Authors: Alex Archer
The man was bald, seeming tall from his seated position and his broad shoulders and dressed in a dark suit with a black tie. He looked up from his canted bow through his lashes, which made him seem more sinister than the business suit could ever manage.
Could he be the man who’d pulled her from the canal? That man had been bald.
“Annja Creed,” he said calmly. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
He sounded Russian. The voice was deep but the tones were even and he didn’t sound threatening.
What was she thinking? The man had destroyed her home. And she had a pretty good idea what he must have been looking for.
“You know my name. It’s only polite I learn yours.” Still in defensive mode, Annja kept the open door behind her in case a quick escape was needed.
“Serge,” he said, putting a Slavic lilt on the second syllable. “You know what I am here for, Miss Creed.”
“I have no idea. How about you tell me? That is, after you apologize for tearing my place apart. You’ve tossed valuable artifacts about as if toys.”
“Unfortunately, not the valuable artifact I seek. You slipped through my fingers last night.”
So he was the guy at the canal. That explained the bruise at the corner of his left eye. Points for the half-frozen chick.
“I know you have it. I saw the pictures you posted online.”
Crap. For as many times as she’d posted photos—and said postings had resulted in cluing the bad guys to finding her—she would never learn. And yet…
“How did you find me? I cover my tracks well online. My Internet profile is secure. You couldn’t have traced me.”
“I have my ways.”
She chuffed, then thought better of angering the guy who had turned over her heavy leather couch. His
ways
may simply include following her cab home last night. She only took it eight blocks. And she had been out of her head, not thinking clearly.
On the other hand, she’d left him flat on his back. He couldn’t possibly have followed her.
“So you knew the man I spoke to last night
before
you shot him?”
“I fired no weapons last evening.”
That supported her theory on the existence of both the sniper and her attacker.
“So, you and the sniper work together?”
The man looked aside, breaking eye contact, but he didn’t drop his dead calm. He reconnected with her gaze immediately. “No,” he said quietly.
Interesting. So if this one had been tracking the thief for the skull, then what stake had the sniper in the whole thing? How many parties were involved? She counted three so far—the thief, the sniper and this lunk.
“I’ve spent an hour going through your things,” he said. “It’s not here.”
“I could have told you that, if you’d been polite enough to simply ask.”
Her
things?
That implied something so personal. Things that were meant for her eyes only. The idea of this creepy bald guy shuffling through her underwear sent a shiver up Annja’s spine. He didn’t look the sort who would linger over silky things.
Then again, crazy never did look crazy until it was too late.
“News of the skull’s emergence pleased me.” The slow calm of his speech made her wonder if he thought out his words before releasing them into the ether. “It is quite the prize. I thought to have it in hand last night. But then the contact you know as Sneak switched things. I was unaware of your clandestine meeting on the bridge.”
That meant Serge had been tracking the thief. Or the sniper, Annja thought.
Emergence?
That might rule out the possibility of it being taken from a dig sight.
“I still cannot understand why he would give it to
you,
” Serge said.
Well, he didn’t have to make it sound as if she were a distasteful tangle of octopus sitting on a plate of greens, she thought. She said nothing in response.
“I have studied you, Annja. On your own computer.”
That explained the laptop on the desk, powered up and open to Google. Nice of him to spare that expensive piece of equipment. The green screen and camera, on the other hand, were definitely a loss.
“You’re a television personality.” His grimace was accompanied by strange wonder. “As well, an archaeologist. But you’re no one special, Miss Creed. You are common. Your schooling is common. Your expertise not equal to the world’s foremost in your field. Why would he give the skull to
you?
”
She shrugged. “I’m cuter than you are?”
The man tilted a malevolent frown at her.
What did he expect after that berating put-down? Common? She’d show him common. And he wouldn’t see it coming.
He stood in one smooth motion. The dark navy suit was tailored to his body. It revealed thick biceps and a broad chest. She couldn’t detect any sign of a shoulder holster for a gun bulging under the arm.
