Текст книги "The Bone Conjurer"
Автор книги: Алекс Арчер
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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 18 страниц)
21
Eric Danzinger liked spending late hours at the university. The desk lamp tossed gold light across the granite lab tables as if splashed out from a miner’s pan. Hundreds of skulls observed from shelves. The tick-tickof the radiator kept a syncopated beat that reminded of a slow jazz tune. A man just didn’t get atmosphere like this in his stuffy little Bronx apartment. It was also neater than his home, which was covered wall-to-wall with rock-and-roll memorabilia.
Humming a Rolling Stones tune, he sorted through the guitar strings coiled upon the granite lab table for the high E string. Threading the clear nylon string through the baseboard, he formed a nifty twist to keep it secure, then stretched it along the neck to poke through the tuning peg. He twisted it tight, then leaned aside to tap the computer keyboard.
Freaky Tuner was a shareware program that played notes to tune virtually any instrument. One tap of the return key played a steady acoustic guitar E note. He twisted the tuning peg, and plucked the string until the vibrations wavered to nothing and the notes matched.
The B string was next. He went through the same motions, smiling bemusedly at the skull upon the stuffing in the little box Annja had delivered it in. It seemed to approve of the musical break he’d decided to indulge.
“Wonder what kind of music you listened to. I bet if you had ears, you’d bow in worship to Keith Richards, too.”
On the other hand, it was an infant’s skull. Best save the rock and roll a few more years.
The professor had taken dozens of photographs of the skull’s interior. The computer was cobbling them all together as he waited. The program amazed him as to how it could piece photos together without overlapping. The interior map was about fifty percent complete.
The gold lining the skull sutures sparkled after a soft polishing with a little water, some ammonia and dishwashing soap.
Though he couldn’t guess at the original date without proper dating equipment, he did have a good idea that the gold had been added later. Certainly the thing hadn’t been born that way. It was very common to find altered artifacts, especially those of unknown origin.
Skull modification wasn’t his thing. Though he was aware it had been prevalent in early Mayan cultures. He should give Sharon in Anthropology a jingle and see what she could make of the skull. The woman got more turned on by bones than sex. Not that he hadn’t tried to alter her perceptions regarding a night well spent. Man, had he tried.
He tightened the B string, wondering if it was too late to call Annja to come take a look at the interior map. A woman like her probably had an insane schedule. Darting from dig to dig, hosting a television show, writing books and appearing on Letterman.
Yeah, he’d like it if she could find a place for him to at least guest as a researcher on the show. He didn’t mind the spotlight at all. And if it meant he could meet Kristie Chatham, well, then.
It was almost ten. Annja was likely still awake, but he’d wait until morning. The music wanted his attention.
HIS RUBBER-SOLED RUNNING shoes made no sound on the old tiled floor in Schermerhorn Hall. It was dark, save for a few lights toward the end of the hall, two coming from consecutive doorways, another across the hall from the first.
Ravenscroft’s orders had been clear. He’d likely find this strange skull in the anthropology building. He’d found a name of a teacher associated with the TV chick and had tracked his teaching schedule.
The building should be empty of students as well as professors, especially with the holiday weekend. But Jones had been given the all-clear to take matters into hand should he run into anyone wanting to ask questions.
Sliding his leather-gloved fingers inside his jacket, Jones drew them the length of the knife tucked inside a narrow pocket.
As each step drew him closer to the lighted rooms, he got a sense for the one on the left. Just a feeling. Must be like that intuition his girlfriend was always yapping about.
Stopping at the first door on the left, he read the syllabus taped outside on the wall. It was signed by Professor Danzinger. Bingo.
He knocked lightly. The door, not completely closed, swung inward.
“Professor Danzinger?”
He entered the quiet room. A bright lamp beamed over a lab table. A computer, textbooks and various tools and papers scattered messily across the stretch.
And a skull. Sitting there on an open box with tufts of wool cradling the small cranium.
Ravenscroft had said he might need to mention a woman’s name. “I was given your name by Annja Creed.”
“Yes, Miss Creed.” The professor removed his glasses and set them on the countertop. An acoustic guitar lay on the table before him, the neck propped by a textbook, one unwound string coiled at the base by the sound hole. “And you are?”
“Jones,” he offered. “Bill Jones. I’m a colleague of Miss Creed’s. I see you’ve got the skull. Annja and I are eager to learn what you’ve discovered about it.”
