by Rick Yancey
I was slung into the backseat. Vosch’s partner slid in beside me and slammed the door. The driver, a big guy with slits for eyes and a crooked nose, glanced at me in the rearview mirror.
“Bonjour, Monsieur Kropp,” he murmured.
I could see Vosch talking to the cop, who had put away his gun, which I interpreted as a sign that he was buying Vosch’s story. Vosch was showing him some papers, probably a phony warrant for my arrest.
“At least tell me why you guys want to kill me so bad,” I said.
They laughed.
Vosch walked back to the car and got in beside the driver. We roared straight back a few yards, spun around and then proceeded the wrong way to the next exit. I could see cars jamming all three lanes; the interstate was backed up for miles.
We exited onto Kingston Pike and headed east, toward downtown. I waited for the killing blow. It was the perfect time: I was handcuffed and helpless, trapped behind dark-tinted glass. They had been trying awfully hard to kill me and this was the perfect opportunity.
The blow didn’t come. As we waited at an intersection for the light to change, I said, “Something’s happened. Where are you taking me?”
Nobody answered. Vosch hit the speed dial on his cell phone. After a few seconds, he said, “He is acquired. Alive, oui. We will be there in ten minutes.” He had lost his Southern accent. Now he sounded French. He closed the phone and slipped it into his breast pocket.
“Whatever you guys want—whatever it is you’re after—I don’t have it,” I blurted out. “I don’t have anything!”
“Be quiet,” Vosch said.
“Just promise me you won’t hurt anyone. Take me, but don’t kill anybody else because of me, okay?”
The guy beside me leaned forward and whispered something to Vosch in French. Vosch nodded, whispered something back. The guy beside me pulled a truncheon from his coat pocket and slammed it against my head.
05:04:10:51
I woke to the sound of a train rumbling nearby. For a few precious seconds, before the memory of what happened in the car came crowding back, I was ten years old again, lying in my bed in Ohio. My mom was in the next room watching TV, and I was drifting off to sleep, listening to the trains pass on the tracks about a half mile from our house. I’ll never say I had a perfect childhood, but there were moments in it that were perfect, and that was one of them.
I heard chairs scraping across a wooden floor. Whispers. A stifled laugh.
Then someone said, “He’s awake.”
Someone else said, “Open your eyes, Alfred Kropp.”
I did, but only because I knew I’d have to eventually.
Propped up in a straight-backed wooden chair with my hands still cuffed behind my back, I was sitting in the middle of a huge room, the ceiling at least two stories above my head, the walls lost in murky shadow. Detecting the distinct odor of coffee, I wondered if they had taken me to the old JFG warehouse at the edge of the Old City.
“Behold, the last in the line of Lancelot!”
The speaker was leaning against the edge of a table a couple of feet in front of me. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Slender. I’d never seen him before, but his face looked vaguely familiar. Like Vosch and his buddies, he spoke with a faint French accent.
“It seems fitting somehow,” he went on. “That you would meet your fate dressed like an old woman!”
“That wasn’t my idea,” I gasped. I had a horrible headache from the knock in the car.
“I am not surprised,” he said. “That would be like drawing water from a dry well.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that but figured he was calling me stupid. I squinted up at his face, at the aristocratic nose and sharp chin. Why did he look so familiar? I dropped my bucket into the well, trying to figure it out.
“If you have any lingering hopes of rescue, I would suggest you abandon them now,” he said. “We’ve taken extraordinary measures to ensure you were not followed.”
We. The shadow of a man hovered near one of the tall, narrow windows. Vosch? Where were the driver and the guy who bopped me on the head? I held my breath and listened.
Someone coughed directly behind me and I thought I heard shoes shuffle on the hardwood to my left. At least four, counting the guy in front of me.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked.
“I could take a stab at it,” I said.
“Stab.”
Age: twenty-two. Citizenry: French. Marital status: single. Occupation: president and chief executive officer of Tintagel International . . .
