by Alex Archer
She had to put him out of her mind again; she’d deal with that annoyance later.
“The girl, Rembert. I think she is after us.”
“Really?” His sarcasm was unmistakable. “And just what would make you think that, Einstein?”
She gave him a dirty look and put on her tennis shoes, again keeping her eyes on the shore.
“Trying to kill us, Rembert.”
“No kidding. You think I don’t know that? She stabbed Sully and—”
“Us, specifically. We’re not just random targets.”
“I get that. After seeing her for the third time today, I really get that. But why?”
“Because of what’s at the bottom of Rock Lake.” The clippings she’d looked at, going back decades, the unsolved murders in this area. There was a common thread; she just hadn’t looked close enough when she skimmed the articles in the diner. But she recalled that the first unsolved one in Edgar’s file had been a WWII frogman. The last, Joe Stever, had been an avid scuba diver. She would bet every penny in her dwindling bank account that the victims documented in that folder had been diving Rock Lake.
And getting too close to the lost pyramid.
Chapter 32
“Annja! There she is!” Rembert angled Sully’s large flashlight to the north, catching sight of a silhouette under a tall birch. “That’s her. I know that’s her.”
Annja couldn’t see any details; the figure was a mere shadow. But she knew it was the girl, too. “Pull up the anchor, Rem, and take us to shore.”
“No. Are you nuts? Are you friggin’ nuts? I’m not doing that.”
“And call the police. Tell them where she is.”
“Okay, Annja. That I’ll happily do. I set them up on your cell for speed dial.”
Annja pulled up the rope and the buoy line with its weight. She didn’t need the buoy any longer to find this spot. With the recordings she made on her dive computer, Joe’s logs and Bob the Boulder, she could find the pyramid again.
She strapped on her fanny pack and went to the front fence railing. The girl had turned on a flashlight and pointed it first at H.I.S., its beam not quite reaching, and then held it close, beam up, illuminating her own face. Horror lighting, photographers called it.
H.I.S. pontoon was too far away, but Annja understood the girl’s invitation. She kept Sully’s light aimed on her, wanting to get a good look at the girl.
“Take us to shore, Rembert, just close enough for me to get out.”
“Seriously?” He mumbled something else, a string of profanity that would make anyone blush. “Your buddy Gary told me to stay close to you, that I’d be safer. I think he was full of crap, Annja. Being within thirty miles of you isn’t safe.” She heard him sit in the folding chair and start the engine. “But it’s your funeral, right? Just don’t expect me to go or to send any flowers.”
He motored the boat closer, the girl with the flashlight not moving. Annja could see her better now. She had on cutoff jeans and a pink long-sleeved T-shirt.
“Hello, trouble,” Annja whispered.
She revised her guess of the girl’s age. At best she was thirteen, maybe even twelve. While the girl could be—and probably was—responsible for Joe’s death, she couldn’t have killed the others that dated back decades.
And why?
To keep people from finding the pyramid. Annja got that.
But why?
Annja had expected to hear sirens, but maybe the police were being circumspect, not wanting their lights and sirens to alert their suspect.
They were nearing the lily pads when Annja’s phone chirped. Rembert still had it. She looked over her shoulder and saw him answer it, one hand cupping it to his face, the other still on the tiller.
“Who? Oh, Detective Rizzo? Annja’s on the boat. She’s with me. That girl from before, she’s on the shore in front of us. Looks like she’s inviting Annja to come have a chat. And Annja’s accepting, in case you’re curious. Can barely see the Lakeside lights from here. We’re on the east side, down from that railroad bridge. And the girl...just like I told the cops over lunch. She’s really just a kid.”
Annja looked back to the shore. The girl was still there, Rembert’s comment of “just a kid” fitting. On a branch above her, a burst of color drew Annja’s attention. The light reached the bird, setting its feathers to sparkle an iridescent, intense green and blue. It had a tail plume about two feet long that shimmered like the moon reflected on the dark lake. Its head, neck and chest were the rich shade of wet grass, and its lower belly and beneath its tail were bright crimson. There were violet streaks in its plumage, and when it took flight, Annja saw that the outside tail feathers were snow-white.
