Текст книги "Destiny "

Автор книги: Алекс Арчер

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Chapter 22

USING THE SOFTWARE on her computer, Annja blew up the images of the wolf and the mountain. After they were magnified, she saw there were other images, as well. The detail of the work was amazing.

The shadowy figure behind the bars was better revealed. Although manlike in appearance, the figure was a grotesquerie, ill shaped and huge, judging from the figure of the man standing behind him.

With her naked eye, Annja had barely been able to make out the second figure. Once the image was blown up, she couldn't miss him. He wore the armor of a French knight. A shield bearing his heraldry stood next to him.

Annja blew up the image more, concentrating on the shield.

The shield was divided in the English tradition rather than the French. That surprised Annja. The common armchair historian assumed that all heraldry was the same, based on the divisions of the shield that English heraldry was noted for. But the French, Italians, Swedish and Spanish – as well as a few others – marked their heraldry differently.

This one was marked party per bend sinister– diagonally from upper right to lower left. The upper half showed the image of a wolf with its tongue sticking out. The animal didn't have much detail, but Annja got a definite sense of malevolence from the creature. The lower half of the shield was done in ermines, a variation of the field that represented fur. Ermines were traditionally black on white.

The design was unique. If it hadn't disappeared in history, there would likely be some documentation on it.

Annja cut the shield out of the image with the software, cleaned up the lines as much as she could and saved it.

Logging onto alt.archaeology, she sent a brief request for identification to the members. She also sent an e-mail to a professor she knew at Cambridge who specialized in British heraldry. She also followed up with a posting to alt.archaeology.esoterica.

What was a British knight doing at a French monastery of an order of monks that had been destroyed?

Annja returned to the image.

The shadowy, misshapen figure had another drawing under it. Annja almost missed the discovery. The image had been cut into the metal but it was almost as if it had been scored there only to have the craftsman change his mind later.

Or maybe he was told not to include it, Annja thought.

She magnified the image and worked on it, bringing it into sharper relief with a drawing tool. In seconds, she knew what she was looking at. A lozenge.

Annja sat back in her chair and stared at the image, blown away by the possibilities facing her. The shadowy figure wasn't a man. It was a woman.

The lozenge was heraldry to represent female members of a noble family. Designed in an offset diamond shape that was taller than it was wide, a lozenge identified the woman by the family, as well as personal achievements.

This particular lozenge only had two images on it. A wolf salient, in midleap, occupied the top of the diamond shape. At the bottom was a stag dexter, shown simply standing. A crescent moon hung in the background with a star above and a star below.

Annja repeated her efforts with the postings, sending off the new image, as well.

Back aching from the constant effort, Annja decided to take a break. She quickly dressed and went out into the rainy night, surprised to find that dawn was already apparent the eastern sky.

Annja headed for the small Italian grocery store several blocks from her loft. The Puerto Rican bodega she favored was closer, but it wasn't open at such an early hour. She didn't mind as she wanted to stretch her legs.

She loved being in the middle of the city as it woke around her. Voices cracked sharply. Cars passed by in the street, horns already honking impatiently.

Stopping by the newsstand, she picked up a handful of magazines – Time, Newsweek, Scientific American, People, Entertainment, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine,and Magazine of Fantasyand Science Fiction.

She liked to keep up with current events. The entertainment and fiction magazines were guilty pleasures. If she hadn't been able to occasionally borrow from fictional lives in the orphanage, she sometimes wondered if she'd have made it out with the curiosity about the world and the past that she now had.

At the grocery store, she passed a pleasant few minutes with the owner, who loved to talk about her children, and bought a small melon, eggs, fresh basil, a small block of Parmesan cheese and garlic bread. She also picked up a gallon of orange juice.

Back at the loft, Annja let herself in through all five locks. She was startled but not entirely surprised to find Garin seated at her desk. Her eyes immediately strayed to the bed, but the sword was nowhere to be seen.

"You're looking for the sword?" Garin seemed amused. He wore a black turtleneck, jeans and heavy black boots. A leather jacket hung on the back of the chair.

"How did you get in?" Annja demanded. She stood in the open door, ready to flee immediately.

"I let myself in," he said. "I did knock first."

