Rogue Angel 52: Death Mask

by Alex Archer

  That was where she was going next.

  Ticktock. Ticktock.

  14

  12:00—Calahorra

  “Ticktock. Ticktock,” the voice at the other end of the line mocked. “Half your time has gone and the clock ticks mercilessly on.”

  “You’re a poet and you don’t know it,” Annja snapped back. She wasn’t in the mood for games. “I want proof of life, simple as that. Prove Garin is still alive. If you can’t do that, I’m going to find you and I’m going to kill you,” Annja said.

  She had been on the outskirts of Calahorra when her cell phone vibrated in her jacket pocket. She’d been expecting Roux.

  “You want proof of life? My, my, I’m almost insulted. You don’t believe me? My word isn’t good enough for the famous Annja Creed?” The man let out a cruel laugh and the line went dead. He’d hung up on her. Annja’s skin crawled. Was that it? Was it over?

  She was shaking when she felt another vibration from her phone. It was a video file, only a few seconds long. She opened the file and any doubts that they were prepared to kill Garin were washed away.

  At first it was impossible to be sure who the body lying on the ground was.

  Then a boot came into view, kicking the man in the ribs, forcing a groan from his bloody lips.

  Hands reached down and pulled him from the ground, hauling him up into a chair.

  There was no mistaking that it was Garin despite the severe swelling and dark bruises that altered his features. One bloodshot eye managed to open slowly. A trickle of blood oozed from the cut above his brow.

  “Hope this is proof enough for you, Miss Creed,” the voice said as the image zoomed in on Garin’s face, which was etched with pain. His eye had been blinking furiously. She could only imagine the torment they’d inflicted on him to break his will. Garin was tough, but even he couldn’t withstand relentless torture.

  “What the hell have you got yourself involved in?” she asked the picture of her friend. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t answer her.

  The screen went blank.

  She held the phone in her hand, waiting for the kidnapper to call back and continue mocking her. The call never came.

  There was no point trying to reach Roux; he’d still be airborne, on route to the Alhambra. Would Oscar be able to confirm anything she didn’t already know? It seemed like a stretch. He had already identified the source of the broadcast as somewhere inside the Alhambra. She wasn’t sure what he’d be able to glean from this new video, and anything he could find out would probably come too late to be of any use.

  She called him anyway.

  “It’s Annja.”

  “Ah, to what do I owe this pleasure? I’ve already given Roux everything I’ve got.”

  “I’ve been sent another video.”

  “You want to send it to me?”

  “You willing to risk another laptop?”

  “Forewarned is forearmed,” he said. “Send it over. I’ll get right on it.”

  Annja hung up and emailed the file to him.

  Her first stop was Calahorra’s tiny tourist information office, though she didn’t expect to find anything about the silversmith there. A middle-aged woman behind the counter spoke to her in Spanish, but seeing her confusion, instantly switched to English. Annja smiled her thanks. The woman had a pair of tortoiseshell glasses hanging around her neck from a thin gold chain. She toyed with them as she talked.

  “Good afternoon,” she said, reminding Annja that the time was ticking away. “How can I help you?”

  “I’m doing some research,” she said, fishing out a business card for the station, along with the network’s corporate logo and Chasing History’s Monsters on it. She handed it to the woman. “For a possible television program.” It wasn’t exactly the truth, but given the way the search was developing, it wasn’t exactly a lie, either. The woman’s smile widened, but Annja caught the momentary panic in her eyes as she glanced around to be sure there wasn’t a camera filming them.

  “How can I help?”

  “Well, I’m hoping to get some information as to where some of the victims of the Inquisition were buried,” she began. The smile on the woman’s face began to slip. No doubt the majority of her visitors asked the same or similar questions.

  “I’m afraid that there’s very little to see here,” she began. “It’s true that the Inquisition held its court here, but only for a very short time before it moved thirty miles down the road to Logroño.” She slipped the pair of glasses on, pushing them up the bridge of her nose, and opened the drawer of a small filing cabinet. She retrieved a well-worn folder from inside.

  “Here we go,” she said, running a finger down the top sheet. “The Inquisition only held a court here from 1521 to 1570. Very little evidence of it remains, I’m afraid. Were you hoping to find something in particular?”

  Annja pulled a piece of paper from her pocket.

  She had written the names of the six men onto it to avoid having to remove the ledger from the bike’s panniers. The woman frowned as she tried to read Annja’s hasty scrawl.

  “Sorry,” Annja said, suspecting that it was the handwriting that was giving her trouble. “I think I was a doctor in another life. This is the man I’m hoping to find out more about.” She pointed at Abdul bin Soor.

  The woman pursed her lips. “I can’t say I recognize the name. Was he important?” She slipped off her glasses again and looked up at her.

  “Probably not in the grand scheme of things. I know very little about him,” Annja admitted. “I think he either lived or was executed here. The same goes for the rest of them. I understand that they were all probably quite wealthy men.”

  “And all Moors,” the woman added.

