Authors: Alex Archer
“It’s been a long time,” Garin said to the skull as he set it on the glass coffee table.
He reclined on the couch. He’d placed the skull with the eye sockets facing away from him. It didn’t take a genius to understand that’s how the thing worked.
Tilting his head, he smirked to recall Annja’s surprise at seeing him wield the skull. Had she thought him so cold-blooded? After his story about fleeing Granada with the thing, she must suspect nothing less.
It would serve to keep the woman on her toes around him. She got far too cocky at times. No reason to reveal his true intentions when her suspicions would keep her respectful.
Garin tapped through the contact numbers in his cell phone. His client expected discretion, and would receive it. He’d not gained a reputation for being trustworthy in the company he kept for no reason.
It was 2:00 a.m. in the country he wanted to call. Garin thought better than waking the client. The news could wait another six hours.
He put up his feet on the coffee table near the skull and closed his eyes. Maybe he’d keep this apartment. It had initially been a place to park while he’d brokered the deal. But he did like this city. It had potential. And Annja lived close by.
“I’ve so much to learn about you, Annja Creed.”
And she had a lot to learn about him.
W
HERE WAS
S
ERGE
? Annja had thought for sure it would be him to go after the professor for the skull. So if he hadn’t tracked the skull to Columbia, then who had?
Serge had been unaware of the sniper, or it hadn’t seemed he’d been associated with him. So there was another party involved in this mess Annja knew nothing about.
“Benjamin Ravenscroft,” she muttered. “Serge mentioned him, as did Garin. Who is that guy? Is he the guy I’m after? Or was he the thug Bart arrested?”
She would have liked to sit in on the questioning at the police station. But she would do well to stay away from any buildings with bars and cells. Bart was worried about her. She could handle herself fine. She gave Bart a lot of credit for not taking her into custody.
Sighing, she tromped up the stairs from the subway station after taking the train back to Brooklyn.
The first place Serge would probably look for her was her loft. She could go to Garin’s apartment and wrestle the skull from him. But right now? The best idea was to regroup and think through her options.
At least she was close to home, on familiar ground. And just far enough from Bart that he would not try to follow her.
Walking the sidewalks before a stretch of family cafés and shops, Annja dug out her cell phone. Tugging her hood over her head kept the wet snow from soaking through, but she would be completely wet in ten minutes or less.
Her first instinct was to call Roux, but she nixed that and instead called Bart. He answered immediately.
“You going to take the guy in for questioning?”
“Yes, but any conversation I have with him will be kept in strictest confidence.”
So he wasn’t going to bring her in on this one? Was it a means to punish her for not allowing him to help her?
Hell, it was his job; he didn’t have to bring her in on anything, she reminded herself.
“I’ll give you all the information I have, which isn’t much,” she said.
“Talk.”
“The day I brought the skull to Professor Danzinger I returned home to find a guy waiting for me in my loft.”
“Yes, you told me.”
“His name is Serge.”
“Serge who?”
“Don’t have a last name. I think he’s Russian, if that helps.”
“You know it doesn’t. What kind of trouble are you in, Annja? Is this Serge guy after you?”
She looked over her shoulder. “Not this second.”
Bart’s exhale crept through the phone lines and snapped like a finger thumping her skull. “Annja…”
“I don’t mean to make you worry. But it’s good to know someone does. Will you call me if you get more info on the perp?”
“Don’t use cop words like that, Annja.”
“Sorry. The suspect. Also I have another name—Benjamin Ravenscroft.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“It does?”
“Yeah, but I’m not sure why.”
“Is it the guy from the warehouse?”
“We’ll know soon enough.”
“Talk to you soon, Bart. Thanks.”
She turned and walked right into a young African-American guy with loose baggy clothes and enough gold on his fingers to start a bank. “Sorry,” she said.
“Chill, pretty lady. Little late for you to be out for a stroll in this weather. Hey, you look familiar. Dude, come here.” He gestured to a friend equally clad in gold and enough baggy fabric to outfit a whole gang. And no winter coats or gloves. Kids, Annja thought.
“Who’s this chick?” the young man said.
Annja stood oblivious as they puzzled her out. She scanned across the street for a place to sit and have a cup of coffee. Suddenly she needed food and warmth, a place to puzzle out her thoughts.
“It’s the chick from that TV show about the monsters.”
“Oh, yeah, Kristie something.”
“Annja,” she corrected. “Kristie is the one with the, well…”
“Right.” Both guys beamed with knowing smiles and glanced at her breasts. “We like her, too. But you’re the smart one.”