“Yes, well, the interior mapping isn’t finished. As for the date…” He leaned over the skull and tapped the thin gold tracing around one eye socket. “I’d give it a good millennium. Perhaps. I’m no expert, more a fascinated learner.”
“That’s intriguing.” Jones moved to the professor’s side. When the man straightened and looked him over, he placed a gentle palm to his shoulder. “Looks like just another skull. What’s so special about this one?”
He felt the man’s muscles tighten under his testing touch. “How did you say you know Annja? She didn’t mention—”
“I’m surprised she didn’t mention me, but then Annja is always so busy.”
“Yes, with her show.”
Show? Jones filed that one away. “I’ll bring it back to her.”
“But I said I’m not finished yet. Maybe I should give Annja a call?”
“Sure, certainly. You play, Professor?”
Jones stroked the guitar neck. Three strings were strung.
“Since I was a boy. You like guitar music?” Danzinger asked.
Jones picked up one of the thicker, bronze-wrapped strings and unwound it curiously. “Music is not one of my talents.”
“You don’t need to be able to play to appreciate. I’ve got a phone in the office. If you’ll give me a minute—”
Fitting his arms over the man’s head and tugging the guitar string, Jones choked off the man’s protest. The wire dug into flesh. He pulled hard, sawing it slightly until he smelled blood.
As he felt the man’s weight sag, Jones decided he couldn’t wait. Taking the professor’s head between his palms, he gave it a smart jerk, separating the spinal disks. The spinal cord severed, the body slumped and dropped.
Jones stepped back, dragging his feet from under the professor’s sprawled limbs. He dropped the bloody string across his chest. Leather pants and a shimmery leopard-print shirt? What kind of professor dresses like an aging rock star?
Dismissing the thought, Jones bent forward, bringing himself eye level with the skull.
“Kinda ugly, if you ask me. The thing’s cranium is bigger than its face. Must be deformed. But is that gold?”
He grabbed the skull, and when it wouldn’t fit inside his pocket, he tucked it in the box filled with wooly stuff.
22
“Wait!”
Annja rushed ahead of Garin’s long strides down the hallway of the Schermerhorn building. She pressed a hand to his shoulder, feeling resistance in his straining muscles. He was in too big a hurry for this to feel right.
“Right here,” she said, pointing to her eyes. “Look at me.”
He tilted his head and met her gaze. Dark, emotionless eyes. Not at all kind as he’d displayed earlier at his penthouse. That’s what Annja was afraid of. The man tended to alter his alliances faster than she could blink.
“Tell me this isn’t a trick. That as soon as you see the skull, you’re not going to push me out a window and take off with the thing.”
“I would never push you out a window, Annja.”
“Yeah? Not unless it served your purposes. Just tell me the truth. Right now. I already know what the answer is, but I want to hear it from you.”
The imposing man pressed his knuckles to his hips, widening his stance. And his gaze didn’t get any less fierce.
“You think you know me? You think I’ll harm anyone, kill,to get what I desire?”
“I do,” she offered, sure of it, though it pained her to believe such truths.
Garin tilted his head. Then, swiping a palm over his mouth, he shook his head. “Isn’t everyone out to protect number one? Since you’ve come into my world, Annja, the game has changed. I have…uncertainties. I want to make them certain once again.”
“Then why not go after the sword?”
“Because I like you, Annja. Believe it or not. And, as you are aware, the sword is not an attainable goal. So until you hand it to me, with blessings and tied with a bow, then I’ve got to resort to other means.”
Aha. He’d just, in a roundabout way, confirmed her suspicions. He was after the skull. Though what it could do for him was beyond her imagining. Ifit possessed power.
His story about he and Roux holding it in fifteenth-century Spain was believable enough, but really, he had no proof. It had killed. Didn’t sound like a giver of all good things to her. And if it did grant some magical wishes, didn’t Garin already have it all? And what he didn’t have, he could buy.
Unless good thingssomehow meant giving him access to her sword. In which case, she should, and would, fight to the finish for this skull.
Swinging about, she took the lead down the hallway. With Garin hot on her heels, she couldn’t reach the anthropology lab fast enough. She was going to lead him directly to the skull. Was there any other choice? She’d known from the moment he’d pulled her from the grave he possessed ulterior motives.
