by Alex Archer
“The cross somehow fits into the lock on the music box and...I’m not sure how it works, exactly. It is what I remember Garin telling me.”
Hmm. What she wouldn’t give for a little hard data and findings her scientific mind could appreciate.
She had always known Roux to be sharp, wise and smart. He used common sense and his vast wealth of knowledge to keep one step ahead of the usual in life’s game.
“Have you heard of the devil’s chord, Annja?”
Interesting change of topic. But she could go with it. “It was a tritone of musical notes that in the Middle Ages the Catholic Church banned from being played or used in musical scores because it was thought to be evil and of the devil. When played, its quality is dissonant.”
“Diabolus in musica.” Roux recited the Latin term.
“The devil in music,” Annja translated. “It’s certainly not worthy of excommunicating someone or even worse, wherever it may have been used. So what does the devil’s chord have to do with a cross that once belonged to Joan of Arc? And time travel?”
“Nothing. And everything.”
Intrigued, Annja waited patiently for Roux’s answer.
“The Lorraine cross is the key to activating the devil’s chord.”
“If you’re going to try to explain how this is tied to time travel—”
Again, Roux flashed her a startled look. “Is Roberts aware the key works with a time-shifting device?”
“I don’t think he had any idea what he was really looking for. However, he clearly knows some of the details. He’s bested us at every turn.”
“Yes, but I can’t imagine Garin would have provided Roberts with the full picuture. Doing so would expose his position, make himself vulnerable, things Garin would never do.”
“But...Roux, really? Time travel? It’s all fun and games until someone actually does it only to realize it’s a one-way ticket.”
“Annja, please, can you set aside your skepticism for one moment?”
“Sure. I’m doing it right now. What you’ve said is now in the past. Me sitting here is the present, but my words— Oops, there they go, fading into the past. And the future is right after my next words.”
“Touché.”
“Why would you want to time travel anyway? What’s the draw? It must be important, since it’s compelled you to seek this fantastical music box that will play you back to another time.”
“I’m not at all concerned with revisiting the years I have already walked through.”
“Then what is it?”
Roux checked the wine bottle. Empty. He tapped the base of his goblet a few times. Seconds later, the waiter appeared with profuse apologies and poured a fresh goblet for Roux. Annja refused. She’d had enough to drink but she wouldn’t argue against more food. She’d inhaled the main course.
When the waiter had gone, leaving the new bottle of wine at the table, Roux leaned forward to confide.
“I saw the device once. In the fifteenth century. At least, I’m pretty sure that what I saw was the time-shifting device. I was in a hurry and didn’t have a chance to really examine it. Garin almost stole it.”
“So Garin was with you when you saw the device? Interesting.”
“Yes, well, I do recall a fistfight and much arguing. He didn’t leave with the thing. It wasn’t what I was there for.”
“There? Where was there?”
“I intend to visit the mysterious there quite soon. After we’ve finished dessert, in fact.”
Dessert? Yes, more food!
“And what will we find at this mysterious there?” she asked. “The time-travel device?”
“We can hope. Although, I wouldn’t place any bets on it. It’s been centuries.”
Roux gestured to the waiter, who, seeming to know the old man’s wishes, appeared with the dessert tray. He chose for them both.
“It’s not important. It’s the past, Annja. And as you’ve said, there is no reason to venture into one’s past.”
He was obviously eluding the question. Now more than ever Annja wanted to discover what it was Roux had been “there for.”
* * *
AN HOUR LATER, they pulled up to a graveyard tucked within the southern interior of the city and parked outside the black iron fence. Roux didn’t seem interested in leaving the vehicle. He scanned the visible tombstones and the backs of mausoleum walls that edged up close to the fence.
“How will we find what we’re looking for if we don’t go in?” Annja asked carefully, as if addressing a reluctant child.
Roux merely nodded toward the cemetery.
Annja’s gaze landed on a person exiting a four-by-eight mausoleum. He bent to brush dust from his jeans, then clapped his hands, and as he did so—his eyes fixed on Annja.
The man using Scout Roberts’s name smiled that ridiculous charming smile of his. He strode toward their vehicle, stepping over tombstones that lay flat on the ground and squeezing between two stone statues. He grabbed the fence posts near the pointed tops and peered between the iron bars.
“Annja! We meet again.”
Casting a questioning glance at Roux, she received a nod from him. The teacher directing the student.
She got out of the car and stepped up onto the curb. “Last time I saw you, you were close to death by tea,” she offered. “You recovered nicely.”
The man patted his abs to indicate his fitness. “Sorry about that. It was necessary.”
“To foist the blame on me and make me a suspect of a poisoning in Venice?”
“Sounds like the plotline from a medieval thriller, eh?”
She reached between the iron bars and gripped his T-shirt. “You’ve got some nerve smiling like that. If you wanted to get away from me so badly you’d risk poison, then what’s up now? Why the casual conversation? Where’s the cross?”
He put up his hands to show his palms. “What cross?”
She tugged his shirt, and just when his forehead would have connected with the bars, he managed to get his hand in front of it. He yelped at the pain of his skull pressing into his fingers.
