Rogue Angel: Forbidden City

by Alex Archer

  When he cut through the fourth spear, he judged there was enough room to get through. If he could get through, the other men definitely could.

  He tossed the torch aside, added the goggles and the gloves, then waited.

  "What is the problem?" Ngai asked.

  Garin knew the man was impatient. So was he. But Garin had been alive long enough to know that impatience killed a man as quickly as a knife to the throat.

  "I'm letting the metal cool a bit," Garin replied. "And I want my vision somewhere near normal before I proceed."

  "Let someone else – "

  "Letting someone else go first is just going to let someone else get killed."

  Ngai fell silent, but Garin knew there'd be no lasting partnership after this was over. He was beginning to doubt Ngai would let him out of the desert alive. Garin realized he'd seriously underestimated the situation and the man he was dealing with.

  If Garin had known men who would stay bought, he would have brought them. Everyone he knew would have been bought out by Ngai the first time they took a water break.

  Taking a pistol in hand, Garin eased through the opening between the bars. He reached the edge of the floor section that had twisted.

  Using his flashlight, he peered down into the dark depths. The two men Ngai had sent on ahead lay impaled by four-foot high iron stakes.

  What was it with Sha Wu Ying? Garin wondered. The man had a total fixation on piercing unsuspecting people.

  Garin called two of Ngai's men to his side. Together, they righted the tilted corridor section and locked it back in place. Garin also found the lever inset in the wall that locked the spikes into place so the floor would remain in position.

  Still, even though he assured the men the corridor would hold, they wouldn't cross until Garin did. He deactivated two more traps along the way, then felt heartened when he saw the door ahead of him.

  His good mood evaporated at once when he saw light shining through the cracks around the door. He didn't know how, but he was certain Roux and Annja had beaten them inside the room.

  ****

  Despite the desperate nature of their circumstances, Annja couldn't help grinning as she played the flashlight around the big room. They'd entered from the secret passageway.

  The room was huge and round as a pie plate. The architecture caught Annja's eye and made her curious about why it was made that way. But it was the contents of the room that amazed her.

  Chests of gold and gems filled shelves and floor space. Beautiful tapestries – some with images of warriors fighting dragons or other impossible creatures – hung on the walls. Casks held what Annja believed was probably oil and myrrh. A king's ransom occupied the room, leaving little space for the statue of a man in the center of the room.

  The statue stretched from the floor to the ceiling, at least twenty feet. Made of stone, it had been meticulously carved into the likeness of a grim warrior dressed in Chinese leather armor. His face was hard and unforgiving. His right hand rested on the hilt of a curved, cruel sword. A fierce mustache covered his upper lip.

  "Is that Sha Wu Ying?" Annja asked.

  "I don't know. Perhaps." Roux sounded distracted as he walked among the piles of treasure. "Unless Sha Wu Ying developed a fascination for someone other than himself."

  Annja joined him. She had to step over the mummified remains of a man in leather armor similar to that of the statue. Along with all the treasure, there were several dead men in the room.

  Roux kicked one of the mummified bodies. "I'd feel better if I saw Sha Wu Ying's body here somewhere."

  "You don't think he survived?" Annja asked.

  After a brief pause, Roux shook his head. "He couldn't have survived."

  "Because nobody lives two thousand years?"

  Roux caught up a fistful of gold coins and let them trickle through his fingers. "Because he wouldn't have left all this behind." The last coin clinked against the pile. "No, if anyone had escaped this place, it would have been looted long ago."

  "What are you looking for?" Annja was all too conscious that they didn't have much time before Garin and Ngai arrived.

  Roux tucked the hunting rifle under his arm for a moment and held his hands about a foot apart. "A jade figurine about this tall. It's an ogre with a man's body and the head of a baboon."

  "Something as unique as that shouldn't be hard to find," Annja said. Of course, there is a lot to sift through.

  As she walked through the piles of wealth, Annja couldn't help wondering what Roux wanted with the statue. He'd talked about it being powerful and dangerous.

