Destiny

by Alex Archer

  “Miss Creed,” one of them said in flawless English, “you must come with us.” He reached for her.

  Annja struck at the man with her baton. The other man shifted then, revealing what he hid beneath his robe. The short blade caught the light as it came up to intercept the baton.

  Metal shrieked against metal.

  Annja disengaged at once, stepping back to give herself more room. Glancing at the coffee shop’s rear entrance, she saw that two more black-robed men were entering there. Outside the big windows that lined the side wall, four more black-robed men stood waiting.

  Things did not look good. Annja hadn’t been this outnumbered in a long time. Well, yesterday seemed like a long time ago.

  She tightened her grip on her baton and looked at Lesauvage.

  The man sat at the table cradling his hand. He grinned at her. “They’re not after me.”

  The black-robed warriors closed in on her.

  GARIN BRADEN WAITED in the black Mercedes while Avery Moreau dashed inside the bookstore to find out if the woman was still there.

  After arriving in Lozère, Garin had experienced no trouble in picking up Annja Creed’s trail. Within an hour, a private-investigations firm he owned had located the bed-and-breakfast where she was staying. Over the years, he’d found the investment in the detective agency had helped with a number of things, including blackmail and corporate espionage.

  Camille Lambert had been glad to help Annja Creed’s television producer find her. Apparently the old woman was quite taken with her guest.

  She’d also given Avery Moreau’s phone number to Garin and suggested hiring him to help track down the woman.

  They’d already been to the museum and the library, two places the young man said the woman liked to haunt while she was in town. Now they were at Roland’s Bookstore.

  The cold air-conditioning cycled around Garin. A German industrial metal group played on the stereo, filling the big luxury car with sound.

  He wondered what Roux was up to. If all the pieces of the sword were truly gathered, why had nothing changed?

  The only conjecture Garin had come up with was that the woman was important to everything they were dealing with. After all, she was the one who had fallen into the bowels of the mountain and discovered the last piece of the sword.

  Roux liked to look for hidden meanings and allegories and secrets. When serving as the old man’s apprentice, Garin had discovered that not everything was filled with plots and portents. Sometimes things were as simple as they looked.

  Like the fact that the woman was somehow mixed up with the sword.

  Garin knew that Roux would take forever to get around to that line of logic. Roux’s ego wouldn’t let him arrive at that conclusion. Presumably, they both had forever to wait, but Garin didn’t like waiting. Even after five hundred years, he was impatient.

  If the sword—if Joan’s sword, he corrected himself—was going to be a threat to him, he wanted to know now.

  The young man ran back out of the bookstore.

  Garin rolled the electric window down with a button.

  “She’s not inside,” Avery said. “Roland said he thought she went over to the coffee shop.” He pointed—and froze.

  Following the direction of the boy’s arm, Garin looked. He saw the men dressed in black robes surrounding the coffee shop and guessed at once that this wasn’t a normal occurrence. Through the windows, he spotted Annja Creed backing away from the men closing in on her.

  Without a word, Garin dropped the transmission into reverse. The powerful engine roared. Whipping the steering wheel and throwing an arm over the seat as he stared backward, he backed the Mercedes around in a tire-eating ninety-degree turn. He narrowly missed a farm truck and two small cars in the other lanes. Horns blared and angry voices followed him.

  He reached under his jacket for the S&W .500 Magnum and backed into the coffee shop’s parking lot, slamming into three of the black-robed warriors and sending them flying.

  13

  The chaos in the parking lot drew the attention of everyone inside the coffee shop.

  Annja stared in disbelief as three men skidded across the concrete. One of them slammed into a parked car, setting off the alarm, and crumpled into a heap. Another slid under a car that had been backing out. The third man lay under the heavy luxury car.

  A fourth man stayed on his feet. He pulled a semiautomatic pistol from somewhere inside his robe.

  A huge man with the blackest hair Annja had ever seen—black as sin, she’d heard someone describe a color like that—pushed out on the driver’s side. Dressed in black, from his gloves to his long coat to his wraparound sunglasses, he looked like the specter of death in a medieval painting. He held what looked like, and in the next split second, sounded like a small cannon.

  The man pointed the pistol at the black-robed man without even looking in his direction and pulled the trigger. The muzzle-flash ballooned from the barrel.

  The black-robed man jerked backward, fell and lay still. His pistol skittered across the pavement.

  Calmly the big man aimed the pistol at the coffee-shop windows. Everyone inside the shop hit the floor amid curses and cries for help.

  Even Corvin Lesauvage was on the floor.

  Guess this guy doesn’t work for him, Annja thought. She crouched near one of the tables, but knew she couldn’t stay there. The black-robed men at either entrance were duck-walking toward her.

  The big man outside shot the large plate-glass window twice. The glass fell in sheets and shattered into thousands of pieces against the floor.

  “Annja Creed!” he yelled in a deep voice. He spoke in English. “I’ve come to help you!”

  Annja backed away from the nearest black-robed man. She stared at the livid tattoo on his neck. Without warning, he lunged at her.