“The cross your guy stole from the palazzo while you were in the hospital,” Annja clarified. “The same palazzo that you stole.”
“You checked into that, eh?”
“The owner had never heard of you.”
“It was a sweet place, Annja. Much better than that cheap old hotel Roux put you up in. Hey, Roux!” He waved to the immortal waiting in the car.
“You should be thankful you’re on the other side of this fence,” Annja said. She released his shirt. “You know your thief is dead?”
“I do.”
“That means you either never got the stolen goods, or you sent someone else to claim them to further obliterate the trail that leads back to you. Or—”
“Give it up, Creed. It’ll just make your head spin.”
Annja grimaced. She couldn’t help it; she wanted to vault over the fence and knock the truth out of him. But would that really get her any closer to the music box and Lorraine cross? No.
“Who are you?” she asked. “Scout Roberts died two months ago.”
“I was nervous you’d catch on to that sooner than I could ditch you. Roux wrecked my original plans by sending in the babysitter.”
“Happy to make your life miserable.”
“Not so much miserable as challenging. But I met the challenge with style. You know I’ve always been allergic to dandelion? Had a few close encounters with the emergency room as a child. Whew! I nailed that one.”
“Risky.”
“I was pretty sure it wouldn’t kill me. Mostly. But how awesome was that when I suggested poisoning to the doctor and he picked that one up and ran with it?”
“You’re avoiding the question about your identity.”
“I’ll leave that for you to figure out. Apparently you still haven’t researched all the paperwork related to this situation. I’m disappointed in you, Creed.”
Annja gr
ipped the iron bars and bowed her head. She hadn’t been briefed on everything, including the infamously ungettable police report. Was that the key detail she was still missing?
“Braden knows,” Scout volunteered. “Sent me here, expecting the two of you would show. Said this would be the first place Roux would check. I didn’t see anything inside the mausoleum beyond dusty old crypt drawers, but you’re welcome to take a look.”
Annja glanced at Roux. The old man could hear their conversation, but he kept silent and gave her no indication. “What was supposed to be in the mausoleum?” she asked Roux.
He ignored her and turned forward, resting a wrist on the steering wheel.
It had to be the time-travel device. But how would they find anything here now? Surely the graveyard had been built up and remodeled since Roux had been here. Possibly some graves had been moved or even destroyed in the process.
“Well, I’ve a good idea what the old men are after. And they are very old, aren’t they?” Scout offered. “At least, Roux is.” He winked at Annja.
“You’ll hit seventy soon enough,” Annja said. “And I sure hope you drink the wrong tea then.”
“Seventy.” Scout grinned. “I think Roux has gone well beyond that age. But then, you don’t know him all that well, so I won’t bother you with the details. You figure out what the key is for yet?”
“I have. Roux’s explained it to me.”
“So my work here is done.” Scout stepped back and slipped between the two closest mausoleums. “Catch you later, Creed!”
“Track him,” Roux called to her. “I’ll follow in the car. We need to tail him to Braden.”
Taking a moment to vacillate with her own warring need to chase the villain or reach inside the car and twist the other villain’s neck, Annja quickly took off in the direction she’d seen Scout turn.
Dodging around an ancient oak tree with bulging roots that had cracked the curb, she managed a look between gravestones and mausoleums and spied Scout’s blue shirt. The cemetery ended just farther up the road. She stopped at the next corner and peered around to see a black SUV waiting at the front gates.
She glanced backward. Roux was driving slowly toward her and she gestured that he pick up speed, but he did not.
Scout got into the SUV and it took off, gliding away like the last car in a funeral procession, and not much faster.
Annja jumped into Roux’s vehicle. “He’s leaving in a black SUV, just around the corner.”
“We’ll give them a head start.”
“Fine. Wouldn’t want him to think we’re following, when that’s exactly what he expects.”
“Annja, I know what I’m doing.”
“Well, since you’re not in a rush, now would be the perfect time to tell me what we’re doing at a cemetery and what, exactly, should have been in the mausoleum Scout just checked.”
“It was once a hiding place used by da Vinci. He kept valuables in the mausoleum. Had fashioned a nifty safe, which I’m sure Scout destroyed in order to get it open.”
“If it was even still there. I realize he could be lying, but he said he didn’t find anything.”
“And it is possible the safe was long ago removed or destroyed.”
“What was in it?”
“Nothing, apparently.”
“Before,” she insisted. “In the fifteenth century. You must have known about this from when you knew da Vinci.”
“He used to keep the device in there. I assume he must have moved it to a safer location.”
“Safer location? Why? For what reason, if he’d initially thought the mausoleum a safe hiding spot, would he have reason to then move the object?”
Roux shrugged. “Does it matter, Annja? It’s been five centuries. Of course it wouldn’t still be there.”
He was talking in circles.
“Well, where is it now?”
“That will prove the interesting part.”
“Because you don’t have a clue? What about Garin?”
“I’m not sure what he knows. But we’ll stay on his lackey, won’t we?”
He turned the corner and slowly drove before the cemetery gates. A quarter of a mile ahead, the black SUV turned right.
