by Alex Archer
“I know. You will.” Foulard pushed through a rack of jackets.
“If she knows something about La Bête that I do not know, I must be made aware of it.”
“Soon,” Foulard promised.
“Do not disappoint me.”
Foulard could not imagine anything in the world that he would want to do less. Lesauvage was a violent man with an unforgiving nature. People who crossed him died. Foulard had helped bury some of them in shallow graves. Others he had chopped into pieces and fed to the fish in the Seine.
The phone clicked dead.
Replacing the device in his pocket, Foulard turned to the old man whose owlish eyes were narrow with disapproval. Foulard knew the old man was not as annoyed as he was.
“Where’s the woman?” Foulard demanded.
The old man gripped the lapels of his vest. “You need to leave my shop.”
Foulard crossed to the man in three angry steps.
Reaching beneath the counter, the old man took out a phone. “I will call the police.”
Without pause, Foulard slapped the phone from the old man’s hand, then grabbed a fistful of his vest and yanked him close. Effortlessly, Foulard slipped the 9 mm pistol from beneath his windbreaker and put the muzzle against the old man’s forehead.
“The woman,” Foulard repeated in a deadly voice.
Trembling, the old man pointed to the rear of the shop.
Rounding the counter, Foulard stomped the phone to pieces. “Don’t call the police. I’m cutting you a break by letting you live. Understand?”
The old man nodded.
Foulard shoved him back against the shelves. The old man stayed there.
“She spotted us,” Jean said.
“You think?” Foulard shook his head and started for the back door. He kept his pistol in his hands.
“It’s hard to stay hidden in a town this small,” Jean said as he drew his own pistol. He held it like a familiar pet, with love and confidence.
“Lesauvage wants the woman alive,” Foulard reminded him, knowing how his cohort loved to kill.
“Maybe he won’t want to keep her that way for long,” Jean said hopefully.
“She’s just a television person,” Foulard said. “A historian. She won’t be any trouble. Don’t break her.”
Jean grinned cruelly. “Maybe we can just scare her a little.”
Foulard grinned at the thought. “Maybe.”
Together, they passed through the back door.
Foulard stood at the doorway.
Two paths lay before him. He didn’t know which direction the woman went. Avery Moreau should have left him a clue. The boy knew what he was supposed to do.
“Should we split up?” Jean asked.
Foulard didn’t want to do that. He didn’t like the possibilities that existed when Jean was out of his sight.
Then a cell phone chirped.
At first, Foulard believed that his employer was calling back. Lesauvage could be an impatient man and a demanding taskmaster. Then, his hand on the phone in his pocket, he discovered that the device wasn’t ringing and didn’t even sound like his phone.
The noise came from above.
He looked up and his pistol followed his eyes.
AVERY PRESSED HIMSELF against the alley wall. Even though he hadn’t been running, his lungs constricted and his own breathing sounded loud to his ears. His heartbeat was a snare drum in his heaving chest.
He felt bad at having left the woman. Of course he had known the two men were there. He had contacted them to let them know she was seeking to uncover the mysteries of La Bête.
Corvin Lesauvage, the man Avery had gone to with his own problems only weeks ago, was interested in La Bête. Everyone in Lozère knew that. In fact, most who lived around the Cévennes Mountains knew of Lesauvage’s interests.
When he’d first offered his services to Annja Creed, Avery had mentioned that she should meet Lesauvage, that he was something of an authority on the subject. She had declined, saying she wanted to form her own opinions before she talked to anyone who might influence her views.
Avery grew afraid for the woman. He knew the kind of men who followed her. Lesauvage maintained two kinds of businesses. The two men on the woman’s trail were of the dangerous kind.
Squeezing his eyes shut, willing himself not to cry, Avery thought of his father. Surely his father was cold in his grave now. The funeral had been two—no, three—weeks ago. He’d lost all sense of time. It was June now.
Pressing tight against the wall, Avery waited. He concentrated on the fact that what he was doing would help him get revenge for his father’s murder. The policeman who had killed Gerard Moreau would not bask in his glory much longer. He would freeze in a grave during winter. Avery had sworn that.
A cell phone chirped down the alley. It was her phone. He breathed a sigh of relief to know she was still there. He’d been worried she’d figured out he’d led the men to her. More than anything, he couldn’t fail Lesauvage.
Then a gunshot shattered the quiet locked in the narrow alley.
OKAY, ANNJA THOUGHT grimly as she listened to the strident ring of her cell phone in her pocket, the element of surprise is surprisingly gone.
The two men whirled to look up at her. Both of them held pistols and looked ready to use them.
With the tent pole in both hands, Annja leaped, propelling herself upward and out.
One of the men fired, and the bullet tore through the space she would have occupied if she’d thrown herself directly at them. The steel-jacketed round fragmented against the stone wall and left a white scar.
Annja flipped through the air and landed gracefully in the alley, now to the men’s backs.
“No shooting!” one of the men bellowed.
With her feet spread apart, knees bent to remain low, Annja swiveled her makeshift bo stick from her left hand to the right and hit the shooter in the side of the face. His sunglasses shattered and blood sprayed from the impact. He squealed in pain.