  She dodged back, falling to her left hand and sweeping the baton back with her right. The metal end caught her opponent along his jaw and broke his forward movement. She thought she broke his jaw, as well.

  Then the man behind him pulled a pistol from his robe and aimed at her. “Come with us,” the man demanded in accented English, “or I will kill you.”

  Annja believed him.

  Before she could reply, before she could even figure out how she was going to react, the black-robed man’s head emptied in a crimson rush and he pirouetted sideways. Then the massive boom of the big man’s pistol filled the coffee shop again.

  The lesser of two evils, Annja decided. These guys have promised to kill you, and getting kidnapped by them doesn’t seem too appealing.

  She pushed to her feet and ran for the broken window. The backpack’s weight with the computer slowed her a little, but she gained a tabletop in one lithe leap. Shadows moved around her as she leaped through the broken window and cleared the hedges before the parking lot.

  The big man took aim again.

  For a moment, Annja feared she’d made the wrong choice. But when he fired, she wasn’t the target.

  “The door’s unlocked,” he said conversationally, as if he wasn’t killing people and was only out for a walk. He broke open the massive handgun and spilled empty brass onto the ground with audible tinkling. Taking a speed-loader from his pocket, he refilled the cylinder and snapped the weapon closed.

  Annja’s hand found the car’s door latch. She opened the door and clambered into the plush leather seat. Bullets hit the window as she tried to close the door, causing it to shiver under the impacts. She expected to feel shredded glass and metal tear through her.

  That didn’t happen.

  When she looked back at the window, all she saw were faint hairline cracks.

  “Bulletproof glass,” the stranger said as he dropped into the driver’s seat. He grinned at her and she saw her reflection in the black lenses of his wraparound sunglasses. “I never go anywhere without it.”

  Several other bullets caromed from the car without doing any appreciable damage.

  The big man grin
ned at the men running out of the coffee shop toward them. “Idiots.”

  “They could shoot out the tires,” Annja pointed out.

  “Let them try,” he growled. “They’re run-flats. They would have to blow them off the car to get them to fail.”

  “If we wait, maybe they’ll roll in a tank,” Annja said, only half-joking.

  He smiled at her. “You’ve got a sense of humor. I like that.” Then he put the car into gear, shoved his foot down on the accelerator and sent them screaming out onto the street.

  TWELVE ANXIOUS MINUTES later, with no sign of pursuit visible through the rear window, Annja turned to the driver. “Who are you?”

  “Garin,” he said, offering a hand. The pistol was tucked between his legs. “Garin Braden. At your service.”

  Caught off guard, Annja took his hand. Before she knew what he was doing, he folded her fingers inward and kissed the back of her hand.

  “Enchanté,” he said, then released her hand.

  “Me, too,” Annja whispered. She didn’t know how to react. “Do you always go around rescuing people from—” she didn’t know what to call the black-robed men “—other strange people who want to abduct or kill them for unknown reasons?”

  “Not always.” Garin drove confidently.

  “How did you happen to be there?” she asked.

  “Actually, I was looking for you.”

  Annja took a fresh grip on her baton. If Garin noticed he obviously didn’t feel threatened. “Why?”

  “Aren’t you glad I was?”

  “For the moment,” she said.

  He laughed then, and the noise was filled with savage glee. “I have no reason to wish you harm, Annja Creed.”

  “Then what do you wish?”

  Looking at her, he asked, “Would you like to get back the charm Roux took from you?”

  “Yes,” she answered without hesitation.

  “Then we’ll go get it.” Garin paused. “If that’s what you want to do.”

  Annja considered her options briefly. She didn’t want to remain in Lozère with Lesauvage and the black-robed warriors hunting her.

  Getting to the airport and getting out of the country was out of the question. Inspector Richelieu probably had a warrant out for her arrest by now.

  Leaving without understanding at least part of the reasons why everything was happening also didn’t appeal to her.

  “Well?” Garin asked.

  “All right. Where are the old man and my charm?”

  “In Paris. That’s where he’s lived practically forever.” Garin kept his foot heavy on the accelerator.

  THREE HOURS LATER they stopped for fuel at a truck stop.

  Annja tried to open the door but it remained locked. When she looked for the door release, she saw that it had been removed. Feeling a little uneasy, she turned to Garin.

  Without a word he pressed the release switch and the lock sprang free. He got out of the car with a lithe movement for such a tall man.

  Outside the car, Annja looked around. Dozens of cars and trucks filled the service area. People milled about, making selections and chatting briefly. Most of them complained about the high price of fuel or confirmed directions to their destinations.

  If she ran, Annja doubted Garin could stop her.

  “They have a restaurant,” Garin said as he opened the gas tank and shoved the nozzle inside. “If you’re hungry.”

  Annja realized she was famished. She’d skipped the breakfast table Camille Lambert had laid out, then worked through lunch in Lozère searching for books.

  For the first time she realized that most of her possessions, including most of her cash, was at the bed-and-breakfast. Using her credit cards meant leaving an electronic trail. She was sure it wasn’t safe to do that.

  “I’m hungry,” Annja admitted. “Though I have to tell you, if you intend to walk away from the check on me, I’m coming after you.”

