by Alex Archer
It softened her to his hardened exterior. A man like Garin had to wear some kind of protection against the world. But she wondered if he wore the same protection around his heart and mind? It would be impossible not to.
“I’m no saint, Annja.”
That she knew.
“So in the hands of a necromancer,” she said, “the skull could do some wicked damage.”
“I don’t want to begin to imagine. We need to get that skull.”
“I’ll give Professor Danzinger a call.”
21
Eric Danzinger liked spending late hours at the university. The desk lamp tossed gold light across the granite lab tables as if splashed out from a miner’s pan. Hundreds of skulls observed from shelves. The tick-tick of the radiator kept a syncopated beat that reminded of a slow jazz tune. A man just didn’t get atmosphere like this in his stuffy little Bronx apartment. It was also neater than his home, which was covered wall-to-wall with rock-and-roll memorabilia.
Humming a Rolling Stones tune, he sorted through the guitar strings coiled upon the granite lab table for the high E string. Threading the clear nylon string through the baseboard, he formed a nifty twist to keep it secure, then stretched it along the neck to poke through the tuning peg. He twisted it tight, then leaned aside to tap the computer keyboard.
Freaky Tuner was a shareware program that played notes to tune virtually any instrument. One tap of the return key played a steady acoustic guitar E note. He twisted the tuning peg, and plucked the string until the vibrations wavered to nothing and the notes matched.
The B string was next. He went through the same motions, smiling bemusedly at the skull upon the stuffing in the little box Annja had delivered it in. It seemed to approve of the musical break he’d decided to indulge.
“Wonder what kind of music you listened to. I bet if you had ears, you’d bow in worship to Keith Richards, too.”
On the other hand, it was an infant’s skull. Best save the rock and roll a few more years.
The professor had taken dozens of photographs of the skull’s interior. The computer was cobbling them all together as he waited. The program amazed him as to how it could piece photos together without overlapping. The interior map was about fifty percent complete.
The gold lining the skull sutures sparkled after a soft polishing with a little water, some ammonia and dishwashing soap.
Though he couldn’t guess at the original date without proper dating equipment, he did have a good idea that the gold had been added later. Certainly the thing hadn’t been born that way. It was very common to find altered artifacts, especially those of unknown origin.
Skull modification wasn’t his thing. Though he was aware it had been prevalent in early Mayan cultures. He should give Sharon in Anthropology a jingle and see what she could make of the skull. The woman got more turned on by bones than sex. Not that he hadn’t tried to alter her perceptions regarding a night well spent. Man, had he tried.
He tightened the B string, wondering if it was too late to call Annja to come take a look at the interior map. A woman like her probably had an insane schedule. Darting from dig to dig, hosting a television show, writing books and appearing on Letterman.
Yeah, he’d like it if she could find a place for him to at least guest as a researcher on the show. He didn’t mind the spotlight at all. And if it meant he could meet Kristie Chatham, well, then.
It was almost ten. Annja was likely still awake, but he’d wait until morning. The music wanted his attention.
HIS RUBBER-SOLED RUNNING shoes made no sound on the old tiled floor in Schermerhorn Hall. It was dark, save for a few lights toward the end of the hall, two coming from consecutive doorways, another across the hall from the first.
Ravenscroft’s orders had been clear. He’d likely find this strange skull in the anthropology building. He’d found a name of a teacher associated with the TV chick and had tracked his teaching schedule.
The building should be empty of students as well as professors, especially with the holiday weekend. But Jones had been given the all-clear to take matters into hand should he run into anyone wanting to ask questions.
Sliding his leather-gloved fingers inside his jacket, Jones drew them the length of the knife tucked inside a narrow pocket.
As each step drew him closer to the lighted rooms, he got a sense for the one on the left. Just a feeling. Must be like that intuition his girlfriend was always yapping about.
Stopping at the first door on the left, he read the syllabus taped outside on the wall. It was signed by Professor Danzinger. Bingo.
He knocked lightly. The door, not completely closed, swung inward.
“Professor Danzinger?”
He entered the quiet room. A bright lamp beamed over a lab table. A computer, textbooks and various tools and papers scattered messily across the stretch.
And a skull. Sitting there on an open box with tufts of wool cradling the small cranium.
Ravenscroft had said he might need to mention a woman’s name. “I was given your name by Annja Creed.”
“Yes, Miss Creed.” The professor removed his glasses and set them on the countertop. An acoustic guitar lay on the table before him, the neck propped by a textbook, one unwound string coiled at the base by the sound hole. “And you are?”
“Jones,” he offered. “Bill Jones. I’m a colleague of Miss Creed’s. I see you’ve got the skull. Annja and I are eager to learn what you’ve discovered about it.”
“Yes, well, the interior mapping isn’t finished. As for the date…” He leaned over the skull and tapped the thin gold tracing around one eye socket. “I’d give it a good millennium. Perhaps. I’m no expert, more a fascinated learner.”
“That’s intriguing.” Jones moved to the professor’s side. When the man straightened and looked him over, he placed a gentle palm to his shoulder. “Looks like just another skull. What’s so special about this one?”
