by Alex Archer
They’re here, was all it said.
She dashed back through the halls, slipping through the main foyer only seconds before Henshaw and Roux entered the house, and joined Garin in the study. There they waited for the guest of honor.
“Surprise!” they shouted when Henshaw led Roux into the room.
The older man started, then scowled first at the two of them and then back over his shoulder at Henshaw.
“Traitor!” he said, “I suppose you’re in on this, too, then? What are they doing here?”
Henshaw gave one of his rare smiles. “Celebrating your birthday, of course, sir.”
Garin smiled easily, ignoring Roux’s brusque manner. “Did you think we’d forget?”
“It’s not a question of forgetting. You’ve never bothered with my birthday before. What’s so different this year?”
But he accepted the surprise good-naturedly and even began to enjoy himself as the evening wore on. They ate together in the dining room down the hall—braised duck in a pear chutney, which Annja thought was exquisite—then returned to the study for drinks and conversation.
Garin and Roux had lived so long and seen so much that Annja could listen to them for hours. Roux was entertaining them all with a tale of the time he’d slipped inside a royal palace for a rendezvous with a visiting princess when what sounded like gunfire split the night air outside.
“Did you hear that?” Annja asked.
The other three had for they were already in motion. A lifetime spent in dangerous situations had fine-tuned their senses, including Henshaw’s, and they all recognized the sound of guns when they heard them. Annja did, too; she was just surprised to be hearing them at Roux’s secluded estate.
Henshaw went straight to the computer sitting on a nearby desk. As he settled into the seat in front of it an alarm began to sound throughout the house. He silenced it with the touch of a button and then pressed another. A section of the wall to the left of where he sat split apart as a result, revealing sixteen security monitors in four rows of four. Each of them showed a different part of the manor grounds and on several of them Annja saw gray shapes racing across the lawn, firing at the hired security force as they came.
The hiss of hydraulics captured Annja’s attention and she turned away from the monitors to see both Roux and Garin waiting impatiently for the vault at the back of the room to finish opening. Annja hadn’t been inside that room since her first visit to the estate but remembered the treasure trove of multiple currencies and weapons it contained.
Roux could have armed and financed a small private army with what was in room.
It was the weapons stored in the vault that her two companions were going for. Garin armed himself with a pair of heavy pistols while Roux took a rifle for himself and then carried another over to Henshaw.
Garin held up a pistol for Annja. “Here, take this.”
She shook her head. “Thanks but I’m already carrying all the weaponry I need.”
“Suit yourself,” Garin replied, then joined the others at the security station where Roux was trying without much success to reach the head of his security detail on the radio.
When he was unable to get a response, Henshaw gestured to the escape tunnel at the back of the vault. “If we leave now, sir, there will still be time to get you off the estate.” Annja knew that it led up to the third floor and from there out onto the slope of the hill against which Roux’s mansion had been built. A Jeep waited on the road above, ready to take the master of the house to safety at a moment’s notice. Once before, when the estate had come under attack, all four of them had used the tunnel to get to safety. It sounded like a good plan to her now.
Roux was silent for a moment, considering, and then looked over at Garin for his opinion.
The other man hefted the weapon he carried and grinned at Roux. “It’s your call, but if I were in your shoes, I’d be a little pissed. After all, it is your birthday.”
There was no missing the challenge in Garin’s answer and Annja bristled to hear it. He was practically daring Roux to make a stand! And of course, given the history between the two men, there was almost no way Roux was going to ignore that and do the right thing, which was to get the hell out of there while they still had a chance.
She was opening her mouth to advise against taking on the intruders themselves when Roux did precisely what she expected him to.
“Garin’s right. This is my home and I’ll be damned if I’m going to run like a rabbit at the first sign of trouble.”
And that was that. Annja knew any further discussion was futile. Roux had made up his mind and, being the good manservant that he was, Henshaw would carry out his instructions to the last. With it being three against one, there wasn’t even any sense in arguing.
Annja shot a murderous look in Garin’s direction, but he was studying the images on the monitor and didn’t see it. Or if he did, he chose to ignore it, which would certainly be in keeping with his usual behavior.
If something happens to Roux…
She would just have to ensure that it did not.
They quickly devised a plan that, when it came down to it, was pretty basic. The four of them would take up position inside the foyer and defend the house against anyone who tried to enter.
Annja just hoped it would work.
They left the study and quickly made their way through the house toward the front entrance. Roux led the way, followed by Henshaw and Garin, with Annja bringing up the rear. They were just passing a wide staircase that led to the second floor when Annja skidded to a halt.
The others ran on, but her attention was caught by the landing on the second floor. Her intuition was calling to her, telling her the problem was above her, on the second floor, rather than out front where the others were headed. Ever since taking possession of the sword she’d been subject to heightened senses and her intuition was just one of them. Right now it was telling her that there was a problem on the second floor, one that would come back to bite them in the ass if they didn’t deal with it right away, and she had learned to trust such instincts.