The lab door was open. Annja’s heart dropped to her gut. Rushing inside, the room was empty, but the light was on over the professor’s worktable.
“Professor?” Annja didn’t track the room for the skull.
Garin prowled in behind her. He would do that search.
“Oh, hell.”
An arm stretched across the floor behind the freestanding counter. Blood spattered the professor’s face and the front of his leopard-print shirt. It had begun to pool beside his cheek and shoulder.
“He’s dead,” she said.
“Ya think?”
She cast Garin a sneer.
He put up his palms. “Sorry. Is he still warm?”
As Garin shuffled glass jars and books about, Annja bowed her head and pressed her open palm to the professor’s cheek. “Yes.”
She hadn’t known him that well, but had considered him a friend. A tear trickled down the side of her nose. At once it felt right, a small gesture for the man’s lost life, yet it felt stupid to show emotion in front of Garin.
Using that complex twist of battling emotions, Annja was able to look over the professor’s body for clues, but cautioned herself not to touch him or any of his clothes. Didn’t want to leave fingerprints.
A bloody guitar string, and the dark maroon line around his neck, answered the method-of-death question. Poor guy. He’d loved that guitar.
“Wonder how long he’s been like this?” she muttered.
There had been no other lights on in the surrounding classrooms. This wing of the hall was empty.
She had to report this. She’d call Bart. Much wiser than alerting campus security, who wouldn’t know her history of always showing up at crime scenes at the wrong time.
“It’s not in here. Was it in a case of some kind?” Garin’s insistence cut at the back of her neck. He acted oblivious to the fact a dead man lay on the floor.
Annja pounded the counter with a fist. “Back off, will you?”
Garin put up his palms to placate her. “You knew him well?”
“He was a friend. Not close, but he deserves respect.”
“You can go to his funeral. Right now, we are in a race to find that thing before the bone conjurer starts to use it. You can be sure that’s who took the thing.”
Right. The professor wasn’t dead for no reason. The skull had been the motivation. Serge had some kind of power both Garin and Roux were in awe of.
Annja twisted to study the path from the professor to the door. There were no bloody shoe tracks. And as for picking up a shoe print, she had probably walked over the murderer’s tracks.
“He’s still warm, so Serge couldn’t be too far ahead of us. Wait.” She noticed the computer screen, and stood, being careful not to step in blood or on the professor’s leg. “What’s this?”
A completion bar superimposed over a screenwide picture showed one hundred percent. Annja slid the mouse and the bar disappeared. “It’s the inside. A map of the interior.”
“Annja.”
“What?” Without pulling her attention from the screen, she tapped the mouse to copy the file to the USB flash drive plugged in the side of the computer.
Garin leaned in close so she had to meet his eyes. “Dead body? Scene of the crime. We need to get out of here now.”
“Let me copy this first.”
“We don’t have time.”
“Garin, chill. It’s not as if there are a lot of people here so late at night.”
“What about the janitor?”
“From my experience with labs and classrooms, it can be days before a janitor shows to clean. Professor Danzinger might be on the floor for days– Oh, that’s so wrong. I have to call Bart right away, or the professor could seriously be here for days before he’s found.”
“Bart?”
“NYPD detective. A friend of mine.”
“Great. Give us five minutes to clear the scene, will you?” Garin, with one last sweep of the room, strode out.
Annja grabbed the flash drive, tucked it in the front pocket of her pants and followed.
This was personal now. She didn’t know what Serge could do with a skull like that, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to get away with Professor Danzinger’s murder.
She flipped open her cell phone and dialed Bart as Garin stalked outside into the dark night. Bart didn’t answer, so she left another “guess what, I found another dead body” message for him.
“YOU KNOW WHAT I don’t buy about this whole Knights Templar legend of the skull?”
Annja sat on the passenger side of Garin’s black Escalade. They’d driven it to the college and now cruised around the building, scouting the periphery. She suspected Serge had killed the professor and stolen the skull, so she was on the lookout for a behemoth bald guy.
“What’s that?” Garin asked.
“Well, there’s the cross pattée on the gold sutures. A symbol we know the Templars used, so obviously that makes the skull the actual skull, yes?”
“Yes and no. The gold could have been put on later.”
“Exactly. And this could be any old skull. Because I don’t buy that the skull and crossbones symbol began with the Templars.”
