by Alex Archer
She laughed. A cold, bitter laugh. “Very good. Play dumb. Pretend you don’t know exactly who I am and what I’m holding in my hand.” As though in response, the flames licking along the length of the blade seemed to twitch a little more furiously. “So don’t try playing the innocent with me.”
“Oh, I don’t claim to be innocent, my dear,” the man said. “But what am I guilty of in particular?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Awena said. “Just keep walking.”
“With pleasure.”
The narrow alley led to a slightly wider road that in turn led to an open parking lot that was in near-total darkness, save for a single working streetlight. There was a solitary car parked in the darkness on the far side, hers. “Get moving.” She pushed him on, every few steps jabbing him in the back to keep him going in the right direction until they reached it.
Awena popped the trunk.
The old man made no attempt to hide the concern on his face.
She liked that. “Don’t worry,” Awena said, “I’m not going to make you get in. I’m not some barbarian. I wouldn’t do that to an old man. Turn around. Put your hands behind your back.”
He did as he was told.
The courtesy light in the trunk revealed a scatter of plastic cable ties that Geraint had thrown in there months ago. He used them when he was out doing jobs, organizing cables and the like. Funny how even without being there he was still helping her. Awena needed both hands to secure the plastic tie, cinching it just a little tighter than she wanted to so it bit into his leathery skin. She had to lean the sword against the car. The second she released her hold on the hilt, the flame died out and this side of the parking lot was plunged into darkness.
She almost hoped that he would attempt to get away.
She would be able to stop him if he did. And hurt him. For her father. Because even if it had been the Creed woman who had run him off the road, there was blood on the old man’s hands.
“What do you want?”
“The same thing as you.”
“World peace?”
“Don’t play games with me,” she said. “We both know what I’m talking about.”
He said nothing, just stared into her eyes.
“You’re not what I expected,” she said.
“How so?”
“You’re old.”
“I am. That means I’ve grown accustomed to living. What do you want?”
“I want to know your name for a start,” Awena spoke, snatching up the sword again. It immediately roared into bright blue flame. She pressed it bare inches from his face so it stung and blackened the white bristles pushing through his skin. She expected him to beg for his life. He didn’t. That was interesting. Most men would have pleaded or made any sort of deal they possibly could to buy time, but not this man, who had grown accustomed to living. That was very interesting indeed.
“Roux,” he said. “My name is Roux.”
She opened the rear door of the car and, placing a hand on top of his head, helped him inside, then slipped behind the wheel. She looked at Roux, her prisoner, in the rearview mirror.
“Roux,” she repeated.
“That’s my name,” he said almost cheerfully.
“You’re not dead.”
“I’m not.”
“You actually exist.”
“It would seem so. And I assume you are Awena Llewellyn?”
“So we know each other. Isn’t that nice?”
“I’m not sure nice is the word I’d use, given the whole hog-tied thing, but it is good to know who has taken you hostage, I suppose.”
She turned on the interior light, then pulled her father’s notebook out of the glove box. She opened it and found the page she wanted, the one with his name written on it, and showed it to him.
“It’s because of you I’m here,” she said. “See your name there, in black and white? You led Dad here, and now you’ve led me here. I suppose I should thank you.”
“Manners never hurt anyone,” he agreed.
Chapter 36
There was no sign of Roux.
That was bad.
It wasn’t like him.
He wasn’t the kind of flake who just wandered off in the middle of a job.
He wasn’t some ADD kid who couldn’t focus.
If he’d gone he’d gone for a reason.
Annja knew it was out of character. And out of character was never what you wanted when you needed a guy to be his usual unflappable, reliable self.
Annja left Garin to coil up the rope. She followed the edge of the castle wall, looking for any indication as to where he might have gone and hoping to stumble across him just around the corner. But she didn’t get that lucky. She tried to think: the threat of discovery had come from inside the castle, not from the market square. She’d assumed he hadn’t been needed as a lookout, but what if he had? What if someone had come close to rumbling them and Roux had been forced to move to intervene? She continued around the side, toward the moat.
She moved closer to the water’s edge. A couple of small boats were moored there. She peered into the blackness.
“You don’t think he’s fallen in, do you?” Garin asked, coming up behind her.
“We’d have heard the splash,” she said, assuming he was serious. “Besides, why would he have come close to the water?”
“Indeed. But that being the case, where’s the old bastard gone?”
“Maybe he headed back to the hotel?”
“Unlikely.”
“We came down empty-handed.”
“He wouldn’t just leave, no matter how disappointed he was. It’s not like him.” And that was what bugged Annja more than anything. Garin was dead right; it wasn’t like him. And Garin was beginning to sound concerned, which bugged her, too.
“The man’s a law unto himself,” she said, wanting to believe that.
“That he is,” Garin agreed, still not happy.
