by Alex Archer
A single trickle of blood ran down between them.
He collapsed. The old revolver did not fire.
Annja dropped to her knees. Her lungs burned as she gasped in huge breaths. Her eyes stung with tears, whether from pollution or emotion she could not tell.
Police sirens rose and fell like a chorus of electronic locusts from all around her. There was little chance of a tall, leggy gringa on foot escaping unnoticed from some wretched warren of a Mexican slum. Especially since only God knows how much blood I've got on me, she thought frantically.
She hauled herself up enough to stagger over to sit sideways in the rear driver's-side seat of the cab, with her legs out the now-missing door. It was time to play soft and sheltered American tourist lady much too totally freaked out by an eruption of sudden violence and her own near brush with death to give a coherent account of the proceedings.
It would not be much of a stretch.
Chapter 10
As the Airbus A319 circled to altitude Annja finally felt her muscles unclench. It's really over, she told herself.
The police, as she anticipated, had spun their own story of what happened. It did not include an active role for a delicate middle-class American tourist in the back-alley bloodletting, extreme even by the standards of Mexico City street
violence, that had left half a dozen hardmen dead. They assumed she could have been nothing but a helpless victim in whatever it was that transpired. Therefore she was no suspect.
As a tomboy who'd occasionally managed to cut loose from the orphanage and wander the seamy, steamy byways of predeluge New Orleans, Annja had picked up a bit more than a modicum of street wisdom. Among other things she had perfected a technique she'd used on the sisters themselves. The best alibi was to give the authorities a tale to tell themselves that didn't include you. She'd seen it succeed time and again.
This time the prevailing hypothesis was that one or more gang members had gone amok, resulting in internecine slaughter. The fact that one would-be kidnapper had a bullet hole from his buddy's revolver in his head, while the man with the revolver had another comrade's machete embedded in his, lent great credibility to that scenario.
Of course, drugs were also involved. Annja would not be surprised if toxicology tests on the decedents supported that, too. She'd be surprised if it didn't.
The fact that someone recognized her as a television personality had helped. Considerably. She already knew that the various Knowledge Channel networks were popular in Latin America. Thank goodness for satellite, she thought.
She took a deep breath, forced residual tension to flow out of her with the air. She was bound for Albuquerque. The police had kept her overnight so she could answer further questions, under guard in her hotel room. By morning their theory had evolved enough tha they had lost interest in her. They suggested she leave the country as quickly as possible. She was up for that, even though it meant forgoing her intended trip to the silver town Plateros, near Fresnillos. She reckoned she had learned what she needed to in Mexico.
A male attendant, slim with receding hairline and hands crossed behind his back, passed by and nodded, smiling. She reciprocated. She sat by the window over the right wing of the modest two-engineAirbus. Right behind the starboard emergency exit, it was one of the best seats on the plane, with extra room to stretch her long legs. It was such a good seat she wondered if the police had bumped someone to get it for her.
The captain spoke up over the PA system. "If you look out the starboard windows, folks, you'll see one of Mexico's most spectacular sights – Mount Popocatepetl. MEX traffic control has routed us to pass near it as we climb to altitude. It's only seventy kilometers, or about forty-four miles, from downtown Mexico City. Rising 5,452 meters, or almost 18,000 feet, Popo is, like its legendary companion Ixtaccihuatl, that flat-topped mountain visible a bit to the left and past it, an active volcano. Fortunately, at present neither is acting up much."
Annja turned and pressed her nose to the glass. The sight was breathtaking. Popocatepetl was so dramatic it looked more like a matte painting than anything real. A perfect cone, bare silvery gray rock thrusting into the sky from a base of green whose top indicated the treeline. The Smoking Mountain lived up to its name: a thin gray strand trailed away to the right from its summit. A thrill of delighted apprehension passed through her. Here was a genuine monster. Not like black phantoms flitting through New Mexico dusk...
