Blood Cursed

by Alex Archer

  Not wanting to risk reaching for her gun and taking a bullet, Annja complied, raising her hands slowly. He moved the gun across her temple and to the back of her head, and gave her a shove to walk toward the house.

  She sneezed, and hoped the sound would carry.

  Chapter 9

  Garin saw the shadowed figure stalk toward the back of the property. Leaning across the shift, he palmed the Heckler & Koch he’d stashed in the glove compartment. With the growing darkness as cover, he made way across the gravel road and down to the house, using the high hedgerows to conceal his approach.

  Annja’s signal sneeze had told him she’d been discovered. Already he heard shouts inside the house. He rushed the front door, shooting at the doorknob as he did. A bullet pierced the doorplate and, when he arrived, one kick pushed the door in.

  Half a dozen shocked faces turned toward him—but not a single one belonged to Bracks. Damn it, where was that shifty Brit?

  Annja took advantage of the element of surprise to kick away the man who’d been holding her wrists behind her back. She returned with a roundhouse kick to his jaw, the force of her strength and the hard boot toe dropping him flat. He lay on the floor, unconscious.

  Garin fired at a man who aimed a pistol at him. Cartilage and blood split out from the man’s knee. Another shot to the man’s bicep injured his weapon arm. The semiauto went flying.

  The rest of the team rallied, grabbing weapons and shouting to kill him.

  The one man he had most hoped to see wasn’t here. Could Bracks be in another room, or had he already escaped? But how and where? They had sat watching the place for over an hour. And he’d followed the car since Chrastava. Had Bracks slipped out before or after he’d begun to tail them? This made no sense. He didn’t want to take the time to go through his former freelancers one by one to get to the core of the problem, but right now, the low men on the rack were forcing him to keep Annja safe.

  The sound of a sword cutting through air filled the room. Annja’s battle sword sliced a clean line through one of the thug’s thighs. He yelped, going down, gripping the wound. Garin did love it when she wielded Joan’s sword. It was an extension of her body and mind. A beautiful thing to watch.

  If there weren’t a pistol aimed at him. Shifting his own aim to the left, Garin fired. When he heard the opposition’s weapon report first, he instinctually ducked. Plaster from the wall behind him spattered the back of his head.

  “That one is the brains,” Annja said, nodding toward the skinny man in a red vest who was reloading a rifle. “Please try to control yourself and keep him alive.”

  “The rest fall,” Garin announced, ignoring her protest. He took no pleasure in killing men, but unlike Annja felt no angst in defending his own hide.

  Two men were down and wounded. Annja dropped a third and the fourth, but didn’t kill them. That bothered Garin. They would prove messy if he allowed them to live. But he wouldn’t put a bullet in their brain with Annja watching him. The woman had morals, and he couldn’t argue with them.

  Because she’d just argue back.

  The skinny guy, whose magazine had jammed and he couldn’t get it placed, was down on his knees, pleading for them to spare him. Garin backed him into a corner.

  Annja’s blade swept before Skinny, the tip of it cutting into a framed needlepoint pronouncing Home Sweet Home hanging on the wall and blockading him with the deadly weapon at his neck.

  “Where’s Bracks?” Garin growled. “He was here.”

  “He wasn’t! He got out before we got here. Told us to go ahead without him. The pickup is—” His eyes went wide, darting back and forth between Garin and Annja.

  “Pickup?” Annja prompted. She kept an eye on the room behind Garin, where the others lay moaning.

  Garin followed Skinny’s gaze along the wall and to the floor where a white plastic cooler sat. “What’s in there?”

  Skinny shrugged. “Not supposed to look. It’s sealed. To open it will break the seal and damage the contents.” He patted his shirt pocket. “I was doing as I was told. I don’t know Mr. Bracks other than for this job, I swear. I never meet the bosses.”

  Wise business practice, as far as Garin was concerned. Since the punk had just double-crossed one of them. Him.

  “When and where is the pickup?” he asked.

