by Alex Archer
“No one’s going to die here today, Roux. At least, neither of us.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
“You really are a drama queen, aren’t you? If you must know, I needed you here because of who you are, Roux, or rather what you are, even if I don’t understand what that is.”
“And Annja?”
“Irrelevant. This is just between you and me, like the old days. She doesn’t belong with us, not here. This goes back to when we were much younger. Days, dare I suggest, when you were like a father to me.”
Annja bit her tongue. It might bruise her ego to be discounted so easily, but with six centuries between them the men were connected in ways she couldn’t even begin to imagine. There was no point getting bent out of shape over it.
“Then why go to the sham of making us think that we were chasing you, when you were leading us here all the time?”
“Ah, you’re getting better at this, Roux.” She could hear the smile in Garin’s voice. “You have no idea how much it cost me to outbid you with Owen. Well, I suppose you do. He certainly made a killing. I needed him to sell you on the idea you were being clever. Tracking the car rather than the phone, though, I’ll admit I hadn’t expected you to think of that. I rather imagined you’d turn my own cell phone tracker trick back on me, so I had to make sure the old GPS was beaming my location out just on the off chance you decided to double down. You have no idea how hard it is to appear to be cautious and yet deliberately drop as many bread crumbs as possible. So what gave me away?”
“You were driving too slowly. I know you. No way you’d stick within the speed limits in an expensive, top-of-the-line sports car unless the cops were on your tail. But when you hit the autobahn and didn’t open her up? That set off all sorts of alarm bells. Don’t just look for the extraordinary, look for the out of the ordinary, anything that deviates from normal behavior. I don’t think you’ve driven so slowly in your life. That must have hurt.”
“Ha! Believe me, you have no idea,” Garin said.
The voices fell still. Annja watched the shadows. She could imagine Roux standing there in a silence that he was not prepared to fill. He would want Garin to do the talking. There was no point in wasting breath in asking questions. Garin would still only tell him what he wanted him to hear. Like the old man said, he kept his truths close to his chest.
“I worked out what Joe was,” Garin said, breaking the silence eventually.
“Apart from being the sadistic killer we tracked across the Old World, you mean?”
Garin grunted. “Being a killer has nothing to do with what he is, or what he was.”
“Just stop talking in riddles, will you? I really don’t have the patience to deal with you today. What do you think you’ve discovered and why do you think it has anything to do with me?”
“Oh, it has everything to do with you, my old friend. Everything.”
“We buried that killing machine years ago. It was over. Dead. Gone. And then Annja’s life was in danger. I couldn’t walk away then. Not knowing everything I know about the golem.”
“You know nothing, Roux. Less than nothing. Everything you think you know is wrong. Annja wouldn’t have been in any danger if she had only left it alone.”
“You could have told her that yourself.”
“I did,” Garin said. “In my own special way. I tried to distract her, but you know that damned woman. She wasn’t interested. She had the bit between her teeth. She wanted the story. It’s always the story with her.”
“That’s what it always comes down to with you, isn’t it? Distractions? Lies. Anything to take you away from being responsible.”
“Really, Roux, if that’s what you think of me after all this time, I’m not even going to try to change your mind. You’re so stubborn, but even you couldn’t have done differently in my place, not once I knew the truth.”
“So now you’re claiming a moral compass? Will wonders never cease?”
“I wasn’t going to leave that poor creature to the dangers that a modern world presents. I couldn’t do it. Joe’s a work of genius, Roux. Unadulterated genius.”
Annja heard a sound from somewhere along the tunnel—the click, click, click. Louder now. The acoustics of the tunnels made it impossible to judge how close it was, but the two men had to have heard it, too. They fell quiet.
Roux stumbled out of the room, his face locked in a grimace. Annja saw his hand go to his thigh. The knitting bone was causing him pain.
He winced, eyes going instinctively toward Annja a second before Garin followed him out of the room. She didn’t have time to fade into the shadows.
“Ah, looks like we’ve got the band back together then, after all,” Garin said as he pushed past Roux. He found a switch, suddenly flooding the tunnel with light. This was not the rough-hewn stone of the tunnels beneath the castle at Benátky, but a whitewashed brick that had been cared for over generations. These were passageways that had been used by the monks back in the days when the old castle had served as a monastery. She saw scratches on the walls where ancient scores had been settled, counting out whatever the monks had stored down there. The electricity was a more recent addition obviously. The gray cable was roughly tacked in place, looping from one bulkhead lamp to the next.
Garin didn’t slow his pace. He moved through the tunnels with the familiarity of a man who had spent some considerable time in them.
“Come on,” he called back, but it was obvious to Annja that Roux was having difficulty keeping up with him. Roux bent over suddenly, reaching down to massage the knitting bone.
“Go,” he said, looking up. “I’ll catch up in a minute. Healing comes in fits and starts. It doesn’t happen all at once. Some parts of the process are more painful than others.”
Annja nodded, understanding.