She sighed again and got out her iPod. She stuffed the earbuds in her ears. She hated them. The right one would never stay put, but they gave good sound and most of all were highly portable. She dialed up a New Age playlist. New Age music drove her crazy in short order if she actually listened to it. But it soothed her wonderfully as a background, especially when it blotted out the incidental environmental sounds of airplane travel.
Laying her head back against the headrest, she slipped quickly into sleep.
****
Driving her rented Honda back to the motel room she'd relocated to on Albuquerque's west side, Annja realized with a start she was skating around the big thing, the elephant in the room – an image that momentarily gave her the giggles.
But that was sheer venting. There was nothing humorous about two attempts to murder her in the space of three days.
She had wondered, sitting in the sterile fluorescent police offices shivering in the air-conditioning and after-action adrenaline crash, why she'd never even tried to talk her way out of the ambush in the alley.
She knew she'd sensed a purpose even darker than kidnapping the instant the cab had turned into an inexplicable alley and stopped.
Perhaps it was because of the attack in the parking lot. Although that may also have been nothing more than a kidnap attempt. But she felt certain, irrationally perhaps, a darker force was behind it than that.
Perhaps it was the presence in those grubby hands of a very clean hypodermic – and equally clean firearms. Obviously, little about that incident had been as it seemed.
You're going into conspiracy-theory mode, the debunking part of her mind sneered. But the thought rang hollow. For two attempts on her life to be made in two different countries, a thousand miles apart, by sheer coincidence was a theory as far-fetched as anything she could imagine. In a purely abstract, hypothetical sense, it could happen. But had it?
Stopped at a red light waiting to turn north up the entrance to I-25, she rolled down the window. She hoped the night wind blowing in her face would sharpen her thoughts.
Why would anybody want to kill me? Who?
One answer came to mind. Garin Braden. She knew he unabashedly enjoyed the immortality that Roux claimed to regard as a curse. He feared that the reunification of Joan's sword might jeopardize his apparently infinite life as a young, robust, healthy man. He had taken drastic steps to eliminate the sword before.
Garin had professed a liking for her. Frankly Annja found him charming and even likable, as well. But she knew he was willing to do absolutely anything necessary to get his way. He'd tried to claim her sword before.
He certainly had the reach. He was tremendously wealthy and influential, both acknowledgedly and, like an iceberg, she was sure, enormously more so beneath anyone's range of vision. But why now? Why here?
Freeway speed blasted cool air into her face. It helped keep her awake but forced no insights. She shook her head. Maybe Garin wasn't involved. Or maybe his involvement was very indirect. That's certainly his style, she reflected.
Whatever the truth was, she had to assume the attempts against her had some connection to her investigation. And that in itself meant she was on the right track.
****
Sitting cross-legged on the bed in her Motel 6 room Annja almost deleted the e-mail. The subject – Urgent Meeting Requested – tripped her mental spam filter. As did the sender's name, Dr. Raywood Cogswell. A lot of scammers styled themselves "Doctor."
Her virus-protection hadn't detected anything unusual so she clicked on the header to read the message.
He was familiar, naturally, with her work on Chasing History's Monsters. He believed he might have information that could be of use to her.
She sighed and unwound the towel from her hair. It was mostly dry. That was one thing you could say for the high desert, she thought. Things dried quickly. She shook still-cool locks tickling down her T-shirted shoulders and tossed the towel at a chair.
Shut out of her hotel room in Pojoaque, she had shifted operations here. It was just as well. Even on the off chance the Pueblo could be talked out of pulling the plug on their dig, a heavy early snowfall had blanketed the area during her Mexico City jaunt. The dig season was over anyway. And the interesting action, for the moment, seemed to be developing in Albuquerque. Unfortunately, more centrally located rooms were unavailable with the balloon fiesta in progress.
Annja leaned over to the bedside table and picked up a hair brush. As she began to brush out her tresses she thought about where she was and what she was doing.
Someone or something had drawn her to this place. Maybe it was the sword itself. She couldn't be sure. She didn't like to think about what the sword's existence implied.