“Impossible,” Annja breathed. The bird was a quetzal, rare and known to live in the cloud forests of Central America. Annja had seen them in pictures and once in Guatemala; the country named its currency after the bird. An endangered species, it would be impossible to find in Wisconsin.
But it was here.
The bird had been important to the Maya people.
Was it really any more impossible than finding a pyramid hidden in Rock Lake? This was the stuff of modern-day thrillers.
Annja stared closely at the girl. Was she Mayan? No, if anything she was Native American and had probably killed Joe and who was holding the long knife so Annja could see it.
“That’s an invitation,” Rembert said, his tone a warning. “She wants to get real close and personal with you. She could end up real close and personal to this—”
“Rembert, don’t shoot the dumb gun. Have you ever had a gun before? Shot it before tonight?”
No answer.
“Here, stop here. This is close enough.”
Annja slipped over the side of the pontoon, the water coming up only to her waist. The girl’s knife looked green. A reflection in the water?
The girl said something over and over, but Annja didn’t understand.
“Anamaqkiu.”
Was it the girl’s name? The bird’s name? A challenge? Annja locked the word in her memory and would search it out later.
“Anamaqkiu!”
Annja edged closer, her legs catching in the lily pads. Determined, she moved forcefully, breaking them off with each step and feeling the uprooted stems catch around her legs. Her feet sunk into the lake bed and mud oozed over the tops of her tennis shoes.
“Anamaqkiu. Anamaqkiu.”
“Who are you?” Annja asked. The water was to her knees now, and the girl was only a dozen or so feet away.
“Anamaqkiu.”
“Is that your name?”
The girl smiled and nodded.
A name, then, odd and pretty-sounding at the same time. She could see the knife better here. It wasn’t a reflection; it was a solid piece of jade, similar to some of the ones she’d seen in the treasure chamber far below, but made of a precious stone rather than obsidian and chert.
“I know you don’t want me in the lake,” Annja said, creeping ever closer, the water to midcalf now, arms out to her sides and fingers spread wide. The breeze played through her spread fingers and she felt the pommel of her sword kissing her hand, waiting. She hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
Were the police near? Behind her, Rembert was talking on her phone again. He was frantic, saying Annja was going to try to catch the girl.
“Anamaqkiu,” she said again. “I am Anamaqkiu, and you trespass.”
“You know the pyramid is there, don’t you?” The water was to Annja’s ankles now, the girl at the edge of Annja’s third circle.
“I protect the temple,” the girl said. “I am Anamaqkiu.”
The girl’s eyes were wide and dilated, like before when Annja had fought with her. She’d assumed it was the result of drugs, but now she had a different thought. Possession? Madness?
“Anamaqkiu,” Annja said, hoping she’d pronounced it correctly. “Let us talk about the temple below the lake. Together let us come to—”
The girl
screamed and lunged at Annja, dropping low and slicing at her legs, cutting through the material of her shorts and drawing blood, then retreating.
Annja was hesitant to call her own blade, knowing full well Rembert could see her in the bright light of the boat.
“Anamaqkiu, no!” Annja cried.
The girl snarled, made a slashing motion and ran into the trees out of the boat’s light.
Annja sprinted after her, realizing the girl wanted to be chased. Annja wanted to lead her away from the light and Rembert’s gun.
“Take the boat farther out!” Annja hollered, hoping Rembert heard her. She didn’t want the girl doubling back and going after Rembert.
The girl was fast. It helped that she was clearly familiar with the property around the lake and knew her way through the trees. She sped north, and Annja caught sight of her now and again through gaps in the foliage that let the moonlight through. They approached a cabin with a light on.
But the girl pounded past that, past the cabin’s rickety-looking dock and then past a few more cabins that were dark. She was outdistancing Annja.
