Destiny (18 page)

After Garin finished his story, Annja sat quietly and looked at him. The fear that he had felt all those years ago—and, in spite of herself, she did believe him about the five hundred years—still showed in his dark features.

“You helped Roux look for the sword?” Annja asked.

Garin shook his head. “No.”

“Why?”

“I was angry after Joan's death and I had no idea there would be consequences if the pieces of the sword weren't found.”

Annja had to admit the man had a point. “So when did you start to believe?”

“About twenty years later.”

“When you didn't age?”

“No,” Garin answered. “I aged. A little. It was when I saw Roux again and saw that he hadn't aged. I began to believe then. I'd thought he would be dead.”

“So he has looked for pieces of the sword for over five hundred years?”

Garin nodded. “He has.”

“And you didn't help?”

“No. I tried to stop him. I tried to tell him that as it stood, we could live forever. I was becoming wealthy beyond my grandest dreams.”

“That was when you started trying to kill him.”

Grinning, Garin asked, “Wouldn't you? If you were promised immortality by simply not doing a thing, wouldn't you take steps to make sure that thing didn't happen?”

Annja didn't know. She regarded Garin with renewed suspicion. “Why are you here now?”

“I'm still interested in what happens to the sword.” Garin shrugged. “Now that it is whole again, does that mean I no longer have untold years ahead of me?”

“Noticed any gray hairs?” Annja asked.

He smiled at her. “Your humor is an acquired taste. When you were in Roux's face, I found you delightful. Now I feel that you have no tact.”

“Good. But keep in mind that I fed breakfast to a man who broke into my home.” Trying not to show her anxiety, Annja took her plate and Garin's to the sink.

“Tell me about the sword,” Garin said.

Turning, Annja leaned a hip against the counter and crossed her arms over her breasts. “What do you want to know?”

“Mostly whether it can be broken again.”

Annja shook her head. “Honesty's not always the best policy.”

“I've
never
thought it was.”

She grinned at that.

“If I had lied,” he asked, “would you have known?”

“About this? Yes.”

“I already know about the sword,” Garin pointed out. “I could have left before you returned.”

“After you happened to arrive while I was out.”

“Of course.”

Annja respected that. He could have done that. She reached out her right hand, reached out into that otherwhere and summoned the sword. She held it in her hand.

Garin's eyes widened as he got to his feet and came toward her. “Let me see it.”

“No.” Annja leveled the sword, aiming the point at his Adam's apple, intending to halt him in his tracks.

In a move that caught her totally by surprise, Garin tried to grab the blade in his left hand and slam his right forearm down to break it. Instead, his hand and arm swept through the sword as if it weren't there.

Annja reacted at once, throwing out a foot that caught Garin in the side and knocked him away. He scrambled to his feet and fisted the bread knife on the counter.

As Garin brought the bread knife around, Annja took a two-handed grip on the sword and slashed at the smaller blade wondering if it would pass harmlessly through. The bread knife snapped in two, leaving Garin with the hilt in his hand.

Annja planted the sword tip against his chest right over his heart. The material and flesh indented. Maybe Garin couldn't touch the sword, they both realized, but the sword could touch him.

“Are we done here?” Annja asked.

Garin swept his left arm against the blade to knock it away, but again his arm passed through. His effort left him facing Annja, his chest totally exposed to her retaliation.

Annja pressed the sword against his chest. “I've fed you breakfast,” she said evenly. “I've overlooked the fact that you broke into my house. I'm even willing to forgive you for trying to break my sword.”

“Your sword?”

“Mine,” Annja responded without pause or doubt. The sword was hers. It had chosen her. That much was clear. “But if you ever make an enemy of me, if you ever try to kill me like you did Roux, I'll hunt you down and kill you.”

“If I try,” Garin promised, unwilling to back up another inch, “you'll never see me coming.”

“Then it would be in my best interests to kill you now, wouldn't it?”

