The Mortality Principle (9 page)

“Or maybe as if it had been made out of clay,” Lars offered helpfully.

Annja shot him a dark stare. A little mental telepathy and he'd have been able to read the two words on her mind right then, too:
not helping
.

The thought of it churned Annja's stomach.

How could anyone live with ragged holes for a face?

She could understand now, though, how it could be possible to make the mental leap between some form
of deformity and the legend of the golem. Especially living in a place like this where the story was part of the very fabric of the city, engrained in the stone of the oldest buildings. So was that what they were looking for, someone born with some hideous disfigurement? It would be hard for anyone fitting the description to move about by daylight, too, but surely the person would have to eat and shop and live like anyone else, so someone somewhere ought to recognize him.

“And you said that he climbed the side of a building?” She deliberately didn't use the word
it
to describe the killer.

“I've even seen marks on the walls where one of them said that they saw it. Gouges. I've no idea of what made them, but fingers didn't make them. There's no way of even knowing if the marks have got something to do with the killer or if they're just… I don't know…weeping plaster?”

“But you believe the men, don't you?”

Turek nodded.

“I do. Maybe not all of it, but enough to know that they saw something extraordinary. Maybe not the golem, but something strange. Something that doesn't fit with the world as we know it. A giant with no face who can scale brick walls and is killing people who are sleeping on the streets. No matter how impossible their claims, I believe there's an element of truth to them.”

Annja found it hard to disagree. She'd seen plenty of things during the past few years that didn't quite fit with the world as most people knew it. So, assuming the two homeless men had seen something, how much truth could there be in their accounts? A giant didn't have to be a giant, and ragged features didn't have to
mean no face at all. Maybe the handholds had already been chipped into the wall—or several walls across the city—to make an escape easy. It wasn't inconceivable, was it? A killer could be that methodical, and could have planned in that level of detail to eliminate the element of chance in his escape.

She knew that she should leave it alone and let the police do their job. No matter how compelling Turek's joining of the dots might be, this wasn't a monster. She was less and less sure there was anything she could use in a segment for the show. And, more tellingly, why did Annja suddenly think it was her job to catch the killer herself? Because that's what was happening, wasn't it? She was taking on the role of protector for the city, rather like the mythical golem had been. Was that the story she was looking to tell? No. That wasn't her style. She didn't want to turn the camera on herself and transform Annja Creed, TV host, into Annja Creed, the freak show.

Something else gnawed at the back of her mind: Roux.

Something in Turek's article had tweaked Roux sharply enough to tear him away from his home comforts back at the estate and bring him here. And Garin had just decided to turn up in the same city at the same time? Roux had said it often enough: there was no such thing as coincidence, meaningful or otherwise. Something was wrong here. She knew that she wasn't going to be able to rest until she discovered exactly what it was. That was just the kind of woman she was.

“I've shown you mine. Isn't it time for you to show me yours?” Turek said.

“I don't have anything to share,” she said. “At least,
not yet. I've been closer than I'd like to have been to one of his victims, but aside from hearing footsteps in the night, I've got nowhere in terms of tracking the killer.”

The reporter's expression changed. He took a gulp of his wine, then topped up his glass. “If you come across anything, will you let me know?”

“Of course,” she said. “I'd like to talk to the two men who say they saw the killer, but I assume I'll need a translator.”

“I think a medium might have better luck,” Turek said.

“I'm not following.”

“You've already met one of them. He was found dead in an alleyway this morning. The other, well, I haven't been able to find him tonight. To be honest, I think he's running for his life. But even if I could find him, I can't promise he'll want to talk to you. Not after what happened last night.”

The body she'd seeing lying in a pool of his own blood had been both victim and witness.

But first he had been a witness.

Was that why he had become a victim?

They spent a couple of hours trying to locate the second witness, but the man was nowhere to be found.

In those two hours Annja learned just how many cracks there were in the city for people to slip between, and just how many sheltered nooks there were for them to make their bed for the night. They disturbed many of them hiding from prying eyes—some bums, some old alcoholics, some frighteningly young and broken—but failed to find the man they were looking for.

Turek was recognized by several of the street people. They greeted him with the same hollow, haunted look as he spoke to them rapidly in Czech, only to shrug or shake their heads. Body language was universal. No one had seen the witness. More than one said they thought he'd left the city, gone back home because he'd convinced himself he would be the golem's next victim.

It wasn't hard to imagine what had to have been going on inside his head. First, he had seen that strange killer, then learned that the only other person to see it had been found dead that morning. In his place she would have run, too, put as much distance between herself and the imagined creature as quickly as possible, put her head down and hope for the best. Their
chances of finding him faded like grains of sand slipping through her fingers. In the end, they accepted that and gave up looking. It was well into the early hours of the morning, and all Annja wanted to do was sleep.

All the while Lars had been shooting, getting a couple of hours' worth of material in the can.

“Get anything worthwhile?” she asked as he packed his camera back away in the flight case.

“More than enough,” the cameraman said. “I'll put it together as a montage for you do to a voice-over.”

“Now all we've got to do is find a way to actually link the story to the golem.”

“Difficult given that one of our witnesses is dead and the other is in the wind.”

“That's why they pay me the big bucks,” Annja said. “Anyway, it's time to head back to the hotel. There's nothing more we can do tonight.”

“I don't know about you, but I wouldn't mind a beer before hitting the sack,” Lars said. Turek took little persuading.

Annja checked her watch. It was past three in the morning, but there were still plenty of clubs with their neon signs sizzling. “Not for me. I need my beauty sleep,” she said, offering a smile. “I'll catch up with you guys tomorrow. No hangovers.”

