The Dragon’s Mark (22 page)

Recognizing what she thought was his need for discretion, Shizu did not refer to it, either.

It would be their secret.

Sensei handed her a file folder. Inside was a color photo of a stunningly beautiful woman with chestnut hair and amber-green eyes. A name had been printed across the bottom of the photograph.

“That woman carries a certain sword that I wish to possess. I want you to get that sword for me,” Sensei said.

Shizu nodded. “She’ll be dead before the week is out,” she replied, displaying a sense of newfound confidence that was as surprising to her as it was to her master.

“No!” he said sharply, and then calmed himself. To Shizu it seemed as if he was embarrassed at having shown even that little emotion.

“No,” he repeated, this time in a calmer tone. “She is not to come to any harm, nor can the sword be taken from her by force. It must be given of her own free will. Anything less and my plans will be ruined. Do you understand?”

Shizu hid the confusion she was feeling and simply nodded. She had been trained to kill, to eliminate her enemies as ruthlessly and as quickly as possible. The woman had something Sensei wanted and she was not allowed to use the one skill she could most easily bring to bear on the problem? Was this another test?

Sensei saw her confusion. “The sword is an item of considerable power, but that power is only available if its current bearer still lives and if the sword has been given freely, rather than taken under duress. She must remain alive,” he explained.

“Hai!”
Shizu said, bowing to show her complete agreement.

Sensei pointed at some materials in a file folder. “Everything you need is in here—habits, locations, even her travel schedule for the next several weeks. An account has been opened for your use—the access codes are in the folder, as well. Once you have the sword, reach me through the usual channels.”

He moved out from behind the desk and Shizu understood that her audience was over. It was time for her to leave.

“I will await word that you have succeeded,” he said, “as I have no doubt that you will do so. Good hunting.”

Later, in her own room, Shizu stared at the photograph, studying the woman. Her gaze drifted to the name at the bottom of the image.

“What secrets are you hiding, Annja Creed?” the Dragon asked. “And why is preserving your life so important to Sensei?”

She did not know the answers, but she was certain she would find out.

Maybe then she could quench the fire of jealousy that was suddenly burning in her heart.

Now

Annja slept badly that night, her dreams plagued by faceless samurai soldiers and a massive feathered dragon that breathed fire in great scorching arcs. Roux appeared more than once, as well—a gagged and bound captive who endured torture after torture at the hands of a beautiful porcelain doll with long dark hair.

By the time she awoke for the fifth time, heart pounding, Annja decided that it wasn’t worth trying to sleep any more. She got up to greet the sun.

She ran through a series of katas to get her blood flowing and her head clear, then settled down in front of the windows for some meditation and deep breathing. The sun kissed the rooftops nearby, then rose high enough to shine its light directly into her loft, illuminating her as she sat lotus style on the floor.

Satisfied she was ready for what was to come later that day, Annja got up, showered and ate a hearty breakfast, knowing she was going to need the energy reserves later.

All the while, her thoughts were on her sword. The plan called for her to give it up to the Dragon and do what she could to hold it here in this world as she and Henshaw tried to free Roux. Then she would call the sword back to her, ultimately returning it to the otherwhere.

It wasn’t half-bad as plans go.

There was only one thing wrong with it.

They had no idea what would happen when she voluntarily gave up the sword. Would it still be bonded to her at that point? Would the link between them be shattered? Would she ever be able to command the sword again?

She didn’t know.

And not knowing scared her.

H
ENSHAW ARRIVED AT THE
park just after it opened. He carried a backpack over one shoulder and had several cameras slung around his neck, emulating the look of just another picture-obsessed photographer come to document the beauty of the garden in bloom. A tour bus with New Jersey license plates was unloading passengers as he approached the entrance to the park so he merged with the crowd and struck up a conversation with one of the tour’s patrons as they waited to buy their entrance tickets.

If the park was under surveillance as Annja suspected, then they would be looking for a solitary individual and might not pay too much attention to the group as it entered the park.

He stayed with his newfound friend until they had moved through the entrance pavilion and into the park itself, then wandered away on his own.

When he was certain that no one was taking an undue interest in him, Henshaw took out the little map he’d been given when he’d bought his ticket and quickly located the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden.