  She joined Kelly at the shelves. They shined their flashlights along the loot piled on the shelves. Together, they hauled down large chests and opened them on the floor.

  "My father told me about this place." Kelly used a slim-bladed knife to open the locks. "He didn't have many stories about it, but he'd tell them over and over." She shook her head. "I always thought they were just stories."

  "Your father gave you the bag of bones?" Annja asked.

  "Yes."

  "Did he ever tell you their secret?"

  "No. That's why I'd made a sphere of them. It was all I knew how to do."

  "Sha Wu Ying had fallen out of favor with Emperor Qin," Annja said as they sifted through coins and gems. "He'd decided to assassinate the emperor and become ruler himself. The problem was, there were a lot of ambitious men around Emperor Qin. And Sha Wu Ying had a young monk in his league of assassins who couldn't bear the thought of all the deaths Sha Wu Ying intended on his way to power."

  Kelly reached for another chest and Annja helped her.

  "The monk decided he would bring a sickness back to the City of Thieves," Annja said. "To spread it among the assassins and kill them all. He died, either of the sickness or for his betrayal. Before he did, though, he left behind a child's toy that mapped the underground city."

  Kelly looked at her, understanding then. "The puzzle."

  Annja nodded. "I think so."

  "My father said it had been in our family for generations." Wonder widened Kelly's eyes. "The monk was my ancestor?"

  "He had to have been."

  "What about the spirit fox? The one that was said to be the curse hanging over the belt plaque?" Kelly asked.

  "Your ancestor's daughter was trained in martial arts. Maybe she came out here seeking vengeance against the thieves and used the superstitions to be more fearsome. Maybe she knew how the puzzle worked, but she couldn't find the city. Maybe she was afraid of the sickness her father had spread throughout the city and remained in the area to keep people from searching for the place. Maybe something happened to her before she was able to pass the secret of the sphere to her own child. Perhaps she felt the gold was tainted, not something that should be kept." Annja sighed. "We may never know. It's like that sometimes. You get most of the story, but not all of it."

  Kelly looked around at the dead warriors. "One of these men could be my ancestor."

  "Possibly."

  Kelly was silent for a moment. "If we can, I'd like to find his body and bring him home to a better resting place. My father would have liked that."

  Annja seriously doubted that would happen any time soon. They had to make their escape first.

  A few minutes passed in silence. They worked frantically. There was so much treasure that Annja couldn't even process it anymore. Nearly everything in the treasure room spoke volumes of history, untold stories that they might never come by another way. She was overwhelmed.

  Suddenly the door opened and Garin Braden walked into the room, backed by Ngai Kuan-Yin and his warriors.

  "Ah, Annja." Garin smiled in the darkness, his face highlighted by the flashlights around him. "Long time no see." He raised the AK-74 in his arms. "I'd really prefer not to have to hurt you. I'd rather you just – "

  Beside him, Ngai spoke. "Kill them."

  The warriors opened fire.

  Chapter 37

  Annja dove, reaching for Kelly, b
ut the other woman had already reached for her, as well. Both of them were intent on rescuing the other. As a result they made it to cover in an awkward sprawl as bullets sprayed the chests and shelves.

  Trapped in the room, the gunfire sounded deafening. Then the sharp, rattling reports were punctuated by loud booming sounds. One of Ngai's warriors went down, fluttering like a broken kite. Another swiftly followed.

  Roux, Annja realized, recognizing the basso reports of the heavy hunting rifle. She reached for her sword.

  Ngai's warriors turned, seeking Roux, thinking him to be the most dangerous threat. Some of them scattered, looking for places to hide. Garin and Ngai were among them, moving swiftly as they slid across the stone floor, slipping on coins and gems and the mummified remains of long-dead warriors.

  Roux's rifle blasted again. This time Annja tracked the muzzle flash that accompanied the shot. So did several of Ngai's warriors. Their bullets chewed into the tapestries Roux had hidden behind.

