Destiny (12 page)

“Are you nervous?” Annja asked as Garin slowly approached the huge house built into the hillside.

“A little.” Garin shrugged. “Roux and I never part on good terms. Not since—” He paused. “Not for a very long time.”

“The last time I saw him, he walked out on a dinner tab on me.” Annja gazed up at the house. She didn't know where they were. Garin had taken a number of turns after they'd left the highway. All she knew was that they were somewhere south of Paris.

“A dinner tab?” Garin chuckled.

“It was nothing to laugh about. My credit card took a serious hit over that.”

“The last time I saw Roux,” Garin said, “he tried to kill me.”

Annja stared at him.

“I attempted to blow up his car first,” Garin explained as if it was nothing. “With him in it. So I suppose he was entitled.” He shrugged. “He was dazed at the time, or maybe he would have got me. I truly didn't expect him to survive.”

“Then why isn't he meeting you at the gate with a rocket launcher?” Annja asked while wondering once again what rabbit hole she had fallen down.

“Because I've got you and he's interested in talking to you. Right now. Perhaps getting out of the house will be more…risky.”

“Oh.” Annja thought maybe she should have opted for the airport and a chance at escape.

But she would have left behind the mystery and she didn't like unfinished business.

“Maybe Roux has gotten over your attempt to kill him,” Annja suggested.

“I doubt it. He can be rather unforgiving.”

She thought about Lesauvage and the Brotherhood of the Silent Rain. She didn't feel very forgiving toward them.

Garin eased to a stop at the gatehouse. His gun rested in his lap. He dropped his right hand over it.

“How long has it been?” Annja asked. “Since you tried to blow him up, I mean?”

“Twenty years. In Rio de Janeiro.”

“Twenty years ago?”

“Yes.” Garin's attention was on the armed guard approaching the car.

Annja thought he had to be joking. But as he thumbed down the window, he was tense as piano wire. It wasn't a joke.
But twenty years?

“You hold your age well,” she commented dryly.

“You,” Garin assured her, “have no idea.” He raised his voice and spoke to the guard. “Stay back from the car.”

The guard started to lift his assault rifle.

“If you raise that rifle,” Garin said, showing the man the big pistol, “I'm going to kill you.”

The guard froze. “Mr. Roux,” he said in a calm voice.

“Yes,” Roux's unmistakable voice came over the radio.

“Your guest is armed.”

“Of course he is. I wouldn't expect him any other way. Let him pass. I'll deal with him.”

“Yes, sir.” The guard waved to his counterpart inside the gatehouse.

Garin smiled but never moved the pistol from the center of the man's chest. “Thank you.” The gates separated and he rolled forward, following the ornate drive to the big house.

“A lot of testosterone in the air tonight,” Annja commented. She had to work to make herself sound calm. She was anything but.

“There is a lot,” Garin said, “that you don't know.”

 

R
OUX STOOD
outside the house, defiant and confident, as if he were a general in control of a battlefield instead of a lion trapped in his den. He wore a dark suit that made him look like a wealthy businessman. His hair and beard were carefully combed.

A young man in butler's livery opened Annja's car door. He said, “Welcome, miss,” in a British accent sharp as a paper cut.

Annja stepped out, still wearing the blouse and shorts she had worn for her research trip through Lozère that morning and afternoon. She felt extremely underdressed.

Garin's black clothes suited the night and the surroundings. He slipped the big pistol under his jacket.

“Miss Creed,” Roux greeted her with a smile, as if they had just been introduced and none of the previous day's weirdness had occurred between them. “Welcome to my home.”

Annja tried not to appear awestruck.

The home was huge. Palatially huge. Ivy clung to the stone walls and almost pulled the house into the trees that surrounded it, softening the straight lines and absorbing the colors. The effect was clearly deliberate.

The butler stood by Roux and his eyes never left Garin. In response, Garin bared his teeth in a shark's merciless grin.

“You have a new lapdog,” Garin said.

“Do not,” Roux growled in warning, “trifle with Henshaw. If you do, one of you will surely be dead. I will not suffer his loss willingly.”

Roux even talked differently in his home, Annja realized. He's really buying into the whole lord-of-the-manor thing.

“An Englishman?” Garin snorted derisively. “After everything we've been through, you trust your life to an Englishman?”

“I do,” Roux said. “I've found few others worth trusting.”

Garin folded his arms and said nothing.

Roux turned his attention to Annja. “You must be tired.”

“No,” Annja replied.

“Hungry?”

“No,” she said. She returned his bright blue gaze full measure. “Eating with you is too expensive.”