He’d entered off Flatbush Avenue, which was on the opposite end of the park from where he needed to be. It seemed a prudent move; the two entrances off Washington were certainly closer, but were also more likely to be watched for just that reason. In order to get to the Japanese garden, he was going to have to stick to the outer walkway, past the Steinhardt Conservatory, the Lily Pool Terrace and the Magnolia Plaza Visitor Center before he was even close. From there he could cut through the Celebrity Path or the Fragrance Garden to reach his destination.

Henshaw took his time, using his cameras on a regular basis, doing what he could to remain in character and not appear out of place. Several passersby smiled and said hello. He nodded or waved hello in return, but kept his mouth shut at all times. He didn’t want people to remember the man with all the cameras and the British accent, just in case something went wrong later.

At last he reached the southern edge of the lake. The viewing pavilion was directly in front of him; this was the location of the meet.

He had to find a suitable watching place.

He consulted his map and tried to match it up with his surroundings. He could see that on the other side of the narrow lake the land began to rise toward a wooded ridgeline. A second path wound along about halfway up the hillside and he decided to follow that to see what he might find.

Another ten minutes of walking found him looking directly back across the lake at the viewing pavilion from that second, higher walkway. This is the place, he thought.

He left the path and climbed through the trees, emerging on a narrow ridge above the edge of the Japanese garden. From there he could look across the lake to the viewing pavilion, as well as both walkways, the one on this side of the lake and the other that led up to and away from the pavilion itself.

He found a small copse of trees that provided him with a clear line of sight to the pavilion, as well as some shade. Setting his pack on the ground, he walked fifty paces in every direction, looking back at his selected spot from a variety of locations. He was pleased to find that he couldn’t see the backpack no matter how hard he tried; the position was a good one and would provide the cover he needed to carry out his part of the plan. Later, when the sun was setting, the whole area would be layered with shadows and he’d be almost invisible.

Returning to his chosen location, he removed a pair of binoculars from his pack, found a comfortable sitting position with his back to a tree and settled in to start his watch.

B
Y MIDMORNING
A
NNJA WAS
going stir-crazy. When something needed to be done she was the type who just went out and did it, so waiting around was driving her nuts. She paced the floor of her loft like a caged lioness, back and forth, until she just couldn’t take it anymore.

She had to get out of there.

She threw on her sweats and went for a jog, sticking to the main streets and avoiding any of the alleys or shortcuts she might have used. She wanted to be certain she was around people in case the Dragon’s goons tried to make another move ahead of the meet.

When she returned to her apartment she showered for the second time that morning and then dropped in front of the television in her bathrobe for some mindless entertainment. Halfway through whatever show it was that she was watching—it was that interesting—she decided to call Garin.

If there was one thing Garin was good at, it was self-preservation. Since both he and Roux were tied to Joan’s sword in some indefinable way, she knew he would want to be kept abreast of what was happening. He’d also want to know what had happened to Roux; just because their last encounter had ended badly didn’t mean that they wanted nothing further to do with each other. If that was the case, they would have stopped talking to each other hundreds of years ago.

Annja dialed the cell number she had for Garin and listened to it ring several times before the call was finally routed to a general voice-mail system. There wasn’t even a message; it just beeped to indicate that it was recording.

She left a message, explaining that Roux was in trouble and that she needed Garin’s help. After that, there wasn’t anything more she could do.

T
HE HOURS PASSED SLOWLY
.

The park had a fair number of visitors and Henshaw watched them all in turn, looking for that one telltale sign that something was out of place, the one little detail that would give them away for who they really were, but he didn’t see anything that made him suspicious.

He found himself admiring the tranquility of the place—the calmness of the lake waters, the gentle cascade of the landscape. Even the soft breeze that wafted over the garden seemed to have been designed to enhance its very features.

Several times he saw solitary figures showing interest in the lake and the viewing pavilion. One even took the time to pace off the inside of the structure, but when the bride and groom showed up fifteen minutes later for the picture-taking ceremony, Henshaw knew the photographer was just that, a photographer, and not a threat.

Around noon two men in a small boat paddled out across the surface of the lake to where an odd-looking wooden gatelike structure floated. Henshaw had noted it when he’d first caught sight of the lake and the brochure he’d been given with his entrance ticket had told him that it was known as a torii. It had been painted such a brilliant shade of red that the eye couldn’t help but be drawn to it amid the deep emerald green of the surrounding trees.