Annja continued to chase her, eyes flitting between the diminishing form of the girl and the ground, leaping over a piece of driftwood...the skull of Her Imperial Snakeship? A canoe, a bicycle a child had left lying where a trail ended at the beach. The girl’s feet slapped along the trail, and Annja followed, trying to set her stride in time with the girl’s so she wouldn’t fall any farther behind. It was dark here, the moonlight cut by birch trees that grew on both sides of the path. The scent of moss was strong and Annja stepped high to keep from tripping over exposed roots that in the faint light looked like corded veins.
Annja was a great runner and had once entered a marathon in upperstate New York. But as good as she was, the long dive had exhausted her, and the girl was faster.
Annja felt the muscles in her legs burn. The ache in her joints from coming up too fast was gone, but the headache wasn’t. It pulsed in time with her feet.
The trail came out into someone’s backyard. They’d run so far they’d made it down the east side of the lake to the edge of town. Annja caught sight of her target slipping around the corner of a garage.
There was a police car speeding south, lights flashing. The occupants didn’t see the girl, nor Annja’s frantic waving.
“No!” Annja grabbed her side and reached deep, somehow finding more adrenaline...for Edgar, for everyone touched by this disturbing outcome of events. She hurdled a sandbox and managed to barely avoid snagging her foot on a screw-in post of a dog tether.
She luckily found more speed and whipped around the corner of the garage. It was brighter here, a streetlight in front of the house shining down and reflecting on shiny blacktop. The girl was just beyond the property, crossing the street and going in the opposite direction of the police car.
Annja could stop.... The girl clearly wanted to be chased. The girl was the predator, and yet Annja followed. A smart predator, maybe, tiring out her quarry, knowing her quarry would not let go of this.
Miraculously, Annja had gained a little on her. She reached deeper still, her legs pumping faster and propelling her forward. Then she was rocketing across the blacktop, taking in the stinging, stinking scent of the oil and feeling the slightest tug it made against the soles of her shoes.
Where were the police?
The girl disappeared from Annja’s view as she sped past a large oak. But Annja saw her again when she cut across the street at an angle. The girl was rushing into a more dense residential area, an old one with a few smart Victorian homes among the saltboxes.
Around another corner and she met a downtown street.
On a Sunday night, going on eleven o’clock, Annja hadn’t expected many people or cars. But the carnival was in town and still going strong. Over the hammering of her heart, she heard music and the squeals of happy children who’d been allowed to stay out late.
The girl with the green knife was headed right toward the fun.
Chapter 33
Annja was nine years old the first time she went to a carnival. She and two friends had slipped out of the orphanage. It was after bed check on a Saturday night, and they couldn’t resist the glaring lights or the strains of music. Not the blues or jazz so prevalent in the city in those years, but wild competing sounds overlaying each other and calling out to every imaginative kid within hearing distance.
Posey—that wasn’t her real name, but that was what everybody called her—found a roll of tickets. She, Annja and their friend Lorianne divided them up and went on the Ferris wheel first, all three squeezing into one seat and screaming happily when their car stopped at the very top.
It was one of Annja’s favorite childhood memories, that magical moment when she and Posey and Lorianne were poised above everything at the edge of the city. They were angels this high in the sky and so close to heaven, removed from the disappointment that so often dogged them. Annja didn’t long for anything in that moment, not family or answers, and in subsequent years when things were bad, she recaptured those minutes in her mind, her and Posey and Lorianne, just sitting there, rocking and taking everything in.
The rest of the tickets evaporated on the fast rides—the Tilt-A-Whirl, where Lorianne puked on her shoes; Pharaoh’s Revenge, a great sweeping swing that took them up and around, spinning them until they were so dizzy they couldn’t walk straight afterward; and finally the Salt and Pepper Shakers, where Lorianne got sick again and the ride operator cursed.
On the way out of the carnival, they stopped at one of the games of chance. One ticket left, they gave it to Annja, and she successfully hurled three baseballs at stuffed targets, knocking them over and winning a big stuffed purple dog that she presented to Lorianne.