Roux laughed in honest delight. “I did hope you had enough to cover the bill.”

“Thanks,” Annja said. “Tons.” She held out her hand. “You owe me for your half of the bill.”

Amused, Roux snaked a hand into his pocket and pulled out a thick sheaf of bills. He pressed several into her hand.

Annja counted out enough to cover his half of the bill, then gave the rest back.

He frowned a little. “I'm sure the tab was more than that.”

“It was,” Annja said. “I only took half. Plus half the tip.”

“I would have paid for it all.”

“No,” she told him. “I don't want to owe you anything.”

Roux put the money way. “There's still the bit about me saving your life in the cave.”

“Really?” Annja smiled sweetly. She spoke without turning around, but she could see the man in her peripheral vision. “Garin?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“Do you want to kill Mr. Roux right now?”

“Nothing,” the big man said, “would make me happier.”

“Please don't.”

Garin's smile broadened. “If you insist.”

“I do.” Looking directly at Roux, Annja nodded. “We're even. I just saved your life.”

A displeased look filled Roux's patrician features. “You're going to be trouble,” he declared.

“I find I'm liking her more and more all the time,” Garin said.

“If nothing else, this should be interesting,” Roux announced.

“I want to see the charm,” Annja said.

Roux ushered them into his house.

 

I
F THE HOUSE HAD APPEARED
wondrous and magical on the outside, it was even more so on the inside.

Annja gave up trying to act unimpressed. Paintings, ceramic works of art, stained glass, weapons, books and other pieces that should have been in museums instead of a man's home adorned the spacious rooms. Most of them had private lighting.

If Roux wasn't already wealthy, he would be if he sold off his collections. And a crook besides. Several of the pieces Annja saw were on lists of stolen items or had been banned from being removed from their country of origin.

The trip back to his personal office took time. Garin—obviously no lover of antiquities—looked bored as he trailed along after them, but Roux took obvious delight in showing off his acquisitions. He even offered brief anecdotes or histories regarding them.

Annja didn't know how long it took to get to the sword, but she was convinced it was a trip she'd never forget.

“The sword, the sword,” Garin said when he could no longer hold his tongue. “Come on, Roux. You and I have waited for over five hundred years. Let's not wait any longer.”

Five hundred years? Annja thought, realizing only then what he'd said. She figured it was only an exaggeration meant to stress a point.

Roux's office offered an even more enticing obstacle course that cried out for Annja's attention. Evidently he kept his favorite—and unique—items from his collections there.

Finally, though, with much prodding from Garin, and a promise of physical violence that almost triggered an assault from Henshaw, they reached Roux's vault room.

The huge door swiveled open. Roux disappeared inside the vault and returned carrying a case. He placed the case on the huge mahogany desk and opened it.

Something deeply moving attracted Annja's attention even more strongly than all the priceless objects she'd passed to reach this point. She stared at the pieces that had once made up the sword blade. Some of them were only thin needles of steel. Others looked as if they'd burned black in a fire. None of them would ever fit together again.

Yet she knew they all belonged together.

Somehow, on a level that she truly didn't understand, Annja knew that all the pieces were there. And that they had at last come home.

Unbidden, she stepped forward and reached out her right hand. Heat radiated against her palm.

“The pieces are hot,” she said.

Standing beside her, Roux stretched out a hand. “I don't feel anything,” he said.

Annja shook her head. “These pieces are giving off heat. I can feel it.” She studied the pieces, finding the charm she had discovered in La Bête's lair.

It lay with the wolf and mountain side up. Bending down, the switched on the desk light and peered at the image.

“What do you know about the charm, Roux?” she asked.

The old man shrugged. “Nothing. I only knew when I saw it that it was part of this sword.”

“Joan of Arc's sword?”

Roux turned on Garin. “You told her?”

The younger man looked impassive. “Does it matter?”

“You're a fool,” Roux snapped. “You've always been a fool.”

“And it's taken you over five hundred years to find the pieces of this sword,” Garin returned. “
If
you've found them. I'd say that's pretty ineffectual. Perhaps recruiting people to help would have moved things along more quickly.”

Annja moved her hand slowly over the sword fragments.

Roux, Garin and Henshaw all drew closer.

“Is this really her sword?” Annja asked. She moved her hand faster. “Joan of Arc's?” The heat was back, more intense than before.

“Yes,” Roux said hoarsely.

“How do you know?”

“Because I saw her carry it.”

Annja looked at him. “That was more than five hundred years ago.”