“You’re Jourdain Garmot.”
He laughed softly like I had said something funny.
“I said it was a stab,” I said.
“I didn’t ask if you knew my name; I asked if you knew who I am.”
“You’re the boss at Tintagel International,” I said. “And you’ve been trying very hard to kill me.”
He nodded slowly. “Which has proved more difficult than I anticipated.”
“You had your chance in the Town Car.”
“I’ve decided to let you live a little while longer.”
“Not that I’m ungrateful or anything, but why?”
He smiled. There was something familiar about that smile, though I couldn’t put a finger on it. And his name. Garmot. Why did that seem familiar too? Gar-mot. GAR-mot.Gar-MOT. What was it?
“A selfish desire on my part,” he answered. “I wanted to meet you—and naturally I wanted you to meet me.”
He walked around to the other side of the table and sat down.
“And that brings us back to my original question, Alfred Kropp. Do you know who I am?”
Garmot. G-A-R-M-O-T.
“I told you what I know,” I said.
His dark eyes glittered in the weak light streaming through the high windows. He nodded to someone behind me and Vosch appeared carrying a black case about the size of a bowling bag. He set it on the table between me and Garmot and melted back into the shadows.
“What’s in that bag?” I asked.
Garmot didn’t answer. Instead he asked very slowly and deliberately, “Who ... am ... I?”
Garmot. Gar-mo. Gar-gar-mot-mot. Mot-mot-gar-gar. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck.
He stood up and now in his right hand he held a black sword. I had seen a sword just like it before. In fact, I owned one just like it. Tightly cuffed, my hands twisted uselessly behind my back as he came toward me, and all I could think was How did he get my sword?
“Perhaps some context would help,” he said.
“That’d be great,” I gasped. “Anything helpful would help.”
“For we are not so different, you and I. We are both— how shall I say it?—reluctant players in a game not of our choosing. A mere two years ago we were living quite normal lives. You here in America and I in France. Both normal students in normal towns going about our normal lives. Until our normal lives were ripped away, yes?”
He leaned against the table, dropping the sword point between his spread legs and spinning it. Light raced up and down its length and sparked off the dragon’s head embossed on the hilt.
Garmot. Gar-Gar. Gra-Gra. Mot-Mot. Mar-Mar. Mart? Marty . . . Marty-Gra . . . ?
“Like you, I resisted,” he said. “I refused to play. I wanted a normal life. And until someone very close to me was murdered, I thought—I had every reason to believe—I would have that life. As did you, I am sure.”
“I still want that,” I said. “That’s all I want.”
“Irrelevant,” Jourdain Garmot said. “We have no choice now but to see the game to its bitter end. Bitter for you, of course, since you will not survive this day. But bitter for me, as well, for killing you will not mend my broken heart or return my beloved friend to me.”
He leaned the sword against the table and picked up the black satchel.
“You have lost many close to you,” he said. “Your father. Your uncle. The knight called Bennacio. But none so close as he who was lost t
o me. He was my mentor, my constant companion, my best friend. When news came of his death, I wept like a young child. He was all I had in the world, and though he was taken from me, I keep him with me, always. Would you like to meet him, the one who was so cruelly stolen from me?”
I wasn’t looking at him. I was looking at the hilt of the black sword. It wasn’t my sword; my sword didn’t have the dragon emblem, but it was a knight’s sword. All the Knights of the Sacred Order carried the black sword.
Dragon. Garmot.
He unsnapped the first clasp.
“I cannot bear for us to be parted, you see ...”
My thoughts started to spin in a panicky whirl.
Gar-Ger, Gera-gar, Gra-mot, Gram-ot, Gra-gri-mot-motger-grot, gram-to, mar-gro, mar-gor, mar-got, mog-art . . .
Mogart . . . !
“It’s a ...” I whispered. “It’s a—I don’t know what it’s called, but I think it’s like ana-something—Garmot for Mogart ...”
“The word you are looking for is ‘anagram,’ ” Jordain said.
