38

“No!” Sword in hand, Annja lunged. The sword tip connected with an eye socket on the skull.

The skull soared into the air, turning end over end, high, so high.

Using Ben’s gaping focus on the skull, Annja released the sword into the otherwhere and lunged for him. She shoved his chest, landing both of them on the floor. Straddling him, she grabbed his tie. Ben gripped her by the hair and yanked.

“A sissy fighter, huh?” She punched him in the jaw. He spat out blood. “I never expect much from you business suits.”

The punch to her gut came as a surprise. Ben slipped a leg around hers and twisted her onto her back. Fists to her jaw pounded like iron.

“You think so?” He smirked. A dribble of blood trickled down his chin. “I’ve recently lost my aversion to violence. Let’s see how you like this.”

Out of her peripheral vision, Annja saw the skull falling through the air and a hand reach up to grab it.

Ben’s fist connected with her ribs. Wheezing out air from her lungs, she choked. The floor was hard and cold against the back of her skull. He pummeled her abdomen, taking far too much glee in the process.

“You’re killing an innocent little girl,” Ben growled.

She lifted a knee and managed to swing out, kicking the back of his thigh. He toppled off balance, slapping the concrete beyond her head, and putting his chest to her eye level. And his groin to knee level.

Ben took the kick with a wincing gasp.

“If your daughter is dying, perhaps you should have allocated some of those charitable dollars in her direction.” She instantly hated herself for saying that.

“I have. There’s no cure for bone cancer, you bitch!”

Where he’d kept the knife, she couldn’t know, but Ben slashed across his chest and Annja felt the icy bite of steel below her chin. It tracked a vicious line across her throat. No blood oozed down her neck. It couldn’t have cut too deep.

“Now you’re starting to piss me off.” She reached out to grab for the sword, but something caught her attention.

It wasn’t Maxfield scraping across the floor on the chair in a desperate attempt to escape this insanity.

It wasn’t the wounded thug crawling toward an AK-47 twenty feet away that she knew she’d better dispatch sooner rather than later.

It wasn’t the swinging door creaking in the wind and letting in a thunderous rain that seemed to have come from nowhere.

It was the strange orange and blue light that surrounded Serge as he held the skull aloft over his head, staring up into the empty eye sockets.

“Oh, no, not on my watch,” she shouted.

Standing, Annja struggled with the hands Ben gripped about her ankle. Sword coming to hand, she stabbed him in the shoulder. “Stay there like a good boy, or I’ll have to do more than wound you.” She bent over him. “Got that?”

Gripping his shoulder and cursing her, he managed an acquiescent nod. “My daughter…” he whispered.

“Cannot be saved by an ancient skull,” she said, regretting her harsh words, but knowing there was nothing better to say.

With no time to lose, Annja raced toward Serge. Another man entered the doorway, pausing to take everything in. His broad shoulders dripped rain. Garin.

“No, Serge, don’t do it!” she yelled.

The necromancer didn’t listen. He was making a strange keening noise and the lights spread around him. The floor rumbled, as if there was an earthquake. It literally moved her boots and made traction difficult.

Windows burst. A vicious rain of glass slivers poured over a fallen thug, who screamed as he was repeatedly sliced.

Annja entered the orange light and swung Joan’s sword.

The world slowed to a single heartbeat.

Her sword scythed the air, cutting through the supernatural light as if cleaving open the universe. It swung smoothly, an extension of her arm. The first touch of steel to bone found no resistance. The blade moved forward. Annja followed its lead.

Serge did not cry out in protest. Or if he did, she did not hear beyond the thunder of her own abnormally slow heartbeat.

Annja came to a stop, the blade swinging around in front of her. Momentum tugged her muscles, stretching them tight. She let out a grunt of exertion. Sound shattered like the glass. Heartbeats accelerated.

Two skull halves clattered to the floor. A hollow echo amidst the chaos.

A thin red line opened the flesh on Serge’s throat. A sad grimace tugged down his mouth. Annja waited, panting. The slice did not open wide and begin to gush. She had not injured him mortally.

“You destroyed all that power,” he said sadly.

Staggering, she swung back her sword.

He’d only been seeking freedom. The man had been enslaved to serve a more evil power, at the risk of his family’s lives. He should have that freedom now Ravenscroft had been taken down.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped.

“You were following the sword,” Serge said. “It has power, too. I respect that.”

Somewhere across the room, Ben cursed her.

Annja stepped forward into a waiting embrace. But Garin didn’t hold her or offer comfort. Before her, the sectioned skull wobbled on the floor.

“You had no choice,” he said. His hand squeezed her shoulder. “The sword decided that one.”

“The sword is not a thinking thing. I did this.” She pulled away from his touch. “I took away that man’s hope. Could his daughter have been saved?”

Slashing the blade through the air she’d severed the contact with the immortal. She just needed….

She needed.

To not be responsible for it all. To not feel the weight of the world. To just…walk away from it all. She’d almost done that by granting the skull to Ben. And yet, some greater compulsion had led her to destroy it.

Perhaps Serge was right. The sword held power she merely followed.

Behind her she heard the sound of bone clacking. Garin inspected the damage. He’d been cheated of the prize.

A little girl had been cheated out of the opportunity for a cure. At the very least, hope.

An imprisoned man had been cheated freedom.

Because of her.