Her mentor, Roux, was half-cynical, half-devout, half-mad and a few halves beyond that. He had found her when she found the last remnant of the sword – the last piece for which he himself had been searching ever since Joan herself had been taken and executed, her sword destroyed. If he understood what forces were in play, he refused to tell her.
The sword belonged to her now. Whatever, exactly, that entailed. Neither the sword nor her new life came with an owner's manual.
She had always felt an impulse to protect the weak and defy the bully. If there really was a difference. If anything she felt more strongly now. She felt an overriding, almost obsessive desire to preserve innocence – where she could find it, and of course, where it could be preserved.
Maybe that was her mission. It would do until something better came along.
Meanwhile something strange was going on in central New Mexico. Several somethings.
Maybe. That was what had hooked her, she thought. The strange creature sightings and the sudden spate of well-attested encounters with the Holy Child. More coincidence?
No way to know yet, she reflected, grimacing as she broke through some split ends. Nor was she sure if innocence was involved, or if so, who the innocent was. The Holy Child himself? Whatever he was, it was difficult to envision what could threaten a being who apparently could disappear at will.
Ah, well, she thought. If no one going to give me any hints, I guess I'll have to go on relying on my intuition. It had always served her well – even before she encountered Roux, the sword and this madness.
Her instincts told her that whatever was going on here, she was meant to take part in it.
She sighed and put her notebook computer back on her crossed bare legs. A little practiced Google searching turned up some background on her mystery correspondent, Dr. Cogswell with the curious first name. He had a respectable if not extraordinary curriculum vitae. He had worked for Monsanto, apparently researching ways to make agricultural insecticides safe for creatures that weren't insects. From there he had gone to a professorship at an agricultural college in Nebraska, from where he had recently retired to the warmer climes of Albuquerque. Along the way he had contributed numerous articles on cryptozoology – the study of creatures whose existence was not acknowledged by science – to various publications. More recently he had been an active participant in Usenet newsgroups and on the Web.
He struck her as one of those scientists who, despite genuine intelligence and knowledge, tended to go a bit bizarre as soon as they set foot outside their own specialties. Nonetheless, he was as close to a lead as anything she had. Unless she wanted to hang around and try to interview the next tourist to encounter the Santo Niño before he, she or they fled home – as almost all the previous claimants had.
She reread Cogswell's message then hit Reply. He had suggested they meet for lunch.
So be it.
****
The morning air held an edge as Annja pushed the glass door of the motel lobby. Not enough to cut – just enough to make itself known.
It was the sort of cool you tasted as much as felt – along with the inevitable exhaust fumes from the vehicles streaming past a parking lot dotted with cars whose windshields were white blazes of reflected sun. And a hint of that ubiquitous piñon smoke. Annja already knew she would associate that scent with New Mexico for the rest of her life. Adjusting the strap of her shoulder bag, she strode forth into the full light of the sun in search of breakfast.
From directly above her head a hissing, roaring sound cut loose.
She ducked. She almost summoned the sword.
She looked up to see a gigantic bloated shape, blotting the painfully blue high-desert sky mere feet overhead.
And then a chubby arm waved at her from a wicker-looking basket hanging from beneath the vast, globular shape, and a smiling little face appeared framed by blond pigtails.
"Hi, lady!" the little girl called from the gondola of the hot-air balloon. The man standing beside her, wearing a bright yellow jacket, did something that caused another jet of blue-edged yellow flame to shoot up into the open mouth of the envelope. Rising slowly, the balloon, painted in jagged horizontal stripes of blue and red, swept across busy Coors Road
and off over a shopping mall.
Beyond it the sky was full of balloons. The weather was different down in the Lower Sonoran life zone than up North, where a glance showed her dark banks of cloud piled high above the Jemez and Sangre de Cristo mountains flanking the central river valley. That was a boon to participants in the vaunted Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, it seemed.