He flipped open the second clasp. “And as you say in America ... speak of the devil.”
Then Jourdain Garmot reached into the bag and pulled out a human head. It was the head of the man I killed in Merlin’s Cave. It was Mogart’s head.
“Say hello to my father, Alfred Kropp.”
05:03:48:21
“I didn’t have a choice,” I choked out. My stomach rolled and I looked away from Mogart’s mummified head. The skin had turned a deli mustard yellowish brown, tightening against the shape of the skull beneath. The lips had pulled back, revealing the teeth and giving the illusion of a snarl. The eyes had long since rotted away, leaving two empty black-filled holes. “He was going to kill me—he did kill me ...”
He ignored me. “ ‘The last knight.’ I understand the one called Bennacio tried to take that title for himself, but in reality my father was the last knight—the last to fall as a result of your treachery.”
“My treachery? I don’t think you know the whole story. Nothing against your dad, but he turned on the other knights—”
“Enough.”
“He betrayed them—”
“I said enough!”
He dropped the head back into the satchel, thank God, and slung it onto the table. He pressed the tip of the black sword against my throat. That’s it, I thought. I’m dead. If you’re nutty enough to carry around your father’s mummified head, there’s not much that will keep you from chopping off the head of the guy who killed him.
“The knights are no more, thanks to you,” he cried. “The Sword has departed, thanks to you! My father is dead, again thanks to you! His blood and the blood of all the knights cry to heaven for justice!”
His cheeks were flushed and he was breathing so heavily I could see his nostrils flaring. He nodded to someone behind me.
It was Vosch. He yanked me up and kicked away the chair.
I had a pretty good idea what was going to happen next, and my mouth went dry.
“The knights are departed, their time on earth brought to an end by you, Alfred Kropp,” Jourdain said. “And so, like the knights of old, after I assumed my father’s place, I embarked upon a—what is the word?—a quest. A quest, yes! To finish what was begun. To complete the circle. The last knightly quest ... for the Thirteenth Skull.”
Two men appeared on either side of me, the guy who clubbed me in the car and the big driver. Each grabbed an arm while Vosch stayed behind me, hands on my shoulders.
“Jordain, listen to me,” I said. “I don’t know about any Thirteenth Skull. I don’t know about any skulls, period. All I know is all this crap has to stop somewhere and maybe we could agree it stops now, with me and you.”
Jordain nodded to Vosch, who forced me down to my knees.
“It won’t work, Jordain—why do you think your goons couldn’t kill me before? He won’t let it happen ...”
He was standing over me, the black sword shining in his hand, as I knelt at his feet.
“Who? Who will not let it happen?” he asked. He seemed genuinely puzzled that anyone would care.
I almost didn’t answer. Did I believe it myself? Did I really believe it the way Bennacio and Samuel believed it?
“Michael,” I whispered. “The Archangel.”
He stared down at my upturned face without expression.
“I’m—um—I’m his beloved.”
They burst out laughing, even Mr. Flat-Face, who didn’t strike me as someone with a finely developed sense of humor. Except Jourdain. Jourdain wasn’t laughing.
“Yes, the Angel,” he whispered. “It is almost time for Michael’s return—and the return of the gift. She has promised me and I believe her. The gift shall be given again to the true heir of Camelot, but not before the Thirteenth Skull is borne home.” He nodded to Vosch, who shoved his knee into the middle of my back, forcing me down. My right cheek smacked against the hardwood.
“I don’t understand!” I hollered. Maybe if I kept him talking I could postpone the inevitable. “Who promised you what? What gift? What true heir of Camelot?”
“Au revoir, Alfred Kropp,” Jordain Garmot said. He raised the black sword over his head, gripping the dragon-headed hilt with both hands.
“Saint Michael,” I whispered. “Save me.”
As if in answer, every window in the storehouse exploded inward and wide shafts of bright white light shot into the room.
05:03:42:19
It happened very fast.
