The Bone Conjurer

by Alex Archer

  “What?”

  “Not you, Bart. I’m in a warehouse about six blocks north of the university. It looks like new construction, maybe a lumber warehouse. I’ve got your man. We found the skull on him, stolen from the professor.”

  “We?”

  “Me and a—” Most definitely not a friend. She’d mentioned Garin to Bart before. But she had never explained their complicated relationship, or that he was immortal. “Will you just come over here, Bart?”

  “Is the suspect conscious?”

  “Not for long.”

  IT WAS AS IF THE THING had power.

  Annja had felt its force move through her. But when she expected something like that to have burned through her flesh and bone to incinerate, it had been not so much painful as encompassing. She’d held the power within her for one moment, and then it had passed through and she felt the angry force overtake the man who’d held her in a choke hold.

  It was difficult to remain a skeptic with visceral proof. Now what she worried about was that incredible power being wielded by a man like Garin Braden.

  The ease with which he’d used the skull against her proved one thing—he was in it for himself. And it obviously gave him little concern if Annja was a casualty.

  Always thankful for Bart’s discretion, Annja heaved a sigh of relief when his voice called through the warehouse. He’d come alone. But not for long, he warned, as he wanted to call this in immediately. The NYPD was up the street at the college; it wouldn’t look right if he waited to tell them about this discovery.

  “I understand,” she said.

  Annja led him to the guy sprawled on the floor. Bart didn’t know about the sword; she’d knocked out the murderer so she didn’t have to reveal how, exactly, she’d kept him at bay until the cavalry did arrive.

  “My prints are on the air nailer,” she said, nodding at the abandoned weapon on the floor. “That hole in his head is from a nail.”

  Bart bent over the thug’s body, cuffs in hand. “You could have taken out an eye, Annja.”

  “Seriously? I mean, you’re worried I could have damaged a man who murdered my friend?”

  “Not at all, do all the damage you like. It’d just be kind of gross to see a guy with a nail through his eyeball.”

  She smirked and he laughed. The release of tension was needed, and Bart seemed to sense it necessary. He cuffed the unconscious man.

  With the thug secure, Bart holstered his gun under his arm, and led Annja to the open warehouse door. He spoke into his radio, explaining he’d followed a perp to the warehouse. Already a police siren gained on them.

  Annja felt his breath on her neck before she realized he stood so close. “Need another one of those hugs?”

  Did she. But now was no time to go all mushy and start wondering what Bart’s hugs implied.

  “I can’t stick around,” she said.

  “Don’t expect you to. Not sure if I want you to.” He grabbed her arm before she could take a step outside. “But I’m still a cop, and I have to follow some procedure. Where’s the skull?”

  Annja sighed heavily.

  “You don’t have it?” Drawing her close, he spoke in low tones, his head bowed over hers. “What is going on, Annja?”

  “I’m not sure, Bart. There’s something about this skull that makes men kill for it. First the thief at the bridge, and now the professor. He was such a nice guy. I can’t believe I was responsible for his death.”

  “How could you be responsible? You couldn’t have known someone would go after the skull.”

  “I could have! I shouldn’t have left it with Danzinger after Serge tracked me to my loft.”

  “Serge? Tracked you to your loft?”

  She dropped her raised hands and turned from Bart’s eyes. Now he closed her in against the door frame, one of his hands to the wall over her shoulder. “Annja?”

  “Yesterday, I returned home from the university to find a stranger waiting for me. My place was trashed. He was looking for the skull.”

  Bart swiped a hand over his jaw and fixed her with a stare she wouldn’t wish on the hardest of criminals. He had a way of looking at her without saying a word that made her feel as if he could read her thoughts as they fired in her brain synapses.

  He was a detective. Of course he should have that skill. But she wasn’t up on emotion. And she was still feeling out of sorts after finding Danzinger on the floor.

  “I didn’t want to upset you,” she offered. He didn’t drop the castigating scowl. “Serge is a necromancer.”

