by Alex Archer
Not believing what she was seeing, not comprehending that three bloody holes now stood out on Roux’s chest, Annja moved, reaching the old man as he toppled. She caught him, tried to hold on to him, but she couldn’t keep him from going down. She went with him, cradling him as much as she could.
Behind Racz, Kevlar-clad men stepped into the room.
Lying on his back in Annja’s arms, Roux exhaled once and was still. His open eyes stared up at nothing.
“Roux!” Annja stripped off her shirt, leaving herself clad only in an undershirt, and worked frantically to stanch the wounds. Grief threatened to overwhelm her, but she forced herself to move. The blood was still pouring out of him. “Roux!”
Just as she was about to start CPR, knowing that she would risk losing the old man to blood loss while she worked on him, a calloused hand wrapped around Annja’s upper arm and yanked her to her feet.
“Get up,” de Cerceau ordered as he put his pistol under Annja’s chin.
Annja considered her chances of fighting back. Her hand stretched out and she felt the sword hilt in the Otherwhere.
De Cerceau grinned. “Try it and I’ll leave your brains scattered all over your grandpa’s corpse.”
Seeing all the men grouped behind de Cerceau and Racz, knowing she’d never make it out of the room, Annja stood still as de Cerceau relieved her of her pistol and rifle.
“All right,” the mercenary leader said. “Let’s go find that treasure.”
38
“Roux!”
Annja’s voice, filled with pain and incredulity, froze Garin in his tracks as the echoes of three shots faded into the cavernous depths of the castle.
“Roux!”
The agony in Annja’s cry tore at Garin. There was no way the old man could be dead. For years they’d risked their lives doing things other men would never have dared. And for some of those years they had tried to kill each other. Unsuccessfully, obviously. He’d come to believe it wasn’t possible.
“Garin.” Sabre stood at his side staring at him.
He nodded. Annja needed help. He forced himself to concentrate on that.
Garin went more quickly now, almost at a run as he sped around corners and spotted the chalk marking on the wall. He followed it to carved stone steps, then went up. At the doorway, he moved more carefully, then went through two rooms before he spotted the pool of liquid on the stone floor.
Kneeling, Garin took off a glove and touched his fingers to the pool. It was still warm and oily. He wiped his hand on his pants and replaced the glove.
Whoever had killed Roux wasn’t going to live to see the outside world again.
None of them were.
* * *
“YOU KNOW WHERE the treasure is,” Racz yelled at Annja.
She stood before him, defiant even though she faced a roomful of mercenaries. The old man’s blood stained her undershirt; she could see it in the combined light of all the lanterns de Cerceau’s men had produced. The beams reflected from the surfaces of the Tournai marble mural on the wall.
“We didn’t find any treasure.” Annja spoke in a cold voice, but pain showed in her eyes.
She was angry with him. Racz knew that and accepted it. Being angry after he’d killed her friend was a natural thing. But her anger wasn’t going to prevent him from getting the treasure.
“The treasure is here.” Racz made himself speak in a normal voice, but he felt that it was on the edge of cracking in his frustration. “I know it’s here. We followed all the clues. We found those manuscripts. We found the statue Brankovic did of the Virgin Mary.” He pointed the pistol in his hand toward the mural of dark stone. “We found this. It’s here.”
“Where?” Annja demanded. “Where is the treasure? Because I don’t see it.”
She looked past Racz at de Cerceau. “I hope you got your money up front, because there’s nothing here to get.”
“That’s not true.” Racz pointed the pistol at her.
“If you pull that trigger,” de Cerceau stated quietly, “you’d better know where that treasure is.”
“What?” Racz turned to face the big man. “What did you say to me?”
Bathed in the lantern light, de Cerceau’s face was hard and unforgiving. “I didn’t come all this way just for the money you were paying. I came for the treasure.”
“The treasure is mine.” For an insane moment, Racz almost turned the gun on de Cerceau. The only thing that kept him from doing that was the knowledge that he would be dead before he could pull the trigger.
De Cerceau glared at him. “You’d better hope you find that treasure.”
Racz turned back to Annja. “She’ll tell me. One way or another, she’ll tell me. Women try to keep secrets from you, but I know how to get those secrets out of them.” He tucked the pistol into his waistband and took a folding knife from his pocket. “A scalpel would do the job better, but I can still get those secrets with this.”
Light splintered from the razor-sharp knife’s edge as Racz stepped toward Annja.
* * *
“NOW YOU’LL TELL ME,” Racz said in a voice as tight as tungsten steel. “You’ll tell me what the Key of Shadows holds secret.”
Annja took a step back toward the mural. Her gaze was focused on the blade in Racz’s hand, but her mind was sifting through facts and images. The Key of Shadows. The Virgin Mary had been at the center of all of this.
A thought struck her and she held up a hand. “Wait. I think I know what it means.”
Racz held back and his eagerness played out on his face. “Tell me.”
Drawn to the mural, Annja stared at the image of Mary, following her outlines until she spotted the almost-invisible penumbra that lay to Mary’s side. Part of it touched on Childeric III’s sword pommel, and there the stonework was darkest.