Moving quickly to her left, using the stumbling man as a barrier to prevent his companion from aiming at her, Annja gripped the stick in both hands again. This was so not a good idea, she told herself.
She wasn’t by nature a violent person, but she immediately resented anyone who tried to take advantage of or intimidate her. That was one of the reasons she’d taken every martial-arts class she could in New Orleans as she’d grown up.
Plus, Sister Mary Annabelle at the orphanage—eighty years old and still spry—was a firm believer in a sound mind and a sound body. Sister Mary Annabelle had never missed a single tai chi class. She was an embarrassment to the other nuns, but she didn’t care and Annja had loved the old woman for it.
Annja went on the attack at once. Outrunning a pistol in the twisting confines of the alley was out of the question.
Her phone rang again, sounding inordinately loud in the alley even after the thunderous peal of the gunshot. She wondered if anyone had called the police.
She stepped forward, her mind working rapidly as it always did. She wasn’t scared. During her experiences as an archaeologist working in countries far from home, she’d encountered a number of potentially threatening situations caused by weather, ancient traps, geology and men.
Being scared wouldn’t help anything.
Striding forward, her left hand over the top of the stick and her right hand under it, Annja slid her right hand down, leaving her right knuckle over the top of the stick as it came over and down, and struck.
The stick slammed against the man’s forearm. Something cracked. He released his pistol and screamed. Annja cut off the scream with her next blow, an up strike that caught him under the jaw and dropped him to his knees.
Whirling, knowing the first man she’d attacked was regaining his balance, Annja took another grip on the stick. Stepping forward, she slammed the blunt end of the stick into the man’s stomach, doubling him over.
Unbelievably, he brought his pistol up
and squeezed the trigger. Two shots ricocheted from the wall behind Annja, missing her by inches.
Dodging again to the left, Annja spun the stick and swung at his gun hand, aiming for the thumb and wrist. Bones broke like dry branches cracking in a campfire.
Staying on the attack, Annja whirled again. She hit the man across the back, aiming for his kidneys. Then she struck him across the backs of his knees, dropping him to the ground.
Even then, doubtless blossoming with pain, he tried to face her. Annja drove the blunt end of the stick against his forehead. He was unconscious before he sprawled on the ground. Blood dripped from the half-moon wound on his forehead.
The other man reached for his dropped pistol.
Annja drove the end of the stick forward, catching the man in the side of the neck and knocking him aside. She kicked the pistol away.
Over the past few years, she’d learned how to use pistols, but she didn’t want to touch either of theirs. There was no telling how many crimes were attached to them, and she didn’t want to confuse the issue with her fingerprints in case they were all taken into custody.
Before the man could get up again, Annja pinned him to the ground with the stick against the base of his throat. “No,” she said.
The man grabbed the stick in both hands and wrenched it away. She kicked him in the face with her hiking boot. The black La Sportiva with Gore-Tex lining had plenty of tread. For hiking slippery slopes and kicking butt, Annja thought, they just can’t be beat.
The tread ripped at the man’s face, opening a cut over his right eye. Annja put the end of the stick against his throat again, almost making him gag.
“Do that again,” Annja said in an even voice, “and you’ll regret it.”
The man held his hands up beside his head in surrender. Blood trickled into his eye, forcing him to squint.
Holding the stick in place, Annja carefully stretched to search the unconscious man. She found money, two clips for the pistol, but no identification.
“Who are you?” Annja asked the pinned man.
The man growled a curse at her.
Annja pressed the stick against his throat and made him retch. She let him up enough to turn over and vomit.
“Bad mistake,” she said.
A siren wailed in the distance, growing closer.
Annja decided she didn’t want to be around to answer questions from the Lozère police. As an American, even one with a proper passport, things could become tense. She wasn’t on a dig site with administration backing her.
She tapped the man hard on the back of the head with the pole. “Don’t let me see you again.”
The man cursed at her again, but he remained on the ground.
Annja held on to her stick and jogged down the alley. Her mind whirled and the adrenaline rush started to fade and leave her with the quaking aftermath. Her legs felt rubbery.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. She was in Lozère hunting an old monster story. According to plan, she’d be in and out with a few details that would satisfy the young crowd who watched Chasing History’s Monsters, and a paycheck would soon—she hoped—follow.
Was this a mugging? She wondered. Maybe the two men had heard about her or simply were intrigued enough about the backpack to come after her.
But she got the feeling something more was going on. She just didn’t know what.
Get out of town, she told herself. Get to the mountains and see if you can find enough to do the story. Once you finish, you can get back to Brooklyn and edit it, get paid and maybe get to North Africa for Poulson’s dig.
Poulson’s dig site was interesting to her. The team was looking for one of Hannibal’s campsites when he marched across with his elephants. Annja had never been to Africa. She’d always wanted to go. But Poulson’s team was privately funded and he didn’t have the budget to pay her way.
Still, he’d invited her. If she could make it on her own.
That was why she was here in Lozère chasing after a monster she didn’t truly believe existed.