He felt the man’s muscles tighten under his testing touch. “How did you say you know Annja? She didn’t mention—”
“I’m surprised she didn’t mention me, but then Annja is always so busy.”
“Yes, with her show.”
Show? Jones filed that one away. “I’ll bring it back to her.”
“But I said I’m not finished yet. Maybe I should give Annja a call?”
“Sure, certainly. You play, Professor?”
Jones stroked the guitar neck. Three strings were strung.
“Since I was a boy. You like guitar music?” Danzinger asked.
Jones picked up one of the thicker, bronze-wrapped strings and unwound it curiously. “Music is not one of my talents.”
“You don’t need to be able to play to appreciate. I’ve got a phone in the office. If you’ll give me a minute—”
Fitting his arms over the man’s head and tugging the guitar string, Jones choked off the man’s protest. The wire dug into flesh. He pulled hard, sawing it slightly until he smelled blood.
As he felt the man’s weight sag, Jones decided he couldn’t wait. Taking the professor’s head between his palms, he gave it a smart jerk, separating the spinal disks. The spinal cord severed, the body slumped and dropped.
Jones stepped back, dragging his feet from under the professor’s sprawled limbs. He dropped the bloody string across his chest. Leather pants and a shimmery leopard-print shirt? What kind of professor dresses like an aging rock star?
Dismissing the thought, Jones bent forward, bringing himself eye level with the skull.
“Kinda ugly, if you ask me. The thing’s cranium is bigger than its face. Must be deformed. But is that gold?”
He grabbed the skull, and when it wouldn’t fit inside his pocket, he tucked it in the box filled with wooly stuff.
22
“Wait!”
Annja rushed ahead of Garin’s long strides down the hallway of the Schermerhorn building. She pressed a hand to his shoulder, feeling resistance in his straining muscles. He was in too big a hurry for t
his to feel right.
“Right here,” she said, pointing to her eyes. “Look at me.”
He tilted his head and met her gaze. Dark, emotionless eyes. Not at all kind as he’d displayed earlier at his penthouse. That’s what Annja was afraid of. The man tended to alter his alliances faster than she could blink.
“Tell me this isn’t a trick. That as soon as you see the skull, you’re not going to push me out a window and take off with the thing.”
“I would never push you out a window, Annja.”
“Yeah? Not unless it served your purposes. Just tell me the truth. Right now. I already know what the answer is, but I want to hear it from you.”
The imposing man pressed his knuckles to his hips, widening his stance. And his gaze didn’t get any less fierce.
“You think you know me? You think I’ll harm anyone, kill, to get what I desire?”
“I do,” she offered, sure of it, though it pained her to believe such truths.
Garin tilted his head. Then, swiping a palm over his mouth, he shook his head. “Isn’t everyone out to protect number one? Since you’ve come into my world, Annja, the game has changed. I have…uncertainties. I want to make them certain once again.”
“Then why not go after the sword?”
“Because I like you, Annja. Believe it or not. And, as you are aware, the sword is not an attainable goal. So until you hand it to me, with blessings and tied with a bow, then I’ve got to resort to other means.”
Aha. He’d just, in a roundabout way, confirmed her suspicions. He was after the skull. Though what it could do for him was beyond her imagining. If it possessed power.
His story about he and Roux holding it in fifteenth-century Spain was believable enough, but really, he had no proof. It had killed. Didn’t sound like a giver of all good things to her. And if it did grant some magical wishes, didn’t Garin already have it all? And what he didn’t have, he could buy.
Unless good things somehow meant giving him access to her sword. In which case, she should, and would, fight to the finish for this skull.
Swinging about, she took the lead down the hallway. With Garin hot on her heels, she couldn’t reach the anthropology lab fast enough. She was going to lead him directly to the skull. Was there any other choice? She’d known from the moment he’d pulled her from the grave he possessed ulterior motives.
The lab door was open. Annja’s heart dropped to her gut. Rushing inside, the room was empty, but the light was on over the professor’s worktable.
“Professor?” Annja didn’t track the room for the skull.
Garin prowled in behind her. He would do that search.
“Oh, hell.”
An arm stretched across the floor behind the freestanding counter. Blood spattered the professor’s face and the front of his leopard-print shirt. It had begun to pool beside his cheek and shoulder.
“He’s dead,” she said.
“Ya think?”
She cast Garin a sneer.
He put up his palms. “Sorry. Is he still warm?”
As Garin shuffled glass jars and books about, Annja bowed her head and pressed her open palm to the professor’s cheek. “Yes.”
She hadn’t known him that well, but had considered him a friend. A tear trickled down the side of her nose. At once it felt right, a small gesture for the man’s lost life, yet it felt stupid to show emotion in front of Garin.
Using that complex twist of battling emotions, Annja was able to look over the professor’s body for clues, but cautioned herself not to touch him or any of his clothes. Didn’t want to leave fingerprints.
A bloody guitar string, and the dark maroon line around his neck, answered the method-of-death question. Poor guy. He’d loved that guitar.
“Wonder how long he’s been like this?” she muttered.
There had been no other lights on in the surrounding classrooms. This wing of the hall was empty.