Black canisters sailed through the broken windows, vomiting thick white smoke as they fell. My captors screamed at one another in French, except for the word “Kropp,” which I guess is “Kropp” in any language.
In seconds the room was filled with a thick, choking fog; it felt like someone was pressing hot matches against my eyes. I couldn’t see anything but could hear the sharp pop-pop of small-arms fire and the bumping and cursing that always came with people stumbling around in the fog. Someone yanked me to my feet and I instinctively flung my head back to butt him. He blocked my head with one hand and slapped a hood over my face with the other, I guess to protect my eyes from the tear gas.
“I am trying to help you, Miss Alfreda,” a voice purred in my ear.
Nueve.
He whipped me around, only I couldn’t see him through the hood. I heard a loud snap! and the handcuffs fell off my wrists and clattered to the floor. Then he lifted me right off my feet and slung me over his shoulder. The hood fell off my head.
He sprinted to the wall, grabbed a thick black cord hanging there, and pulled it through a harness he wore around his waist. He gave the cord three sharp tugs. The rope pulled taut and we began to rise toward the broken-out window.
I heard Jourdain screech in a voice filled with rage, “Alfred Kropp!” before we were pulled through the window and then straight up. An Apache helicopter was at the other end of the black cord, and soon we were six stories high, swooping over the rooftops of the Old City. Since I was slung facedown over Nueve’s shoulder, I had a real bird’s eye view of downtown Knoxville.
I shouted, “Why don’t they pull us up?”
“Too dangerous!” he shouted back.
Too dangerous?
We soared over downtown, past the First Tennessee Bank building and then Samson Towers, where this whole mess started, a dark monolith of glass and glittering steel; then we were over the river and the boats bobbed four hundred feet below my swaying head, anchored in the murky water. And there was the UT Medical Center and the Army Reserve base on Alcoa Highway, which we seemed to be following as it snaked through the foothills. We were heading toward the airport.
I guessed it was finally safe to pull us up, because the helicopter paused over the highway and we began to rise toward the open hold. I heard sirens below and, peering around Nueve’s torso, saw the spinning red lights of two motorcycle cops as they barreled around a hairpin curve, coming from the city. I slapped him between the shoulder blades and screamed
over the roar of the helicopter: “Cops!”
Nueve spun us around so he could get a look. One of the bikes raced ahead, passing directly below us before disappearing around the next curve. The rider had something long and black, bigger than a rifle or a shotgun, hanging over his shoulder.
“Hey!” I shouted, hoping Nueve would hear me over the roar, but at the same time wondering what it would matter. “I think he’s got a rocket launcher!”
Nueve raised his arm and gave some kind of signal to the pilot. We stopped rising and the chopper took off again, banking to the right, taking us away from the road and over an open field.
The maneuver flung us backward and then into a spin, like a dead yo-yo at the end of its string, and as I spun back in the direction of the highway I saw it: the contrail of a surface-to-air missile rocketing toward the chopper.
My scream was buried in the wuff-wuff-wuff of the blades’ draft. A second later the chopper erupted into a fireball. For an instant, before gravity took hold, we hung in midair, and then we fell.
Fast.
It hadn’t been that long since the last time I fell to earth, except that fall began thirty thousand feet up, not a hundred, and that time I fell with an angel holding me, not an OIPEP agent who didn’t even have the good sense to bring a parachute to an aerial-rescue mission.
I didn’t look down. I just closed my eyes and waited for the end.
Then I hit water.
The chopper had carried us over a dairy farm, and the explosion had hurled us directly above a pond. I hit the muddy water facefirst, swallowing maybe a gallon of it. I broke the surface choking and spitting and coughing, opening my eyes to find myself face-to-face with a milk cow. The cow looked at me, I looked at the cow, and the cow cried chicken first: it bellowed a warning call to its buddies and whirled away, mud and cow crap flying from its hooves as it took off across the pasture. A big glob of the stinking goop landed smack in my eye.
Nueve appeared in the shallows beside me.