The men in the boat seemed to be checking something at the base of the torii. Probably a pair of maintenance men, he thought, and after growing tired of watching them eventually dismissed them as unimportant. He barely noticed when they left a few minutes later.

He made sure to shift positions occasionally so that his limbs didn’t go to sleep, and when he needed to relieve himself he did so with a bottle he had brought along for just that purpose.

Not once during the long afternoon did anyone glance in his direction, never mind leave the path and climb up toward the ridge where he might have been in danger of being seen. Nor did he see anything suspicious. If the Dragon or her people were out there, they were doing one hell of a job of staying hidden.

Eventually the sun began to set and the time for Annja’s arrival drew near. Confident that the shadows now hid him sufficiently well that he wouldn’t be seen even if he stood, Henshaw reached for his backpack. He removed what he needed and then assembled it carefully. When he was finished he took the spotting scope out of the pocket of his shirt where he had been carrying it all day and clamped it on to the barrel of the now-reassembled rifle.

He was ready.

“Hang in there, sir,” he whispered to the wind. “We’re coming.”

When the time had come, Annja dressed in a pair of jeans, a long-sleeved jersey and her usual low-cut hiking boots. She put the receiver in her ear and attached the microphone to the space between her breasts, just below her collarbone. Then she caught a cab over to the garden.

Founded in 1910 on the site for a former ash dump, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden occupied fifty-two acres between Washington and Flatbush avenues near the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn. It held more than ten thousand varieties of plants and welcomed more than seven hundred thousand visitors per year.

At least, that’s what the sign near the ticket booth read. In all the years Annja had lived in Brooklyn, she’d never been to the gardens.

I have to get out more, she told herself sternly.

She paid for her ticket and passed through the gates, examining the little map they handed out in the process. She found the section of the park containing the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden and headed in that direction. Wandering down the path a short way from the entrance she found an isolated spot and, pretending she needed to retie her shoe, she squatted and tried to reach Henshaw.

She knew the microphones were sensitive, that they could pretty much pick up anything, even a whisper, so Annja kept her voice low and her head turned away so no one could see her seemingly talking to herself.

“Henshaw, you out there?”

There was a long moment of silence and then, “Right here, Ms. Creed.”

Annja breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t realized until just that moment how much she was depending on the radio system to keep her in touch with Henshaw. Or how much his presence helped calm her nerves. She’d already faced off against the Dragon and lost; the idea of doing so a second time was in the forefront of her mind. But this time, her life and Roux’s depended on her success.

It was a heavy burden to bear.

“All right, I’m inside the park. I’ll make my way around to the pavilion and we’ll see what’s what,” Annja said.

It took her fifteen minutes to reach the Japanese garden. This particular one was the first Japanese garden built within an American public garden, and its creator, Takeo Shiota, had done the city proud. It blended the ancient hill-and-pond style with the more modern stroll-garden style and managed to carry it off wonderfully. Annja thought the beauty of the place was amazing. Evergreen trees and bushes dominated the landscape, and here and there bright splashes of color from flowering plants were used with restraint. Annja could see a wooden bridge extending out to a small hump of an island that reminded her of a turtle’s back, but it was the building standing right at the water’s edge that drew her like iron to a magnet.

The viewing pavilion was a large, wooden pagoda-like structure made in typical Japanese fashion. The wood had been stained a deep brown and stood out against the trees without being conspicuous or seeming to be out of place. A vermilion-colored torii, or floating gateway, could be seen in the middle of the lake. Annja knew that the torii indicated the presence of a shrine somewhere nearby, but when she looked around for it she couldn’t see it.

She walked over to the pavilion and entered. It appeared to be empty, just one large room without furniture but which offered several places from which one could look out upon the lake.

“Still with me?” she whispered.

“I’m here. Looks like you’re about to get company. Someone is approaching from the opposite entrance.”

Annja waited a moment, then turned to face that direction just in time to see Shizu enter the Pavilion

H
ENSHAW BROUGHT THE RIFLE
to his shoulder and centered the sights on the Dragon as she approached Annja.

A twig snapped behind him.

