Destiny

by Alex Archer

  Henshaw caught the keys effortlessly. He wasn’t surprised by the request. He’d done it before. “Of course, sir. Will there be anything else?”

  “A drink. Cognac, I think. The Napoleon.”

  “A celebration, sir?”

  “Yes. In the study, if you please.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Roux walked through the house, across the marble floor of the great room with its sweeping staircase and private elevator, to his personal study.

  The study was huge, very nearly the largest room in the house. It was two stories tall, filled with shelves of books and artifacts, scrolls and pottery, statues and paintings. Even a sarcophagus, canopic jars and the stuffed and mounted corpse of an American West gunslinger that had been so gaudy he just hadn’t been able to resist acquiring it.

  At the back of the room, Roux took out his key chain and pressed a sequence of buttons on the fob.

  Immediately, the back wall separated into sections and slid back to reveal a huge vault. It was built into the hillside. The only access was through the heavy vault door.

  As Roux pressed more buttons, the vault’s door tumblers clacked and turned. When it finished, the door slid open on great hinges.

  Lights flared on. Shelves held money and gems and bearer’s bonds. Roux didn’t care much for banks. He’d found them greedy and unscrupulous, and entirely too curious about where his wealth had come from.

  He had other such hiding places around the globe. When he’d told the young American woman he was independently wealthy, he hadn’t been lying.

  A sealed case five feet long occupied a pedestal at the back of the vault. He pressed his hand against the handprint scanner. Ten seconds later, the locks clicked open.

  The excitement thrummed within him as he flipped open the lid. He gazed down at the weapon protected within the case.

  The hilt was plain and unadorned. The blade, when it had been whole, had been nearly four feet long. Now it lay in pieces but appeared almost intact.

  Over the years, Roux had scoured the world in search of the fragments. He couldn’t believe how far and wide the pieces had been scattered.

  Or how quickly. After the sword was shattered, they had seemed to disappear overnight.

  Only a small piece, no bigger than a large coin, remained to be found.

  Surprised at the way his fingers trembled, Roux took from his pocket the charm the young American woman had found in the cave. He still wondered about the way she had found it. In all the times he had visited the Cévennes Mountains, he had never known an earthquake to take place.

  Hesitantly, almost reverently, Roux held the charm in his fingers and positioned it the best way to fit with the sword. He dropped it onto the velvet bedding.

  Nothing happened.

  Roux noticed he wasn’t breathing and thought it might be better if he were. He frowned.

  Looking at the piece, he had no doubt that it was the one he’d been seeking. But why wasn’t anything happening?

  “Bollocks,” Roux snarled. “After five-hundred-plus years, something should bloody well happen.”

  Steeling himself, he nudged the missing piece in closer to its mates.

  Still, nothing happened.

  “Oh, bollocks!” Roux roared, unable to restrain himself. He glared at the broken sword and wondered what the hell was wrong.

  “Sir.”

  Turning, Roux stared at Henshaw standing in the study. He held the brandy and a snifter.

  Angrily, Roux stormed out of the vault. He thumbed the remote control and heard the vault hiss shut behind him. A heartbeat later, the wall reassembled.

  “Something wrong?” Henshaw inquired politely.

  “Yes,” Roux growled as he snatched the brandy and snifter from Henshaw’s hands.

  He dropped into the large leather chair behind the ornate mahogany desk and poured a copious amount of brandy into the snifter. Then he drank it like water. It wasn’t the most refined way to enjoy two-hundred-year-old brandy.

  “Will you need anything else, sir?” Henshaw asked.

  “A miracle, obviously,” Roux grumbled. He filled the snifter again.

  “I’m afraid I’m short of miracles, sir.”

  “I know,” Roux stated sourly. “But once, I tell you, the world was fairly littered with them.” He shook his head, thinking of the twisting flames that had consumed the young woman to whom he’d promised fealty. “So many people believed in them. And died because of them.” He sighed. “I was stupid to believe. It’s my own fault. I’m just lucky it hasn’t gotten me killed.”

  10

  The strident ring of Garin Braden’s cell phone woke him from a narcotic-and-sex-induced slumber. It was something he’d almost grown used to. He peeled the arms and legs of two young women off him and reached for the bed’s remote control.

  Fumbling, Garin pressed buttons from memory and caused the bed to swivel around to the nightstand that held his cell phone. Cupping the tiny device in one of his huge, scarred hands, Garin stared blearily at the buttons and hoped for the best.

  “Hello?” He didn’t know who would call him at—he looked at the clock across the room and couldn’t make out the hand placement—at whatever time it was.

  “Are you awake?” the scurrilous voice at the other end of the connection demanded.

  Garin was now. He knew the voice immediately. It belonged to a man he’d hoped would never contact him again.

  Instantly, feeling as if deluged by ice water, the narcotic haze enveloping Garin’s thinking and senses evaporated. He shoved himself up from the bed and looked back at the twisted and intertwined limbs of the women he’d convinced to share his bed last night.

  He stood to his full six feet four inches, shook his long black hair and blinked his magnetic black eyes. He gazed at his reflection in the mirror. A goatee framed his mouth and he knew he looked like his father.