Garin stood stubbornly against the sword.

Annja pressed harder, watching the pain flicker through his features and hate darken his eyes. He stumbled back, then turned and walked away. She let him retreat without pursuit.

Garin wiped at the blood seeping through his shirt. “How much?” he demanded.

“For what?” Almost casually, as if she'd been doing it forever, Annja balanced the sword over her right shoulder.

“To break the sword.”

Annja shook her head. “I'm not going to break this sword.”

In truth, she didn't know what would happen if she tried. An image of the lightning bolt passing through it filled her mind.

She had a definite feeling that whatever happened if she tried to destroy the sword wouldn't be good. Also, she felt that she would be betraying the spirit of the sword. Joan of Arc had led people in a war against oppression with it.

“I could give you millions,” Garin said. He waved to encompass the loft. “You wouldn't have to live like this.”

“I happen to like the way I live.” Annja watched the dark calculations take place in his eyes.

“You love knowledge,” he said finally. “With the money I could give you,
would
give you, you could go anywhere in the world. Study anything you like. With the best experts money can buy. You could open up any door to the past you wanted to.”

The idea was tempting. She believed Garin could provide that kind of money. She even believed he would.

“No,” she said. As if to take the temptation out of his hands, she willed the sword away.

He came at her without warning, rushing at her low and grabbing her hips as he shoved her back against the stove. He fumbled for one of the knives in the wooden block by the sink. Grabbing a thick-bladed butcher's knife, he raised it to strike.

Freeing her right arm from Garin's grasp, Annja drove the heel of her palm into his nose. Blood spurted as the cartilage collapsed.

He yowled in pain and tried to hang on to her. His knife hand came down.

Annja twisted and avoided the knife. The blade thudded deep into the countertop. She reared up against him, forcing him back.

Shifting, she butted him aside with her hip, heel stamped his foot, head butted him under the chin, and brought an elbow strike into line with his jaw.

Garin stepped back, his black eyes glassy. He punched at her but she slapped his arm aside. Then he caught her with an incredibly fast left hand.

Annja dropped as if she'd been hit with a bag of wet cement. Her senses spun and for a moment she thought she was going to pass out.

Garin came after her immediately. On the ground, she knew from experience, his greater size and weight would take away every advantage her speed and strength gave her.

She rolled backward and flipped to her feet in the center of the loft. Annja only had to think of the sword for a split second and it was in her hand. Stepping back, right leg behind her left, hilt gripped firmly in both hands, she readied the sword.

Garin halted, completely out of running room.

All Annja had to do was swing. But he'd stopped his aggressions.
Will it be murder?
she wondered.

“Are you going to kill him, then?” a raspy voice suddenly asked.

Circling slowly, Annja maintained her grip on the sword. She turned just enough to see Roux standing in the doorway.

“Don't either of you respect a person's privacy?” Annja asked.

“I knocked. No one answered. Then I heard the sounds of a scuffle.” Roux entered unbidden. “I thought it best if I investigated.” He closed the door behind him.

Okay, Annja thought, at least I know he's not a vampire.

Roux took off his long jacket. He wore a casual tan suit. “Are you going to kill him?” he asked again as if the question was a typical greeting.

Garin watched her carefully. He kept his hands spread to the side, ready to move.

Annja continued to slowly circle, never crossing her feet, so she wouldn't trip. She stopped when Roux was behind Garin.

“I don't know yet,” Annja admitted.

“My vote is no,” Garin said.

“You tried to kill me,” Annja said, “right after I told you that I would kill you if you tried.”

“I really didn't think you meant it,” he said.

“You would have killed me.”

Garin was silent for a moment, then nodded. “Probably.”

“Miss Creed,” Roux said.

“Do you want to kill him?” Annja asked. Maybe that would be better. Although it would still be in her loft. She wondered if she could talk the old man into killing Garin somewhere else.

“No,” Roux answered.

