by Alex Archer
"The pleasure is mine, Eminence," the shaven-headed man said in his exquisitely modulated baritone.
He reached a manicured hand inside the coat of his dark suit and brought forth a manila envelope. This he handed to the prelate.
"The negatives," he said.
****
Vanitas Vanitatum, omnia vanitas, Garin Braden thought. He had seen it all before.
Braden and Sons was one of Europe's most established and respected industrial concerns. The company was second only to arms maker Fabbrica d'Armi Pietro Beretta in age. It had long outlasted such one-time peers as the Fugger and Medici banking empires. One thing had mystified the cognoscenti for centuries. It seemed each Braden son looked unnervingly like the last, and all the others before him.
Garin Braden knew a secret. He knew many. He had grown rich trafficking in secrets long before it became a cliché that knowledge itself constituted wealth.
One of the deepest secrets he knew was that there were no Braden sons. He and his one peer – his deadly rival, former mentor and sometime best friend Roux – had no heirs. Garin Braden remained eternal in many guises.
"With my compliments, Your Eminence," he said.
The cardinal snatched the envelope as greedily as a small boy with a Christmas present. "They're all here?" he asked.
Braden smiled. "Have I given Your Eminence cause to doubt my diligence?"
"No, no. Forgive me, my son. I know you to be most scrupulous."
It might have been hard not to laugh at that, had Garin not had so many years of practice.
Garin had betrayed Jeanne Darc – whom moderns had until recently miscalled d'Arc – to the English. He had been motivated by simple jealousy, born of insecurity. He'd felt his master was devoting too much time and attention to his female protégée, and too little to him. It was intolerable that a brilliant, apt pupil and apprentice should be pushed aside for a teenage schizophrenic with a sanguinary cast of mind.
He had repented it long since, of course. It had been petty. Worse, it had been out of control.
Garin Braden was all about control.
He had forgiven himself. It was mere youthful folly. And he had accepted – even embraced – the consequences.
"And the blackmailer?" de Souza asked.
"He will trouble you no further, Eminence."
The flesh merchant had proved unwilling to see reason. Consequently he had suffered a fatal accident two days before, when his vehicle had overturned on a treacherous back road, breaking his fat, greasy neck. Or at least, so read the official finding.
It would do no good to Cardinal de Souza for his enemies to come into possession of evidence of distasteful acts. Powerful men – and Cardinal de Souza was powerful indeed – had many enemies.
Garin knew all about that, too.
The cardinal clutched the envelope protectively against his undershirt, which was sweat soaked and glued to his matted, graying chest hairs. "I thank you, my son," he said. "You have performed a great service. Not just to me, but to the church."
"My pleasure to serve," Garin said.
He thought it a great pity his old master, Roux, was so sunken in self-righteousness and hence self-pity. Roux hadn't changed much over the years. He was still in the grasp of the same vices as five centuries ago – wine, women, gambling, a tendency toward sloth.
Garin, meanwhile, had explored without compunction the furthest extremes of human behavior, vice and virtue. He had jaded himself with excess – and spent decades in self-denial so total it had excited both envy and suspicion among the Christian Trappists, Sufi dervishes and Tibetan Buddhists in whose monasteries, and more, he had studied and meditated. Garin had seen, and done, it all.
"And the sword, Eminence?" Garin asked.
The balding head nodded gravely. "You served us well in that, too, my son. It was a grave matter you called to our attention."
Garin thought about his youthful betrayal of Roux's protégée. For half a millennium Roux had attempted to make amends. Whereas Roux liked to steep himself in drink and self-pity and rail against the modern world, Braden embraced it with both arms.
But suddenly there was a terrible threat. The loss and breaking of Joan's holy sword had frozen them in time. The rediscovery and reforging of the blade threatened the status quo.