  “A what?”

  “Guy who talks to spirits with bones.”

  He had nothing to say to that. Annja wondered about pushing up his chin to close his mouth, but she wasn’t rude. And she didn’t want to rile him any more than he already was.

  “Do I need to go in for questioning?”

  “You should. But I don’t know if I want my coworkers to hear the tale you have to tell. Necromancers and gold skulls? This is not an episode of Indiana Jones.”

  “It’s not a tale.”

  “I believe you, Annja. But let’s keep the creepy skull stuff for the television show, okay? I’ll arrest this guy and match his prints at the scene of the crime. It’ll be simple murder and artifact theft, only we haven’t got an artifact to prove it.”

  “I’m working on that.”

  “You know where it is?”

  “I have an idea.”

  “But you’re not going to tell me? Maybe I do need to bring you in for questioning. If only because it’ll keep you safe.”

  “I know the guy who took it,” she offered. “Remember I mentioned Garin Braden to you a while back?”

  “I remember the name. He helped you out of one of those adventurous, bullet-dodging situations you tend to find yourself in so often. Such as now. You’ve dodged bullets, and the adventure level is pretty high. He’s helping you again?”

  “Yes.” Not really. “I don’t know. Listen, Bart, give me a day to go after him and see what’s up.”

  “Let me come along.”

  “Too risky.”

  “Then I’m not letting you go.”

  Bart tugged handcuffs from his belt. Annja shrugged a shoulder against the warehouse door. “Bart, if you arrest me, you’ll have to name me as a suspect.”

  “It’s just protective custody, Annja. I wiped the prints from the nailer.”

  “You did?” That was risky. He could lose his job if anyone discovered his duplicity.

  “Let me do this, Bart. You know I can take care of myself.”

  “Actually, I don’t know that. You’ve given me the call more times than I can count. And each time I sit wondering, teeth clenched and feeling so ineffectual that I can’t help you. This has to stop. I know you’ve got the self-defense moves, but you’re not a superhero, Annja.”

  “Never said I was.”

  “So don’t do this one on your own. Let me help you.”

  “I’m not in any danger. Garin wouldn’t harm me.” Too much. “He’s a friend.” Not really. But she’d never escape the handcuffs unless she convinced Bart seeking Garin was less perilous than it really was.

  Still standing in close proximity, Bart leaned over her. She could smell his aftershave. Rebound girl? What the heck was wrong with that?

  “Annja, why do you have to do this? Why is this personal?”

  It wasn’t personal. She had just been sucked into the adventure.

  You get off on the adrenaline rush from it now. You don’t hate the responsibility of the sword. You crave it. It’s so freakin’ personal you can no longer survive without the rush, she thought.

  So that was it? She’d become some kind of adrenaline junkie? A nutty archaeologist who sought danger and got off on it?

  “I know Professor Danzinger,” she offered. “Let me go after Garin. I just want to talk to him before it’s too late and he’s done something with the skull.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “Here in Man
hattan. The cops are almost here. Please, Bart, I’ll stay in touch.”

  He leaned back and tucked the handcuffs in his pocket. “I’ve had partners I’ve worried less about.”

  “I’ll check in tomorrow morning. Promise.”

  “If you don’t, I’ll be sitting on your doorstep waiting for you.”

  “Deal.”

  She kissed his cheek. It wasn’t an intimate kiss, but it felt pretty deep. Like some kind of promise she was afraid to keep.

  “Talk soon,” she said as she ran off.

  24

  “It’s been a long time,” Garin said to the skull as he set it on the glass coffee table.

  He reclined on the couch. He’d placed the skull with the eye sockets facing away from him. It didn’t take a genius to understand that’s how the thing worked.

  Tilting his head, he smirked to recall Annja’s surprise at seeing him wield the skull. Had she thought him so cold-blooded? After his story about fleeing Granada with the thing, she must suspect nothing less.

  It would serve to keep the woman on her toes around him. She got far too cocky at times. No reason to reveal his true intentions when her suspicions would keep her respectful.