Gee, thanks. The smart one all the boys walk a wide path around. The only guy she wished would walk around her was a certain Russian necromancer.
She wondered briefly if they’d seen her nudie picture, but then chastised herself for even thinking of it in that manner.
Her
nudie picture? Mercy.
“Dude, can you sign my shirt?”
He produced a marker from a plastic shopping bag and handed it to her. Tugging out the hem of his Knicks jersey, he held a section tight for her.
Annja sucked in the corner of her lip, pen poised for action. “You’re sure you want me to mark up this shirt? This is the Knicks. I so don’t rate next to them.”
“Hell, yeah, girl!”
She scribbled her signature across the white fabric. Many a time she’d been stopped for an autograph, but this was her first shirt. She was one step away from a rock star. Professor Danzinger would approve.
Would have approved, she corrected herself sadly.
“Thanks, guys. Hey, is the restaurant across the street a good place to eat?”
“You want fast food or a nice sit-down meal?”
“Somewhere in between.”
“Then go up a block and check out Granny’s. They’re open twenty-four hours and the waitresses are always cranky, but their coffee rocks. Thanks, Annja.”
She shook their hands and walked on. Behind her the guys slapped palms and shared a triumphant hoot. That made her smile. So what if Kristie had posters? She didn’t need no stinkin’ poster, just give her a dirty T-shirt and a marker.
Inside the restaurant Annja navigated to a corner booth with the shades drawn over the windows. Depositing her backpack on the opposite seat she climbed into the booth and put her spine to the wall, knees drawn to her chest.
She ordered coffee. A framed black-and-white photograph of Carlo Gambino, the Mafia don, hung on the wall behind her. The glass was cracked, but the autograph looked real.
“Friends in strange places,” she muttered, thinking briefly of Garin and his on-again, off-again pseudo friendship with her. He’d hug her, then stab her in the back and sink her in the river wearing cement shoes just like a mobster if given the motivation.
There were half a dozen patrons in the restaurant and the heat blasted like a Sahara wind. It felt great. And the waitress wasn’t crabby, as the guys had intimated.
So she sat. Alone. Without the skull.
At least Serge didn’t have it. Or Benjamin Ravenscroft. Whoever he is.
But Garin did.
What would he do with such a thing? After his tale of the power it possessed, and watching innocents die in the fifteenth century, she thought for sure he wouldn’t want it to again wield such wicked power. And yet he’d brazenly used it against her.
She could have been killed! And Garin could not have known otherwise.
Annja rubbed her hip. Nothing was broken, but she’d find a bruise there later. Probably bruises on her elbows and ribs, too. As well, her wrist still ached, and she was feeling in sorry shape.
But the most vexing question was, why had it worked when held in Garin’s hands, and yet the whole time she’d had it…nada?
A sip of coffee confirmed it did indeed rock. Annja crossed her arms over her chest and hunched down farther until the back of her head rested on the torn vinyl booth.
She’d never felt so alone. And she felt it in every ache and cut on her body.
Bart’s question tormented her. Why
was
she doing this? Who said she had to save the world? Or, for that matter, one tiny skull. Let the bad guys go at it.
She wanted to go home and crawl between the sheets.
It would be great if someone was at home waiting with arms open to give her a much-needed “you tried your best, kiddo” hug. She’d never had one of those before, but had often imagined what it would be like.
Shaking her head at her thoughts, she sipped coffee. “Not going to happen in this lifetime, Creed. Deal with it.”
CNN played on the plasma television mounted on the meeting room wall. Well after midnight, Ben wasn’t close to leaving the office for the day. It wasn’t his turn to tuck in Rachel, so he wasn’t bothered by the late hour.
A burgeoning migraine gave no regard to the time, either. He should take his medication. Already he was beginning to see spots before him, gray holes in his vision. Though the TV was on, the sound was off. He couldn’t see the news-caster’s face unless he blinked. That granted momentary relief from the visual spots.
The crawl across the bottom of the CNN broadcast flashed a breaking news story. Ben squinted to read it. A professor at Columbia University had been found dead. He had taught in the Sociology and Anthropology department and was the rock star of the campus. He had been garroted with a guitar string.
Ben pressed two fingers to his temple and rubbed at the sting pulsing in his head. Was there no end to the ineptitude of those he had chosen to work for him?
“I should have taken care of this myself from the start,” he muttered.
But he’d always believed leaving the dirty work to others best. Benjamin Ravenscroft was a known public entity. He couldn’t afford a slipup, or to be connected to anything immoral or just plain dirty. Not that he didn’t positively drool to get his hands on the inept and smash their faces into a brick wall.