Suspicion formed in Annja's mind. She had the definite sense that he'd waited for her to leave, then broke in.

"You weren't here," Garin said.

"Odd that I happened to miss you," Annja said.

Garin smiled. "Serendipity. You can never properly factor that into anything."

"You could have waited for me to get back," Annja pointed out.

"And stood out in the hallway so that your neighbors would gossip about you?" Garin shook his head. "I couldn't do that."

Deciding that she didn't have anything to fear from the man – at least for the moment – Annja walked into the kitchen area and placed the groceries on the counter.

"Breakfast?" Garin asked.

"Yes." Annja took a big skillet from the wall.

"We could order in. I noticed there are some places nearby that deliver," Garin said.

"I've eaten restaurant food for days," Annja replied. "Here and in France. I want to cook." She put the skillet on the burner to warm, then cracked eggs into a bowl.

Glancing over her shoulder, Annja saw that he looked amused. She resented his presence in her home, the fact that he had broken in, and she was distrustful of him. Still, she couldn't just pretend he wasn't there when she was about to eat.

"Have you eaten?" she asked.

"No. I just got in from LaGuardia." Garin sat at the desk. "But that's all right. You go ahead."

"Nonsense. There's enough for both of us. More than enough."

"That's very kind of you. Can I help?"

Annja chopped the basil and Garin grated the Parmesan. She mixed both with the eggs, then poured olive oil into the skillet. "Have you really lived over five hundred years?" she asked, suddenly aware of feeling comfortably domestic with this mysterious stranger.

Garin smiled. "You find that hard to believe?"

Annja didn't answer. She sliced the garlic bread and the melon.

"You know what happened to the sword, don't you?" Garin asked. "You've got it."

Annja poured the eggs into the skillet, then popped the bread into the toaster.

"Where is the sword?" Garin asked.

"It disappeared," Annja replied. "Somewhere outside Paris."

Grinning, he said, "I don't believe you."

"We share a trait for skepticism." Annja scrambled the eggs. "Would you care for some orange juice?"

Garin walked around the loft, gazing at all the things Annja had collected during her years as an archaeologist. "You have a nice home," he said softly.

Annja had deliberately left the bread knife close at hand. So far, Garin didn't appear to be armed. "Thank you," she said, watching him closely.

"I know you're lying about the sword," Garin said, looking at her.

The bread slices popped out of the toaster. She laid them on plates, buttered them. "That's not a polite thing to say to someone about to serve you breakfast."

"The sword was on the bed when I arrived," Garin told her.

For a moment, Annja felt panic race through her. She concentrated on the eggs, removing the skillet from the heat. If he'd taken the sword, he wouldn't be here now.

"It disappeared when I tried to touch it," Garin said.

"Maybe it was just a figment of your imagination," Annja said, flooded with relief.

Garin shook his head. "No. I've seen that sword before. And I've lived with its curse."

"What curse?" Annja asked.

Approaching her but staying out of arm's reach, Garin leaned a hip against the kitchen counter. "A story for a story," he told her. "It's the only fair way to do this."

Annja dished the scrambled eggs onto the garlic toast. She added slices of melon.

"Very pretty," Garin said.

"I prefer to think of it as nourishing." Annja handed him his plate.

Garin looked around. "I don't see a dining table."

"That's because I don't have one." Scooping up her own plate and orange juice, Annja walked to the window seat. She thought about the Mercedes Garin had driven in Lozère. "Probably isn't exactly the lifestyle you're used to," she said, feeling a little self-conscious.

"Not the lifestyle I now have," he agreed. "But this is a lot better than I started out with."

Annja folded herself onto one end of the window seat. "Where did you grow up?"

"One of the city-states in Germany. A backwoods place. Its name is long forgotten now." Garin sat and ate his food. "I was the illegitimate son of a famous knight."

"How famous?"

Garin shook his head. "He's been forgotten now. But back then, he was a name. Famous in battle and in tournaments. I was the only mistake he'd ever made."

For a moment, Annja felt sorry for Garin. Parents and relatives who simply hadn't wanted to deal with kids had dumped them at the orphanage. It was an old story. Evidently it hadn't changed in hundreds of years.