  Garin tapped through the contact numbers in his cell phone. His client expected discretion, and would receive it. He’d not gained a reputation for being trustworthy in the company he kept for no reason.

  It was 2:00 a.m. in the country he wanted to call. Garin thought better than waking the client. The news could wait another six hours.

  He put up his feet on the coffee table near the skull and closed his eyes. Maybe he’d keep this apartment. It had initially been a place to park while he’d brokered the deal. But he did like this city. It had potential. And Annja lived close by.

  “I’ve so much to learn about you, Annja Creed.”

  And she had a lot to learn about him.

  WHERE WAS SERGE? Annja had thought for sure it would be him to go after the professor for the skull. So if he hadn’t tracked the skull to Columbia, then who had?

  Serge had been unaware of the sniper, or it hadn’t seemed he’d been associated with him. So there was another party involved in this mess Annja knew nothing about.

  “Benjamin Ravenscroft,” she muttered. “Serge mentioned him, as did Garin. Who is that guy? Is he the guy I’m after? Or was he the thug Bart arrested?”

  She would have liked to sit in on the questioning at the police station. But she would do well to stay away from any buildings with bars and cells. Bart was worried about her. She could handle herself fine. She gave Bart a lot of credit for not taking her into custody.

  Sighing, she tromped up the stairs from the subway station after taking the train back to Brooklyn.

  The first place Serge would probably look for her was her loft. She could go to Garin’s apartment and wrestle the skull from him. But right now? The best idea was to regroup and think through her options.

  At least she was close to home, on familiar ground. And just far enough from Bart that he would not try to follow her.

  Walking the sidewalks before a stretch of family cafés and shops, Annja dug out her cell phone. Tugging her hood over her head kept the wet snow from soaking through, but she would be completely wet in ten minutes or less.

  Her first instinct was to call Roux, but she nixed that and instead called Bart. He answered immediately.

  “You going to take the guy in for questioning?”

  “Yes, but any conversation I have with him will be kept in strictest confidence.”

  So he wasn’t going to bring her in on this one? Was it a means to punish her for not allowing him to help her?

  Hell, it was his job; he didn’t have to bring her in on anything, she reminded herself.

  “I’ll give you all the information I have, which isn’t much,” she said.

  “Talk.”

  “The day I brought the skull to Professor Danzinger I returned home to find a guy waiting for me in my loft.”

  “Yes, you told me.”

  “His name is Serge.”

  “Serge who?”

  “Don’t have a last name. I think he’s Russian, if that helps.”

  “You know it doesn’t. What kind of trouble are you in, Annja? Is this Serge guy after you?”

  She looked over her shoulder. “Not this second.”

  Bart’s exhale crept through the phone lines and snapped like a finger thumping her skull. “Annja…”

  “I don’t mean to make you worry. But it’s good to know someone does. Will you call me if you get more info on the perp?”

  “Don’t use cop words like that, Annja.”

  “Sorry. The suspect. Also I have another name—Benjamin Ravenscroft.”

  “Sounds familiar.”

  “It does?”

  “Yeah, but I’m not sure why.”

  “Is it the guy from the warehouse?”

  “We’ll know soon enough.”

  “Talk to you soon, Bart. Thanks.”

  She turned and walked right into a young African-American guy with loose baggy clothes and enough gold on his fingers to start a bank. “Sorry,” she said.

  “Chill, pretty lady. Little late for you to be out for a stroll in this weather. Hey, you look familiar. Dude, come here.” He gestured to a friend equally clad in gold and enough baggy fabric to outfit a whole gang. And no winter coats or gloves. Kids, Annja thought.

  “Who’s this chick?” the young man said.

  Annja stood oblivious as they puzzled her out. She scanned across the street for a place to sit and have a cup of coffee. Suddenly she needed food and warmth, a place to puzzle out her thoughts.

  “It’s the chick from that TV show about the monsters.”