Indeed, Braden had initially feared he would simply age all at once, like the head vampire at the end of a horror film – drying to dust and blowing away. That had not happened. But he woke each morning alert to every pang, and each time he looked in the mirror, scrutinized beard, eyebrows, head for the telltale appearance of a gray hair. The existence of the sword was a threat to his existence. If Roux could not understand that – or worse, was fool enough to welcome the prospect of oblivion as a rest from his endless bouts of guilt and self-recrimination – then so much the worse for him. Garin would do what needed to be done.
He would do whatever was right for Garin Braden.
Just as he had always done.
Cardinal de Souza looked up with a bushy gray eyebrow raised. "If your information is correct?"
"I am likewise scrupulous about my information," Garin said smoothly. "And Your Eminence knows my resources are vast. Would I have troubled your Eminence with a mere fairy story?"
"No. No, of course not. Forgive me." De Souza shook his head and mopped his brow again. His breathing had mostly returned to normal. "It's just that what you told us was so...difficult to credit."
"In this modern world of ours, with its vaunted science and reason," Garin said, "I can see how that would be so."
"Nonetheless it is as well to have certain...spiritual realities recalled to us. Even to princes of the church."
"So you have done me the honor of taking my warning seriously, Eminence."
"Just so. I myself spoke to God's Hound before he left on this mission of his. He goes, you see, to investigate whether something demonic lies behind these apparitions in New Mexico." He shook his head. "His superior, Secretary Cangelosi, insists he actually finds such infernal influences. And dispatches them in a most efficient way."
"God's Hound?" Garin asked.
"It's what we call this Walloon Jesuit. He looks like a hound. He is tenacious as a rabid dog. And can be as ruthless. Domini Cane."
Garin laughed. "He might take umbrage. The term was once used to refer to the bitter rivals of his order, the Dominicans."
"Really? I had no idea. Well, I personally took Father Godin aside and charged him to recover this relic. To think – the sword of St. Joan restored! You are certainly correct. It must be returned at once to the bosom of the church!"
Garin bowed to hide his smile. He found Roux's new project, Annja Creed, to be a thoroughly delightful young woman. She was beautiful, vibrant, resourceful, indomitable. But if she stood between him and his continuing ageless immortality – well, was it not the way of mortals to wither and fall from the vine?
He knew about Father Godin. The former Belgian paratrooper, Congo mercenary, French Foreign Legionnaire had a list of doctorates as long as his arm. He was one of the world's most esteemed counterterrorism experts. Indeed, certain of Garin's companies had at various times hired him to consult on security, although Garin had never met the man. But his great passion and his life's work were to serve as the special secret operative of the church, answering only to the Pope's confidential secretary.
Despite advancing age he was deadly as a krait. And for all his genius-level intellect he had the single-minded tenacity of what Cardinal de Souza blithely named him, and what he resembled – God's Hound.
If any mere mortal could separate Annja Creed from her cursed blade, it was Godin. Garin was counting on that.
"We live in an age of miracles as well as dangers, Eminence."
"Just so, my son, just so."
The cardinal rose and made the sign of benediction over the industrialist, who piously crossed himself in turn.
"May God bless you, Garin Braden."
"
He has, Your Eminence," Garin said with a wholly genuine smile. "Many times."
Chapter 7
Two men pinioned Annja's arms from behind. She had never sensed them coming. She looked back over her shoulder. The man on her right had a head like a Muppet, all blond shag and gap-toothed grin. He wore an oversize Army jacket and smelled sour.
The scruffy man who had originally approached her had shifted to place himself between Annja and the street to screen what was happening from cars passing in the twilight. He smiled at her.
"Don't scream or struggle, honey," he said. "Or we'll have to hurt you."
The man who held her left arm rammed a fist into her kidney. She gasped as pain shocked her system. Her knees buckled.
The men hustled her toward the minivan. They moved around to flank her, making themselves look more like helpers and less like abductors while keeping pressure on her shoulder and elbow joints.
They've done this before, Annja thought. Adrenaline coursed through her veins. The aftershocks of pain made her blink. She forced herself to breathe deeply and focus.