“We can't let you walk back to your hotel on your own. I'll call you a cab.”

“No need,” Annja said. “I'll be fine.”

“In a strange city with a killer on the loose?” Turek shook his head. “Are you crazy? There's no way we can let you do that.”

“Very chivalrous, but you're not actually
letting
me do anything,” she said. “Besides, the one thing that's
been pretty well established is that our killer isn't interested in tourists. He's hunting people who are sleeping on the street. Now look at me and tell me how I fit the profile.”

“You don't,” Lars agreed.

“Very observant. Now run along and have some fun.” She felt like a mom sending her kids off to school.

“Just one?”

“Which will lead to two, then three. No, it's fine. But thanks.”

She was long gone before they'd even reached the steps leading up to the black doors of the bar that Turek had chosen.

The streets were much quieter than when she had left the hotel earlier in the evening. There was no traffic along the main road for one thing. The moon was full and high in a sky that was devoid of clouds. Annja enjoyed the stillness of the cool air as she walked. The closer she came to the hotel, the quieter the streets became. There was no late-night revelry now, just the dim background noise of a city asleep.

Without even thinking about it, Annja had brought herself back to the alleyway where the witness had been murdered. The nearest streetlight wasn't working, which meant that an entire stretch of the street was illuminated only by moonlight. The shadows along the sides of the street were thick. There was no way of knowing what might be lurking in them. She hurried on, glancing left and right, into the nooks and crannies of the alleyways and narrow gaps between buildings.

Annja considered crossing to the other side of the road. It was purely psychological; the danger wouldn't have been any less whichever side of the street she
walked on, but on this side she knew a man had lost his life and her footsteps were taking her closer to that dark stain. She wasn't frightened. That wasn't it. If anything came out of the shadows, she was more than able to deal with it. Peering deeper into the darkness, she flexed her fingers. Without thinking about it, she began to reach into the otherwhere, her fingers closing on the familiar grip of Saint Joan's blade. Her blade.

Annja felt the sword start to gain weight and substance as she drew it into the here and now, pulling it into existence.

Her breath caught in her throat, the silvery glow of the materializing weapon casting a very peculiar gleam across her features. She held it there, half in this world, half not, for a moment before pushing it back to its resting place.

She didn't need the weapon, but it was there, an ever-present in her life, only an arm's length away. She savored the reassurance of it being so close, so easy to summon into existence.

A faint gust of breeze caused the police tape to flutter at the opening to the alleyway. The ripple of sound startled her for a moment. But the air was still, she thought. She hadn't felt it on her skin. What caused the breeze? What made the police tape shift?

She peered into the darkness, her mind working double-time to convince her gut instinct that it was nothing more than her imagination playing tricks on her.

There was nothing in there.

She turned away and continued walking to her hotel, her footsteps echoing on the cobblestones, telling herself that she was all alone, there was no one there, nothing to chase. The logical part of her brain knew that it
was nothing, a stray dog, maybe, or a cat. There was no way one of the city's homeless would have clambered into the dead man's bed so quickly, was there?

Her footsteps seemed louder somehow, and continued to grow louder the faster she walked. She could hear her heartbeat creating a strange syncopated rhythm.

Annja counted as she walked, refusing to look back.

Five, six, seven, breathe.

Do not jump at shadows.

Just get inside, go to bed, sleep. You're tired. It's been a long day. Too long. You're letting your imagination run away with you.

Then she heard the scream, and she knew she wasn't imagining anything.

Without a second of hesitation Annja turned and started to run toward the source of the sound. The screaming started again. It was a man.

Annja reached out into the otherwhere, knowing she was too late to save him because the screaming stopped.

Annja didn't break her stride as the great sword slipped out of the otherwhere, solid in her hand.

Her heart hammered, but it was through excitement not fear.

She always felt that thrill when the sword was in her hand. Giant. Powerful. Like a creature out of legend. A colossus.

She breathed in sharply, listening for the sound of movement, then plunged into the alleyway, her eyes struggling to adjust to the change of light. Three steps deeper into the darkness and everything around her exploded with sound and movement that seemed somehow to come from everywhere at once. She strained to see, to make out any darker shapes within the pitch-black alleyway, but it was impossible.

Another sudden flurry of movement.

Annja braced herself, ready for impact, expecting whoever had killed the man she'd just heard die come charging at her.

But still nothing.

Another two steps and her foot caught against something on the ground.

The corpse.

She didn't look down.

The next sound came from overhead.

A scrape of nails?

She glanced up, finally making out a darker smear within the darkness up there, picked out against the handful of stars twinkling beyond it. The shape clung motionless to the brickwork. Her first thought was that the witnesses had been right about one thing—the thing could climb up walls—so did that mean they were right about the rest?

She shook her head.

She couldn't climb after him with the sword in her hand, so she slipped it easily back into the ether and reached up, feeling around the bare brick for so much as a fingerhold—anything that would mean she could follow the killer up the side of the building. She positioned herself directly under the silhouette, feeling for gouges in the brickwork. Her fingertips found fresh holes in the masonry. They were big enough for her fingers to easily sink in beyond the distal phalange, providing the perfect holds for climbing. She moved quickly, hauling herself up off the ground.

The shape above her began to move, sensing her coming after it.

Brickwork crumbled, showering down into Annja's eyes as she climbed. No matter how quickly she moved, reaching from one handhold and fumbling for the next, the killer was faster, surer. She blinked the dust away and reached up again, her questing fingers finding the edge of a brick that offered enough purchase to lever herself up another few precious inches.