If Garin could be believed.

"I like to think that my father cared for me in some way," Garin went on. "After all, he didn't give me to a peasant family as he could have. Or let my mother kill me, as she'd tried on a couple of occasions."

Annja kept eating. There were horrible stories throughout all histories. She wasn't inured to them, but she had learned to accept that there were some things she couldn't do anything about.

"Instead," Garin went on, "my father gave me to a wizard."

"Roux?" That news startled Annja.

"Yes. At least that's what men like him were called in the old days. Once upon a time, Roux's name was enough to strike terror in the hearts of men. When he cursed someone, that person's life was never the same again."

"But that could simply be the perception of the person cursed," Annja said. "Zombies created by voodoo have been found to be living beings who are so steeped in their belief that their conscious minds can't accept that after their burial and 'resurrection' they are not zombies. They truly believe they are."

"What makes the sword disappear?" Garin asked, smiling.

"We weren't finished talking about you." Annja took another bite of toast, then the melon, which was sweet and crisp.

"I was nine years old when I was given to Roux," Garin went on. "I was twenty-one when he allied himself with the Maid."

"He allied himself with Joan of Arc?"

Garin nodded. "He felt he had to. So we traveled with her and were part of her retinue."

"Fancy word," Annja teased, surprising herself.

"My vocabulary is vast. I also speak several languages."

"Joan of Arc," Annja reminded.

"Roux and I served with her. He was one of her counsels. When she was captured by the English, Roux stayed nearby."

"Why didn't he rescue her?"

"Because he believed God would."

"But that didn't happen?"

Garin shook his head. "We were… gone when the English decided to burn her at the stake. We arrived too late. Roux tried to stop them, but there were too many English. She died."

Annja turned pale. It was all too fantastic to be believed, yet she didn't feel any sense of danger – just curiosity. Who is this man? she wondered. What is going on?

"Are you all right?" Concern showed on Garin's handsome face.

"I am. Just tired."

He didn't appear convinced.

"What about the sword?" Annja asked.

Garin balanced his empty plate on his knee. "It was shattered. I watched them do it."

"The English?"

He nodded. "Afterward, Roux and I realized we were cursed."

Annja couldn't help herself. She smiled. Anyone could have read about the legendary sword. The details were open to interpretation or exaggeration, as all historical accounts were. Where will this elaborate hoax lead? she wondered.

Then she remembered how Bart McGilley had told her that the fingerprints – friction ridges– she'd pulled from the euro Roux had given her belonged to a suspect in a sixty-three-year-old homicide. She thought about the sword.

"Who cursed you?" she asked.

Garin hesitated, as if he were about to tell her an impossible thing. "I don't know what Roux thinks, but I believe we were cursed by God."

Chapter 23

AFTER GARIN FINISHED his story, Annja sat quietly and looked at him. The fear that he had felt all those years ago – and, in spite of herself, she did believe him about the five hundred years – still showed in his dark features.

"You helped Roux look for the sword?" Annja asked.

Garin shook his head. "No."

"Why?"

"I was angry after Joan's death and I had no idea there would be consequences if the pieces of the sword weren't found."

Annja had to admit the man had a point. "So when did you start to believe?"

"About twenty years later."

"When you didn't age?"

"No," Garin answered. "I aged. A little. It was when I saw Roux again and saw that he hadn't aged. I began to believe then. I'd thought he would be dead."

"So he has looked for pieces of the sword for over five hundred years?"

Garin nodded. "He has."

"And you didn't help?"

"No. I tried to stop him. I tried to tell him that as it stood, we could live forever. I was becoming wealthy beyond my grandest dreams."

"That was when you started trying to kill him."

Grinning, Garin asked, "Wouldn't you? If you were promised immortality by simply not doing a thing, wouldn't you take steps to make sure that thing didn't happen?"

Annja didn't know. She regarded Garin with renewed suspicion. "Why are you here now?"

"I'm still interested in what happens to the sword." Garin shrugged. "Now that it is whole again, does that mean I no longer have untold years ahead of me?"

"Noticed any gray hairs?" Annja asked.

He smiled at her. "Your humor is an acquired taste. When you were in Roux's face, I found you delightful. Now I feel that you have no tact."