“Why not?”
“When I researched the Skull of Sidon it stated the child’s skull was found atop the Maraclean woman’s crossed thigh bones, which instigated the skull and crossbones imagery. It just spread from there.”
“That’s what I told you, as well.”
“But why, if the knights took vows of chastity and were all about doing good, would they then adopt a symbol that celebrates necrophilia? It makes little sense. Hey, guys, one of our own did something nasty with a dead chick. Let’s take that imagery and use it on our flags and tabards and let the whole world know we approve.”
“They weren’t as wholesome as history tells, Annja.”
“I know that. I’ve read about freemasonry. The devil worshipping.”
“Head worshipping, actually.”
“What’s that about?”
“It was said the Knights Templar worshipped a severed head. Theories place it as the severed head of John the Baptist, which leads to theories on the Holy Grail actually being the tray upon which his head was carried to Salome.”
“Interesting. And yet another grail legend attached to the Templars. There can be only one. And I don’t think any of them are correct. But for argument’s sake, and if we go with the head worshipping, it could have been our skull? That’s a head. Partially.”
“Who knows? Though some theories do place the Maraclean woman as a symbol of a virgin birth, while the lord of Sidon was a pirate, which ties the grail and the skull and crossbones together nicely.”
“Nicely? I don’t know about that. Eerily, more like.” Annja tapped the window glass with a knuckle as she tracked the passing sidewalks for signs of Serge. “You ever have any dealings with the Templars?”
“Before my time.”
“But there’ve been many recreations of the organization.”
“Organization?” He smirked. “You have an interesting way of putting things, Creed. Do you see anything that side of the building?”
She shook her head. “He’s not on the property anymore. Let’s take the streets and see if we can spot him. I’m sure he’s long gone by now. If the guy is smart, he’s halfway to Jersey. So you never joined the freemasons or the Shriners?”
“Shriners? Please.”
“I understand they do good work for children.”
“I’ve never been a follower, Annja.”
“What about Roux? You followed him.”
“He was my master. The kindest thing he ever called me was apprentice. I did what I was told, and wisely kept my distance from his backhand.”
“But he taught you things. You owe him a debt.”
He stepped on the brake. “What dream are you living in, woman? I owe nothing to that man. We are bound together through a bizarre destiny, but that doesn’t mean we are brothers or family.”
“Sorry.” She looked out the window. “’Spose I won’t get a Christmas card from you and Roux, then? No family picture?”
She sensed Garin’s smile but he looked out the driver’s side window.
“Speaking of pictures,” he muttered. “You look great nude.”
Annja gaped. He’d seen the online pics? Had the whole world?
Garin chuckled. “Don’t worry, Annja. I know it’s not you.”
Affronted, she lifted her shoulders. “How?”
“You forget I know your bra size. And the assets in that picture were a few cup sizes larger. Silicone, I’m sure. You, I can only imagine, are all natural.”
About to agree, but feeling too unnerved, Annja left that one to hang. Something must be done about removing that picture. But how?
Silver flashed in her peripheral view. Squinting, Annja made out a very familiar box tucked under the arm of a tall, thin man walking swiftly down the sidewalk. It wasn’t Serge. But that was the original box she’d found the skull in. “That’s him!”
“You’re sure?”
“Nope. It’s not the bone conjurer, but that is the skull, I’m sure of it. You drive, I’m going on foot.” Annja opened the door. “Can you keep close?”
“No problem. Go get him, sword-wielding warrior woman.”
She sprinted down the sidewalk. A good two hundred feet ahead of her, the man turned. The small case the skull had been enclosed in swung out in his grip. He saw her and took off in a run. He dodged right, disappearing from view.
Pumping her arms, Annja forced her pace to long strides. She considered calling the sword to hand, but dismissed that idea. She didn’t need it right now, and it would only slow her down.
Taking the turn led into a long narrow alley, which opened on to some kind of building yard enclosed by chain-link fencing. That didn’t stop the man. He expertly mounted the fence, and swung himself over.
“Thugs,” Annja muttered. “They never cease to surprise me.”
Annja hit the fence at a run and landed high, her fingers piercing the chain links. The curved metal was cold and her toe slipped its hold, dropping her body to hang by her fingers. Working the tips of her boots into the convoluted links, she levered herself up to latch a forearm over the top of the fence. Lifting her upper body, she pushed, and when her chest had risen above the chain link, she dipped forward, releasing the fence and arching her back.