It was the dog that did it.
They would have gotten away with it, even managed to get Lorianne cleaned up before they snuck back into the orphanage. But the stuffed dog was big, and Lorianne wouldn’t keep it under her bed—she held it close and finally caved...telling one of the directors where it came from.
Annja and Posey and Lorainne were grounded for months, but the stuffed dog stayed, as did the magical memory.
Tonight, though, the carnival that beckoned in Lakeside promised nothing good.
Why had the girl led her here, rather than stick to the lakeshore, where the darkness could work in her favor?
The array of wild sounds struck Annja as she jogged to the edge of the midway. The girl had entered the carnival grounds ahead of her, obviously concealing the knife, as the only screams were of joy. Music came from everywhere, chaotic notes competing for her attention. Annja stopped and passed the ticket booth, ignoring the cries of the ticket seller dressed as a clown. Annja didn’t need tickets for the attractions. She had only one thing on her mind: Anamaqkiu.
She was in the concession area; the rides rose up beyond and above it. Annja had lost track of the girl, and she scanned the clumps of giggling teenagers and found nothing. Signs flashed Pronto Pups, the Original Hot Dog on a Stick; Fresh Squeezed Lemonade; Fruit Shakeups; the World’s Best Carmel Corn; Cotton Candy. Annja had hated the cotton candy she’d shared with Posey, all sticky sweet and drawing flies, and she’d never tried it again.
There! Annja thought she saw the girl dart around the corner of a vendor selling T-shirts. She raced forward. The proprietor was an old man with tattoos on his arms.
“A girl, young,” Annja started. “Pink shirt, long sleeves—”
“Sold that top to her yesterday. She loves the carnival, practically lives here.”
When she’s not attacking people by the lake, Annja thought. But that was why the girl led her here—she was familiar with it, liked it, the noise and the lights.
“That way.” He pointed down a line of games. “She was in a hurry.”
A regular here, the girl knew the carnival and could confuse Annja, further tire her out, perhaps to persuade her to give up. Moreover, even though there were a few police and securit
y wandering around, the girl could avoid them, hiding in plain sight. The police would have difficulty finding her amid the chaos and the crowd; she could slip away at her leisure to come at Annja again—here or at the lake. Annja would be going back to the pyramid.
Annja ran as fast as she could down the row of games, avoiding plowing into a toddler holding the hand of her father, and spinning past two teenagers locked in a kiss. The air was thick and cloying, filled with the scent of buttered popcorn and pizza and something sweet, maybe cotton candy. Her stomach roiled at the odors and her head still pounded, perhaps no longer from the bends but this riotous racket.
“A winnah!” bellowed a man who operated a balloon-bursting game. There was a policeman near him and Annja skidded to a stop.
“There was a girl with a knife at The Office this afternoon. Stabbed a friend of mine. You’re looking for her, and she’s here. In a pink long-sleeved T-shirt.” It was enough of a description, and so Annja continued her frantic quest. The officer barked a question at her, but his words got lost in the cacophony.
The lights from the rides blazed ahead, and Annja spied the girl rushing for the Tilt-A-Whirl. The image of Lorianne puking on leather loafers rushed at her and she forced it down and sprinted. Each ride seemed to have its own music, and it was as if each ride operator wanted to crank the volume as loud as possible to catch potential customers’ attention.
White strobe lights from the bumper-car attraction looked like a hundred cameras flashing. Red and green fluorescent tubes spun on the Kamikaze, and yellow and blue lights appeared to chase each other around The Whip. There was a house of mirrors, and Annja headed toward that. The girl would go there, a place to hide and confuse, a place to tease and taunt.
A scream pierced the air and Annja whirled, distinguishing it from the squeals of delight. The Tumble Bug ride operator clutched his stomach, then dropped to his knees and pressed his hands against his stomach. More screams sounded, parents and children seeing the blood. The crowd pressed close to get a better look, and Annja forced her way through it and to the man. He had a radio and she snapped it up, pressed the button and called for help.