  “Outside, across the sunflower field. Soon. Don’t kill me.”

  “Did I kill any of your colleagues?” Garin asked angrily.

  “Uh, I think you took out Schweps. And the woman is scaring me. Where’d she get that sword?”

  “You don’t like a girl with a sword?” Garin said. “Come on. Who doesn’t like a girl with a sword?”

  Annja pulled the blade out of the embroidered wall hanging and with a sweep of her hand sent it off into the otherwhere. That continued to baffle Garin. When she needed the sword she could call it to hand. And when she didn’t? It just disappeared when she released it. That was more incredible than his longevity. He didn’t like not knowing the answers to things. He wanted to know what made the sword tick, and if, when it had been joined together from scattered pieces years ago and Annja had claimed it, it had somehow altered the length of his life. Until that point, ever since Joan of Arc’s death by fire, he’d felt...immortal.

  He could still take a bullet and survive, but did he have a shelf life now? He and Roux were both tied to that sword, for good or for ill, because they had been there when the soldier had broken it into pieces while Joan burned at the stake. That sense of immortality wasn’t a gift Garin was willing to give up. Neither was he willing to let Annja hold some kind of power over him simply because she held the sword, now whole again.

  The only way he’d ever understand would be to get his hands on the sword—and break it again. Restoring it to the form it had been in when he’d felt certain he’d live forever.

  They heard the sudden juddering pulse of a helicopter above the cottage.

  Annja lunged for the plastic cooler.

  “Don’t open it!” Garin shouted. He had no clue what was in there, but what he’d seen the other night gave him a clue. Sealed? That meant the contents had an expiration date or were volatile.

  Searching Skinny, he pulled a small piece of paper out of the man’s front pocket. A business card with an address. “Grab the cooler, Annja. Let’s get out of here.”

  He shot Skinny in the ankle, putting him down in a dead faint. Stepping over the fallen, Garin followed Annja outside and toward the sunflower field.

  * * *

  “WHERE ARE WE going?” Annja asked as they ran out the back door. Twilight dropped a gray cloak over everything but she could still see well enough.

  Garin took the cooler from her, which was fine. It weighed about twenty pounds―not overly heavy, but she liked to keep her arms free in case anyone followed them.

  She twisted a look back toward the house. Everyone inside was out cold. She appreciated when Garin used restraint.

  “To see where this all leads,” he replied. “I’m hoping it’s to Bracks.”

  They entered the sunflower field, the heavy yellow heads hitting them in the faces. Moving into the lead, Annja took out her sword and used it as a machete. She heard Garin’s approving growl from behind. They passed through half an acre before arriving at an open dirt field.

  About five hundred yards beyond them, a helicopter landed on the rough-plowed dirt. There were no business logos or identifying marks on the drab olive green exterior, not even a registration number. Private, and from the rust lacing around the rivets at the metal seams it didn’t look as if it could carry anyone more than a dozen miles.

  Garin waved to the pilot as if he knew him. The pilot returned the wave and made a circling signal with his forefinger. Not much time. Hurry it up.

  Ever curious, and not about t
o let Garin leave with whatever was in the cooler, Annja said, “Let’s do this.”

  “This is not an us adventure, Annja.”

  She saw his fist plow toward her and blocked it with her forearm.

  “I’m going,” she protested, and twisted at the waist, bringing up her foot to kick his thigh.

  The man returned an uppercut and skimmed her jaw. Before she could straighten and prepare for the next blow, the man’s iron fist found her gut. She doubled, expelling her breath in a painful clench of abdomen muscles.

  “Sorry, Annja, stick to skeletons. This is my battle. The spoils are mine.”

  Lifting her by the hair, Garin then punched her in the jaw, knocking her out. She didn’t feel the ground catch her body as she collapsed.

  * * *

  TREKKING ACROSS THE field, Garin knew Annja would be okay to leave behind. Even if the men in the cottage rallied and went looking for them, they’d have to deal with a warrior armed with a sword who was pissed off at being cut out of the deal by him. He chuckled to think of the fight those idiots had waiting for them.