She kept running, telling herself that another day or two and she would be clear of France, and whatever problems the two men had brought with them.
2
The rental Avery had arranged turned out to be an old Renault pickup truck. If Annja had been a layman, maybe she’d have mistakenly called it ancient. But she was a trained archaeologist and she knew what ancient meant.
The man who’d rented it to her had seemed somewhat reluctant, but that had lifted once she’d put the money in his hand and promised to get the vehicle back in one piece.
For the money she’d handed over, Annja thought perhaps the man would replace the truck with a better one. But there weren’t many vehicles to be had in town that the owners would allow to be driven where she was going.
At least the old truck looked high enough to clear the rough terrain.
After thanking Avery for his help and a final goodbye, Annja climbed behind the steering wheel, stepped on the starter and engaged the transmission with a clank. She headed toward the Cévennes Mountains.
Once out of town, following the dirt road leading up into the mountains, Annja took out her cell phone. It was equipped with a satellite receiver, offering her a link in most parts of the world. Still, the service was expensive and she didn’t use it any more than she had to.
Caller ID showed the number that had called her while she’d been in the alley. She recognized the number at once.
Steering one-handed, trying to avoid most of the rough spots, Annja punched the speed-dial function and pulled up the number.
The phone rang three times before it was answered.
“Doug Morrell.” His voice was crisp and cheerful. He sounded every bit of his twenty-two years of age.
“Hello, Doug,” she said. “It’s Annja. I’m returning your call.”
Doug Morrell was a friend and one of her favorite production people at Chasing History’s Monsters. He lived in Brooklyn, not far from her, and was a frequent guest and dining companion. He was young and trendy, never interested in going out into the field for stories as Annja did.
“I was just looking over the piece you’re working on,” Doug said. He affected a very bad French accent. “The Beast of Gévaudan.”
“What about it?”
“French werewolf thing, right?”
“They don’t know what it was,” Annja countered.
“Looking over it today, after Kristie did the werewolf of Cologne, I’m thinking maybe this isn’t the story we want to pursue. I mean, two stories set in France about werewolves might not be where our viewers want to go.”
Annja sighed and avoided an angry response. Evidently lycanthropy wasn’t as popular as vampirism because Chasing History’s Monsters had done a weeklong series on those. And neither history nor geography was something Doug had an interest in.
“Peter Stubb, the so-called Werewolf of Cologne, was German, not French,” Annja said.
“French, German—” Doug’s tone suggested an uncaring shrug “—I’m not seeing a whole lot of difference here,” he admitted. “Europe tends to blur together for me. I think it does for most of our fans.”
That was the difference between a big-name show and one that was syndicated, Annja supposed. The networks had audiences. Cable programs had fans. But she could live with that. This check was going to get her to North Africa.
“Europe shouldn’t blur together,” Annja said. “The histories of each country are hugely different.”
“If you say so.” Doug didn’t sound at all convinced. “My problem is I don’t especially feel good about sticking two hairy guys on as my leads so close together.”
“Then save the La Bête piece,” Annja said as she became aware of the sound of high-pitched engines. Her wraparound sunglasses barely blunted the hot glare of the early-afternoon sun. Just let me do my job and give me my airfare, she almost said aloud.
“If I save the La Bête piece, I’ve got a hole I need to f
ill,” Doug said.
“The pieces are different,” Annja said. “Peter Stubb was more than likely a serial killer. He claimed victims for twenty-five years between 1564 and 1589. Supposedly he had a magic belt given to him by the devil that allowed him to change into a wolf.”
Doug was no longer surprised by the amount of knowledge and esoteric facts Annja had at her command. He partnered with her at the sports bars to play trivia games on the closed-circuit televisions. He knew all the pop-culture references and sports, and she had the history and science. They split the literature category. Together, they seldom lost and in most of Brooklyn’s pubs no one would wager against them.
“There’s no mention of a magic belt in Kristie’s story,” Doug said.
Annja wasn’t surprised. Kristie Chatham wasn’t noted for research, just a killer bod and scanty clothing while prowling for legends. For her, history never went past her last drink and her last lover.
“There was a magic belt,” Annja said.
“I believe you,” Doug said. “But at this point we’ll probably have to roll without it. Should send some of the audience members into a proper outrage and juice up the Internet activity regarding the show again.”
Annja counted to ten. “The show’s integrity is important to me. To the work I do.” Archaeology was what she lived for. Nothing had ever drawn her like that.
“Don’t worry about it,” Doug said. “When the viewers start trashing Kristie’s validity, I’ll just have George rerelease video clips of her outtakes in Cancun while she was pursuing the legend of the flesh-eating college students turned zombies during the 1977 spring break. Her bikini top fell off three times during that show. It’s not the same when we mask that here in the States, but a lot of guys download the European versions of the show.”
Annja tried not to think about Kristie’s top falling off. The woman grated on her nerves. What was even more grating was that Kristie Chatham was the fan-favorite of all the hosts of Chasing History’s Monsters.
“The ratings really rise during those episodes,” Doug continued. “Not to say that ratings don’t rise whenever you’re on. They do. You’re one hot babe yourself, Annja.”