“Yes,” Roux agreed seriously. “It was. I saw the soldiers break Joan's sword. I watched her burn at the stake.” Sadness filled his face. “There was nothing I could do.”

Numb with disbelief, but hearing the echo of truth in the old man's words, Annja tried to speak and couldn't. She tried again. “That's impossible,” she whispered.

The old man shook his head. “No. There are things you don't know yet. Impossible things happen.” He paused, studying the pieces. “I'm gazing at my latest reminder of that.”

Annja held her hand still. The pieces seemed to quiver below her palm. Before she knew she was doing it, she shoved both hands closer.

Her fingers curled around the leather-wrapped hilt.

An explosion of rainbow-colored light filled the case and overflowed into Roux's den. The shadow of something flew overhead on wings of driven snow. A single musical note thrummed.

For one brief second, Annja lifted the sword from the case. In that second, she was amazed to see that the sword's blade was whole. The rainbow-colored light reflected on the highly polished metal.

Images of other lights were caught in the blade's surface. A hundred pinpoints of flaming arrows sailed into the sky. Small houses burned to the ground. Running men in armor and covered with flaming oil died in their tracks, their faces twisted by screams of agony that thankfully went unheard.

At that moment, more than anything, Annja wanted to protect the sword. She didn't want Roux or Garin to take it from her. She had the strangest thought that it had been away too long already.

The sword vanished. The weight dissipated from her hands. She was left holding air.

“Where did it go?” Roux roared in her ear. “What did you do with the sword?” He grabbed Annja roughly by the shoulders and spun her around to face him. “What the hell did you do?”

At first, Annja didn't even recognize he was speaking in Latin. She reacted instinctively, clasping her hands together and driving her single fist up between them to break his hold on her. Still moving, she swung her doubled fists into the side of his head.

Roux spilled onto the Persian rug under the ornate desk where the empty case now sat.

The sword was gone.

Garin and Henshaw froze. Annja knew if either of them had so much as flinched, someone—perhaps both—would have died.

Getting to his feet with as much aplomb and dignity as he could muster under the circumstances, Roux cursed and worked his jaw experimentally, a bad combination as it turned out.

Annja dropped into fighting stance, both hands held clenched in fists before her. “I didn't do anything to the sword,” she told the old man. “It disappeared. I lifted it from the case—”

“The pieces disappeared as soon as you touched the hilt,” Roux snarled. “I saw that happen.”

“Pieces?” Annja echoed. “It wasn't pieces that disappeared. I drew the sword out of that case. It was whole.”

Roux searched her face with his harsh, angry gaze. “Poppycock. The sword was still in pieces.”

He's insane,
Annja thought.
That's the only explanation.
And Garin, too. Both of them as mad as hatters. And they've given you something—a chemical—something that soaks in through the skin. Or maybe the room has something in the air. You didn't see what you thought you saw. Something like that can't have happened.

She told herself that, but didn't completely believe it. She'd been under the influence of hallucinogens strong enough to give her waking dreams and walking nightmares before.

Once, in Italy, she'd come in contact with a leftover psychotropic drug used by one of Venice's Medici family members that had still been strong enough to send her to the hospital for two days.

In England, she'd been around Rastafarians who had helped with packing the supplies on a dig site who had smoked joints so strong she had a contact high that lasted for hours. She'd never used recreational drugs. But she knew what kinds of effects to look for.

There were none of those now.

“Think about it, Roux,” Garin insisted. “If she took the sword pieces, where are they? She has no pockets large enough to store them. We were all watching her.”

Roux cursed more as he searched the case and came up empty again.

“The sword wasn't in pieces when it disappeared,” Annja told them. “Aren't you listening?”

“It was in pieces,” Roux growled. “I saw them.”

“I took the sword from the case—”

“Those pieces disappeared while they were still inside the case,” Roux snapped. “I watched them.”

“Then you didn't see what happened.” Annja blew out her breath angrily. “The sword was whole.”

Roux turned to Henshaw. “What did you see?”

“The sword was fragmented when it disappeared, Mr. Roux,” Henshaw said. “Just as it was when you first showed it to me. Never in one piece.”

“There you have it,” Roux declared angrily. “All of us saw the sword in pieces.”

“No,” Annja said. “You didn't see it properly.”

“You're imagining things.” Roux sank into the huge chair behind the big desk. He regarded her intently. “Tell us what happened.”

“I reached into the case for the sword—”

“Why?” Garin asked.