She had to report this. She’d call Bart. Much wiser than alerting campus security, who wouldn’t know her history of always showing up at crime scenes at the wrong time.
“It’s not in here. Was it in a case of some kind?” Garin’s insistence cut at the back of her neck. He acted oblivious to the fact a dead man lay on the floor.
Annja pounded the counter with a fist. “Back off, will you?”
Garin put up his palms to placate her. “You knew him well?”
“He was a friend. Not close, but he deserves respect.”
“You can go to his funeral. Right now, we are in a race to find that thing before the bone conjurer starts to use it. You can be sure that’s who took the thing.”
Right. The professor wasn’t dead for no reason. The skull had been the motivation. Serge had some kind of power both Garin and Roux were in awe of.
Annja twisted to study the path from the professor to the door. There were no bloody shoe tracks. And as for picking up a shoe print, she had probably walked over the murderer’s tracks.
“He’s still warm, so Serge couldn’t be too far ahead of us. Wait.” She noticed the computer screen, and stood, being careful not to step in blood or on the professor’s leg. “What’s this?”
A completion bar superimposed over a screenwide picture showed one hundred percent. Annja slid the mouse and the bar disappeared. “It’s the inside. A map of the interior.”
“Annja.”
“What?” Without pulling her attention from the screen, she tapped the mouse to copy the file to the USB flash drive plugged in the side of the computer.
Garin leaned in close so she had to meet his eyes. “Dead body? Scene of the crime. We need to get out of here now.”
“Let me copy this first.”
“We don’t have time.”
“Garin, chill. It’s not as if there are a lot of people here so late at night.”
“What about the janitor?”
“From my experience with labs and classrooms, it can be days before a janitor shows to clean. Professor Danzinger might be on the floor for days— Oh, that’s so wrong. I have to call Bart right away, or the professor could seriously be here for days before he’s found.”
“Bart?”
“NYPD detective. A friend of mine.”
“Great. Give us five minutes to clear the scene, will you?” Garin, with one last sweep of the room, strode out.
Annja grabbed the flash drive, tucked it in the front pocket of her pants and followed.
This was personal now. She didn’t know what Serge could do with a skull like that, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to get away with Professor Danzinger’s murder.
She flipped open her cell phone and dialed Bart as Garin stalked outside into the dark night. Bart didn’t answer, so she left another “guess what, I found another dead body” message for him.
“YOU KNOW WHAT I don’t buy about this whole Knights Templar legend of the skull?”
Annja sat on the passenger side of Garin’s black Escalade. They’d driven it to the college and now cruised around the building, scouting the periphery. She suspected Serge had killed the professor and stolen the skull, so she was on the lookout for a behemoth bald guy.
“What’s that?” Garin asked.
“Well, there’s the cross pattée on the gold sutures. A symbol we know the Templars used, so obviously that makes the skull the actual skull, yes?”
“Yes and no. The gold could have been put on later.”
“Exactly. And this could be any old skull. Because I don’t buy that the skull and crossbones symbol began with the Templars.”
“Why not?”
“When I researched the Skull of Sidon it stated the child’s skull was found atop the Maraclean woman’s crossed thigh bones, which instigated the skull and crossbones imagery. It just spread from there.”
“That’s what I told you, as well.”
“But why, if the knights took vows of chastity and were all about doing good, would they then adopt a symbol that celebrates necrophilia? It m
akes little sense. Hey, guys, one of our own did something nasty with a dead chick. Let’s take that imagery and use it on our flags and tabards and let the whole world know we approve.”
“They weren’t as wholesome as history tells, Annja.”
“I know that. I’ve read about freemasonry. The devil worshipping.”
“Head worshipping, actually.”
“What’s that about?”
“It was said the Knights Templar worshipped a severed head. Theories place it as the severed head of John the Baptist, which leads to theories on the Holy Grail actually being the tray upon which his head was carried to Salome.”
“Interesting. And yet another grail legend attached to the Templars. There can be only one. And I don’t think any of them are correct. But for argument’s sake, and if we go with the head worshipping, it could have been our skull? That’s a head. Partially.”
“Who knows? Though some theories do place the Maraclean woman as a symbol of a virgin birth, while the lord of Sidon was a pirate, which ties the grail and the skull and crossbones together nicely.”
“Nicely? I don’t know about that. Eerily, more like.” Annja tapped the window glass with a knuckle as she tracked the passing sidewalks for signs of Serge. “You ever have any dealings with the Templars?”
“Before my time.”
“But there’ve been many recreations of the organization.”
“Organization?” He smirked. “You have an interesting way of putting things, Creed. Do you see anything that side of the building?”
She shook her head. “He’s not on the property anymore. Let’s take the streets and see if we can spot him. I’m sure he’s long gone by now. If the guy is smart, he’s halfway to Jersey. So you never joined the freemasons or the Shriners?”
“Shriners? Please.”
“I understand they do good work for children.”
“I’ve never been a follower, Annja.”
“What about Roux? You followed him.”
“He was my master. The kindest thing he ever called me was apprentice. I did what I was told, and wisely kept my distance from his backhand.”