He slammed a fist on the conference table. The force toppled the empty paper cups left behind from his afternoon meeting. Anger bled through his veins, pulsing with each squeezing grip at his temple.
Shoving aside the pile of mail he’d been going through, Ben picked up the letter opener.
The headache gripped more fiercely. He squeezed the thin staff of steel. If he was home, Linda would touch him, ease away the pain.
No longer. Once Linda had nursed his headaches, leading him into the dark bedroom and pressing a cool cloth over his pulsing brow. Gentle touches reassured, made him know that, even though he could not speak for the pain, she was there.
But Linda hadn’t touched him since Rachel’s diagnosis.
Why couldn’t she speak to him in anything less than a scream? She blamed him for all their troubles. For Rachel’s sickness. For his headaches. For the maid quitting after the dog bit her. She would blame him for the housing crisis if she could.
He was just trying to take care of his family in the only manner he knew—by hard work, and by investigating all means to curing his daughter.
Ben had to prove to Linda he was not the man she thought he was. He would win back her love, her welcoming smile and gentle touch.
A twinge of red pain struck his temple. Ben cringed, leaning over the table. Gripping the letter opener as if to break it, he was about to stab the stack of officious charity requests when a knock at the door stopped him.
Like a guilty child trying to hide the evidence Ben swung the letter opener behind his back.
He’d never escape the guilt of his own ineptitude. His inability to make the world right for those he loved the most. He could sell
air,
for Christ’s sake. But save his own flesh and blood?
“What is it?” he snapped.
Harris stepped inside, pushing the door with a careful hand. “Sorry to bother you so late, boss. There’s no one here, so I let myself in. You okay, boss?”
No, he wanted to tear out his brain and slam it against the wall. “Just a headache,” Ben said. “Your man finish the job?”
“Er…”
“Apparently he did. I saw the news. So where is it?”
Harris rubbed a palm over his knuckles. A bruise near his left temple looked fresh. “There was a snafu,” he said.
“Snafu?”
Ben didn’t want to hear this. Yet if the operation was going to fall apart around him, he needed to stop it before it bled out. Had to contain the damage. Like his pulsing migraine, it threatened to explode.
His knuckles tightened about the letter opener.
“The police were called,” Harris said. “Jones was arrested.”
“You kept my name out of the deal, I expect?”
“Of course, Mr. Ravenscroft. I never use names with my men. But the skull…”
“Let me guess. No skull,” Ben snapped sarcastically. “But why should I expect success from you?”
“Jones
had
the skull,” Harris began, as always tracking the floor with his gaze. “He called me for pickup, said he was being chased.”
“By the police?”
“No, by some woman. Then he was cut off. I didn’t get there until the police had arrived. I stayed out of sight while they made the arrest.”
Ben stabbed the table with the letter opener. The high-gloss mahogany cracked. Damn his frustrations. “A woman?”
One guess who that might be.
Clinging to the shaft of steel, Ben pressed his free palm to the table’s slick surface.
“Would that be Annja Creed?” He could not look at Harris. The gray spots had multiplied. “That same slender bit of a woman who managed to fall from a bridge and
not
die, as you would have me believe. Wonder how she managed to rise from the dead? And then to chase a big fellow like Jones?
And
slip away with the skull?”
“She must be working for Marcus.”
“The thief? I don’t think so. I tracked their e-mails online. She had no clue who he was or what artifact he had before they met. Despite his duality to me, Cooke was careful not to reveal his identity.”
“Maybe Serge…”
“Serge?” Ben swung upright, the letter opener tearing slivers of wood.
“H-he gave me this.” Harris tapped his jaw. “He was on the scene, trying to find Creed.”
Ben hadn’t considered the connection, but it was possible. It would surprise him, though, if Serge had made a friend, and one so gorgeous and famous as Annja Creed.
On the other hand Serge was positively clandestine. All the time. The man could have a harem for all Ben knew.
“So Creed took off with the skull?”
Harris exhaled. “No, some man got it.”
“Some man? Not Serge? Not Creed? But some person you don’t even have a name for?” He hissed madly. “How many people know about this skull?”
“Sorry, Mr. Ravenscroft.” Harris tugged at his tie. “Jones texted me from the warehouse just before the police nabbed him. Said a strange man took off with the skull. He said the skull did something to him.”
Tapping the tip of the letter opener against his chin, Ben slid a leg along the table. Tightening his jaw, he closed his eyes. “Did something?”