“Because I wanted to feel the weight of the haft,” Annja answered. She didn't feel comfortable talking about the compulsion that had moved her to action. “As I touched the sword hilt, the pieces fit themselves together.”

“By themselves?” Roux asked dubiously.

“I didn't move them.”

“She didn't have time to fit the pieces together,” Garin said. “You, on the other hand, have had time. And I'll bet nothing like this happened while you were trying to put those pieces together.”

After a moment, Roux growled irritably, “No.”

“
Something
happened to the sword fragments,” Garin said.

“It was whole,” Annja said again. She could still see the sword in her mind's eye. It felt as if she could almost touch it.

But neither of the men was listening to her.

“Five hundred years, Garin.” Roux leaned forward and put his head in his hands. “
Over
five hundred years. I searched everywhere for that sword, for those pieces. Now they're all gone.”

Garin's voice was gentle and kind. He didn't sound like someone who had tried to kill Roux.

Of course, Annja decided, he didn't sound insane, either, and he had to be. Both of them had to be.

Roux stared at the empty case.

“Once I had them all together,
something
should have happened,” Roux complained bitterly.

“It disappeared,” Garin said. He looked relieved.

“It wasn't supposed to do that,” Roux argued.

“You said you didn't know what it would do.”

“Wait.” Annja held her hands up and stepped between them. “Time out.”

They gave her their attention.

“
Who
told you to find the sword?” For the moment, Annja decided to go along with their delusion or outright lie that they had seen Joan of Arc carry the sword.

“I don't know,” Roux said.

The old man shrugged. “Joan was one of God's chosen. A champion of light and good. It was my duty.”

Annja breathed deeply and tried not to freak. The situation was getting even crazier.

An alarm erupted, dispelling the heavy silence that fell over the room.

Immediately, a section of the wall to the left of the computer desk split apart and revealed sixteen security monitors in four rows. Ghostly gray images sprinted across the landscaping outside the big house.

“Intruders,” Roux said.

The intruders wore familiar black robes and carried swords that flashed in the pale moonlight. They also came armed with assault rifles and pistols.

A security guard took up a position beside the house and fired at the monks. Almost immediately, a monk with an assault rifle chopped him down, then turned and came toward the house.

The new arrivals began targeting the security cameras. One by one, the monitors inside Roux's study went dark.

Galvanized into action, the old man ran for the vault. “Who the hell are they?” he shouted.

“Monks,” Garin replied.

“Monks?” Roux took an H&K MP-5 submachine pistol from the vault, shoved a full magazine into it and released the receiver to set the first round under the firing pin.

Annja was familiar with the weapon from the training she'd received.

“Some kind of warrior monks from the looks of them,” Garin added. “Like the Jesuits. With better firepower.”

“What are monks doing attacking my home?” Roux asked.

“In Lozère, they were looking for the woman,” Garin said. After a brief glance at Roux's armory, he took down a Mossberg semiautomatic shotgun with a pistol grip and smiled like a boy on Christmas morning. He shoved boxes of shells into his jacket pockets.

Roux turned his gaze on Annja, who stood panicked and confused.

“Do you prefer a short gun or long gun, Miss Creed?” Henshaw asked. He had two rifles slung over his shoulders and was buckling a pistol around his waist.

“Pistols,” Annja said, thinking that they would be more useful in the closed-in areas of the big house.

Henshaw handed her a SIG-Sauer .40-caliber semiautomatic with a black matte finish.

“I thought I saw another one in there,” Annja said.

For the first time that night, Henshaw smiled. “Bless your heart, dear lady.” He handed her a second pistol, then outfitted her with a bulletproof vest with pockets for extra magazines.

Roux buckled himself into a Kevlar vest, as well. “I don't suppose they're here to negotiate?” he asked rhetorically.

The lights went out. For a moment blackness filled the room. Then emergency generators kicked to life and some light returned.

Roux clapped on a Kevlar helmet. “What the bloody hell do these monks want?”

“Their mark was on the back of the charm,” Annja said. “What do you think the chances are?”

“I think I should have paid more attention to that damned charm. Giving it back to them before was merely out of the question. Now that option appears gone for good.”

“This house is pretty well fortified,” Garin said as he saw to his own protection.

“Thank you,” Roux said. “I tried to see that it was well-appointed.”

“Do you think they can get through the front door?”

A sudden explosion shuddered through the house with a deafening roar.

Roux touched a hidden button on his desk. The dark monitors, powered by generator, came back on. This time the views were from inside the house.

On one of the screens, a dozen monks poured through the shattered remains of the elegant front door. They opened fire at once.