With a steady hand, Annja reached for the stone and felt along its edges. It stood out higher than the other stones around it. With the dark canvas of the black Tournai marble, the slight difference wasn’t noticeable.
But she could feel the difference.
She pushed on the stone, but nothing happened. Leaning closer, she saw that the fittings around the stone were wider, more gapped, than they were elsewhere on the mural. There was room around the stone to slip her fingertips in and maybe to move it.
Room to twist it.
Like a key.
Before she knew what she was doing, Annja twisted the stone to the right. It took some doing, but it turned.
Something inside the wall grated. The stone floor vibrated, and a four-foot section of stone at the base of the barrier recessed and slid up into the wall, leaving a square opening filled with darkness.
Slowly, Annja leaned down and peered inside. She shone her miniflashlight inside. The bright light bounced off the stacks of gold that filled crates in the underground room beneath the wall.
“The treasure.” Racz started to say something else, but his words were cut off by a sudden explosion of gunfire that filled the room with thunder.
Mercenaries at the back of the pack were mowed down. Others scattered throughout the room to take up positions to return fire.
Annja knew instantly that the gunfire was from Garin and his people. No one else would have been able to find the castle. He’d been there the whole time at their heels. She only wished he’d gotten there in time to save Roux.
“Into the treasure room!” de Cerceau roared. “Take cover there.” Following his own advice, he grabbed Annja and shoved her through the entrance.
They fell through the opening and landed ten feet below. Annja got the worst of it when she was pinned by the big man’s bulk. Recovering quickly, still searching for her breath as she and de Cerceau scrambled to their feet, she reached for one of the mercenary leader’s pisto
ls.
He backhanded her, knocking her sprawling across the spacious room. She tripped and tumbled through the crates of treasure, knocking a stack of gold ingots loose. The bulky chunks of gold clunked to the stone floor in the spinning shadows cast by the moving lights from above.
Snarling curses, de Cerceau aimed at her and fired three times in rapid succession.
Annja was already in motion, and she was in the darkness outside the glowing pool of light cast by the lantern de Cerceau had dropped when they’d plunged through the hidden door.
Bullets thudded into the gold and the crates.
Crouched, taking cover as other mercenaries tumbled into the room, Annja reached into the Otherwhere and pulled the sword into the room with her. The weapon felt steady and sure in her hand as she rounded a crate. She remembered the way Roux looked when she’d last seen him, and there was no mercy in her heart.
She slashed the first mercenary she came to, burying the sword in the space between his shoulder and neck. The blade cleaved down into his chest. The pistol he’d been trying to bring to bear slid from his hand as he died.
Moving swiftly, following the sword, Annja caught the pistol in the air before it hit the floor. She turned, immediately facing another mercenary, and lifted the pistol into the man’s face. Annja squeezed the trigger, then moved on.
She darted around one of the four thick stone columns that supported the stone ceiling. Quivers ran through the floor, and she wondered if all of the noise from the weapons in that room and the room above would collapse the building.
That was only a small thought in a whirlwind of others, lost as she concentrated on tactics and position and tried not to think about Roux.
She left the cover of one column and raced to the next. Other mercenaries had retreated into the room. She swung the blade one-handed and disemboweled a man racing toward her. As the man tripped and went down, she fired the pistol three times into the two men who followed the first, putting them down with shots to the face.
On the move again, making a circle in the room, Annja ducked as one of the mercenaries came up firing. Bullets zipped over her head. She twisted and turned, getting strength and momentum behind her, and threw the sword at the shooter ten feet away.
The sword sailed true, piercing the body armor and the man. Shocked, the dying man went back and down, releasing his weapon and grabbing the sword. Another mercenary reached for the sword, but Annja called it back to her and his gloved hands closed on air.
He looked at her, and she placed a bullet between his eyes as the sword reappeared in her hand. After the bullet left the gun, the pistol’s action locked back empty.
Annja tossed the pistol away and stripped another from a dead man who toppled through the hidden entrance to the room where all hell had broken loose. Before she could move, an arm snaked around her neck and pulled her backward.
“I’m still going to open you up, Ms. Creed,” Racz growled into her ear. “I’m going to find out all your secrets.” His knife flashed toward her face.
Annja pulled the sword up and blocked Racz’s arm, cutting into his flesh. Surprised, he squawked in pain but tightened his hold and tried to stab her with the knife anyway. She brought up her captured pistol and fired blindly over her shoulder, guessing where Racz’s head was.
Cursing, Racz released her then and pulled his knife back. Stepping from the man’s embrace, Annja spun and swung the sword backhanded in a swing parallel to the floor. The keen edge caught Racz under the chin and plowed through his neck. His eyes blazed with hatred and his mouth was pulled back in a sneer when his head toppled from his shoulders.
“Kill her!” de Cerceau roared from the shadows.
Annja leaped over Racz’s falling body as bullets slammed into his flesh and blood. She ran forward, trying to see through the web of darkness.
A mercenary stood before her and took aim with his rifle. She fired the pistol, never breaking stride, but the bullets didn’t find their mark or the body armor deflected them. She dropped into a baseball slide, skidding across the dust-covered floor, and collided with the man, taking his legs out from under him. He fell face-first but managed to release his rifle and catch himself before his head hit the ground.