She landed in a crouch. The man ran toward a warehouse.
Garin’s Escalade pulled up with a squeal behind the fence as Annja entered the warehouse. It was late. Moonlight cast across the floor at the far wall, but where Annja stood, the atmosphere was hazy at best.
Scattered lumber and plastic-covered pallets stood everywhere. The dusty smell of Sheetrock clued her to a stack of whiteboard to her right.
Before her on the hardwood floor, smeared shoe tracks advertised the murderer’s intentions. He’d gone right.
Garin entered with pistol held before him and a keen eye to the surroundings. Annja nodded, acknowledging the trail by pointing it out. He nodded left and gestured she go right.
She dashed between two stacks of lumber piled three feet higher than her head. The building must be a lumber warehouse. Racing to the end, she slapped a palm on a stack of wood. An electric air nailer wobbled.
“Oh, yeah?” Annja grabbed the yellow nailer and gave the trigger a squeeze. No nails were expelled because the safety was on. But it was charged, and ready to use. “Nice.”
The clatter of boards alerted her that the man was close. Nailer wielded like a gun, she slunk along a wall of lumber, her shoulders tracing the clean edges, and crept to the end of the stack.
Raising the nailer before her, she decided it would prove a fitting weapon. With a sword she’d have to put herself close to the danger. With the nailer she could buy herself some room.
Stepping forward to the next aisle of stacked lumber, she dodged a look down the aisle. Empty.
Heavy breathing signaled her quarry was nearby. Putting her back to the next stack of lumber, she guessed he was down the aisle. Footsteps moved closer.
Annja spun her hips and turned her body to stand in the aisle.
The man ran toward her, but seeing she was armed, he abruptly stopped.
Flicking her forefinger over the safety guard, she took aim and fired. His skull snapped backward with impact. Three inches of steel finishing nail pierced flesh, bone and brain. He stumbled a couple paces, slapping his palms against the plastic-covered lumber.
Prepared to fire again, Annja waited for the man to drop. Remarkably, he maintained balance. A gruff shake of head and a growl preceded his wicked grin.
She gaped at the man.
He gripped the two-inch portion of nail jutting from his skull, and yanked it out. A bubble of blood pooled at the nail hole, but didn’t drip down his forehead.
He winked.
“You are so kidding me.” Annja tossed the nailer aside. “I hate it when I feel like the heroine cast in the movie opposite the villain who just won’t die.”
The man’s feet shuffled. He fled down the aisle away from her. Annja pursued.
In the narrow aisle she couldn’t call the sword to her, but as soon as she exited the first row and spotted the man’s coattails, she summoned the sword.
Reaching out, her fingers tingled as the sword found its way from the otherwhere and into her grip. She liked the solid feel as it made itself whole. It claimed her as much as she claimed it. They were one.
Annja raced forward. The footsteps in the dust stopped, but only because she skidded up to a swept section of cement flooring.
Garin’s voice echoed close by. The men must have run into each other.
The crunch of a fist connecting with bone sounded before Annja saw either of them. Charging to an abrupt stop at the edge of stacked Sheetrock, she lowered the sword and caught her breath.
The warehouse resounded with male grunts. Clothing whipped with sharp kicks and precise punches. The murderer possessed some knowledge of karate or judo and delivered a few direct kicks to Garin’s chest. The formidable immortal took the violence with little more than a wince.
Fist to skull crushed the nail hole in the man’s temple. He didn’t go down. Of course not; he was the villain who would not die.
Drops of blood tracked across Annja’s forearm. That was from Garin.
She scanned the floor. Garin’s gun lay against a stack of lumber, thirty feet from where the men fought.
The men matched each other in height and bulk. Yet Annja wondered what strength the thug could wield against Garin’s very human strength. Just because he was immortal didn’t mean he had superpowers. She’d seen him injured by bullet and blade.
Something slid away from the clash of testosterone. The case containing the skull. Annja tracked it as it cut a fine path through the Sheetrock dust, and came to a wobbling stop against a two-by-four.
“You just going to watch?” Garin said on a huff. He managed a bloody grin at Annja, before lunging to deliver a pulverizing punch to the man’s gut.
The man landed three feet from where Annja stood. She tapped him on the skull with the sword’s tip. “My turn, big boy. You up for taking me on?”