“Why not? He's tried to kill you, too.”

“I've been like a father to him. It doesn't seem fitting.”

“He's tried to
kill
you,” Annja said in exasperation.

“Ours has been a…difficult relationship at best,” Roux said. “That's the way it is between fathers and sons.”

“I'm not your son,” Garin snarled.

“You were as close as I ever had,” Roux said. He looked around. “May I sit, Miss Creed?”

“Could I stop you?”

“Not if you intend to continue menacing Garin with the sword.” Roux sat in the window seat. “Is that melon?”

“Yes.”

“May I help myself?”

“Sure,” Annja replied, not believing he'd actually asked. “I'm trying to keep the homicidal maniac from killing us.”

“I'm not a homicidal maniac,” Garin objected. “If you'd just let me destroy that sword—”

“Apparently you can't,” Annja taunted. At the moment, after he'd tried to kill her twice, she didn't mind acting a little superior.

“—we could all walk out of here happier,” Garin finished.

“I wouldn't be happier,” Roux said. He looked for a plate, found one in the cabinet and put melon pieces on it. He returned to the window seat. “I spent five hundred years and more looking for the pieces of that sword. I don't care to repeat that experience any time soon.”

“We're immortal, Roux,” Garin growled.

“Not immortal,” Roux replied. “If she'd cut your head off the day she met you, you'd have died.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do.” Roux ate the melon with obvious gusto. “This is quite good.”

“Why are you here?” Annja asked.

“I thought maybe you might have come looking for me before now,” Roux said. “I thought surely you would be curious about the sword. Since you didn't, I thought perhaps it was best if I came looking for you.”

“Why?”

“Because of the sword, of course. I knew it couldn't have just disappeared. After you got away and the sword never showed up again, I knew it had gone with you.”

“How?”

“As I said, it didn't turn up again at my house.” Roux frowned. “Which, I might add, may never be the same again. Why did the Brotherhood of the Silent Rain attack my house?”

“They were after the charm I found in La Bête's lair,” Annja said. “How did the sword come with me?”

“Magic. Arcane forces. Some psychic ability on a higher plane,” Roux said. “Take your pick.”

“Which do you choose?”

“I know why the sword came with you,” the old man said.

“Why?” Annja asked.

“Destiny.”

Annja was speechless.

“You were destined to hold that sword, Annja Creed,” Roux said. “Otherwise you wouldn't have found the last missing piece or me. And, judging from the years I've spent searching for that final piece, no one else could have found it. If you'd found the piece but not me, you wouldn't have found the rest of the sword. Therefore it's destiny.”

It was a lot to take in at one time. Annja had trouble dealing with the whole concept. But here she stood, with the sword pressed to the throat of the one man who wanted desperately to destroy it.

She tried to remember when she'd last felt that anything made sense.

She looked at Garin. “Sit over there by the desk.”

“Sure.” As though he'd just been invited to tea, Garin walked over to the desk and sat.

“We're all three bound by Joan's sword,” Roux said. He held up a hand. “May I?”

“I don't think that's such a good idea,” Annja said.

“From what I gather, Garin can't touch the sword.”

“No.”

“It would be interesting to find out if I can.”

Annja hesitated.

Roux waved his hand impatiently. “If I didn't want to ask you, I'd simply shoot you and take it off your body.”

“You don't have a pistol,” Annja said.

Lifting his jacket, Roux revealed the small semiautomatic leathered beneath his left arm. He dropped the jacket to hide the pistol again. “Please.”

Reversing the sword with a flourish, Annja laid the blade over her arm and extended the hilt to him.

Roux took the sword easily. He examined it carefully. “This is truly exquisite. You can't see where any of the breaks were.”

Tense, Annja waited. She didn't like the idea of anyone else holding the sword.

“Here you go, Miss Creed.” Roux passed the sword back. “Do you want to tell me how you did that vanishing trick back at my house?”