The first man moved around her to open the van's back doors. The rear row of seats had been discarded, leaving an extralarge cargo space. Her two handlers, grunting from the exertion, hoisted her into the van.
"Damn," the man on her left said with a Latino accent. "Bitch is heavy."
"Muscular," the gap-toothed guy said. "Watch her. She might get ideas."
"No way," the first man said, climbing in after them and shutting the doors.
The sunset gloom was replaced by darkness that seemed complete. Annja felt panic fluttering around inside her belly and rib cage like a bird trying to break free. She drew in a deeper abdominal breath.
"She knows she'd better be a good girl. And if you are a good girl, we'll make you feel real good."
Rapists? she wondered. It was the most obvious explanation for this attack. But from the very outset she doubted it was the motive.
The first man was pleasant-looking, if you overlooked the patchy three-day beard and an overlay of grime that she strongly suspected had been applied by hand rather than hard living. He had his hand inside his jacket. When it came out Annja saw a glitter as her eyes adjusted to the last rays of daylight filtering in the front windows of the van.
The grubby hand held a hypodermic syringe. There could be no mistake.
Annja sagged. "There, sweetie," the man said. "This'll sting at first. Then you'll feel fine."
The fear she felt on seeing the needle turned her stomach. It was time to stop pretending to be a victim.
She ripped both arms forward. The two men holding her were caught off guard in spite of their previous discussion. She clapped her hands together on the sides of the bearded man's head as if clashing the cymbals.
He bellowed in surprise and dropped the syringe, reeling back. Annja slammed both her elbows straight back. She felt her left one glance off the Latino's forehead. The shaggy man caught it right in the mouth. She felt teeth break and gouge her elbow through her windbreaker.
She was pretty sure the gap in his teeth had been blacked out. He'd have a gap for real now. He fell back from her, howling.
"Jesus Christ!" the Latino guy shouted. Holding her biceps with his left hand, he let go to do something urgent with his right.
Suspecting what it was, she pulled her knee to her chest. The man who'd held the syringe crouched before her. His eyes were glazed but starting to refocus with purpose – and rage.
Annja kicked him in the sternum with all her strength. The force blasted him backward. He had not fully engaged the door latch. The van doors blew open and he flew out to land hard on the pavement.
Annja was already twisting clockwise. The Latino was bringing a handgun to bear. It was a serious handgun – a Heckler & Koch USP of some kind, big and black. It was expensive hardware for a penniless, panhandling derelict.
Annja recognized the standard equipment for a professional killer.
She caught his right wrist in her left hand, pushed the barrel upward. It went off with a bang that seemed to bulge the thin-gauge metal van walls outward and Annja's eardrums inward. With her eyes stinging from the muzzle-blast Annja squeezed. Hard.
The Latino's dark eyes went wide. His mouth worked. No sound came out.
His wrist bones broke with a crunching sound, like rocks breaking beneath the tires of a heavy truck.
He screamed. With a twist, to make sure raw, splintered ends and loose parts ground against nerves and shocked him into incapacity, Annja flung him bodily against the shaggy man, who now had a bloody beard to go with an authentically vacant black gape of mouth.
She leaped from the van. The man who had first accosted her had struggled to his feet. He had his hands down in his pants. As she sprinted the few steps toward him, Annja did not reckon he was playing with himself.
The hand popped out of his waistband clutching some kind of black autopistol. It was blocky: maybe a Glock, she thought. She crescent-kicked with her right foot, up, across. The inner side of her boot slapped the handgun spinning from his hand. She used the kick's momentum to plant her right foot, pirouette on that leg and deliver a spinning reverse kick to his jaw with the heel of her left foot.
Bone broke with a loud snap. The man's head whipped to the side, trailing blood and saliva. Whether it was his neck that gave or his jaw she didn't much care as she spun through her kick, then took off running for her rented Honda.