“Let’s get back to the hotel, regroup. Maybe you can trace him on satellite or whatever it was you did to me from the plane. Anything’s got to be better than just standing out here in the dark waiting for him to turn up.”
“Agreed. It’s not like we can whistle for him as if he were some lost dog, as much as I like the idea. Let’s go before someone gets nosy and spots us.”
“Right, it’s not like we can pull a cloak of invisibility up over our heads, is it?”
“I like you, Annja Creed. Have I mentioned that?”
“Not for at least a week.”
“Well, I do. You’re the right side of irreverent. Plus you’re rocking some killer abs in that outfit. Shame about the whole human torch thing you’ve got going on.” He winked.
She laughed, despite the fact it was the absolute last thing she felt like doing.
The hotel lobby was lit by two table lamps and the faint glow of the emergency exit sign.
There was no night porter, but it was a small hotel so that was hardly surprising. They let themselves into the building with their electronic key card. The bar area was closed, and no one was sitting in reception. The entire place had an abandoned vibe going on.
“You think he’s gone up?”
“Dunno, something’s not right.”
“Could be this old-flame guilt he’s nursing,” Garin suggested.
“Old flame? I think I’ve got some catching up to do.”
“I’m not sure it’s anything. Basically he had some woman looking out for the cloak, like he had the curate watching over the sword, only I guess it was a bit more complicated. They had a fight and never talked again.” Garin stepped into the elevator. She followed him inside.
“If he’s got someone watching the place, even if they’
re not exactly best friends, why were we risking our necks back there?”
“Because she’s dead. The whole fallout thing was maybe fifty years ago. The mote of dust in the eye of time idea. I don’t know if it was pride, or what, but he couldn’t bring himself to talk to her again. And now the treasure’s gone, I guess he thinks she betrayed him.”
“Wow, what a tangled web.” She thought about the letter they’d found at the battlements; she’d left it in the car. No doubt it was an apology or an attempt to explain what had happened or build bridges from the afterlife. No wonder he’d gone. She couldn’t exactly blame him.
“So we shouldn’t start worrying just yet, then?”
“Who knows what goes on in the old man’s head? He might have gone for a walk to clear the cobwebs. He might have gone to stand outside her house and look at the windows imagining he could somehow knock on the door and say sorry. Or he might have gone in search of a stiff drink. I say leave the worrying until the morning.”
The elevator stopped.
Annja stepped out into a carpeted and Regency-style hallway and started along the corridor. There was no light coming from under Roux’s door but that meant nothing. He’d had more than enough time to get back here and into bed, or wander the streets chasing his old ghosts. Garin was right; there was no point worrying until morning. Roux was a big boy. He could look after himself. That didn’t mean she had to feel good about it, though.
Garin slipped into his own room without another word, leaving her standing in the corridor alone and unsettled.
She opened the door to her room and went inside.
Annja kicked off her shoes and lay on the bed, intending on heading to the bathroom to wash and clean her teeth before changing for bed, but exhaustion overtook her. She slept the sleep of the damned, dreaming she was climbing a wall that never seemed to end.
High above her she could hear Roux calling out to her, but it wasn’t her name.
Chapter 37
Sunrise began somewhere beyond the horizon.
The old man was asleep in the back of the car. He hadn’t caused any trouble all night. Not that she’d expected him to. She’d grilled him after she’d moved the car, finding a tourist lot away from the town with a view looking out over the sea. It had been a frustrating interrogation. The old man wasn’t much of a talker.
“The castle was built after the English defeated Llewellyn, the last true prince of Wales,” Awena said when she saw him stir. “That’s what they called him you know, Llewellyn the Last. Llewellyn, that’s my name.”
“I’d say that was quite a coincidence,” Roux said. He seemed to have aged a decade. It must have been uncomfortable back there all night.
“No coincidence.”
“I didn’t really think it was. Is that what this is all about? Is this why your father spent all of his life looking for the treasures? Because of some misguided notion that you’re descended from Llewellyn the Last and it’s your birthright?”
“You knew my father?” It was the question she’d wanted to ask him ever since she’d read his name in her dad’s book. “How? What were you? Friends? Enemies?”
“I knew him well enough to know he killed a friend of mine to get that sword you’ve been waving about.”
“He wasn’t a killer,” she said, full of anger and doubt. “Not like that friend of yours. Annja Creed drove him off the road and left him to die.”
She turned in her seat to get a better look at him. His face was impassive. Not so much as a flicker of emotion or surprise.
“You already knew that, didn’t you?”
“She told me about the accident.”
“It wasn’t an accident.”
“I suppose not. He was trying to run her off the road. Why do you think he’d do that? Guilt?”
“If she was so innocent, why not just call the police? Why kill him?”
“She didn’t kill him. He died, that’s different.”
She made a face, shaking her head. “You’re playing word games. She ran him off the road. That’s why she’s hidden her car. And that’s why you are lying.”