No, you did what was right. You know that. Don’t question it. Accept it.

“I can accept it,” she said to everyone. Because it had been the right thing to do at the time.

Turning, Annja scanned the warehouse. Many had fallen. And those standing were not necessarily friends. How had Garin known to find her here?

Striding purposefully toward him she held up the sword and looked aside the blade at him.

She was not ready to give it up. It was hers. She controlled it, when it was not controlling her. She and the sword had an ineffable connection. And she liked that just fine.

“Skull’s broken,” she said. “Hope you weren’t expecting to make a fortune on it.”

“Not at all.”

“Liar.”

“Truth? My initial hopes were to make a couple of bucks, yes. But I had a change of heart. I’ve been considering that empty grave as a good spot for its final resting place. I don’t think it was something that should have been circulated in the first place. I know Mr. Wisdom has taken excellent care of it, but in the wrong hands…?”

“Why do you think it worked for Serge and not Ben or this guy here?” Garin gestured to Maxfield.

“And you?” she posited. “You’ve held it twice, Garin. What’s your suspicion?”

He shrugged. “I wish I knew. Is it because I’m immortal?”

Annja saw Maxfield’s head whip around to inspect Garin, but he remained silent.

“Could be. And the necromancer has a connection to spirits and souls.”

“I expected it to work in your hands, Annja.”

“So did I.” She caught the skull half Garin tossed to her. And she tossed it back to him. “Keep it. Bury it deep, deeper than an open grave.”

“It will give me great pleasure to do so.”

“On second thought, Bart may need it for evidence.”

“Annja!” Maxfield called out. He inched across the floor, still tied to the chair.

“Here.” She handed Garin the battle sword. “Hold this a second, will you?”

The mighty man gaped. Almost reluctantly, he opened his fingers to take the sword. It remained solid in his grip. It did not disappear into the otherwhere. Because she did not want it to leave this realm. Not yet.

Annja nodded and dodged to the side to untie Maxfield. “Sorry about the skull,” she said as she worked the rough hemp rope free from a knot.

“It was the right thing to do,” he offered. “I wouldn’t have believed it unless I’d seen it. It has power. It is evil.”

“Not evil. Just something that should be lost for good.”

“I agree.”

Hands and ankles free, Maxfield stood and ran his fingers through his sweat-laced hair. He exhaled and then bent forward, catching his palms on his knees.

“You going to be okay?”

“Yes. Just give me a moment.” He clasped her hands and left out a heavy breath. “Thank you. For believing.”

“I try to believe in what is shown to me,” she said.

Garin had not moved since she’d handed him the sword. He tilted the weapon, studying the blade. It caught the light. Each turn of the blade glinted in his eyes, a silver flash. Greed or lust or something deeper, like fear?

Crossing her arms, Annja waited to see what he would do. If he turned and attempted to run off with it, could she wish it from his grasp and into the otherwhere? There was no telling now that she’d given it freely to him.

“I have not held it since long before it was shattered. An exquisite sword. Not so fancy. A fine battle weapon.” He smiled and, with a wistful smirk, handed it back to Annja. “Next time.”

She took the sword, swung out her arm and released it into the otherwhere. “We’ll see. But I must say, what you just did was impressive.”

He offered a devil’s smirk. “I’m just not ready for the adventure to end,” he said.

She lifted a brow.

“Like I said—” he smoothed fingers along his goatee “—next time.”

“If there is a next time.”

“There’s always a next time, Annja.”

She could definitely get onboard with that.

“You want me to clean up the mess?” He strode across the floor. Garin lifted Ben to his feet and inspected his wounded shoulder.

“I’ll have you arrested for murder,” Ben said with a nod toward his men.

“Will you shut him up?” Annja said to Garin.

“With pleasure, my lady.”

A punch reduced Ben to a heap at Garin’s feet. Garin gave her a pleased grin. He inspected the carnage, then started collecting scattered weapons.

Bart charged through the open doorway, taking everything in. Pistol held before him, he didn’t call out until he’d surveyed the entire room. “Annja?”

“You took your time getting here, Bart.”

“You didn’t tell me which warehouse it was. Looks like things are under control. Braden.” He nodded to the bigger man.

Annja noted their acknowledgment of each other. When had they met?

“You okay, Annja?”

“It’s been an interesting day, Bart,” she said.

“Looks that way. You’re safe?”

“I’m fine.”

He lowered his pistol but still held the grip ready, and approached Annja. “You’re cut. On your throat.”

“I’ll survive. The skull is destroyed. Garin subdued Benjamin Ravenscroft over there. Not sure what you can charge him with. Though an accessory to murder comes to mind.”

“Is he the guy you think hired the sniper at the canal? The thug in the warehouse?”

“I’m sure your investigation will prove it,” she said.

“Who’s he?” Bart nodded toward Serge, who knelt over the skull pieces.

“A necromancer. I’m not sure he’s committed a crime beyond communicating with the dead.”

She watched Bart struggle to maintain his composure. “I’m calling for backup. I’ll need you to stick around for questioning this time.”

“I’ll go wherever you ask, Bart.”

His shoulders relaxed and he nodded. He spoke under his breath. “You need another one of those hugs?”

She didn’t respond, and instead embraced him. She noticed Garin’s curiosity at their embrace. Indeed, it had been a very interesting day.