She allowed him to roll over and jump to his feet. The hole where the nail had pierced was bloody but it hadn’t magically healed. He was just a man. She had no reason to fear him.
The man eyed the sword curiously. He spat blood to the side. “I don’t normally fight chicks,” he said. “But I’ll give it a go.” He spread out his arms, not a position of preparation but of surrender. “Would you fight an unarmed man?”
She tipped the sword up under his chin. Don’t get too cocky, she chided inwardly. You may feel as though you have control here, but if you’ve learned anything, it’s that you never do.
“I hardly believe you would walk about unarmed. Don’t have another guitar string handy?” she asked.
He lifted his hands slowly to place palms out near his shoulders. Annja kept the sword tip under his chin. A twist of her wrist pressed it into his neck above the Adam’s apple. Flesh opened and blood beaded, a shallow cut.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, girlie,” he offered. “Watch the blade. Where’d a sexy thing like you get a badass weapon like that? Someone’s going to get hurt with that thing.”
“You must be that someone. Who are you? You work for Serge?”
“Serge? Lady, I was just taking a casual stroll, then you come along and go all Witchblade on me.”
“Wrong mythology, idiot. And I’m not buying your lies. You took the skull from Professor Danzinger after you killed him.”
“Never heard of no professor. As you can tell, I never went to no college.”
All of a sudden he can’t speak properly? Maybe he was an idiot.
“Keep him there, Annja.”
The hairs on the back of Annja’s neck prickled at Garin’s voice. She hadn’t been paying attention to him. Now he stood behind her, where the skull case had landed.
The sound of bone slapping against flesh signaled Garin had the skull, and tossed it once in his hand. “This is mine.”
Intuition had been horrifically on the mark.
She spun, sweeping the sword around. “You’re not going anywhere, Garin.”
Her head snapped up as a heavy weight squeezed her throat. The murderer garroted an arm about her neck. Even swinging the sword backward, she couldn’t connect with the bastard. To attempt a slice at his leg would first cut her own.
“I’ll break her neck!” he threatened.
Garin held the skull before him to look it over. His long fingers stroked the cranium and traced along the gold. “Hmm, let me think about that one. The girl for the Skull of Sidon?”
“That’s your choice, buddy.” The man tightened his hold, compressing her carotid artery. “She’s a fine piece of work.”
Annja’s vision blurred. Her fingers loosened around the sword grip and it slipped away. Whether or not the murderer noticed, he didn’t give clue. She clasped her fingers, trying to fit them around a solid hilt.
Strangulation occurred within ten to fifteen seconds. Garin wouldn’t actually…
“You’re not very smart, are you?” Garin tossed the skull and it landed in his palm with a smack. “If you’d had a better grip on your sniper, you’d have had this prize days ago.”
“What sniper?” The man lifted Annja’s body a few inches but loosened his grip somewhat. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, man.”
But Annja did. The sniper who had killed Marcus Cooke. How did Garin know about him?
“I got to him just as he pulled the trigger,” Garin said. “He was going to take out my girl after the first guy.”
Annja’s eyelids fluttered. Garin had been withthe sniper? Had it been because of him the bullet hadn’t gone through her skull? What a swell guy. Seriously. He’d saved her life.
“If she’s your girl, then you’ll be wanting her breathing. Hand it over!”
If her guess was correct, Garin wouldn’t play into this bastard’s hands.
His girl? Yeah—no. Not going there.
“You should have offered to trade for her sword,” Garin said. He turned the skull so the eye sockets faced Annja and her attacker. “That would have got you this thing in an instant.”
“The sword? Where’d it go?”
“Exactly.” Garin held the skull from his outstretched arm. “Too bad. You lose.”
A forceful wave of somethingplunged through Annja’s system. It was as if she’d been hit by a sound wave, yet it physically coursed through her body and pushed her shoulders into the thug’s hard frame.
He released his hold on her neck. She gasped, breathing in deeply.
A gust of wind blew her from her feet. And she didn’t stop moving.
The man behind her cried out hoarsely. The next thing Annja felt was the brunt force of her body slamming into his, as he collided with the stack of lumber behind them.
The hollow clatter of boards pummeled their heads. Annja recalled Garin’s story of the skull killing his enemies. Did he consider her the enemy?
Annja blacked out.