  He hadn’t a clue who the pilot was, or what was going on, but sometimes the best way to get anywhere was to blend in and act like you’re a professional. That ingenuity had gotten him into and out of more than a few perilous situations.

  Garin climbed into the helicopter and buckled in. The pilot, wearing eye goggles and a headset, turned and gave him the thumbs-up. “We’ll land in Berlin in forty-five minutes. Buckle in!”

  “Roger that.” Berlin. Taking him back home?

  “Wasn’t there another?” the pilot asked. “I only have orders to pick up one, but I thought I saw—”

  “Staying behind,” Garin summoned quickly. “Let’s head out!”

  Apparently the pilot didn’t know the identity of the passenger he was to pick up. Good for Garin. Between his feet sat the white cooler.

  For the first time, dread trickled down Garin’s neck, and that was a rare and ugly feeling. If all suspicions were correct, he didn’t want to look in the cooler.

  They lifted off the ground, and soared into the gray sky, high above the pinpoint lights from the small town of Chrastava below.

  Should have left Annja the keys to the SUV, he thought. Oh, well. She was an industrious woman. She’d find a ride back to town somehow.

  * * *

  THE FLIGHT BACK to London was quiet, the plane dark and the few other passengers all reading quietly on their electronic devices or snoring. Weston Bracks closed his eyes but didn’t find sleep.

  He expected Braden to pursue him, to come back at him with something bigger and better than the shipping heist. He had almost snagged a nice load of artifacts with that one. Braden’s security had been lax, easy enough to slip in a spy. Though he’d have to write him off as a loss. Surely, Braden had tortured the man to find out who was behind the theft.

  The almost-theft, that is. Damned Syrian authorities had charged in at the last moment and overtaken the ship. Thankfully, Bracks’s men had been well trained. They’d shot the captain and, wearing SEAL wet gear, had deployed into the ocean. They’d rendezvoused with a pickup five leagues north.

  A loss, but so long as Braden hadn’t gotten the goods Bracks was going to tally that one in the win column.

  But what an interesting surprise to take care of business with the immensely fascinating Annja Creed and to have Braden walk in on that. And it seemed Braden and Creed knew each other.

  How to figure that one? Was she working for him? Yet he’d thought the job in Chrastava had been completely unrelated to anything Braden was doing. One of their employees must be moonlighting with the other. And Bracks pinpointed Canov. He was the only one in the Czech Republic he’d dealt with lately. Could he also be on Braden’s payroll? Possible, always possible.

  The fun had only just begun in Chrastava. He couldn’t pull out now. And to sit back and see how Creed and Braden worked together would prove fascinating. Was she someone Bracks could ultimately use against Braden?

  “We shall see.”

  * * *

  PICKING A FEW stray sunflower seeds out of her hair, Annja trudged back to the SUV by way of the red-brick cottage. The place was empty, the car they had originally followed gone. She peered in the windows, but didn’t see any bodies, which gave her some solace.

  She rubbed her jaw where Garin’s fist had landed solidly. That was going to leave a bruise. The bastard. She had no clue where the helicopter had been headed, so she now stood at a dead end. And she’d tried Garin’s cell number. Of course, he wasn’t answering.

  As she neared the SUV, she felt thankful the tires hadn’t been slashed, or the car trashed. But though the doors were unlocked, the keys were not inside. They were probably in Garin’s pocket eight thousand feet above the ground right now. They had driven a good ten miles out of Liberec. She didn’t look forward to the walk back.

  Climbing through to the backseat, she folded down one side to get into the trunk. Shuffling around in the trunk, she lifted the floor mat and found an emergency kit. Inside she found a flat-head screwdriver, exactly what she needed.

  Sliding onto the driver’s seat, and pressing a foot to either side of the steering wheel on the dashboard for torque, she forced the ignition lock out and inserted the screwdriver in the slot beneath. The engine revved.

  “Nice. Thanks, Bart.”

