negatives. No similar crimes in your area. No record of origami figures being involved in any crime, regardless of the type, in more than seven years. Basically they found nothing to tie this burglary to any other, in France or elsewhere. Maybe your cat burglar just has a sense of humor.”
Annja digested that for a moment, knowing that she was partially hampering Bart’s ability to get her information by not telling him the entire story. Still, it couldn’t be helped.
Something Bart said jumped out at her. “What do you mean you didn’t find any link to crimes committed in the past seven years? Were there some before that with the same M.O.?” she asked.
Bart laughed. “That’s where you nearly gave me a heart attack. Ever hear of the Dragon?”
Annja frowned. “Wasn’t there a Bruce Lee movie with that name?”
“No, that was Enter the Dragon. Great movie, too. But that’s not the Dragon I’m thinking of. This one is an international assassin who likes to leave little folded origami figures at the scenes of his kills.”
He said it so matter-of-factly that at first Annja didn’t think she’d heard him correctly.
“Did you just say ‘assassin’?”
“Yeah, an international hit man, if you can believe that. Responsible for more than eighteen deaths in half a dozen countries, including France. Real son of a you know what.”
Annja felt her stomach do a slow roll as she remembered Garin’s words from last night. Probably could have ambushed any one of us before we even knew they were there.
Bart wasn’t finished, though. “And talk about someone who loves their job, this guy managed to get up close and personal to each and every one of his victims. They say he took it as a personal challenge. He’d get in, do the deed and vanish before anyone even knew he’d been there. The police had nothing on him for years, except for those stupid little paper dragons he would leave behind with the bodies in his wake.”
Bart laughed. “You sure there wasn’t a dead body lying next to that origami, Annja?
Anger flared. “Jeez, Bart, that’s not funny!”
“What? Okay, come on, Annja, lighten up a little. Do you think I’d still be yammering away on this end of the phone if I thought you and your friend were being targeted by some crazed international assassin?”
That was the problem. He thought they were still talking about some harmless burglary.
She couldn’t tell him the truth now; he’d be worried sick. “No, I guess you wouldn’t,” she said instead, laughing it off, while inside she was burning to know more.
Luckily Bart was a talker. “And talk about old-fashioned. Guy manages to pull off eighteen major hits and not once does he use a gun? Come on! What is he, stupid?”
A shiver ran up Annja’s spine. Hesitantly she asked, “If he didn’t use a gun, what did he use?”
“A big-ass sword apparently. One of those curved Japanese blades, like the one Sean Connery carried in Highlander.”
Annja hadn’t seen the movie, but there was no mistaking what Bart was talking about. “A katana?” she asked, dreading the answer but needing to know, anyway.
“Yep, that’s it. A katana. Can you imagine getting close enough to a major political figure to try and take him out with a freakin’ sword? When everybody else has guns? What a maniac!”
This was getting worse by the minute.
“Did they ever catch him?”
“Of course they did. Why do you think I’m not worried about you, given the kind of trouble you get yourself into?”
She had to admit he was right; ever since taking possession of the sword, she had a knack for getting herself into the biggest messes possible.
Like now.
“So what happened to him?”
Bart snorted. “Got blown up when he tried to take out the British prime minister at a summit in Madrid back in 2003. There wasn’t enough left of him to fill a Baggie.”
Just when she started to feel better about the situation Bart had go and ruin things again.
“So they never found a body?”
“What did I just say? There wasn’t anything left of him to bury, Annja. But trust me, you and your friend can rest easy. Whoever it was that broke into your friend’s flat was probably just trying to be funny.”
“Some sense of humor,” she said, and laughed along with him while inside she was getting more and more nervous by the minute.
She made small talk for a couple of moments more, thanked Bart for what he had dug up and then got off the phone as quickly and as gracefully as she could without raising his suspicions.
As soon as she had, she headed for her laptop.