  “There is that. I don’t suppose you’d have any idea where they might have been buried, assuming they were killed here?”

  The woman shook her head. “Victims were usually placed in unmarked graves,” she said. “It is not a period of our history that we celebrate.”

  So, no easy solutions here, either. But was it a brick wall? It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been led to believe something was a dead end because people were reluctant to bring bad publicity to a town. As the woman had said, the execution of innocent people wasn’t something Calahorra celebrated, but was it something they’d sweep under the rug? Maybe a little coaxing would help.

  “Perhaps they’d know at the church?”

  “They wouldn’t be buried there,” the woman said, just a little too quickly. “Things have changed a lot since those times. Back then, there’s no way they would have buried Moors in a Christian cemetery.” That made sense. But Annja was reminded that, so far, every major find she’d made on this hunt had been a case of a Moorish relic hidden away in a Christian shrine.

  If what Roux had told her about the Brotherhood of the Burning was right, a growing number of people wanted those darker days to return, even if their motivations were racial rather than religious. Of course, the irony was that if the Inquisition actually made a comeback, a great many of those right-wing racists would no doubt find themselves on the receiving end of persecution for their own lifestyles. In a society driven by religious fervor, having no faith could be just as dangerous as having the wrong one.

  “I know it’s naive of me, but I’d been hoping there would be some kind of evidence that might prove these six men had lived here. Never mind, I’m sure we can use some footage of the church, a few of the older buildings that would have been here at the time, that kind of thing. They’ll set the tone we’re looking for.”

  “Did you say six?” the woman asked, her interest suddenly piqued.

  Annja nodded. She turned the piece of paper so the woman could see it again.

  “I’m sorry, dear. The names mean nothing to me, but there is a story...�
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  “Yes?”

  “When the Inquisition moved from here to Logroño, the Church took more than just their documents and—” she paused for a moment, obviously searching for a word that wasn’t part of her usual vocabulary “—equipment.”

  Annja waited.

  “They took some of their victims with them,” she added.

  “You mean the people that were awaiting trial?”

  She shook her head. “No, they took the remains of some of the men who had been executed. The bones of six men were supposed to have been taken from the ground and moved to a new resting place.”

  Six men? Annja could hear Roux’s voice in the back of her mind: there’s no such thing as coincidence.

  She felt a shiver up her spine. It was more than just the air-conditioning. This was the thrill of the hunt. She was on the right track. The mystery was unraveling for her. So much history, so many secrets and ultimately a new truth that no one else had discovered in five centuries. This was why she did her job. This was what she’d fallen in love with, this connection between the past and the present, this single moment when everything crystalized and became one single, compelling story.

  “They wanted to keep their treasures close to them,” the woman continued.

  “Treasures? That’s a curious choice of words to describe six dead men.”

  “The six gave their confession freely. That set them apart from the other victims here. They didn’t suffer torture. They willingly gave the statement that condemned them. Even when others around them were claiming their innocence, even up on the scaffold, these six men did not. They would not deny their God.”

  “So the remains of the truly guilty were important to the Inquisition,” Annja said, thinking aloud.

  “The court moved to the cathedral there. If there are records pertaining to the six, they should have them.”

  “You’ve been really helpful, thank you,” Annja said. She could only hope that they were talking about the same six men.

  Ticktock. Ticktock.

  There’s no such thing as coincidence.

  The woman’s smile returned. She had been happy enough to see Annja arrive, but seemed much happier to see her leave.

  15

  11:45—Calahorra

  The bike roared into life again, like a caged beast finally released.

  The road to Logroño was barely thirty miles, and the traffic was light. The temptation to really open up the throttle and unleash the power of the Roadster was impossible to resist.

  Annja adjusted her grip and felt the surge of acceleration as the tires gripped the tarmac. She pulled out from the slipstream of a delivery truck and shifted up through the gears. The rush of speed, the adrenaline coursing through her, reminded her of what it meant to be alive. It was primal. The Roadster flew through the curves and switchbacks.

  From somewhere behind her, she heard a siren.

  She gave a silent curse.

  She couldn’t afford to be pulled over by the police—or worse, be taken to some backwater police station and forced to waste a couple of hours explaining herself. Even somewhere like this, there was the remote chance the officer might recognize her and let her off with a slap on the wrist, but she couldn’t risk the chance that this wasn’t her audience. Not while Garin’s life hung in the balance. She was close. Getting closer. She couldn’t afford to blow it.

  As far as Annja could tell, she had two choices. She could either stop and hope she could talk herself out of a ticket, or trust to the fact that the Roadster was an ungodly machine and try to outrun the cops. What would Garin do? Without question, ride...ride like the wind. She dropped a gear again and twisted the throttle hard, finding power even the Roadster itself hadn’t known it possessed. The engine complained desperately. A car horn blared as she pulled back in front of it in order to overtake the next vehicle on the inside. She wove in and out of traffic without a second thought for her safety, relying on her reflexes. She focused on the road, shutting out everything else, even as the siren grew louder. It was just her and the road. The cars ahead of her began to slow in response. She didn’t. She pushed the Roadster harder.