  “What?” Garin appeared confused.

  “Nothing.” Annja waved the question away. “How do you know the old man?”

  “Roux?”

  “Yes.”

  Garin shrugged as he settled back against the Mercedes and watched the digital readout on the gas pump flicker. “I knew him a long time ago.”

  “You don’t look that old.” Annja thought maybe he was in his early thirties.

  “I’m older than I look. So is Roux.”

  Annja let the statement pass without comment. “Why did Roux take the charm?”

  “He thought it belonged to something else he’s been looking for.”

  The gas pump sounded as it shut off.

  “Does it?” Annja asked.

  Garin removed the nozzle from the gas tank. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “What was he looking for?”

  “You’ll have to see.” Garin hung up the hose and tossed her the keys. “Pull the car around to the restaurant side. I’ll pay for the gas and join you there.”

  Keys in hand, Annja watched him walk away. There was nothing keeping her from taking the car and going. She had a full tank of gas. Paris was two and a half hours away. She could go to Paris and board a plane for New York.

  If there’s not a warrant out for your arrest, she told herself.

  She didn’t like the idea of running, though. And there was the matter of the charm and the black-robed men to consider. The book she’d found at Roland’s had been quite helpful. She’d read most of it over the past three hours.

  But it had also deepened the mystery. She knew what the Brotherhood of the Silent Rain had been, but not what had destroyed it.

  Or driven it underground, she thought, remembering the tattoos at the throats of the black-garbed men.

  In the end, she slid behind the wheel and started the engine. She drove to the parking lot by the restaurant and parked.

  Garin Braden had never once turned around to check to see if she’d driven off. His confidence was almost insulting.

  AFTER HE PAID for the fuel with cash, because he didn’t want to be traced in case someone in Lozère had managed to identify the car, Garin purchased a phone card and retreated to the bank of pay phones in the back.

  He consulted his PDA and retrieved the phone number he was looking for. Then he dialed.

  The phone rang twice and was picked up by a man with a British accent. “Lord Roux’s residence.”

  The announcement caught Garin by surprise. He hadn’t talked to Roux in years before last night. “Lord Roux, is it? When did the old bastard get titled?” he asked.

  “Excuse me?” The man at the other end of the connection sounded offended.

  “Let me talk to Roux,” Garin demanded.

  “Lord Roux is not—”

  “He’ll talk to me,” Garin growled. “Tell him Garin is on the line.”

  “Garin,” the voice repeated. The way he said it told Garin that he had at least been briefed on the importance of the name if not why it was important. “Hold on, please.”

  Glancing up at the clock over the exit doors, Garin knew he didn’t have long before the woman started getting suspicious about the length of time he’d been gone. Annja Creed was very alert, very much aware of things that were going on around her. She was no one’s fool.

  More than that, she was a beautiful woman. During the three-hour trip, while she’d evaded most of his attempts at conversation and kept her nose in her book, he’d wondered what she would be like in bed. Those thoughts had made the past three hours even more grueling because he didn’t feel safe acting on impulses he normally didn’t restrain. For the first time in a long time, Garin felt nervous.

  “Garin,” Roux said.

  “Yes,” Garin replied. He sighed, angry with all the troubling notions spinning around in his head. Here was the source of all his discontent.

  “How did you get this number?”

  “You gave it to me last night,” Garin said because he’d always hated the old man’s pomposity.

  “I did no
t. Last night—”

  “You were drunk,” Garin interrupted.

  “Not that drunk.”

  “We could argue the point.” Garin had put his private detectives to work looking for the number upon his departure from Munich. It hadn’t been easy to find.

  “What do you want?” Roux demanded.

  “Maybe, this time, I have something you want.”

  Roux was silent at the other end of the line. Then he said, “You have the woman.”

  Garin silently cursed. Of course Roux would figure out why he was calling. The man was keenly intelligent. “Yes.”

  “Is she alive?”

  “For now.”

  “Why did you take her?”

  “Because of the sword,” Garin replied.

  “It’s not like you to be curious.”

  “I’m not. I’m scared.”

  Roux laughed. “I thought you had gone out and conquered the world, Garin. You with all your untold millions and women and fine living.”

  “I wouldn’t say you’ve avoided wealth.”

  “No, but I live my life differently than you. I still enjoy taking risks. Throwing the dice and seeing what happens.”

  “I take risks, as well.”

  “Carefully calculated, carefully measured ones.”

  Garin knew it was true. Even the gunplay in Lozère was measured. He’d gone into it feeling supremely confident that he could get the woman. Or at the very least emerge from the encounter relatively unscathed.

  The sword was another matter entirely.

  “You have her with you now?” Roux asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you?”

  “About two and a half hours from you.”

  “Good. Bring her here. I’ll be waiting.”

  The phone clicked dead in Garin’s ear. Trembling with anger and frustration, he cradled the handset. He took a deep breath. For those last few seconds of that phone call, he’d felt like that awkward nine-year-old child Roux had taken in trade for services rendered all those years ago.

  I’m not that child anymore, Garin reminded himself. I’m my own man. A very dangerous man. If my father were to know me now, he would fear me.