A quick search online turned up a decent number of feature stories and news reports from the eighties through the nineties that talked about the mysterious Dragon. All of them told the same basic story Bart had—assassin for hire, no one knew his background or what he looked like, or even if the Dragon was a man or a woman, only that he always killed with his weapon of choice, a katana, and would leave a piece of rice paper folded into the shape of a dragon at the scene of every killing. The press had given him the moniker “the Dragon” when word of the origami figures leaked out, and to this day it was the only name they had for him. The Dragon’s identity vanished in the same explosion that had claimed his physical body.
She sat back, staring off into space, as she pondered the similarities. An international assassin who killed with a Japanese katana and left origami figures in his wake, and an unknown intruder who broke into a rich man’s home, carried a katana and left an origami figure in his wake. They were too alike to be just a coincidence. Either someone had decided to take up the killer’s mantle or the killer himself had never actually died.
After all, there hadn’t been a body, she reminded herself.
Maybe the Dragon had spent the past few years in hiding, recovering from injuries sustained from his last assassination attempt, and had only recently chosen to come out of hiding.
But why would a political assassin be after Roux? she wondered.
The most logical answer would be that he wasn’t. After all, Roux took considerable effort to stay out of the limelight and something like politics was anathema to a man like him. But what if the Dragon had decided to forgo political assassinations in favor of a mercenary lifestyle? Killing for hire, perhaps? That was a different story entirely.
Garin had been right; Roux had angered enough people over the years that a list of those who held a grudge strong enough to try and kill him would be very long indeed.
More than a few of them had the means to do it, too.
This was not good—not good at all.
8
Given that she was starting to suspect the attack on the estate might actually have been an attempt to assassinate Roux, Annja decided that she was going to take another stab at discussing it with him and see if she could learn anything further that might help her fend off what she was beginning to see as a growing threat to his life.
But when she called the estate, she was informed by Henshaw that Roux was out and wouldn’t return until evening. Annja explained that she needed to talk with him, but the majordomo guarded his boss’s whereabouts like a mother grizzly guards her cubs and wouldn’t tell her where he had gone or exactly when he was expected to return. Rather than spend any time arguing with him, she simply made an appointment to see Roux that evening and that was that.
She spent the next hour pacing back and forth in her hotel room, watching the minute hand creep around the clock and wishing it would go faster. When she couldn’t stand it anymore, she decided to get out of the hotel and play tourist for a bit—try to take her mind off her pending meeting with Roux. It had been some time since she’d had the opportunity to wander through the city at her leisure and she vowed that she’d make good use of what little time she had; after all, who knew when she’d be back this way again?
After a quick shower she threw on a pair of khaki shorts, a deep blue T-shirt and her usual pair of low-rise hiking boots, grabbed an apple out of the fruit basket on the table and headed for the concierge’s desk in the lobby. Arranging for a rental car to be available upon her return took only a few minutes thanks to the concierge’s help, and with that taken care of, she was ready to enjoy the day.
Her first stop, she decided, was going to be Sainte-Chapelle, the palatine chapel in the courtyard of the royal palace on the Île de la Cité. Originally built by Louis IX to store the many holy relics he had purchased from the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople, Baldwin II, including the supposed Crown of Thorns worn by Christ during his crucifixion, the chapel was best known for its fifteen stained-glass windows, each one nearly fifty feet high and picturing Biblical stories from Genesis to Revelation. Annja was as interested in the architecture of the restored chapel—the original having been heavily damaged during the French Revolution—as she was in the artifacts it had once contained. She had always wanted to visit, but had never found the time.
Annja was thankful that the cab ride was reasonably short, for the traffic was terrible and terrifying. When the driver announced that they had arrived, she practically leaped out of the cab and had to suppress a smile at his bewildered expression. She thanked him for the speedy arrival and paid the fare, then turned her attention to the ominous-looking building behind her, with its dark stone towers and conical roofs circa the thirteenth century, known as the Palais de Justice. Now housing several French courts, this wing of the building had once been home to the Conciergerie, the oldest prison in Paris, and had held such infamous prisoners as Robespierre and Marie Antoinette. It was now a museum, but that didn’t do much to change the vibe that Annja picked up off the place. Just looking at it made her shiver, as she imagined what it must have been like to be a prisoner there, locked away in a cold, dark, vermin-infested cell.