  And then she was at the point of no return. A glance at the speedometer, and the dial was already nudging toward the hundred-miles-per-hour mark. It was too late to play dumb and pretend she was getting her miles and kilometers mixed up. A car had slowed, its blinker indicating it was about to pull over, but the traffic had already built up around it, trapping it in the fast lane. That meant the police car wouldn’t be able to get through. That was all Annja needed. She seized the moment and pulled into the middle of the road, squeezing between the slowing car and the line of seemingly stationary traffic.

  She clipped the car’s side mirror, snapping it off and sending it clattering and spinning to the ground. The impact caused the bike to wobble, but she was strong enough to steady it. As an angry horn shrieked, Annja unleashed every remaining ounce of power in the bike’s engine and leaned forward to cut down the drag.

  The Roadster continued to pick up speed and she fought to keep it under control as she rode along in the slipstream of a semi. Then she was out, in the middle of the lane divider and flying past the truck while the turbulence battled her.

  She pulled in front of the semi and eased off the throttle, out onto clear road, but she didn’t relax her grip.

  The trucker sounded his horn, venting a short, sharp blast.

  She checked her mirror to see that the cop car was, impossibly, closing the gap.

  The driver was stubborn, she’d give him that. That, or he had a death wish. She wasn’t about to slow down now.

  She made out the sound of brakes and the squeal of rubber as wheels locked.

  Annja risked another glance in the mirror to see what was happening behind her.

  The semi completely blocked the road, tipping onto its side.

  Now there was no way the cop could follow her.

  The sign ahead proclaimed that she’d just breached the city limits of Logroño.

  She followed the road into the city, slowing but not too much, knowing she needed to get off the road as soon as possible if she didn’t want more of the local law enforcement coming after her. Her description was out on the wire, for sure.

  It didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for—the Cathedral of Santa María de la Redonda. The name of the place had been nagging at the back of her brain all the way here. She knew it should mean something to her, but it wasn’t until she stood in front of the cathedral itself that she started to remember why it was significant.

  When the Inquisition had turned its attention away from the Jews and the Moors, it had turned its attention toward women accused of witchcraft.

  So many innocent women had been dragged before the court to answer charges.

  It had been male-dominated oppression, an easy way to silence the rising female voices of the day.

  Another town, another visitors’ center standing opposite the cathedral, another middle-aged woman sitting behind another desk.

  This one didn’t have the same smile, though. She didn’t have a smile at all. Her attention was taken by a magazine spread open in front of her. The array of brochures on display showed that Logroño wasn’t afraid to play on its connections with the Inquisition. Geographically, it may have only been thirty miles from Calahorra, but it was half a world away in terms of attitude. Logroño was making the most of its history. Annja pulled an English leaflet from the rack and smiled at the woman behind the desk. She didn’t respond. On the television behind her, a news report was showing footage of a courtroom explosion in Seville where a number of civilians had been badly injured. Miraculously, it didn’t appear that anyone had died. The ticker across the bottom said that Spanish police were looking for an old Frenchman in connection with the even
ts. Roux. She shouldn’t have been surprised. The man had an unnerving ability to get into the kind of trouble that wound up on the national news.

  “Hi,” Annja said, producing the list of names from her pocket again and placing it on the desk.

  “Hola,” the woman said.

  Annja ran through the same introduction she had given earlier, adding that the woman’s colleague in Calahorra had suggested that the remains of the six men might have been moved to Logroño.

  “Ah, yes, María telephoned me and said you might come in, but I was not expecting you to get here so quickly.”

  “I had a bit of luck with the traffic,” Annja offered.

  “As I am sure she told you, people were brought here from all over the region,” the woman said. She reeled off a list of places, many of which meant nothing to Annja, but she listened intently in case the woman said anything that would provide some obvious missing connections. Even a single piece of the puzzle, an extra link in the chain, would move her closer to solving the mystery of the mask, and in turn secure Garin’s freedom.

  “Navarre, Álava, Guipúzcoa, Biscay...” The list seemed to go on and on. The woman didn’t even draw a breath. Annja wondered how many times she’d reeled off these towns and cities, like a waitress running down the day’s specials. Annja resisted the temptation to tell her to cut to the chase.

  “It was not only women, of course. There were many men and children, too, including priests.”

  “Priests?”

  “Yes. There were thirty-one priests who faced the Inquisition on charges of using nóminas, amulets with the names of saints engraved upon them.”

  “I had no idea,” Annja said.

  “Oh, yes, even the holy men were not immune as the Inquisition progressed. It spread its net far and wide,” she said. “And it didn’t matter which God you worshipped.”

  “I’m trying to find out about one particular victim.”

  “There were thousands of people who died here, tens of thousands, and almost all were buried in unconsecrated ground. Mass nameless graves. Many were transferred from other places. May I see your list?”