Gabriel's Horn (29 page)
Authors: Alex Archer
Tags: #Women archaeologists, #Relics, #Adventure stories, #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #Fiction - Science Fiction, #Science Fiction And Fantasy, #Adventure, #General, #Science Fiction - Adventure, #Fantasy fiction, #End of the world, #Adventure fiction, #Grail
Annja focused on the sword, imagined it in her hand and felt it there. As soon as the familiar weight was at the end of her arm, she reversed her grip on the hilt and threw the sword like a spear.
The sword flashed across the distance and thudded home in Saladin’s chest. He staggered back, staring down at the sword in surprise.
Annja called the sword back to her. Immediately blood poured from Saladin’s body once the wound was undammed.
The pistol tumbled from Saladin’s fingers and he fell.
On her feet, sword in hand, Annja jogged to the back of the truck. But everything she’d feared was true.
Roux was gone. So was her backpack.
* * * *
“Garin, are you still alive?”
Hanging upside down in the car, Garin didn’t answer. He tried to break the seat belt lock, but it held stubbornly. Then he noticed one of the pistols he’d thrown onto the seat when he’d taken the car.
Salome knelt down and folded one arm around her knees. She held a pistol in her other hand. Her smile seemed joyful and insane at the same time.
“Good,” she said. “You’re still alive. I was worried that the crash had killed you.”
A man came to stand beside her. He held a pistol in his fist.
The sound of helicopter rotors suddenly blasted across the street. There were four of them and they made a lot of noise.
Salome and the man looked up.
Garin didn’t blame them. If he hadn’t been the cause of the helicopters being there, he probably would have looked up, too. But only after he’d killed the man he’d gone there to kill.
With a twist, Garin freed his shoulder and scooped the pistol up from the roof of the car. He hoped the safety was off as he shoved it toward Salome. She had to die first. Even if the man killed him, Garin was determined the woman wasn’t going to live another moment. Not after the way she’d betrayed Roux and nearly killed him.
His movement must have caught her attention. She looked down just as he leveled the pistol. She tried to bring her own weapon into play, but Garin squeezed off a shot that caught her in the throat.
Knocked backward by the bullet, as well as her own frightened reaction, Salome tried to scream and couldn’t. Her lifeblood poured between her fingers.
The unexpected sight froze the man in his tracks. Instead of shooting Garin, the man dived for Salome.
Mercilessly, Garin empted the clip into the man. He sprawled across Salome and held her in his numb embrace as she breathed out her last time.
Charlie popped up and Garin pointed the pistol at the old man and pulled the trigger three times. Only then did he realize the pistol was empty.
“It’s all right,” Charlie said. He slashed the seat belt with a pocketknife. “We’ve got to get out of here. We have to stop the sleeping king.”
We’ve got to get out of here before this gasoline catches fire, Garin thought. He scrambled through the smashed window, but the top had crushed slightly and the fit was tight. His efforts ripped his clothes.
When he was on his feet, he reached back for Charlie and pulled the old man through.
“Are you all right?” Garin asked as he led the old man away from the overturned car.
Without warning, the vehicle exploded and became wrapped by flames.
“I’m fine. But we need to find Annja and the sleeping king.”
All around them, door gunners mounted in the helicopters marked Salome’s men and shot them down. They did the same for Saladin’s fighters. The street became a battle zone littered with bodies.
Garin’s phone rang and he answered it. “Annja?”
“It’s Roux,” Annja gasped.
Sickness swirled inside Garin’s head. He couldn’t believe the old man was dead.
“He’s got the horn,” Annja went on.
“The sleeping king has the horn,” Charlie echoed. “We have to stop him. We have to save the world.”
“Where did he go?” Garin asked.
“He stole a boat. I couldn’t get to him in time.”
Garin looked up at the helicopters hovering overhead. “We’ll get him. Stay where you are.”
Annja stared helplessly as the boat chugged away from the dock. The distance was already too far for her to catch up.