“I’m beginning to question how worthwhile this goose chase really is,” Annja said.
Annja rubbed her hands over her face. She rarely got headaches, but the semantics and double-talk involved with this crazy device could prove capable of giving her a migraine.
“Where’s your imagination, Annja? Consider all the unexpected people and things you’ve uncovered over the years. Some could be explained, while others could not.... What if that’s the situation this time?”
“You do have a point.”
“Da Vinci was a remarkable man in so many ways. Historians often remark that, and I can personally vouch that his peers did, as well. I’m sure you would agree.”
“I do.” Still, could there really be a time-travel device? The skeptic in her shouted against it, but the other side of her brain toyed with the idea.
“Let’s suppose the device does exist and can work. Again I ask, what use have you for it? What is it about all this that’s pushing you so strongly?”
He turned right. The black SUV was no longer in sight, so Roux picked up speed.
“The historical significance, of course. Nothing more.”
“And is that Garin’s reason, as well?”
Roux didn’t answer, now focusing on the tail.
Annja sat back and closed her eyes. The historical significance? That didn’t feel right coming from a man who had lived the history. He wanted it for other reasons.
Could he possibly want to time travel, or “shift” through time? To when? Did he miss a certain period and wanted to go back and relive it? Supposing that a return trip to the present was impossible, he’d be trapping himself in the past. Forcing himself to relive decades, possibly centuries. And that wasn’t Roux. The man was too clever.
Too clever to believe in time-travel nonsense.
So there was something she was missing. And Annja was now determined to learn what it was.
Chapter 19
Milan, 1488
Roux ducked around the corner of a high mausoleum, pressing his shoulders to the stone wall. Though his pursuer was stealthy, the man couldn’t disguise the swish of his long leather coat as he made his way down the aisles among the tombstones and statues.
Resting his hand on the knife he kept at his belt, Roux knew it would serve no good. It would make the man angry, perhaps slow him down a bit, but it wouldn’t kill him.
This living through the centuries was quite the experience. He only wished he could live it alone and not with the added hassle of Garin Braden ever following as if his shadow. The man had been his squire and he’d taught him how to be a soldier. He’d been proud of Garin, of his strength, his learning, his ease with handling a broadsword. Roux had been like a father to him and at times even a friend.
But since Jeanne’s death? They’d been enemies more often than friends. Garin’s nefarious methods always bothered Roux. So, they would endure one another’s company, and yes, even work on the same side from time to time, but that was it.
Roux was aware that Garin did not hold his belief that if all the sword pieces were collected, something great would occur. Garin sought to thwart Roux. The bastard had almost dropped a piece in the ocean had Roux not been quick with the grab. That the man possessed such insolence!
Well, he was close now and he wasn’t about to let his young upstart get in his way this time.
Roux waited, listening to leaves nearby crinkling. His pulse raced and seconds later he leaped out from behind the mausoleum. His body collided with the brute strength of his larger and stronger pupil.
Taking an elbow to the rib cage, Roux huffed out a breath. Garin did not relent. He wrapped an arm about Roux’s neck and jerked his body downward, smashing his face into his knee, before shoving him to the rough ground.
/> As Garin lunged for him, Roux kicked out and caught his toe up under Garin’s jaw. The oaf grunted and stumbled away. He crashed into a mausoleum, and leaves and twigs sifted down to decorate Garin’s head.
Spitting away the refuse, Garin growled. As Roux stood and Garin followed, they met each other in a swift exchange of fists. The blows were expert and no energy was wasted, as each time Garin struck a vulnerable spot on Roux, Roux returned the favor with equal force.
Blood scented the air. Roux spat and swung hard, knocking Garin from his feet. Crouching on top of him, he gripped his tunic and smashed his head against the cobblestones.
A leg twisted about Roux’s, flipping him over to land on his back with arms splayed. The key he’d been holding clattered across the cobblestones.
Garin grabbed the key and rushed into the mausoleum. Roux rubbed at his jaw. The man had learned a few new tricks, he thought.
Inside the stone building, his former protégé grunted and cursed. “How does this stupid thing work, Roux?”
“It’s a key. You shove it in and turn it, idiot.” Roux propped up on an elbow and frowned. Were there no means to be rid of the man? Though best he was close to the prize when finally the safe was opened.
“Get in here.”
“Patience. I’m an old man, and the bones are creaky.”
“You’re agile, swift and dangerous. I know that better than most. Now, come help me before I get so angry I take down the whole place.”
Roux stood and wandered into the mausoleum. Garin bled at the eye and the corner of his mouth. Just so.
“I imagine should you beat down the walls, the safe would remain standing,” Roux said. “We’d be no closer to the prize. Or rather, I would be no closer. Why do you insist on thwarting my mission? It’s nothing to do with you.”
“It’s everything to do with me.”
“How so?”
The man paused and then gestured as if Roux already knew the reason and understood. Maybe he did, since there hadn’t been a feasible explanation thus far. Neither Roux nor Garin knew what awaited them should all the pieces of Joan’s sword be found. Would they go on? Would they suddenly dissipate to two piles of dust? Ashes to ashes and all that?