"Good. But keep in mind that I fed breakfast to a man who broke into my home." Trying not to show her anxiety, Annja took her plate and Garin's to the sink.

"Tell me about the sword," Garin said.

Turning, Annja leaned a hip against the counter and crossed her arms over her breasts. "What do you want to know?"

"Mostly whether it can be broken again."

Annja shook her head. "Honesty's not always the best policy."

"I've neverthought it was."

She grinned at that.

"If I had lied," he asked, "would you have known?"

"About this? Yes."

"I already know about the sword," Garin pointed out. "I could have left before you returned."

"After you happened to arrive while I was out."

"Of course."

Annja respected that. He could have done that. She reached out her right hand, reached out into that otherwhere and summoned the sword. She held it in her hand.

Garin's eyes widened as he got to his feet and came toward her. "Let me see it."

"No." Annja leveled the sword, aiming the point at his Adam's apple, intending to halt him in his tracks.

In a move that caught her totally by surprise, Garin tried to grab the blade in his left hand and slam his right forearm down to break it. Instead, his hand and arm swept through the sword as if it weren't there.

Annja reacted at once, throwing out a foot that caught Garin in the side and knocked him away. He scrambled to his feet and fisted the bread knife on the counter.

As Garin brought the bread knife around, Annja took a two-handed grip on the sword and slashed at the smaller blade wondering if it would pass harmlessly through. The bread knife snapped in two, leaving Garin with the hilt in his hand.

Annja planted the sword tip against his chest right over his heart. The material and flesh indented. Maybe Garin couldn't touch the sword, they both realized, but the sword could touch him.

"Are we done here?" Annja asked.

Garin swept his left arm against the blade to knock it away, but again his arm passed through. His effort left him facing Annja, his chest totally exposed to her retaliation.

Annja pressed the sword against his chest. "I've fed you breakfast," she said evenly. "I've overlooked the fact that you broke into my house. I'm even willing to forgive you for trying to break my sword."

"Your sword?"

"Mine," Annja responded without pause or doubt. The sword was hers. It had chosen her. That much was clear. "But if you ever make an enemy of me, if you ever try to kill me like you did Roux, I'll hunt you down and kill you."

"If I try," Garin promised, unwilling to back up another inch, "you'll never see me coming."

"Then it would be in my best interests to kill you now, wouldn't it?"

Garin stood stubbornly against the sword.

Annja pressed harder, watching the pain flicker through his features and hate darken his eyes. He stumbled back, then turned and walked away. She let him retreat without pursuit.

Garin wiped at the blood seeping through his shirt. "How much?" he demanded.

"For what?" Almost casually, as if she'd been doing it forever, Annja balanced the sword over her right shoulder.

"To break the sword."

Annja shook her head. "I'm not going to break this sword."

In truth, she didn't know what would happen if she tried. An image of the lightning bolt passing through it filled her mind.

She had a definite feeling that whatever happened if she tried to destroy the sword wouldn't be good. Also, she felt that she would be betraying the spirit of the sword. Joan of Arc had led people in a war against oppression with it.

"I could give you millions," Garin said. He waved to encompass the loft. "You wouldn't have to live like this."

"I happen to like the way I live." Annja watched the dark calculations take place in his eyes.

"You love knowledge," he said finally. "With the money I could give you, wouldgive you, you could go anywhere in the world. Study anything you like. With the best experts money can buy. You could open up any door to the past you wanted to."

The idea was tempting. She believed Garin could provide that kind of money. She even believed he would.

"No," she said. As if to take the temptation out of his hands, she willed the sword away.

He came at her without warning, rushing at her low and grabbing her hips as he shoved her back against the stove. He fumbled for one of the knives in the wooden block by the sink. Grabbing a thick-bladed butcher's knife, he raised it to strike.

Freeing her right arm from Garin's grasp, Annja drove the heel of her palm into his nose. Blood spurted as the cartilage collapsed.

He yowled in pain and tried to hang on to her. His knife hand came down.

Annja twisted and avoided the knife. The blade thudded deep into the countertop. She reared up against him, forcing him back.

Shifting, she butted him aside with her hip, heel stamped his foot, head butted him under the chin, and brought an elbow strike into line with his jaw.