“It was like a hurricane, but inside the warehouse. The other man held it up, and it blew Jones and the Creed woman from their feet.”
This was incredible to learn. So the Skull of Sidon did possess powers. But to give all good things? What good was blowing two people away? And not killing them? Unless it was a good thing to the man who now possessed the skull.
Ben wasn’t sure how the skull worked. Perhaps the individual bearer determined exactly what goodness could be reaped from the skull.
“Were they together, do you think? Creed and the other man? Did you get his name?”
“No name, but yes, they were initially together. But I think he left her behind.”
“You think?” He looked up at Harris, but his vision was littered by blurry gray spots. Nauseous, Ben winced at the command the migraine had over him.
“I wasn’t going to get too close to the warehouse. Cops, remember?”
“And you…lost her?”
“Are you sure you’re okay, boss?”
“Yes!” Struggling for breath, Ben spoke rapidly. “You didn’t follow the woman?”
“There were cops all over like ants to peanut butter.”
“Perhaps she left with the police? Did they take her into custody?”
“Couldn’t tell. I was busy getting the hell out of there. Whoa—hey now, boss.” Harris flinched as Ben tossed the letter opener in the air, and caught it, wielding it like a blade before him.
The migraine threatened to fell Ben to his knees. Going fetal was always a last resort. And not the image he wished to convey to his man.
“Harris…you’re fired.”
“But, sir—”
He could not see the man’s face at all now. But he didn’t need to. Controlled by pain, Ben flinched his tightened muscles.
Thrusting, the letter opener slid neatly into Harris’s skull through his nasal cavity. Ben barely had to push.
In his fury, he intended to scramble gray matter. Hadn’t the ancient Egyptians done something similar before mummifying their dead?
He slapped a hand over Harris’s mouth to silence the scream. Shoving the stuttering man against the wall, Ben pushed hard. Pushing away his own pain. Murdering it.
The letter opener stopped, obviously hitting bone. He twisted and was able to cut the blade through the interior. His entire body pressed along Harris’s body; Ben felt the man’s muscles contract.
Harris dropped, dragging jelly fingers down the front of Ben’s shirt. There was very little blood from the hemorrhaging brain.
Dropping the letter opener on the stack of discarded envelopes, Ben stepped away from the damage. His hip jolted against the meeting table. He let out the breath he’d squeezed back since the weapon had entered the man’s nose.
His neck flushed with warmth. He lifted his hands to study them. He saw clearly. No blood, yet his fingers shook. Heartbeats pounded with unrelenting vehemence. He hadn’t noticed his heartbeat at all while committing the violence. Now he could not hear beyond it.
What had he done? The headache…it had taken control. He did not—
“I…didn’t…”
But he had. He’d killed a man.
It had been so easy. Natural. The pain had transferred from his skull, through his fingers and away from his body.
He tugged his foot from under Harris’s leg. Thick fluid oozed out the nose and over the man’s parted mouth. The head, tilted forward onto his chest, would keep the blood from dripping onto the floor.
“What the hell?” Ben scrubbed fingers through his hair and tugged hard. It alleviated some muscle tightness. The headache had moved to the back of his scalp, just a dull pulse now. “I…have to get rid of this.”
Yes. Think clearly. Beyond the migraine. Now was no time to panic. It was too late for regret.
He must know someone who could take this away. Move the body without anyone noticing. What did they call people like that?
“Cleaners,” Ben muttered, shocking himself with the knowledge. He stumbled, tripping over Harris’s hand. He caught himself against the boardroom table and pressed his face to it.
Ben exhaled and slumped onto the chair. He collapsed forward, arms folding in and head bowing. A glance over his shoulder checked Harris’s face. Still no excess blood. When had his blurred vision dissipated?
There was a man he knew who would know the right people. And it was not Serge.
Ten minutes later Ben had been promised a cleaner would arrive within the hour. Stepping over Harris’s body, he dragged the door closed behind him. He had to tug. The body had slumped and blocked the door. Harris’s ear bent awkwardly. The door dragged flesh, but finally it closed.
He phoned his secretary at home. “I was thinking,” he spoke carefully, molding his words before letting them out, “we’d head for the Jumeirah. I want to relax tonight on some luxurious sheets with room service. How does that sound to you?”
“You spoil me, Ben. Shall I give the hotel a call?”
“Yes. I’ll meet you in the lobby in an hour. I’ve got some tidying up to do here and a last-minute phone call with a client on Tokyo time.”
“Shall I order champagne?” Rebecca asked.
Champagne to celebrate his first murder?
“Why the hell not?”