  Scars covered his body from fights he’d had over the years. One of the scars was over his heart and had nearly killed him in Los Angeles. He’d stayed there too long and had almost been staked as a vampire.

  It was amusing to him now, but at the time it caused quite an uproar. He gazed at the women again. At the moment, he couldn’t even recall where he’d met them. The occurrence wasn’t too uncommon.

  “I’m awake,” Garin finally said.

  “You don’t sound awake,” Roux argued.

  Stealthily, Garin crossed the room and checked the elaborate panel that relayed all the information about his security system. Everything was intact. No one had breached the perimeters.

  No one was caught, Garin reminded himself. Even in this age of marvels, nothing was infallible.

  The bedroom was large, filled with electronic entertainment equipment. The pedestal under the bed contained several items for adult entertainment. And a large supply of batteries and lotions.

  “I’m awake,” Garin said again. He slapped a hand against a section of the wall near the bed.

  A panel flipped around and exposed a dozen handguns—revolvers and semiautomatics—and three assault rifles. There was even an assortment of grenades. He picked up a Smith & Wesson revolver and quietly rolled the hammer back with his thumb.

  One of the women turned over on the round bed, and Garin was so startled he nearly shot her through the head.

  “Why are you calling me, Roux?” Garin asked. “The last time we talked, you swore that you’d kill me.”

  “I was angry with you.”

  Garin prowled around the room. If Roux wanted to invade his penthouse, Garin was certain the old man could do it. When they were partners all those years ago, Garin had seen Roux do some amazing things.

  Shortly after that, the friendship was lost. Only a few years passed before the old man swore to kill him. That had been over four hundred years ago.

  “Aren’t you still angry with me?” Garin walked to the brocaded curtains covering the floor-to-ceiling windows that peered out over downtown Munich.

>   It was late. Or early morning. Colorful neon lit up the city. A jet roared through the night, the red-and-white lights blinking slowly.

  “I am,” Roux admitted. “But not enough to kill you. At the moment.”

  Garin stayed behind the curtains. It wouldn’t have been hard to set up with a sniper rifle on one of the other buildings and shoot him.

  “That’s good,” Garin said. “How did you get this number?”

  “I read it in tea leaves.”

  Garin said nothing. He didn’t believe it, but he supposed if that were possible, Roux was the one who could do it. Remaining as calm as he could, he fumbled in the dark for the pants he’d worn earlier, then pulled them on.

  “Are you all right?” Garin asked. It felt strange asking that. On several occasions, some of them not so long ago, he’d hoped the old man would die.

  In fact, he’d even sent two assassination teams after Roux to accomplish that very thing. Garin had never heard again from the mercenaries he’d hired.

  “I’m fine,” Roux said.

  “You’re drinking,” Garin accused.

  “A little.” Roux slurred his words slightly.

  “Not just a little. You’re drunk.”

  “Not drunk enough.” His voice somehow managed to carry the scowl over the phone connection. “I don’t think I’ll ever be drunk enough.”

  Garin paced the room with the pistol in his hand. Talking to Roux was impossible.

  “What’s happened?” Garin asked. He was surprised that he still wanted to know. But then, Roux was the only man in the world who really knew him.

  “I found the sword, Garin. All of it. All the pieces. Every last one of them.”

  “You’re sure?” Garin asked, not wanting to believe it.

  “It’s taken me over five hundred years to find them all.”

  A sinking feeling filled Garin’s stomach. He tried to detect something different in his physical well-being, then felt comfortable that nothing had changed. But that wasn’t true. Something had changed. The sword—her sword—had been found.

  “You found the sword?” Garin sat in one of the overstuffed chairs in front of the floor-to-ceiling window. He edged the curtain open with the pistol barrel.

  “I said I did, didn’t I?”

  “Yes.” Garin didn’t have to ask why Roux had called him with the news. Even though they were enemies these days, there was no one else in the world Roux could tell about the sword. “What happened?”

  Roux paused, then whispered hoarsely, “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  “Something was supposed to happen, right?” Garin asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have we changed?”

  “Nothing happened, Garin. The sword is just lying there. Still in pieces.”

  “Maybe you’ve missed one.”

  “No.”

  Garin stood and walked into the next room where the wet bar was. Chrome-and-glass furniture, looking somehow fragile and dangerous at the same time, filled the room. He put the pistol on the bar and fixed himself a tall drink. Roux’s announcement had taken the edge off his buzz.

  “Maybe the sword can never be put back together,” Garin suggested.

  “I know it can be.”

  Garin didn’t argue with that. He had always been sure of it himself. “You’re missing something,” Garin said.

  “Don’t you think I bloody well know that?” Roux snapped.

  “Yes.” Garin sighed and took a long drink.

  “That’s why I called you.”

  That would be the only reason the old man called, Garin thought. “Tell me what happened.”

  He listened as Roux told him of the discovery of the last piece of the sword.

  “The woman—the American—she was the one who found the last piece of the sword?” Garin asked when he’d finished.

  “It was by accident,” Roux insisted.