This wasn’t the Roux she knew and loved. That irascible old man was always ready for action, fitter and stronger than she was herself. She wasn’t used to seeing him humbled so. Annja patted him once with her free hand, meaning it as a comforting gesture, an acknowledgment of his strength between friends, and started to run.
Click, click, click.
She knew what the sound was, even if she didn’t understand what it meant.
The golem was waking from its slumber.
Garin had some means of controlling it. She didn’t know the hows or whys or what drove him to want to control it though.
Every permutation that had gone through her mind didn’t come close to the reality that awaited her as she entered the room behind Garin.
The brute was strapped to a table, straining fiercely against leather restraints that bound him. The creature’s mouth was open, but the only sound that emerged from deep within was the steady click, click, click that haunted the tunnels.
“Hold him,” Garin said with a hypodermic in his hand. “Quickly.”
Annja didn’t move.
“Listen, I need you over here. Don’t be squeamish. He’s mostly harmless. But he won’t be if we don’t get him sedated. Hold his head still for me.”
Annja made a decision to trust Garin. She relaxed her grip on the sword and it faded into nothing, returning to the otherwhere.
Garin barely gave it a second glance, his attention fixed solely on the creature on the table. Annja couldn’t decide if he was a captive or a patient.
She held its head still and looked deep into its eye sockets. There were no eyes inside the cavities, which explained part of the peculiar features. The mouth was a ragged wound, like the slash of a knife, and the nose two puncture holes. It was easy to imagine a child creating this stylized doll out of clay.
Turek was right in so many ways he could never have understood; it really was the golem, or any other number of names that might have belonged to it over the centuries, but it was more than all of them, too.
Garin pressed the tip of the syringe to the back of his head and slid it in smoothly. The needle met no resistance. The golem continued
to thrash against the leather straps before it calmed. When it finally did, the only sound in the room was the steady whir of machinery.
Roux stood in the doorway.
“What exactly are you doing to that thing?” Roux appeared pale in the stark light. He breathed heavily. There was something wrong, more than just the broken bone, but he would never admit it in front of them.
“This thing could very well be the greatest invention that the world has never seen,” Garin began. “And before you start…yes, I am well aware he has killed, many times, but he is so much more than just a killer. There is beauty in his mechanisms. Believe me, such incredible beauty. And genius. But right now he needs our help.”
Roux said nothing.
“Or rather,” Garin continued, now getting to the point, “yours.”
“Help? I don’t think so.”
“Roux—”
“It is a wild beast, Garin. It needs to be destroyed. You should have left it trapped in those tunnels, don’t you see? This is a mistake. It can’t end well.”
Garin still had the syringe in his hand.
“This,” he said, holding up the syringe for the old man to see, “contains a measure of my blood, Roux. It keeps him alive, but it does not last long. When he was created, he was able to sustain himself with no more than the changes between light and dark, warmth and cold. His physical heart is still operating, but he needs more and more blood to keep his brain active. My blood is not enough. He needs something more. He needs some of your blood. Maybe whatever keeps you here will transfer to him. Mine worked for a long time, but he’s become resistant to its healing properties. You’re his only hope now.”
“Are you insane? Obviously you are. That thing is getting nothing from me.”
At that moment the creature gave an extra surge of effort, straining against the straps until first one leather strap snapped, then another, the incredible strength of the golem tearing the buckles from their mounts.
“Help me!” Garin yelled, but as he tried to restrain the golem again, one of the creature’s great arms swung out, a fist slamming into his chest.
The impact sent Garin staggering back, reeling as he went crashing to the ground.
As he landed, his head hit the wall with a sickening crack and he slumped, unconscious, broken.
Before Annja could visualize the sword and reach out, Roux had stepped between them.
The golem tore at its remaining bonds, ripping them straight out of the harness, and rose from the slab, an unstoppable force.
Roux met it head-on.
An immovable object.
The two came together, and for a single heartbeat it looked as if Roux was going to be able to hold the golem in check with his bare hands.
The golem swung its great fist, striking at the old man, but where Garin had gone sprawling across the floor, Roux barely grunted, taking the full force of the blow without flinching. A second blow snapped his head back, but still he refused to give ground.
A third blow shattered something inside.
Roux’s leg buckled and he went down, betrayed by the still-healing bone.
The creature brushed him aside, going for Annja.
Huge clubbing fists swung wildly, whistling just inches away from her face as she danced back two, three, four steps at a time, always just out of the golem’s reach. Roux charged the beast from the back, wrestling with it. Beads of sweat formed on his face in a matter of seconds as the strain of trying to hold the golem back took its toll.
The thing showed absolutely no change in its hollowed-out expression. It was remorseless in its will to move forward. From within its gaping slash of a mouth, Annja heard the relentless click, click, click of its mechanisms grinding on.
Eye to eye, inches from it, there was nothing remotely human about its parody of features. Its skin was deathly gray.
It pushed again, and this time Roux could not hold it.
There was a sudden sickening crack followed by the most ungodly scream from Roux as his leg gave way beneath him, the bone wrenching apart, undoing all of the miraculous healing in one twig-like snap.