The old man shrugged. “It really doesn’t matter to me whether you believe me or not. It’s the truth. I’ll let God be my judge.”
She felt like slapping him. An old man with his hands tied behind his back and she still felt like slapping him. That was nothing compared with what she wanted to do with the woman. She would make sure that Annja Creed wouldn’t have the opportunity to pluck her sword out of thin air the next time they met. She’d break both of the woman’s arms first if she had to, but Annja Creed was going to pay for what she’d done to her father. But right now, she wanted the Mantle of King Arthur. That was why they’d snuck into the tower. Well, they might have won yesterday’s battle but it was a new day and there was an entire war waiting for her to win. It was time to face them on their level. She needed to wake up.
The phone rang four times before a sleepy voice on the other end answered. “Hello?”
“It’s Awena Llewellyn,” she said.
Silence.
“Not going to say hello? I’m hurt, Annja. I thought we were friends.”
“What do you want?”
“What do I want? Oh, that’s an easy question to answer. I thought you’d be much more imaginative than that. I thought you’d already know what I want, but I’ll help you out because that’s the kind of woman I am. I want the Mantle of King Arthur.”
There was a pause. She was using the time to construct a lie. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Is that the best you can do? Denial? Certainly you know what I am talking about, Annja, unless you fell and hit your head on the way down, that is.” Awena waited, still no response. “I saw you climbing the tower last night. So let’s try again—I want the Mantle of King Arthur.”
Annja said nothing. Well, it was harder to find a convincing lie when you’d been caught red-handed. Had she even realized Roux was missing?
“I think you must be mistaken.”
“Oh, seriously, stop wasting time. Why don’t you go and ask Roux what you should do?”
“Roux?”
“You heard me. Why don’t you go and ask your friend what sort of lie you need to tell to get out of this. I’ll wait while you go and check his room. I should warn you he won’t be there, though, just so you’re prepared. Go on, check.”
Awena held on as the silence stretched out until the phone she’d taken from Roux’s pocket started to ring on the dashboard. She answered it. “Do you believe me now?” she said.
“Where is he?”
“He’s safe,” Awena said.
“Where are you?”
“Questions, questions. You really are an annoying woman. Don’t you get it? I’m in charge here. You don’t get to ask things, you don’t get to dictate things. I’m going to tell you what happens now, not the other way around. I want the mantle, you will meet me at the ferry terminal at one o’clock and bring it with you. That’s the price of the old man’s life. I really think you should pay it. I’m not messing around and I’m not the kind of girl who gives people second chances.”
“I can’t give you what I don’t have,” Annja replied.
“Please don’t lie to me. I like to think we’re beyond that now,” Awena said.
“I’m not lying. It wasn’t there.”
“Hmm, that’s a problem, then, isn’t it? Because if you don’t have it with you when you come to the ferry terminal, you won’t see Roux again. It really is as simple as that. And needless to say, get the police involved and the old man dies. Be there at one.” Awena killed the connection before Creed could object. Likewise, with her own phone. She was in control of the situation. She was giving the orders.
The old man remained pas
sive. He hadn’t tried to call out any special message for his companion, and she hadn’t demanded to speak to him or any other sort of proof of life.
Awena didn’t know if she should be troubled by that or not.
Chapter 38
The call had woken her from deep within a dream. Traces of it clung on into wakefulness, but by the end of the conversation she was wide-eyed and anything remotely dreamy was long since gone.
When the line went dead the first thing she did was grab the other phone, but that one was just as dead. The second thing she did was call Garin, but his phone just rang and rang, going to voice mail every time. For a moment she thought he was in trouble, too. She was out of her room and across the corridor hammering on Garin’s door before his final voice mail kicked in.
A very unhappy-looking Garin poked his head around the door. “All right, all right...where’s the fire?”
“Roux has been kidnapped!”
“What do you mean kidnapped?”
It took a while for her to explain everything to him; the words came out in the wrong order, a confused jumble of information, but eventually she managed to tell him everything she knew.
“Well, I guess you were right, then. We should have made sure he was in his room last night,” he said. “So much for the romantic brokenhearted version of this story. Five minutes won’t make a difference. Go, get a shower and get out of your pj’s, because as good as you look in them they’re not really rescue attire. Besides, I’m not exactly dressed,” Garin said, his modesty hidden behind the door.
She realized she was still in her night wear. She nodded. “Five minutes.”
Once she was standing under the hot needles of water she didn’t want to step out of it until the water had washed her guilt away. She should have checked in on Roux. She should have called him or sent him a text at the absolute least. Five minutes wasn’t anywhere near long enough for that. She’d let the man down. They were a team. You don’t leave one of your number unaccounted. Not ever. By the time she had dressed and returned to Garin’s room he’d already ordered breakfast from room service and was working at his laptop.