  “Oh, yeah, Kristie something.”

  “Annja,” she corrected. “Kristie is the one with the, well…”

  “Right.” Both guys beamed with knowing smiles and glanced at her breasts. “We like her, too. But you’re the smart one.”

  Gee, thanks. The smart one all the boys walk a wide path around. The only guy she wished would walk around her was a certain Russian necromancer.

  She wondered briefly if they’d seen her nudie picture, but then chastised herself for even thinking of it in that manner. Her nudie picture? Mercy.

  “Dude, can you sign my shirt?”

  He produced a marker from a plastic shopping bag and handed it to her. Tugging out the hem of his Knicks jersey, he held a section tight for her.

  Annja sucked in the corner of her lip, pen poised for action. “You’re sure you want me to mark up this shirt? This is the Knicks. I so don’t rate next to them.”

  “Hell, yeah, girl!”

  She scribbled her signature across the white fabric. Many a time she’d been stopped for an autograph, but this was her first shirt. She was one step away from a rock star. Professor Danzinger would approve.

  Would have approved, she corrected herself sadly.

  “Thanks, guys. Hey, is the restaurant across the street a good place to eat?”

  “You want fast food or a nice sit-down meal?”

  “Somewhere in between.”

  “Then go up a block and check out Granny’s. They’re open twenty-four hours and the waitresses are always cranky, but their coffee rocks. Thanks, Annja.”

  She shook their hands and walked on. Behind her the guys slapped palms and shared a triumphant hoot. That made her smile. So what if Kristie had posters? She didn’t need no stinkin’ poster, just give her a dirty T-shirt and a marker.

  Inside the restaurant Annja navigated to a corner booth with the shades drawn over the windows. Depositing her backpack on the opposite seat she climbed into the booth and put her spine to the wall, knees drawn to her chest.

  She ordered coffee. A framed black-and-white photograph of Carlo Gambino, the Mafia don, hung on the wall behind her. The glass was cracked, but the autograph looked real.

  “Friends in strange places,” she muttered, thinking briefly of G
arin and his on-again, off-again pseudo friendship with her. He’d hug her, then stab her in the back and sink her in the river wearing cement shoes just like a mobster if given the motivation.

  There were half a dozen patrons in the restaurant and the heat blasted like a Sahara wind. It felt great. And the waitress wasn’t crabby, as the guys had intimated.

  So she sat. Alone. Without the skull.

  At least Serge didn’t have it. Or Benjamin Ravenscroft. Whoever he is.

  But Garin did.

  What would he do with such a thing? After his tale of the power it possessed, and watching innocents die in the fifteenth century, she thought for sure he wouldn’t want it to again wield such wicked power. And yet he’d brazenly used it against her.

  She could have been killed! And Garin could not have known otherwise.

  Annja rubbed her hip. Nothing was broken, but she’d find a bruise there later. Probably bruises on her elbows and ribs, too. As well, her wrist still ached, and she was feeling in sorry shape.

  But the most vexing question was, why had it worked when held in Garin’s hands, and yet the whole time she’d had it…nada?

  A sip of coffee confirmed it did indeed rock. Annja crossed her arms over her chest and hunched down farther until the back of her head rested on the torn vinyl booth.

  She’d never felt so alone. And she felt it in every ache and cut on her body.

  Bart’s question tormented her. Why was she doing this? Who said she had to save the world? Or, for that matter, one tiny skull. Let the bad guys go at it.

  She wanted to go home and crawl between the sheets.

  It would be great if someone was at home waiting with arms open to give her a much-needed “you tried your best, kiddo” hug. She’d never had one of those before, but had often imagined what it would be like.

  Shaking her head at her thoughts, she sipped coffee. “Not going to happen in this lifetime, Creed. Deal with it.”

  25

  CNN played on the plasma television mounted on the meeting room wall. Well after midnight, Ben wasn’t close to leaving the office for the day. It wasn’t his turn to tuck in Rachel, so he wasn’t bothered by the late hour.