He didn’t approach her. Annja maintained her ready position by the door. Knees slightly bent, hips aligned with her shoulders. Fluttering her fingers, she thought of the sword. It was right at her grasp with a beckon—but she didn’t call it.
If he was willing to talk, she’d get what information from him she was able. Then she’d show him how very uncommon she could be.
“It’s not here,” she offered.
She wasn’t about to give directions to Danzinger or Columbia, because she could guess how that would end. One body last night was enough for her.
“I believe you,” Serge said. “You don’t have it on your person, either, because you entered with nothing but that empty backpack.”
She’d dropped it inside the doorway.
“Do you work for Benjamin?” he asked.
“Benjamin?” Annja cursed silently. If she’d played that one right, she could have danced around, tried to finagle exactly who Benjamin was. The name meant nothing to her.
Serge nodded, picking up on her lacking knowledge.
He toed a thin steel lock pick that had scattered during his melee. “You don’t know what you’ve been given, do you, Miss Creed?”
Held by his pale gray gaze, she stared at him as if to dig the answer out from his expression. Phrenology was the science of determining character and personality from skull shape. She wondered what a big, rugged cranium meant.
The longer she looked into his eyes, the more she felt creepy crawlies skitter up her spine.
“No, I have no idea what it is.” She looked aside at the mess, then caught movement in her peripheral vision.
Serge reached inside his suit coat and drew out a blade.
Any previous reluctance to calling out her sword fled.
With a lunge to her right, Annja dipped low. She summoned the battle sword. It emerged from the otherwhere in an instant. It fit into her palm with a sure grip. She hoped she’d made it seem as though she were plucking the sword from the floor behind the couch. With a bend of her knee she thrust toward Serge.
With minimum movement, he flicked his wrist, blocking her stab with the edge of his bowie knife. A nod acknowledged her challenge. His dark eyes narrowed.
Annja swung low, seeing if she could get a rise out of the guy. He had only to step back, then forward, as the sword swept past his thigh.
He retaliated with swift grace. The knife passed near her cheek, but didn’t cut flesh. His reach was long and surprisingly agile for one so large and bulky.
“I don’t know how you think fighting me is going to help you find the skull,” she said. A twist of shoulder and a double step backward put her out of reach from his next swipe. Annja slashed her sword across Serge’s shoulder, opening the seam of his suit coat. “I don’t have it,” she said.
“But you had it. Which means, you know where it is now.”
She didn’t answer. Couldn’t. A knife to the thigh sliced out a painful chirp from her. It cut through her jeans and a couple of layers of skin. Score one for the bald guy.
Annja countered by spinning and putting her shoulder to his. She twisted and gripped his knife wrist. Releasing the sword she grabbed his sleeve. A twist moved Serge into a spin and he wobbled and fell. The force of landing popped the bowie from his grip. The knife flipped in the air and hit the wall with a clank, dropping onto a stray couch cushion.
He slapped a hand over her throat and shoved her off him. Annja’s hips connected with the desk. Turning and rolling across the desk she came to her feet with sword again in hand.
Serge stood, hands near his shoulders. He was not surrendering by any means, just making nice. “Proficient sword work. I didn’t notice the weapon earlier.”
“Because you were so busy throwing things about.”
He blocked her thrust with a jerk of his elbow, the flat of Annja’s blade sliding along the suit fabric. Serge gripped her left wrist, twisting it. Annja had to duck forward, bringing her sword arm down and away from attack. Moving with the twist, she spun under his arm, but came up to meet his fist. A backhand slap put her on the floor, arms spread and legs landing on a sofa cushion.
Serge leaned over her. Annja twisted her head to the side. Knuckles cracked the hardwood floor.
In no position to deliver a masterful riposte of sword, Annja thrust blindly. The sword slashed across his back. He didn’t cry out. Hell, she had only cut through his suit again. Must be some kind of Kevlar-reinforced stuff.
Before she could lever herself to stand, Serge gripped her hair and tugged her upright. She met the wall with her palms, dropping her sword. It slipped into the otherwhere, the sound of steel hitting floor lacking.
Knuckles bruised into the base of her spine. No knife? So he didn’t want her dead. Or maybe he liked to play before he did real damage.