Police sirens screamed. When she looked back at the city, she spotted the flaming car at the center of it. Several police cars were already on the scene. She knew others would crowd the harbor once they realized the battle had stretched that far.
Then one of the helicopters retreating from the downtown area descended overhead. It hung only ten feet above her.
Garin waved to her from the cargo area.
Annja jumped and caught the rope ladder, then she pulled herself up. She got herself secure and pointed at the motorboat.
Garin nodded and talked briefly over the headset he wore. The helicopter streaked after the boat and overtook it within seconds. Carefully, the pilot held his craft only a few feet above the boat.
Roux tried evasive techniques, but the craft he’d stolen was too ponderous to do much. He angrily waved them off.
Annja leaned forward into the wind, judged the distance and jumped. She landed on the boat’s deck and felt as if she’d driven her legs up into her hips. She caught herself on her hands.
A heartbeat later, Garin landed beside her. Together, they walked toward Roux.
He looks different, Annja couldn’t help but think. He was bloodied and worn. Madness danced in his eyes.
“You shouldn’t have come,” he shouted over the roar of the engine and the helicopter’s rotor wash. “You should have stayed away.”
“What are you doing, Roux?” Annja asked.
“I’m going to fix what never should have happened,” Roux declared.
Annja focused on her backpack sitting at Roux’s feet. All she had to do was get it. Not that she believed any of the nonsense about saving the world.
As if reading her thoughts, Roux revealed the MAC-10 he was holding. “If you come any closer, if you try to take the horn from me, I’ll kill you, Annja. I swear that I will.”
Annja stopped moving and spread her hands. She couldn’t believe what was happening.
Beside her, Garin froze, as well. “Are you going to shoot us, Roux?” he challenged.
“I will,” Roux said. “I’ve searched for this for over four hundred years. Ever since she died tied to that stake.” Pain pulled at his face. “It’s my fault that she died there. She wasn’t supposed to die. She was supposed to live. She was supposed to do great things. I destroyed that.”
“Joan’s death wasn’t your fault,” Annja said.
“It was,” Roux said. “I was supposed to be with her. I let my own interests deflect me. I lost her and I cursed us.”
“This isn’t what you’ve stood for, Roux. All those years I followed you around, all those people we fought for, all those lost causes. You were always the good one. You’ve always been on the side of the angels,” Garin said.
Roux shook his head. “It wasn’t always that way. In my day, in my time, I’ve been every bit as black hearted as you are, Garin. Maybe more so. I had people who showed me how to live my life. You had no one.”
Garin took another step. “I had you.”
“Capricious fates,” Roux argued. “I wasn’t prepared to be either a father or a mentor. I took you because I didn’t want to prepare my own meals anymore.”
“No,” Garin said. “You cared for me. I know that you did. You took in a small boy whose own father had turned away from him.”
“Why are you doing this?” Annja demanded.
Roux pointed the pistol at her. “Stay out of this, Annja.”
Roux took a fresh grip on his pistol and shifted his aim back to Garin. “This needs to be done, Garin. Our lives—mine, yours and Annja’s—don’t matter in the long run.”
Without warning, Charlie jumped from the helicopter.
Roux was momentarily distracted.
“Annja,” Charlie said, “draw your sword.” There was steel in the old man’s voice. “Do it now!”
Annja reached for the sword, and it was in her hand. She held it up before her, wondering whether she could truly attack Roux if it came down to that.
Roux stared at the blade.
“Remember the sword,” Charlie said. “You searched for the pieces. You found them. You found the woman who is yet to face the evil that is let loose in this world.”
Roux wavered.
“Joan’s sacrifice wasn’t just for that time and that world,” Charlie said. “It was for you and for Annja and for this world, too. This world also needs protection. You know that. You’ve felt the evil loose here. Without that sacrifice in the past, there would be no one now to combat that.”
Roux lowered his pistol. “What am I supposed to do?”
“You know what you’re supposed to do,” Charlie said. “You’ve always known. The horn wasn’t meant to stay in this world.”