Henshaw whirled around, thinking he’d find a stray hiker or a runaway dog. Instead, he saw a figure standing in the shadows not half a dozen yards away. The gun in his hand was a dead giveaway that he didn’t have Henshaw’s best interests at heart. Henshaw couldn’t believe what he was seeing; he’d been so careful all day long, so intent on making certain he wasn’t seen, that his mind just couldn’t accept that someone else had gotten the drop on him. He made an effort to get his gun up and around in the right direction, but the other man fired before he made it.

Henshaw was close enough to see both muzzle flashes as the pistol in the man’s hand went off. What a sledgehammer slammed into his chest, followed immediately by another one, and as he went over backward, the darkness already closing in, Henshaw had a moment to wonder about the lack of the sound of the gunshots.

Then the darkness closed in and he knew no more.

A
NNJA WATCHED AS THE
Dragon seemed to step right out of the shadows as she entered the building. Shizu glanced around, saw Annja and began walking toward her.

“Here she comes, be ready,” Annja whispered into her microphone.

But she didn’t get the reply she expected. Instead, from her receiver, came a harsh grunt, then nothing else.

“Henshaw?” she asked, doing what she could to keep the look of concern off her face. She was supposed to be alone and didn’t want to jeopardize the meeting.

There was no reply.

By that time the Dragon was too close for Annja to take a chance with another message. She’d just have to hope that he’d heard.

It wasn’t an auspicious beginning.

The Dragon stopped about ten feet away from Annja and the two women looked each other over. Gone was the slightly over-the-top fan from the other day. Annja could see that in her place was a stone-cold killer with dead-flat eyes. She was dressed in loosely fitting dark clothing that Annja knew had been chosen not just to allow for ease of movement but also to hide her amid the shadows that were settling all around them now. The hilt of a sword rose up over the edge of one shoulder.

“Where’s Roux?” Annja asked, leaning to the side to look past the Dragon, as if he might be waiting back there in the darkness from which she had emerged.

Shizu laughed. “He’s here. You’ll be reunited with him in a moment. Where’s the sword?”

Knowing that only one of them was going to make it out of this encounter alive, Annja didn’t care about the Dragon seeing the truth and so she reached into the otherwhere and drew forth the sword.

One moment her hand was empty and the next it was filled with the hilt of an ancient broadsword, the tip of the blade pointed directly at the Dragon’s throat.

Shizu’s face showed surprise, though it was masked very quickly.

Annja had seen it, though, and she wondered about it. Did the Dragon’s sword operate differently? Is that why she wore it openly on her back rather than letting it rest in the otherwhere? Or was it all just a trick to throw her off the track, to lull her into making a mistake?

The Dragon made a strange flicking motion with her hand and suddenly there was a pistol in it. She pointed it at Annja.

“Put the sword down on the ground.”

Annja stood resolute. “No, not until I know where Roux is.”

“I told you, he’s nearby. You’ll see him soon enough.” The pistol rose slightly, until the barrel was level with her face. “It would be a shame to mess up those pretty features,” Shizu said.

Annja clicked her tongue twice, one of the pre-arranged signals she and Henshaw had come up with for when they were in the thick of things. This particular one meant that he was to put a warning shot right across her bow, to show the Dragon that she wasn’t the only one with arms and support.

Nothing happened.

She did it again.

Click, click.

Still nothing.

Apparently she was on her own.

Annja suddenly felt very inadequate for the situation she faced.

The Dragon chambered a round into the barrel of the pistol. “I said, put the sword down.”

Not seeing any other alternative, Annja did as she was told.

As she prepared for the sword to leave her hand she had a momentary flash of panic. She didn’t know what it was that made the sword bond to her in the first place, nor did she know what it took for it to remain in this world. She had always assumed that it would stay in her possession until she died, but here she was voluntarily relinquishing it to another. Would the sword pass on to its new owner as a result? Would it abandon her in the mistaken belief that she was abandoning it?

Easy, Annja, she told herself. The sword will understand. Have faith.

At this point, that was all she had left—faith.

She put the sword on the ground and willed it to remain and not vanish into the otherwhere.

“Now, move over there,” the Dragon said, pointing with the barrel of the gun to where a screen in the side of the pavilion had been pulled back, revealing a small balcony overlooking the lake.

Slowly Annja did as she was told. She never took her gaze off the Dragon. If this was going to be it, she wanted to meet death with her eyes open and spit into the face of her adversary. While she watched her enemy, she also continued concentrating on keeping the sword in the here and now; having it disappear into the otherwhere would probably earn her a bullet in the head.