Roux struggled desperately to maintain his grip on the golem, but couldn’t.
The pain would be excruciating. Blinding.
And the golem was relentless. It turned on the old man, closing its great arms around him, intent on crushing the life out of him.
“No!” Annja yelled defiantly, knowing that it was pointless but not caring. The sword trembled in her hand. She knew the golem couldn’t hear her; Garin had said it was deaf. There would be no peaceful resolution to this.
She threw herself into the fight, drawing its wrath.
It was the only thing she could think of to save Roux.
The golem cast the old man aside like a rag doll, turning to face the new threat.
Annja grinned wickedly, alive, ready to slice and dice the thing, ending the threat it posed and avenging all of those poor helpless souls who couldn’t fight for themselves.
It attacked her.
Annja danced to one side, fluid, light on her feet. The sword flashed out, an extension of her arm, slicing along the length of the golem’s swinging arm and opening its pale flesh.
She took a step out of reach, keeping the sword between her and the brute.
It swung again, coming up short.
For all of its strength it was ungainly, unfocused.
It might be stronger, but she was faster, and she was fighting for her friend’s life. She had no idea what drove the creature.
She took a step and swung her sword, changing the trajectory of the blow at the last possible second, rolling her wrists to sweep the blade in an upward arc. The sword stuck the creature on the side of its head; the impact shuddered along the flat of the blade and all the way up her arms.
It shook the golem but did not incapacitate it.
The great brute lumbered forward, swinging, each wild blow coming with more force behind it than the last.
Annja felt the breeze of each swing across her face, like slaps from an invisible hand.
She whipped back her head, rolling with the last of the blows as the massive fist whistled only inches from her cheek.
Annja swung again, this time slicing the tip on the sword through the rags draped over the golem’s huge form. The blade bit deep, cutting through its side.
And still its visage didn’t change from that expressionless, openmouthed, dead stare.
The blow had cut deep, opening a gaping tear in its flesh.
The air filled with the relentless click, click, click of its mechanisms.
Annja slipped under the next swing and launched herself around the golem, vaulting onto the table that had been its prison only moments before. As the killer lumbered and flailed blindly, she continued on, crossing the table in three short steps before launching herself again, this time at the wall. Annja ran along the vertical brickwork, circling the golem, then exploding in a blistering attack, the silver sword weaving a web of death.
Side-on, trapped in the tunnel, there was no way the golem could protect itself. It raised its enormous hands, trying to ward off the attack, and stumbled as Annja delivered blow after devastating blow, slicing into the golem’s pallid flesh again and again.
The final cut tore deep into its neck.
The golem turned, the sword still buried deep in its flesh, yanking the weapon out of Annja’s grasp.
She fell back, gasping and unarmed as the golem reached up, trying to take hold of the sword. But as its hands closed around the weapon, the blade seemed to shimmer and dissolve. The golem’s meaty fists closed around nothing at all.
Saint Joan’s sword re-formed in Annja’s grip. Quickly she planted her feet and with both hands wrapped around the hilt, she launched another devastating assault, pummeling the beast with a vicious series of cuts, hacking into its body.
But still it didn’t fall.
It stood there, head lolling at an odd angle.
Sh
e’d delivered twenty devastating blows, each one tearing into the rags, shredding through the material as it opened deep cuts in the golem’s flesh.
But there was no blood.
Not a single drop.
It was impossible to tell if any one of the blows had caused it pain—or if it was even capable of feeling anything as mortal as pain.
It tried to move, to face Annja, swinging wildly, arms gouging in the space before it. Click, click, click. There was no coordination. Beneath the rags its flesh was dull, caked like clay, and webbed with a hundred scars, each one bearing testimony to the tale Roux had told. This creature really was as old as he claimed, but it wasn’t immortal.
It had never before faced a foe like Annja Creed.
She crouched, and then as it stumbled toward her, she sprang up, planting the blade in its gut and dragging it up through the broken flesh as she climbed its body, revealing what lay underneath.
Instead of spilling blood and organs, what in any other fight would have been the killing blow revealed only metal and machinery.
No matter what Garin had believed, this was no living thing.
Any sense of restraint, of trying to find another resolution here, melted away.
Click, click, click.
Annja swung at its throat again, the tip of the blade whistling just short of the thing that was doing its best to kill her.
“Stop!” Garin shouted. “Wait!” Annja didn’t waste her breath answering. She knew exactly what she was doing. She was putting the golem down. She had eyes only for the enemy; moving in a blur, she focused on disorientating the damaged machine. It tried to turn, swinging blindly over and over as it struggled to stay on its feet, but Annja was too fast. She swung a final time, putting every ounce of strength she had into the blow. The blade sliced through the golem’s neck, severing its head cleanly from its shoulders.
The whirring of the machinery continued on for an eerie moment—click, click, click—before it toppled.
The gears in the guts of the thing continued to click and tick for a few minutes before she was sure it no longer posed a threat.