“You like doing things the hard way?” she grunted.
He didn’t wait for her answer. A slam from his knuckles at the back of her head crushed her cheek into the brick wall. Blood spilled into Annja’s mouth.
“I have been doing it the hard way for longer than you can imagine. It’s my game, baby. And I can play it all night.”
Baby? Oy.
She coughed on the blood trickling down her throat. Blood from her nose. The sword’s image formed in her mind, but then streams of blood spilled over that image and Annja quickly lost the idea of summoning it.
Her body slung about, shoulders impacted against the brick wall. Serge grabbed her left wrist and smashed the back of her hand high on the wall over her head.
Seconds stretched as he peered into her eyes. His gray irises were wide, the pupil too small in the centers. Demonic, Annja thought. But she didn’t believe in demons. There were logical explanations to all things supernatural. And Serge was just a man.
“I’ll give you twenty-four hours to bring the skull to me. If you do not comply, at precisely five minutes beyond the twenty-four hour mark, I will kill you. Got it?”
She nodded. To argue might earn a broken nose. “How am I supposed to find you?”
He reached inside his coat. Would he pluck out a business card? Why did the hard edges of his jaw go all fuzzy? Damn, she was losing consciousness.
The flash of bright steel summoned her to a semiconscious state. He held some kind of weapon. He hadn’t been in position to retrieve the bowie.
Serge leaned close and hissed in her ear. “The Linden Hill Cemetery off Starr Street. Tomorrow morning, this time.”
“A graveyard? Swell,” she mumbled.
Something sharp pricked her wrist. And the pain only increased. The stab became a searing poker. Annja let out a yelp as what felt like a knife entered her flesh and, with a forceful shove, traveled through to bone.
Serge gave the instrument a twist. Annja screamed. He tugged it out with a gruff exhale.
Agony felled Annja to her knees. Serge stepped back.
Struggling to maintain consciousness, and looking up to see the weird tubelike blade he tucked inside his coat, Annja reached out—for what, she didn’t know. It seemed as though…
something
should come to her hand. Something that could protect her.
Instead, she fell forward and blacked out.
So far as apartments went, it was unassuming and quiet. Tucked in a dark corner of Lower Manhattan, in winter it got about an hour’s worth of sunlight around two in the afternoon, but grew dark before four due to the surrounding tall buildings.
The most crime the neighborhood saw was old lady Simpson going after the postman with her cane, or the occasional burglary. A diminutive Russian market stood three blocks west and sold dozens of varieties of caviar, and a homemade borscht that tasted excellent served with heaps of sour cream.
Serge closed the door, sliding the chain lock deftly behind his back. The room was dark. Peaceful. He breathed in and exhaled. Palming the smooth hematite globe sitting on the key table near the door, he released anxiety, ego and any anger the outside world had put upon him.
He tapped the globe once.
Moving around behind the black leather sofa with the low back, he scanned the living room’s cool shadows. There was but the sofa and a coffee table sitting before the slate-tiled hearth he used every night in winter. No nooks for anyone to hide.
Assured he was alone, he paused before the entry to the spartan kitchen and placed his palm upon the second hematite globe he kept on a hip-high iron stand. The cool stone took him farther from the world—into sanctity.
A glance assured the kitchen was empty. The short narrow aisle down the center was bare. Doorless cupboards revealed glassware and plates. A grocery list stuck to the refrigerator awaited Serge’s precise scribbles for the next trip to market.
Two taps to the hematite globe.
He crossed before the window looking over a chain-link fenced-in yard behind a textile factory but did not look outside. His sleeve brushed the cheap shades that had been in the apartment when he’d assumed rent. He liked the sound the thin tin strips made when agitated.
As with the kitchen, there was no bedroom door. It was a small, efficient room he used only for sleeping. He did not bring women home; sanctuary would be lost. Though certainly, he did go home with a woman when opportunity arose. His shoes creaked the fifth board on the floor, reminding Serge he had yet to pick up finishing nails to fix the squeak.