The Dragon kept her distance as she circled toward where the sword rested on the ground. By the time Annja reached the balcony, the Dragon was standing over the sword. She bent over, slid it into a cloth sheath that she’d produced from somewhere on her person and slung the entire package over her back, next to her own weapon.

“We had a deal,” Annja said. “The sword for Roux.”

For a moment Annja thought the Dragon was just going to run off, but then she realized the woman was enjoying this. Whatever was about to happen, it would probably not be pleasant for Roux or Annja.

“Look to your left,” Shizu said. “Do you see the line tied to the railing?”

Annja looked that way and then quickly back again. “Yes, I see it.” It was a narrow piece of fishing line, nearly invisible in the fading sunlight, tied off at the railing and disappearing out into the pond.

“Untie it and pull on it,” the Dragon said.

Annja eyed her warily but made no move toward the line.

The gun swiveled in her direction again. “I said, pull on it.”

Annja didn’t see that she had a choice, so she stepped closer and began to work at the knot. While she did so, she tried reaching out to Henshaw again.

“Are you out there?” she whispered.

She heard nothing but static.

When the line was finally untied, she gave it a good yank. Behind her, out on the water, something splashed.

“Reel it in,” Shizu ordered.

Again, Annja did as she was told, but this time a cold sense of foreboding was stealing across her body. Something had gone very wrong; it seemed likely that both Henshaw and Roux were already dead, which left her alone to escape the Dragon’s clutches.

It only took a few seconds to reel in the line and when she did she discovered that it was attached to a long hollow reed that resembled nothing so much as a wet piece of narrow bamboo. As she stared at it, something began to churn and splash at the base of the floating Torii marker in the middle of the lake.

“I promised I’d deliver Roux alive and unharmed,” the Dragon said, with a vicious smile. “I always keep my promises. It’s just too bad that you’re the one who just took his air hose out of his mouth. Old guy like that, he probably won’t last two minutes.”

As Annja made the connection between the long narrow reed in her hand and the churning commotion in the middle of the pond, her mind screamed at her to act before it was too late.

She backed up, took three running steps and dove over the railing into the lake, all thought of the Dragon forgotten. She struck the water in a shallow dive and let her momentum carry her along as far as it could before she surfaced and swam toward the floating torii with hard strokes of her arms and legs. The cold water sucked the heat from her limbs and her wet clothing threatened to drag her down, but she knew she had only minutes to save Roux from drowning so she fought her way forward.

Behind her, unnoticed by all but the gun-toting watcher on the ridge above, the Dragon walked briskly out of the pavilion.

As she drew closer to the floating signpost, Annja ducked below the surface. The torii wasn’t actually floating, she discovered, but was held in place by a long shaft that was sunk several feet into the muck-covered bottom of the pond.

Roux was tied to that shaft.

He was flailing, trying desperately to get himself free. Air bubbles streamed away from him as he fought to hold his breath and his eyes were wide with the sense of impending death. Annja couldn’t even be sure if he saw her, nor did she have time to find out.

She surfaced, grabbed another lungful of air and then shot back down to help Roux.

Up close she discovered she’d been wrong; Roux wasn’t tied to the shaft.

He was chained.

A shiny steel chain was attached to the pole and then wrapped around his body several times, securing him in place. It was all held together by a thick, brass lock.

There was no way she could pick that lock in the time she had, nor could she smash it open with anything at hand. She was going to have to focus her efforts on the chain and hope for the best. But when she tried to pull the long loops away from Roux’s body enough for him to slip free, she found they were wrapped too tightly to budge even an inch.

Roux continued to thrash frantically beside her and one of his feet lashed out, connecting with her thigh, sending a wave of numbness shooting down its length, but she ignored the injury and swam in close against the shaft. She held on to the chain with her left, opened her hand and summoned her sword.

She felt the solid weight of it against her palm. She jammed the blade down between the first loop of the chain and the pole itself and then pulled against it with all her strength.

For a moment she thought it wouldn’t work, that she wouldn’t be able to get enough torque, but she was surprised when the link snapped quickly.

Annja wanted to shout for joy, despite being several feet underwater, but she knew she wasn’t out of the woods yet. She still had several more lengths to go before it would be loose enough to free Roux.