  Annja tried not to think about all the irreplaceable history that was being destroyed. She groaned inside. Beside her, Kelly opened fire with both pistols in a swiftly measured cadence that spoke of years of experience with the weapons.

  Abruptly, the room shifted.

  Sparks flared along the ceiling.

  Gold coins slid down hills of gold coins and toppled from open chests. The sound of mocking laughter filled the treasure room, but it sounded strangely nonhuman, like something nightmarish wrung from a monstrous throat.

  For a moment primitive fear trailed icy fingers down Annja's spine. It's a trick. There's nothing supernatural about that laugh. But part of her wasn't sure. She was holding on to a very good reason to believe in unexplainable things.

  The sparks caught fire and ran along grooves that followed the walls, leaving blazing flames that suddenly reached to the floor. The darkness peeled away. The gold coins gleamed as they reflected the surging flames.

  "It's another trap," Ngai shouted.

  The battle was temporarily forgotten by Ngai's warriors as they watched the racing flames. Annja was watching, as well. But Roux and Kelly both took advantage of the distraction and each killed another man.

  Annja objected to the cold-blooded nature of their efforts, but she knew their foes would have done the same thing if they hadn't been so distracted.

  The deaths of their comrades quickly brought their attention back to the fight. Scarcely had the dead men hit the floor before the remaining warriors opened fire again. With the addition of the flames clinging to the walls, their aim improved considerably. They raced forward, assault rifles chattering in their arms.

  The door that Garin and Ngai had come through closed with a grim finality, a thunderous boom that rocked the treasure room.

  Taking advantage of the new distraction, Annja pushed herself up and ran behind a row of marble statutes. They looked Grecian or Roman, and she had to wonder if they were treasures that Sha Wu Ying had brought with him from his days as Tochardis.

  In the next moment it didn't matter and she guessed that she would never know. Bullets knocked off huge chunks of the statues, chopping away arms and legs.

  When the gunman got close enough, Annja slammed her body against the statue and toppled it over him. The man didn't have time to move. The falling statue pinned him against the floor, crushing his chest.

  Annja kept moving, gunfire blazing all around her. Bullets passed only inches from her head. She ran behind the shelves ahead of her, a gunman on her heels. The wood chipped and split as she ducked behind it.

  She stopped as soon as she was out of sight, then watched as a row of bullet holes suddenly opened up in the shelves ahead of her.

  Whirling, Annja set off in pursuit. The gunman was only a few feet in front of her. He turned to bring his weapon to bear.

  Annja put away the civilized part of herself and concentrated on survival. She whipped the sword through the rifle, knocking it from the man's hands, then brought the blade through her opponent's neck on the return movement. The man toppled to the ground.

  Turning at once, knowing that the battle still raged, Annja spotted another man running toward her. She threw herself forward as he opened fire, managing to crash to the floor behind a huge vase.

  Bullets smashed the vase into a thousand pieces but were deflected by the gold coins and bars and gems inside. Released from the shattered container, the contents scattered across the floor. Some of them skittered under the running man's feet and he went sprawling.

  Annja recognized Huangfu Cao, the man she'd guided to the grave in California. His face was a mask of rage in the fiery light. Lying on his back, he tried to lift the assault rifle.

  Throwing herself forward, sliding on her knees, Annja swung at the rifle and smashed it. She swung again, aiming at the man's neck, but Huangfu Cao rolled away. As he got to his feet, he picked up a spear from the nearby weapons rack. The spear was six feet long and topped with eighteen inches of sharp iron, a foot soldier's weapon capable of bringing down a charging horse or the rider.

  Huangfu attacked at once, driving the spear at Annja's face. Sidestepping, Annja blocked the spear with her sword but the impact trapped her arm against her side. Stepping forward, Huangfu swung the spear's butt up and into her face. Annja barely had time to roll her head forward so she caught the blow across her forehead instead of in the eyes and nose.

  Pulling a leg up, Annja snap-kicked Huangfu in the chest, knocking him away from her. But his greater weight drove her backward, sending her skidding across the loose coins and gems underfoot. Her back foot shot out from under her. Giving in to the motion, wanting to gain control over her movements, she went down in the splits.