Garin stepped back, his black eyes glassy. He punched at her but she slapped his arm aside. Then he caught her with an incredibly fast left hand.

Annja dropped as if she'd been hit with a bag of wet cement. Her senses spun and for a moment she thought she was going to pass out.

Garin came after her immediately. On the ground, she knew from experience, his greater size and weight would take away every advantage her speed and strength gave her.

She rolled backward and flipped to her feet in the center of the loft. Annja only had to think of the sword for a split second and it was in her hand. Stepping back, right leg behind her left, hilt gripped firmly in both hands, she readied the sword.

Garin halted, completely out of running room.

All Annja had to do was swing. But he'd stopped his aggressions. Will it be murder?she wondered.

"Are you going to kill him, then?" a raspy voice suddenly asked.

Circling slowly, Annja maintained her grip on the sword. She turned just enough to see Roux standing in the doorway.

"Don't either of you respect a person's privacy?" Annja asked.

"I knocked. No one answered. Then I heard the sounds of a scuffle." Roux entered unbidden. "I thought it best if I investigated." He closed the door behind him.

Okay, Annja thought, at least I know he's not a vampire.

Roux took off his long jacket. He wore a casual tan suit. "Are you going to kill him?" he asked again as if the question was a typical greeting.

Garin watched her carefully. He kept his hands spread to the side, ready to move.

Annja continued to slowly circle, never crossing her feet, so she wouldn't trip. She stopped when Roux was behind Garin.

"I don't know yet," Annja admitted.

"My vote is no," Garin said.

"You tried to kill me," Annja said, "right after I told you that I would kill you if you tried."

"I really didn't think you meant it," he said.

"You would have killed me."

Garin was silent for a moment, then nodded. "Probably."

"Miss Creed," Roux said.

"Do you want to kill him?" Annja asked. Maybe that would be better. Although it would still be in her loft. She wondered if she could talk the old man into killing Garin somewhere else.

"No," Roux answered.

"Why not? He's tried to kill you, too."

"I've been like a father to him. It doesn't seem fitting."

"He's tried to killyou," Annja said in exasperation.

"Ours has been a… difficult relationship at best," Roux said. "That's the way it is between fathers and sons."

"I'm not your son," Garin snarled.

"You were as close as I ever had," Roux said. He looked around. "May I sit, Miss Creed?"

"Could I stop you?"

"Not if you intend to continue menacing Garin with the sword." Roux sat in the window seat. "Is that melon?"

"Yes."

"May I help myself?"

"Sure," Annja replied, not believing he'd actually asked. "I'm trying to keep the homicidal maniac from killing us."

"I'm not a homicidal maniac," Garin objected. "If you'd just let me destroy that sword—"

"Apparently you can't," Annja taunted. At the moment, after he'd tried to kill her twice, she didn't mind acting a little superior.

"—we could all walk out of here happier," Garin finished.

"I wouldn't be happier," Roux said. He looked for a plate, found one in the cabinet and put melon pieces on it. He returned to the window seat. "I spent five hundred years and more looking for the pieces of that sword. I don't care to repeat that experience any time soon."

"We're immortal, Roux," Garin growled.

"Not immortal," Roux replied. "If she'd cut your head off the day she met you, you'd have died."

"You know what I mean."

"I do." Roux ate the melon with obvious gusto. "This is quite good."

"Why are you here?" Annja asked.

"I thought maybe you might have come looking for me before now," Roux said. "I thought surely you would be curious about the sword. Since you didn't, I thought perhaps it was best if I came looking for you."

"Why?"

"Because of the sword, of course. I knew it couldn't have just disappeared. After you got away and the sword never showed up again, I knew it had gone with you."

"How?"

"As I said, it didn't turn up again at my house." Roux frowned. "Which, I might add, may never be the same again. Why did the Brotherhood of the Silent Rain attack my house?"

"They were after the charm I found in La Bête's lair," Annja said. "How did the sword come with me?"

"Magic. Arcane forces. Some psychic ability on a higher plane," Roux said. "Take your pick."

"Which do you choose?"

"I know why the sword came with you," the old man said.

"Why?" Annja asked.