  “Roux,” Garin said in exasperation, “the earth opened up for her. Don’t you find something significant about that?”

  “I was there, too.”

  Garin sighed. He’d forgotten about the old man’s ego.

  “Who’s to say the earth didn’t open up for me?” Roux demanded.

  “The sword didn’t fix itself,” Garin pointed out.

  “Maybe it’s not supposed to,” Roux said suddenly. “Maybe I’m supposed to fix it. It’s possible that it simply has to be forged once again.”

  Before Garin could suggest that perhaps being around a forge after drinking as much as Roux had wasn’t a good idea, the old man hung up.

  Garin’s immediate impulse was to call back. He checked the caller ID. It was blocked. He left the phone on the bar.

  He sat and drank. By dawn he’d thought up and discarded a hundred plans. But he knew he really had only two options.

  One involved killing Roux, which would not have been the most intelligent thing he could do, given that the pieces of the sword had all been found and he didn’t know what would happen next.

  The other involved finding the American woman.

  Neither option appealed to him. Both included the possibility that his life would change. At present, he was worth millions, owned companies and parts of corporations and did whatever he pleased.

  He’d come a long way for a German knight’s bastard son who had once been apprenticed to an old man who claimed to be a wizard.

  It had taken all of five hundred years.

  He finished his drink, picked up the gun again and went to take a shower.

  Shortly after dawn, Garin was in his car and flying down the autobahn. He just hoped Roux wasn’t setting a trap. The old man had never seemed to take any of the assassination attempts personally, but a person never truly knew.

  11

  Annja woke feeling refreshed but sore. A quick check of her e-mail and the newsgroups showed that Bart McGilley hadn’t responded but there were twenty-seven hits on alt.archaeology.esoterica.

  Nineteen of them asked for personal information, as if her age, sex and location had anything to do with the charm’s images. Four solicited further information, but Annja didn’t have any and suspected the authors just wanted to open a dialogue. Sometimes it felt as if alt.archaeology.esoterica were a lonely-hearts club for geeks. Two offered to do further research—for a price.

  But Zoodio@stuffyourmomdidnttellyou.net wrote:

  Don’t know about the image of the wolf and mountain, but the other side—the stylized rain—

  Curious, Annja looked at the images of the charm. She hadn’t thought of the die mark as rain. She’d thought of braille at first, but the coin had been too old to use braille. That language for the blind hadn’t even been invented at the time the charm disappeared in La Bête’s cave.

  Looking at it again, she decided it could be rain. She wished she still had the charm itself, and she faulted herself for getting taken in by the old man.

  Annja returned to the Web site posting.

  —the stylized rain—looks like something from one of the monasteries in that area. I’m fairly familiar with the Catholic orders here. Do you know the time period?

  Annja sighed. She hadn’t expected to have all the answers overnight, but it would have been nice. She dashed off a quick reply.

  Zoodio,

  Thanks for the help. No, I’m afraid I don’t know the time period. At least four-hundred-plus years. The disk was worn as a charm. To ward off evil, I think. Kind of fits with the religious motif. If that gives you a clue, please let me know. I’m stumped.

  After a quick shower, she dressed and packed the notebook computer in her research backpack. She decided to take the field pack with her, but doubted she’d get up into the mountains again.

  Then she went downstairs to see if François could give her a lift into town. Otherwise she was in for a long walk.

  “NO, ANNJA, I got the pictures,” Doug Morrell said. “They were great. I just need more.”

  Annja made her way through the dusty
shelves of the old bookstore she’d discovered on her first day in Lozère. When dealing with fairly recent history, it was amazing what finds were often made in old bookstores, pawnshops and at garage sales. If the city, town or village was large enough to support such enterprises.

  People wrote books, journals and papers that were often shuffled around, loaned, borrowed or sold at estate auctions that ended up in those businesses. Colleges and students sold off old books that somehow stayed in circulation for a hundred years or more.

  Over the past decade, though, many of those finds ended up on Amazon.com or eBay. Genealogy centers took up a lot of old documents, as well.

  “There are no more pictures,” Annja said. She ran a forefinger over multicolored spines that were more than four and five times her age.

  Roland’s Bookstore was a treasure trove. She’d already purchased seventeen books and shipped them back to her apartment in Brooklyn. Where she was going to put them in the overflowing mass that she laughingly called her library, she had no clue.

  “There have to be more pictures,” Doug whined.

  “Nope.”

  “If you’re holding out for more money—”

  “That’s not it.”

  Doug was silent for a moment. “You don’t want more money?”

  “More money would be nice,” Annja said, “but it won’t get you more pictures.”

  “You should have taken more pictures.”

  “Did you read my e-mail?”

  “Yes.”

  “The part about how I was chased out of the cave by guys with guns?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I think I did, Annja,” Doug said defensively. “I mean, I remember it now. I was just blown away by these pictures.”

  “I was nearly blown away by the guys.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” Annja turned the corner and went down the next aisle. She usually read books written by religious groups. Amid the doctrine and self-righteousness and finger-pointing, nuggets of history and details about people’s lives resided.