What struck Annja was that the sky really was full of balloons. Some took bizarre form. She saw cartoon character heads, a taco, a fire hydrant and at least one totally implausible cow. Mostly they were standard fat-teardrop shapes like the one that had overflown her, painted in a dizzying range of colors and patterns.
She had paid little attention to the balloon fiesta. It didn't really impinge on the dig, eighty miles or so north. It struck her as just another gimmick to draw in tourists, and as such, of small interest to her. She was concerned with ancient things, things that lasted. Not tacky ephemera.
But nothing she had ever seen in her life had quite prepared her for the sight of several hundred hot-air balloons in the air at once.
Her shoulders rose and fell in an exaggerated sigh. "Okay," she said aloud. "I'm impressed."
She had turned to face toward the uneven wall of the Sandia Mountains, a blue backdrop to the lower balloons. She was facing right back toward the motel lobby entrance.
Her eye happened to fall on the newspapers displayed in dispensers in front of some juniper bushes beside the door. There she saw, beaming at her, the beatific countenance of Santo Niño himself.
She rushed to the rack. The likeness was plastered all over the front of a local alternative-looking paper calling itself by the unlikely moniker Alibi. It was free. Bonus, she thought.
She plucked one right out. The painting was almost breathtaking in its sheer kitsch. The Holy Child was portrayed as a huge-eyed waif in cloak and robe and weird hat.
Splashed across the image were the words Holy Kid Sightings At Chiaroscuro Fest! Below it the legend continued:
"Holy publicity stunt! Albuquerque art prodigy Byron Mondragón attracts nationwide attention to local gallery opening, just as his current favorite subject puts in personal appearances all over the state.
"Whoa," Annja said. A rumble from her stomach reminded her of her prime mission of the moment.
Folding the paper, she tucked it under her arm and strode off to her rental car. She was assured of in
teresting breakfast reading material, at any rate.
Chapter 11
"Hi! Welcome to Chiaroscuro!" the gorilla said as Annja swung in through the open ironwork gate.
She nodded and smiled to the black rubber mask. After all, the sign out front did say Chiaroscuro Guerrilla Art Compound.
She had smelled the place even before she saw the entrance.
She parked on a sidestreet that lay just north of the gallery. The surrounding houses ran to painted cinder block and squeaky-tight little lots, scrupulously clean and tended for the most part, but giving a definite air of staving off the encroachment of far less appealing environs. It was not so much poverty – certainly not by the standards of Mexico, to say nothing of South America – as a prevalent hardness. On the drive down Broadway she'd seen a few too many small packs of lean young men with slouching backs and out-thrust jaws to feel any too complacent.
But the smell that greeted her on the warm late-afternoon air as she walked the half block south was totally inviting. It was a warm smell as of something cooking, a wonderfully pungent smell that teased with faint hints of familiarity. It did seem to sting, slightly, at the edges of her eyes.
The entrance was not terribly obvious. It was a narrow gate of black wrought iron wedged between down-at-heel storefronts with stucco peeling off in tectonic plates and soaped-over windows. She would have missed it but for a group of kids with colored spiky hair and piercings you could see at thirty yards who drifted in ahead of her.
The welcoming smell grew stronger as she walked on past the tall guy in the gorilla suit. She found herself in a short passageway with big, irregular slate flagstones. The sun, falling toward the cinder cones on the West Mesa behind her, cast her shadow long before her. A door stood open into interior afternoon gloom in a brown building to her right. To her left was a big picture window revealing a crowd of people drifting among art exhibits visible on the other side. The music of a live ska band came from somewhere ahead.
The compound opened to her right onto a courtyard with benches and grotesque twisted-metal sculptures and an ash tree with small, bladelike leaves just beginning to turn in the middle of it. People drifted or clumped among them in the mingled soft shadow and curiously rich buttery light of late afternoon, drinking from plastic cups, chatting and laughing and smoking. Not tobacco exclusively, her nostrils told her. They were mostly but not exclusively young. She spotted Goths, retro punks, hipsters, hippies and a wide selection of unclassifiables.