She walked down the street until she came to the entrance that served the majority of the complex. After buying an admission ticket, she slipped through the gates and made her way in the direction of the chapel.
The royal palace had once stood on the spot the Palais de Justice now occupied and Annja knew it had connected directly to the chapel via a narrow corridor. It was designed that way to allow King Louis IX to pass directly into it without leaving the palace, in much the same way the Holy Roman Emperor in Constantinople had been able to enter the Hagia Sophia from his own residence. The king, who had died of a plague while on crusade, had been canonized by the pope and was now known as Saint Louis. The palace itself had disappeared ages ago, leaving the two-level church on its own, surrounded by the less sophisticated buildings of the Palais de Justice.
There was a fair-size crowd in attendance. Annja worked her way through it, intent on pursuing her own agenda and not wanting to get caught up in any of the guided tours that were taking place. Once inside the lower chapel, she pushed her way past the souvenir stand that seemed to occupy most of the space near the entrance and made her way out into the center of the floor. The high vaulted ceilings rose above her, the beams covered in red and gold, which provided a sharp contrast with the deep royal blue of the ceiling panels. The soft lighting gave the place a gentle and welcoming atmosphere. Annja knew that the lower chapel had served as a parish church for the inhabitants of the palace. It was rather plain, at least in comparison to the grandeur of the upper chapel, but she found a sense of peace and tranquility wrapping about her as she stood, gazing about. There was almost a sense of humility about the place, as if it knew not to overshadow its more famous cousin above, and Annja found that she liked the place despite its lack of sophistication.
Enjoying what she had seen so far, Annja made her way toward the stairs to the upper chapel.
UNNOTICED AMID THE CROWD by the souvenir tables, the Dragon watched Annja as she crossed the chapel floor, headed for the stairs to the upper level. The decision to follow her from the hotel had been an impulsive one. Watching her the night before had generated a certain amount of curiosity and, after some deeper reflection, it seemed that a bit of prudent observation might be in order at this point.
But so far, the target hadn’t done anything but play tourist, something the Dragon found rather annoying.
Why would anyone waste time on such ridiculousness? Time was too precious to be squandered away in fruitless pursuits; every moment wasted here could have been spent accomplishing something of value.
Still, there was something intriguing about the woman and when Annja at last reached the stairwell to the upper level, the Dragon headed in that direction, as well.
HALFWAY UP THE STEPS Annja felt a chill wash over her. Bone deep, it seared her with its intensity. It felt as if Death himself had suddenly taken a particular interest, his gaze pausing on her for a heartbeat too long, letting some of the coldness of the grave seep into her flesh as a result, and instinct told her to run, to get away as fast as she could.
She shuddered, trying to shake off both the uncomfortable feeling as well as the solution that it had evoked, and then she casually turned to look back down the stairs behind her. She let her gaze travel across the floor of the lower chapel, searching for the source of that feeling, but as far as she could tell no one was looking at her and nothing seemed out of place. The interior of the church was just as it had been moments before, full of tourists taking in the sights and spending their money on souvenirs and cheap baubles.
Her hand twitched and the image of the sword formed in her mind, but she quickly banished it away, disturbed that her first thoughts had been of violence. Equally disturbing, however, was the persistent feeling that she was in danger, and she had learned to trust those feelings. They had saved her life on more than one occasion.
Annja reached the top of the stairwell and moved to the side in order to let those behind her continue forward into the upper chapel. As they did, she watched their faces, but she didn’t see anyone who looked even vaguely familiar.
Shrugging it off, she went back to enjoying her visit.
The upper chapel was far more ornate than the lower one; after all, this had practically been the king’s private worship area. Supported by slender piers, the ceiling seemed to float high above the collection of magnificent stained-glass windows, giving the whole place a feeling of fragile beauty. The brochure she had been given along with her entrance ticket told Annja that there was more than six and a half thousand feet of stained glass around her, and within the deep reds and blues of the glass were some eleven hundred illustrated figures from the Bible.