Reaching over him from the side, Annja hooked her forearm at the base of his skull and smashed his face into the stone floor. He shivered, then went still. Annja rolled to her feet as a fresh fusillade of bullets tore into the unconscious mercenary.
Grenades exploded in the room above. The noise seemed barely audible over the din in the room. Dead men and shrapnel toppled into the room.
A mercenary spun around one of the columns ahead and leveled his assault rifle. Annja dodged left, ducking behind the column he was using for cover. Bullets ricocheted off the wall to her side. Keeping close to the column, she hurried around to her right, trying to reach the man before he could adjust.
The mercenary spun quickly once he’d figured out what Annja was doing. He came around firing, muzzle flashes cracking the darkness again and again.
Annja swung the sword and knocked the man off balance. The blade didn’t cut into the body armor, but the blow was hard enough to pin him up against the column. Scared, maybe surprised to still be alive, the mercenary tried to raise his rifle. Pointing the pistol from almost point-blank range, Annja fired and the man’s struggles ceased.
Breathing heavily, not certain where anyone was anymore, Annja held her position as the dead man fell to the floor. Gunfire in the outer room had become sporadic. She moved forward, senses alert.
A shadow separated from the wall underneath the hidden opening. The lack of light and the haze of gun smoke trapped in the room made it difficult to see.
Lifting her pistol, Annja took aim.
“Annja, behind you.” Roux’s voice sounded weak and thready. He fired his pistol twice and the muzzle flashes revealed the blood staining his shirt.
Spinning, still stunned by Roux’s appearance after she’d thought him dead, Annja spotted de Cerceau staggering back, driven by Roux’s bullets. Then the dull click of Roux’s weapon firing dry barely made it through the ringing in Annja’s ears.
With a large grin, de Cerceau raised his weapon. “You people are dead.”
Annja fired her pistol dry, aiming at center mass even though de Cerceau’s armor would prevent penetration, while she ran at him. When the action blew back and locked, she dropped the pistol and called the sword into both hands. Staring down the barrel of the assault rifle as it swung in her direction, Annja whipped the sword down.
The keen edge cut through the assault rifle and de Cerceau’s hands, leaving him staring fearfully at the bloody mangle at the ends of his arms. Before he could speak, Annja brought the sword down again, cleaving the mercenary leader from crown to chin. She kicked the body backward, freeing her sword.
Panting, the stink of cordite burning in her nose, Annja looked around at the room full of treasure and dead men.
“It’s just us, I think.” Roux fumbled with his weapon and slid a fresh magazine into place.
Not believing what she was seeing, Annja walked toward him. “You’re not—”
“Dead?” He frowned in mock annoyance, but his features were pale and bloodless. “That wasn’t the first time I’ve ever had cause to fake my death.” He ran a hand over his chest, smearing blood over his shirt. “But that was far closer than I’ve been in a long, long time.” He wobbled unsteadily.
Annja let go of the sword back into the Otherwhere and wrapped her arms around the old man, helping support his weight. She knew he needed treatment. Tears slid down her cheeks and she let them come.
“Is he still alive?” Garin, his face spattered with blood, leaned in from the hidden door and aimed a flashlight at Roux and Annja. Sabre Race joined him at the door.
“Yes, but we need a medic.”<
br />
“We have one.” Garin spoke briefly to Sabre, and then both men climbed through the door and lowered themselves into the room. Garin’s first order of business was Roux. He bent and easily cradled the old man in his arms. Then his gaze wandered around the room. “We’re splitting this, right?”
“You’re going to have to talk to Roux. He owns the castle.”
Garin grinned. “Of course he does.”
Epilogue
Six days later, still in Tournai, Annja stood on a sixth-floor hotel balcony overlooking the river Scheldt. The wind blew through her hair, chilling her, but not enough to make her don a jacket.
The announcement of the find at the old castle had been in all the media, which had drawn a lot of attention. Annja’s messaging service was filled with calls and emails. It was going to take a while to get everything sorted out, but she was looking forward to the work and to the papers she’d be able to write about the Merovingian kings when she’d gone through the documents Childeric III had left among the treasures.
“Have you ordered breakfast yet?” Dressed in a robe, Roux walked cautiously out to the balcony. His hair and beard were rumpled, but his voice sounded strong.
“I did. It should be here soon.”
Roux pulled out one of the chairs ranged around the small patio table. He sat gingerly, his face going white with the pain he was dealing with.
He’d undergone surgery to remove the bullets, and the doctors had been amazed at his vitality. As soon as he’d regained consciousness and a little strength, he’d arranged for private medical care in the hotel. Annja hadn’t fought him. She knew how stubborn he could be, and she wasn’t about to argue with someone who could take three bullets to the chest and walk away from it.
She turned and rested a hip against the balcony railing, studying him.
“Are you going to loiter all day?” Roux reached for one of the newspapers on the table and opened it. “You haven’t spent any time in Tournai. A city that is filled with history, and you’re not bothering to go see any of it.”