Roux looked at Annja’s bag. Then, without warning, he flung it far out into the sea.
Annja woke later than she’d intended to. The alarm by her bed showed that it was after 3:00 p.m. She realized she must have slept through her automated wake-up call.
And neither Roux nor Garin had come to interrupt her. That was surprising.
She showered quickly and dressed in some of the clothes Garin had ordered delivered to their rooms. It was good to be rich, she’d decided. Maybe someday she’d work on that.
After she was dressed, she tried calling Garin and Roux. Neither of them answered, but that wasn’t surprising, either.
Famished, Annja decided to find something to eat. If the others were sleeping, she could grab something by herself.
She found Charlie sitting outside her room in the hallway. He was reading Stanley Younts’s latest thriller novel.
“Good morning,” he said. He turned down a page to mark his spot.
Annja hated to see anyone do that to a book, but she smiled. “Good afternoon. Have you been out here long?”
Charlie shrugged and smiled. “A little while.” He nodded at the large window at the end of the hallway. “It’s a nice place to get indirect sunlight. I thought I’d take advantage.”
Annja settled her backpack over her shoulders. Garin had seen to having one of his security people recover her personal belongings and replace her knapsack. They had arrived with the new clothes.
“Have you seen Roux and Garin?” she asked.
“They’re gone,” Charlie said.
“Where did they go?”
Charlie shook his head. “I don’t know. They had things to take care of.”
“Of course they did,” Annja grumbled.
“I’d like to take you to eat. If you’d allow me,” Charlie said.
Annja sighed. “Okay.”
Charlie offered his arm in a gallant manner. She took it and he led her to the elevator bank.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked.
“I did. Too well. I should have been up before now.”
“Nonsense. You’ve had quite an adventure.”
Annja grinned wryly at him.
“What do you think would have happened if Roux had tried to use the horn?” she asked.
“Perhaps nothing.” Charlie sighed. “Maybe he would have gotten hurt. That wouldn’t have been a good thing. Or he’d have had to realize that he’d chased something that didn’t exist for hundreds of years.”
“That could have been disturbing.”
“I know. But it didn’t work out that way.”
They left the elevator and crossed the spacious lobby to the restaurant Annja had spotted on her arrival last night. The food smells put a razor edge on her hunger.
Within a few minutes, they were seated at a table. Both of them ordered from the breakfast menu.
“You’re a complicated man,” Annja observed.
“Thank you.” Charlie smiled. “I wasn’t always homeless. I’ve had a rather eventful life.” He sipped the glass of orange juice the server brought to him. “In the meantime, you need to realize that time in this world has been forever altered.”
“Oh?” Annja raised an eyebrow.
“The sword,” Charlie said. “You won’t believe how many lives have been saved since the day that you picked it up. Or how many have yet to be saved.”
“This is all a little over my head.”
“Perhaps for now,” Charlie agreed. “But there will come a time when all of this is plain to you.”
“What about you?” Annja asked.
“What about me?”
“Am I going to see you again?”
“Perhaps, but I also hope it won’t be under such dire circumstances.”
“Am I ever going to know who you truly are?”
“A friend, Annja. I’m just a friend. You, Roux and Garin are all inextricably linked in events that are going to be important to the world. Danger will come at you from all quarters. Every now and again, you’re going to need a friend.”
Annja silently agreed with that. “Okay,” she said. “I can always use a friend. Especially when I’m spending time with those two.”
Charlie laughed. “Make no mistake. They love and hate each other at times, but that’s how it is between fathers and sons in every family.”
“Most of them don’t try to kill each other, though.”
“No. They don’t. What you’ve got, Annja, is a very special family.” Charlie regarded her. “And that’s what they are to you. Never forget that.”
“I’m beginning to understand that,” Annja replied. And, despite the danger and duplicity—and the fact that she always seemed to be the last one to know Roux and Garin’s secrets—that thought warmed her heart.