She had crested the adrenaline rush and now rode it like a surfer on a wave. Without any fumbling she got her keys from her pocket and into the door. Forcing herself to move deliberately, she unlocked the door, removed the keys, opened the door, slid inside.
Annja was no stranger to danger. She was experienced enough to know that in immediate lethal peril the main predictor of survival is not strength or fitness or even skill at fighting. It's whether or not you keep your head.
Keeping her head had kept Annja alive before.
She looked back. The man who had first braced her lay sprawled face-first on the ground. He didn't seem to be moving.
The Honda kicked to life at the first twist of the key. She had parked at the north end of the ribbon lot. The van was parked to the south, cutting her off from the only exit. Directly behind her was a landscaped strip, dry and sparse as autumn had settled, and then another row of parking places paralleling the street beyond. She could easily back into that row and head to the exit that way. But if the van had anybody in shape to drive, it could just as easily block her exit like a cork in a jar.
She put the Honda in Reverse and backed out, turning to face south. At the same moment the van backed out into the middle of the drive to face her. She rolled her window down quickly and hit the gas.
Engine whining, the Honda shot forward. She couldn't see who drove the van. Whoever it was probably wasn't acting or reacting at top speed. The bigger vehicle made no further motion to block her.
She stuck her left hand out the window, fingers curling as if to grasp, and reached with her mind to a different place. As she veered right to whip past the van through the space it had just vacated, a fantastic broadsword appeared in her left hand. She slashed it forward and down, felt impact. The van's front left tire exploded. Drawing the sword rapidly back, she thrust out again as she passed the rear tire. The weapon bit deep, yanking her arm brutally as the rubber closed around the double-edged blade.
The sword came free. She was past the van. She made the sword return to that pocket universe, or whatever it was, where it dwelt until she summoned it. With both hands on the steering wheel she spun around the end of the divider toward the exit.
The van tried to follow. Its driver had trouble controlling it with two flats on his left side. The van was lurching up the drive when Annja burst out onto University, turned right and raced into the darkness.
She watched her rearview mirror for suspicious headlights as she squealed through another right turn on Lomas, the next major street north. But
she saw no sign of pursuit.
****
"Mind if I join you?"
Annja looked up from her plate of blue corn enchiladas. A man stood by her table, smelling strongly of the piñon smoke outside. He looked to be about her height and trim, so far as she could tell given that he wore a loose brown leather jacket. He had hair buzzed to a pale plush, round wire-rim glasses whose reflection masked his eyes and a well-creased oblong face wrapped around a boyish grin.
It was standing policy of the Shed restaurant, tucked into a little courtyard off the Plaza in Santa Fe, that during crowded times new diners could be seated in unoccupied chairs at otherwise occupied tables. The smiling young female hostess had explained it to Annja when she'd arrived around eleven o'clock, finding her breakfast burned up by a leisurely morning spent visiting museums and window shopping.
The lunch rush had hit about the time she'd placed her order. The place was packed to the vigas, the heavy dark wood beams exposed from the ceiling. She saw no other place nearby the man might sit.
Something about him immediately intrigued her. She wasn't long on company these days. Or any day.
"Certainly," she said, smiling.
"Thank you," the man said. "You are most kind." He had an accent that fascinated Annja. It sounded partly French, but with a certain guttural undertone she could only think of as Germanic.
I could do worse for a mandatory lunch partner, she thought. Though once he settled himself and began unzipping his jacket she saw that his hair wasn't blond but silvery-gray; he was older than he looked at first glance. Still, he was obviously in excellent shape and politely well-spoken. And I'm as big a sucker for a man with an accent as the next girl, she thought.
"I'm Annja," she said.
"Robert Godin," he said.
Smiling, he reached across the table. As he did his jacket fell open. Beneath it he wore a black shirt with a white clerical collar. Annja tried not to stare. It had been years since she had seen a dog collar worn outside a church.
"Father Robert Godin, Society of Jesus. I'm a Jesuit."