  Huangfu roared and came at her again, driving the spear down at her.

  Rolling to the side, Annja caught hold of the spear just behind the blade and pulled the weapon down. The point caught on the stone floor. She whipped her legs around and kicked her attacker's feet out from under him. Still holding on to the spear, he arced over her head.

  She spun on the ground, slashing out at him with the sword. But he wasn't there. Huangfu tucked himself into a roll, bringing the spear across his chest and coming to his feet. He whirled with the spear tucked under one arm, using it like a bo staff.

  With her sword out before her as it was, Annja lacked the strength to hang on to it. The weapon shot out of her grip and skittered across the floor.

  Grinning in triumph, seeing that she was on her back on the ground, Huangfu launched himself at her, driving the spear at her heart.

  Annja slid backward, reaching for the spear with her left hand and willing the sword with her right. It materialized in her hand, bound to her by whatever forces she still couldn't explain, and she thrust it as Huangfu came down on top of her.

  His victorious look melted into one of surprise. His face only inches from Annja's, he looked at the sword between them. It had gone cleanly through his heart. He opened his mouth, then slumped as death claimed him.

  Pushing the dead man away, steeling herself, Annja pulled the sword from Huangfu's chest. She stared around the treasure room battlefield, amazed to see that only Garin, Ngai, and a couple of warriors survived.

  Kelly was bleeding from a head wound, but she was swapping out magazines in her pistols, so Annja knew the woman was well enough.

  Garin was a short distance from Ngai, taking cover.

  The gunfire had died away, but the mocking near-laughter still pealed.

  The rumbling in the room grew louder. A section opened up in the ceiling and a dais dropped through. The upper and lower sections of the dais were identical and were connected by iron bars, making it look something like an hourglass in construction. The upper disk effectively replaced the bottom disk that had slid through the ceiling.

  However, instead of glass and sand in the familiar narrow-waisted shape, a man in resplendent robes sat on an ornate throne. A crown sat atop his mummified head. His ivory grin mocked them all. The ghoulish laughter c
ame from some kind of mechanical device under the throne.

  "Sha Wu Ying," Ngai said. His voice was hoarse with fear and wonder.

  Annja didn't blame the man. The sight was definitely eerie, and the laughter gave her goose bumps. She realized then that the device had to have been spring-loaded and been wound by the same mechanism that had put the room into motion.

  But it wasn't the room that was in motion, she realized. It was the ceiling. Inch by inch, the ceiling was lowering, coming down to meet the floor.

  With the flames licking the walls, filling the room with an oily black smoke that burned Annja's lungs, she was able to see the line of demarcation that separated the ceiling from the walls. They'd been fitted together with the precision of a drum cylinder.

  Now that the ceiling was in motion, she noticed the channels in the walls that allowed the immense stone slab to descend. The architects had to have cut the slab from the mountain, using the original ceiling and cutting it free.

  The spring-loaded near-laughter finally ended. Either it had run its course or the device had broken.

  The skeletal remains of Sha Wu Ying regarded them from his throne suspended only a few feet from the ground. A sword and jewel-encrusted scabbard lay at his mummified feet. A jade statue of a baboon-headed ogre lay across his lap.

  Slowly, the ceiling descended.

  Annja remained behind cover, not trusting Ngai or his men. Evidently Garin didn't trust them, either, because he hadn't moved from his spot.

  This is some standoff, Annja thought disgustedly. She knew it was possible the ceiling would stop when it reached the piles of gold, but there was no way they were going to get out of the treasure room. It would become their tomb.

  Ngai shouted commands to his men. One of them ran toward the door. Kelly picked him off with two quick shots at the same time Roux broke cover and ran toward the jade ogre.

  Ngai and one of his men took aim at Roux.

  "No!" Annja shouted the warning, but she knew she was going to be too late.

  Chapter 38

  The old man swung the hunting rifle over his shoulder as he churned across the loose gems and coins. He nearly fell twice.