Annja spun in a circle, drinking it all in. It was truly beautiful, there was no doubt about that, and her only regret was that she hadn’t come to see it in the late afternoon when the setting sun would have been blazing through the colored glass, setting the room alight with its glow.
The huge rose-shaped window at the back of the church drew her attention and she was headed in that direction when that cold, uncomfortable feeling from several minutes before swept over her again, making her skin tingle.
Determined to get to the bottom of it, Annja stopped where she was and spun in another slow circle, ostensibly drinking in the view but actually checking out the area on all sides.
Across the chapel, in the shadow of one of the pillars that lined the walls, someone stood watching her.
Whoever it was—and from this distance she couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman—wore a gray sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. The hood on the sweatshirt was pulled up, hiding the person’s face, but even through the shadows Annja could feel the other’s eyes upon her.
As if sensing her attention, the watcher suddenly stepped back and disappeared behind the column.
Almost before she’d thought about it, Annja found herself in motion, headed across the church at an angle, trying to intercept whoever it was that she had seen. There was only one exit from the upper level, the stairs by which she’d entered, and so she knew if she could reach them first she’d have a chance.
The gray sweatshirt flashed into view again. Her watcher was hugging the rear wall, headed for the stairs just as she’d suspected, and she quickened her own pace, trying not to lose sight of her quarry in the process.
She was almost upon him when a group of tourists spilled out of the stairwell onto the main floor, obscuring her view and making it difficult to move forward as quickly as she had been. She pushed her way through, ignoring the looks she was getting in return. No way was she letting him get away at this point!
But when she reached the stairs she was alone.
Her quarry was nowhere to be seen.
She turned slowly about, searching through the crowd, ignoring the stares and the resentful looks as she tried to figure out just where he could have gone.
She saw a flash of gray slipping between two tourists and rushed to catch up.
“Hey!” she shouted, startling those around her. “Hold it right there!”
Annja pushed her way through the crowd, determined not to let him get away a second time. She was going to get to the bottom of this right now!
She could see him, just a few people in front of her. He had not once looked back, which in itself was suspicious to her. Didn’t he hear her calling? If he was innocent, wouldn’t he look back and see what she was shouting about, just like so many of the others around them were now doing?
They were only a few steps away from the staircase when Annja put on a little extra burst of speed, pushed past a family of four who suddenly froze directly in her path like a bunch of deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car and reached out.
“Hey!” she said, grabbing his arm and spinning him around. “I said, hold it!”
She had been expecting resistance and so was surprised when the other person turned suddenly toward her, nearly throwing them both off balance. A kid of about eighteen stared out at her in bewilderment from under the hood of the sweatshirt he wore. He shrugged her off and let out a stream of rapid-fire French. Although fluent in French Annja didn’t need to know the language to understand what he was saying. “What the hell is wrong with you?” sounded pretty much the same in any dialect, given the tone and the look that went along with it.
Annja stepped back, holding her hands up as if to show they were empty and that she wasn’t a threat. Clearly she had made a mistake. This wasn’t the guy.
“Uh, sorry,” she said, and then repeated it in French. “Pardon, pardon. I thought you were someone else.”
A male voice spoke up immediately behind her. “Mademoiselle? Is there something wrong?”
Annja jumped at the sound, not having seen anyone approach, and turned to find a gendarme standing nearby, his gaze on both of them. The officer’s hand was uncomfortably close to his pistol and it didn’t seem to be the kid who had him upset.
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Alex Archer
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Книги о приключениях
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Archaeologist Annja Creed and her sword have never been outmatched–until now. When a surprise party for her mentor Roux includes some uninvited guests, Annja finds herself fighting desperately for her life. The intruders escape but leave a sinister message behind.A legend has resurfaced about a sword that should be feared. A sword that seeks a master as bloodthirsty as itself. It is wielded by an assassin known as the Dragon who initiates a terrible game of cat and mouse. Eventually, the two swords–light and dark–must meet…and only one shall triumph.