A queen-size bed was covered by a taut black bedspread and two pillows encased in matching black cotton covers. Beside the bed on the nightstand, the white lilies he’d purchased two days earlier from the Russian market were beginning to wilt.
Serge touched a bedpost. A smooth hematite globe. He tapped it three times. The next post received four taps.
Shrugging off his suit coat, he tossed it on the bed. He wasn’t a neatnik, but his home did remain pristine. He didn’t spend much time here. Since setting foot on American soil a year earlier he’d been kept busy. He liked to be busy.
But a busy mind was not always favorable. Distilling, releasing the outside world upon arrival home, was always important.
A shower felt necessary after picking through the Creed woman’s home. How one person could collect so much material stuff and jam it all into the small loft was beyond him. Though it had been an interesting collection of things. The artifacts and books had clashed oddly with the baseball team pendants and pink ruffled pillows.
Inspecting the shine on his loafers he inadvertently noticed a streak of peanut butter on one of his shirt cuffs. He rubbed at it but it smeared. He should tend it with an ice cube and some spot cleaner. The dry cleaner never pressed his shirts the way he preferred, with the collars creased.
Unhooking his cuff links, he then unbuttoned the crisp white shirt and discarded it on the suit coat. Unbuttoning his pants, he let them hang loosely at his hips. Starting for the shower, he remembered, and swung around to probe the inner pocket of his coat.
He drew out the biopsy tool and inspected the bloodied tip. The stainless-steel blade was curved, curled the length much like the large cheese corer he’d used as a child. A bone extractor. A tool of his trade.
The contents—skin, blood and bone—were still intact.
Foregoing a shower, he pushed open the closet door—the only door in his small apartment beyond the front entrance—and padded inside. Groping through the darkness, his fingers snagged a hanging chain and tugged. A fluorescent light beamed across the interior. The closet was as large as the bedroom. Two suits hung from the bar just inside to the right.
The walls were paneled in bamboo. A sisal mat stretched before a small dark wood shrine, bare right now.
At the far side of the room a stainless-steel counter stretched three feet along the wall. Above it a glass shelf held many vials, syringes and jars. His work area.
On the topmost shelf he kept a small library of grimoires and herbal references. It had cost a pretty penny to have these precious items shipped overseas. Yet shipping expenses had been covered. Not exactly a perk of his job, more like a necessary evil.
Touching a flat switch set above the counter focused a spotlight on the table. Thumbing a box of small waxed papers, he drew one out. The
snick
of paper leaving cardboard pleased him.
Serge tapped the blade handle against the steel counter. The tiny bit of Annja Creed dislodged and landed on the small rectangle of waxed paper.
Using surgical tweezers and looking through a magnifying lens, Serge separated flesh and muscle from bone. He used his forefinger to swipe away the blood and marrow from the bone. It was a good sample. It didn’t crumble as some did. Sickness, age and addiction tended to weaken human bone, which was made of minerals, collagen and water.
“Strong bone structure.”
He was impressed. In his experience, women generally had honeycomblike bones, especially those living in the United States. The American female’s diet was atrocious. Copious sugar and caffeine, and never enough calcium. Of course, this woman was still young and, judging from her physical skills—and ignoring her kitchen inventory—took good care of her body.
He tapped a few drops of alcohol onto the pencil-eraser-size sample to clean it. It wasn’t necessary to sanitize it. He just needed the bone clean. A small wet tissue cleared away the remaining flesh and blood. He would deposit the bone in a mortar and crush it—
The cell phone vibrating in his pants pocket disturbed his concentration. Serge reached for a glass vial and coaxed the bone into it. A rubber stopper closed it securely.
He answered on the fourth ring. He did not say his name. Only one person in the city—the entire country—had this number.
“Serge, I’ll need you in the office by three. I’ve got a necessary task. You’re not busy?”
For a moment Serge stared at the phone. That was an odd question. Busy? When had the caller ever been concerned with his private life? For that matter, the caller was his only employer; he should know if he were busy.
Did he suspect?
“Serge?”
“I’ll be there.”
He hung up. Something wasn’t right.