  Her good friend and confidant, NYPD detective Bart McGilly, had once explained how to start a car without a key. Just in case she ever needed the skill. She did love his willingness to corrupt her with all his secret police knowledge. She looked at the damage she’d done to the ignition. Good thing this vehicle was registered under Garin’s name and not hers.

  The SUV had half a tank of gas. The day wouldn’t end entirely on a bad note, after all.

  * * *

  WHEN GARIN TOOK in the landing strip below he realized they would touch down at an actual airport, or something very close. It was small, and there were only a handful of buildings nearby, but it was marked with landing lights, designating it a landing strip.

  When the helicopter landed, he unstrapped himself and opened the door. As he stepped out from the cabin and cleared the blades, he sighted a white limo driving down the landing strip. The night had grown long and the moon sat low behind high trees to the west. Had to be close to a town or city, but he couldn’t see any smoke or air pollution that would clue him to a direction. He’d been unable to get service on his cell phone in the helicopter to track by GPS, so he pulled out the phone now.

  His instincts told him, Get out now. Yet he walked forward, his long, sure strides moving him toward the limo with its tinted windows. Behind him, the helicopter hadn’t lifted off. Waiting for a return ride home? It would probably need to refuel.

  Fingers crossed that whoever was in the limo didn’t know who he was expecting to pick up, Garin heaved out a breath.

  A man got out of the limo, slim and dark, nondescript. He waved him toward him impatiently. “Hurry, the plane is ready to taxi!”

  A plane?

  “A dropoff point,” Garin muttered.

  This had just been the first stop. That little mail plane sitting outside the airport had to be his next ride. The plane didn’t look like it could carry a pilot and a passenger, let alone mail.

  He slid into the backseat of the limo. The car wheeled around and less than a minute later had delivered them. An elaborate escort, considering he could have walked down the runway to the plane. If anyone were going to overdo the power play, leave it to Bracks.

  Garin tucked himself into the back of the plane. Alone with the cooler. He wasn’t going to look inside. He should look. What was keeping him from looking? If he was going to be informed, and fight Bracks with as much power as he had, he needed to look. Especially since the cooler might be forcib
ly taken from him at any point, given that he had no idea who was controlling this journey he was blindly taking.

  Sliding a hand over the rough plastic cover, he determined with a lift of the handle that the lid wasn’t vacuum sealed. He wouldn’t be able to see anything in the darkness of the plane. Relieved, he was able to put off opening the thing. He could at least wait until he had more privacy. If that was meant to be.

  * * *

  THE PILOT HAD told him he’d have to sit in the back because the passenger seat was filled with packages spilling out of a box. Garin assumed this wasn’t an official mail plane, and probably everything inside was illegal.

  The back wasn’t officially the back, either. It was right behind the pilot’s and passenger’s seats, and was three-quarters stuffed with mailbags and plastic shipping containers. There was no seat. Garin sat wedged into a space on the floor where a seat might normally have been positioned, and was thankful a seat belt was available. The whine of the engine did not bode well for this trip. Neither did the odor of gas.

  He’d been in smaller aircraft and had flown in an open cockpit biplane fighter in World War I. He could handle a puddle jumper like this for a few hours.

  His right elbow resting on the cooler because a mailbag was suspended from a bright orange netting overhead, he eyed the pilot from behind. The guy hadn’t given him more than a nod of his head and directions to buckle up in the back. He was clearly just the transport pilot. Nothing more, nothing less.

  Their destination was Gatwick, it turned out, thirty miles outside London. The flight would take a little less than three hours, so he hunkered down to catch a few winks while he could. He would probably sleep through any turbulence. He could sleep through an invasion, as he’d proved a few centuries earlier.

  Funny thing about him and Roux. They’d walked through the ages together, reluctant companions who kept their distance. The other had once been his master, teaching him the ways of the soldier and martial arts skills. He’d at times been a father figure, a stern and demanding father, and at other times had been a brother soldier in arms. But they both knew they were in it—life—for themselves.