“Yes,” Roux declared. “I believe they can.” He picked up the submachine pistol.

“Do you have an escape route?” Garin asked.

“I recall having escaped from your assassins on a number of occasions.”

Garin scowled. “This isn't a good time to revisit past transgressions.”

“Then you'll warn me before you transgress again?” Roux asked.

Garin remained silent.

“I didn't think so,” Roux said. “Henshaw?”

“Yes, sir.” The butler stood only a short distance away, always positioned so that Garin couldn't take him and his master out at one time with a single shotgun blast.

“You know what to do if this bastard shoots me,” Roux said.

“He won't live to see the outcome, sir.”

“Right.” Roux smiled. He took the lead with Garin at his heels as if they'd done it for years.

At the wall beside the security monitors, the old man pushed against an inset decorative piece. A section of the wall yawned open and revealed a narrow stairwell lit by fluorescent tubes.

“Where does it go?” Garin asked.

“All the way up to the third floor. Once there, we can escape onto the hillside. I've got a jeep waiting there that should serve as an escape vehicle.” Roux stepped into the stairwell and started up the steps.

Garin followed immediately, having to turn slightly because he was so broad.

Two monks dashed into the study and raised their rifles.

Calmly, Henshaw pulled the heavy British assault rifle to his shoulder and fired twice, seemingly without even taking the time to aim. Each round struck a monk in the head, splattering the priceless antiques behind them with gore.

Before the dead men could fall, Henshaw had a hand in the middle of Annja's back. “Off you go, Miss Creed. Step lively, if you please.” He sounded as pleasant as if they were out for an evening stroll.

Annja went, stumbling over the first couple steps, then running for all she was worth. The door closed behind them. Her breath sounded loud in her ears as she rapidly caught up with Garin. Gunshots sounded behind her, muffled by the door, and she knew the Brotherhood of the Silent Rain was tearing up Roux's study.

All of this over a charm? Annja couldn't believe it. The charm was hiding something, but she had no clue what.

 

T
HE TUNNEL ENDED
against the sloped side of the roof. Roux sprung some catches and shoved the hatch open.

Through the opening, Annja stood on the roof and gazed around. The pistols felt heavy in her hands. Cooled by the breeze skating along the trees behind the house, she surveyed the area. Shouts echoed from inside the tunnel as their pursuers followed.

“Here.” Roux ran toward the tree line where the house butted into the hill. There, barely lit by the moon, a trail whipsawed across the granite bones of the land. “Another two hundred yards and we'll reach the jeep.”

At that moment, shadows separated from the trees and became black-robed monks.

Garin swore coarsely. “These guys are everywhere!” The shotgun came to his shoulder and he started firing at once, going forward after Roux all the same.

Annja fired, as well, but she didn't know if she hit anything or just added to the general confusion. Bullets pocked the rooftop, tearing shingles away at her feet.

Another round hit her, slamming into her high on the shoulder. The Kevlar vest did its job and didn't allow the bullet to penetrate, but the blunt trauma knocked her down all the same.

She fought her way back to her feet, stayed low and moved forward. When her second pistol fired dry, she whirled behind a tree, shoved the first one up under her arm to free her hand and reloaded the second. She was reloading the first when a monk leaped out of the shadows in front of her.

His face was dark and impassive. “We have come only for the charm,” he said in a quiet, deadly voice. “That's all. You may live.”

“I don't have it,” Annja said as she brought the pistols up.

He leaped at her, his sword held high for a killing stroke.

Crossing the pistol barrels over her head, hoping she wasn't about to lose her fingers, Annja blocked the descending blade. When she was certain the sword had stopped short of splitting her skull and lopping her hands off, she snap-kicked the man in the groin, then again in the chest to knock him back from her.

Before Annja could get away, two more monks surrounded her. They didn't intend to use swords, though. They held pistols.

“Move and you die,” one of them warned.

Annja froze.

“Drop the pistols.”

She did, but her mind was flying, looking for any escape route.

One of the monks spun suddenly, his face coming apart in crimson ruin. The bark of the gunshot followed almost immediately.

The surviving monks turned to face the new threat. Muzzle-flashes ripped at the night and lit their hard-planed faces.

Garin fired the shotgun again, aiming at the nearest target. The monk moved just ahead of the lethal hail of pellets that tore bark from the tree behind him.

While the attention was off her, Annja stooped and scooped up the pistols. Just as she lifted them, a monk rushed Garin from the rear, following his sword.

“Behind you!” Annja pointed the pistols toward the monk, but Garin swung around into her line of fire.