"Destiny."

Annja was speechless.

"You were destined to hold that sword, Annja Creed," Roux said. "Otherwise you wouldn't have found the last missing piece or me. And, judging from the years I've spent searching for that final piece, no one else could have found it. If you'd found the piece but not me, you wouldn't have found the rest of the sword. Therefore it's destiny."

It was a lot to take in at one time. Annja had trouble dealing with the whole concept. But here she stood, with the sword pressed to the throat of the one man who wanted desperately to destroy it.

She tried to remember when she'd last felt that anything made sense.

She looked at Garin. "Sit over there by the desk."

"Sure." As though he'd just been invited to tea, Garin walked over to the desk and sat.

"We're all three bound by Joan's sword," Roux said. He held up a hand. "May I?"

"I don't think that's such a good idea," Annja said.

"From what I gather, Garin can't touch the sword."

"No."

"It would be interesting to find out if I can."

Annja hesitated.

Roux waved his hand impatiently. "If I didn't want to ask you, I'd simply shoot you and take it off your body."

"You don't have a pistol," Annja said.

Lifting his jacket, Roux revealed the small semiautomatic leathered beneath his left arm. He dropped the jacket to hide the pistol again. "Please."

Reversing the sword with a flourish, Annja laid the blade over her arm and extended the hilt to him.

Roux took the sword easily. He examined it carefully. "This is truly exquisite. You can't see where any of the breaks were."

Tense, Annja waited. She didn't like the idea of anyone else holding the sword.

"Here you go, Miss Creed." Roux passed the sword back. "Do you want to tell me how you did that vanishing trick back at my house?"

Gripping the sword, Annja willed it away. The weapon faded from sight.

Roux grinned in wonder. "Splendid!"

Garin cursed. "You're a fool, old man. Now that the sword is whole again, we're no longer cursed to walk the earth after it. We're no longer immortal."

"Long-lived," Roux argued. "Not immortal. Long-lived. And that remains to be seen, doesn't it?" He looked at the kitchen area. "Do you have anything to drink?"

"Orange juice," Annja said. "Or tea."

"Juice, if you please."

Annja got a glass and filled it with orange juice. She took it to Roux. "What's your interest in this?"

"In the sword?"

She nodded.

"I don't know that I have one," Roux replied. "The sword is complete. I'm not sure what happens now. "

"I know about the curse."

"I suppose you do." Roux sipped his drink. "At any rate, it may well be that my part in this whole affair is over. I truly hope that it is. I have other pursuits I'd like to follow. I'm going to be playing in a Texas Hold 'em Tournament soon and I've qualified for a senior's tour in golf."

"Did you know you're listed as a suspect in Doris Cooper's murder?" Annja asked.

"No. Though it doesn't surprise me."

"Did you do it?"

"No."

"Did Garin?"

"I don't even know anyone named Doris Cooper," Garin protested.

"I don't know," Roux said. "Doris was a good person. Too trusting, perhaps, but a good person."

"Why didn't you try to clear your name?" Annja asked.

"Hollywood was a rat's nest in those days," Roux said. "If the Los Angeles Police Department was determined to pin the woman's murder on me – and I tell you right now that they were – they would have done it. I left the country as soon as I knew they were looking for me." He paused. "Do you want to talk about things that have no bearing on where you're going or what you're going to do? Or do you want to discuss the sword?"

Before Annja could answer, the phone rang. She considered letting the answering service pick up, but she decided she wanted a few minutes of diversion. Things were coming at her too quickly.

"Hello?"

"Miss Creed?" The voice was urbane, accented, and almost familiar.

"Yes," Annja said. "Who is this?"

"Corvin Lesauvage. We met briefly in Lozère."

"I remember you, Mr. Lesauvage," Annja replied. Her thoughts spun. Glancing at Roux and Garin, she saw that both of the men were listening with interest. "You were trying to have me abducted, as I recall."

"Yes, well, I've had to reconsider that. I still want that charm you found and I've had to find new leverage to achieve that goal."

"I don't have the charm," Annja said. "I told you that."

"Then you'll have to get it, Miss Creed," Lesauvage said. "Because if you don't, Avery Moreau will die and his death will be on your head."