Were they too late? she wondered. Were the intruders already inside the manor house?
Leaving a potential enemy at their backs could prove disastrous, so when she shouted at the others to come back and received no response, she made the decision to check things out on her own.
Turning away from the others, Annja charged up the stairs.
3
There were six of them.
They were dressed in dark, loose-fitting outfits with hoods pulled up right around their heads and ninja masks covering the lower parts of their faces, making it impossible for her to identify them.
Five of them stood in a rough semicircle facing the door, swords in hand. The sixth stood behind the first group, watching, and Annja didn’t need to be told that this was their leader. If she was going to get some answers, Annja suspected she was going to have get past the first ranks and confront him herself.
So be it.
They didn’t give her time to think, never mind formulate a plan. No sooner had she taken it all in, then they were upon her, the first three rushing forward while the other two closed up ranks in front of their commander.
It was almost as if they had been waiting for her.
The lead swordsman was quicker than the other two, eager for the chance to confront her. As he came forward she sized him up, her mind processing a hundred tiny details in the space of an eye blink, from the position of the sword in his hands to the angle of his hips to the length of his stride.
She moved to meet him.
He struck as soon as he was in range, intending to overpower her with his strength and speed. The tip of his sword came slashing in at her side, then rose at the last second in an attempt to reach her neck.
Annja brought her own sword up in her standard two-handed grip, parried his blow and, using his momentum against him, jammed an elbow into his face as his speed prevented him from stopp
ing in time.
There was an audible crack, blood spurted from the intruder’s nose and he dropped to the floor.
Annja kept going, moving in on the other two.
They were a bit more cautious than their comrade, splitting up and moving to either side as she continued forward. Annja knew they intended to force her to confront one of them and allow the other to strike at her exposed back, so she didn’t hesitate, choosing instead to rush the one closest to her.
Sword met sword, the blows ringing in the air, as they flew through a flurry of exchanges. From the corner of her eye Annja could see the other intruder getting ready to make a strike, so when her current foe used a horizontal strike to parry her blow, she went with the motion, pivoting on one foot and driving the other directly into her attacker’s gut, knocking him to the floor.
Even as he was falling backward, Annja was continuing the turn and bringing her sword around in a sweeping arc, taking the third attacker’s blow along its length and letting it slide harmlessly to the side. She let her momentum carry her into a full three-hundred-sixty-degree turn, swiveling sharply around to smack the intruder on the side of the skull with the flat of her blade.
He went down without a sound.
Three down, three to go, she thought.
Gunfire sounded from downstairs, indicating that Roux and the others had encountered the enemy themselves, but Annja couldn’t worry about them right now; she had her hands full.
Seeing how well their comrades had done against her, the two attackers now facing her chose a different strategy. With a sudden shout they rushed her as one, blades out and ready to strike from either side.
Annja waited until they were nearly upon her and then jumped upward with one powerful shove of her muscular legs.
The swords passed harmlessly beneath her as she somersaulted over their heads, twisting in midair to land behind them, facing their exposed backs. Her sword was already in motion as she landed on catlike feet and she slashed the backs of their legs without a second thought, taking them out of the fight.
One more…
She whirled, expecting her final opponent to be closing the distance between them while her attention was elsewhere.
That wasn’t the case.
The other man hadn’t moved.
He stood watching her, his hands held calmly together behind his back, like an instructor evaluating her performance.
“Who are you and what do you want?” Annja asked and was surprised at the depth of anger she heard in her voice.
Her opponent said nothing.
“I’ll give you one last—”
She never finished the sentence.
One second her opponent was standing in front of her with both hands behind his back and in the next he was leaping forward, a Japanese katana suddenly appearing in his hands. He lashed out in a vicious strike even before he landed, using his forward momentum to add force to the blow.
Annja just barely managed to deflect the strike as she brought her sword up, backpedaling as she did to give her some much-needed room, her mind grappling all the while at what she thought she’d just seen.
One minute his hands were empty and the next…
Where the hell had that sword come from? It was almost as if he’d conjured the thing out of midair….
The very notion was unthinkable.
She didn’t have time to dwell on it as her opponent pushed his attack forward, the ferocity and force of his blows driving her backward across the floor as she sought to defend herself.
She had faced off against talented swordsmen before, but this guy was in another league. It was all she could do to protect herself from harm as she twisted and turned, keeping her weapon between her body and her opponent’s deadly blade. Several times he managed to get the tip of his weapon past her defenses, leaving minor wounds in its wake. It didn’t take her long to realize that he was toying with her; that, had he chosen to do so, he could have dispatched her more than once during their engagement. In no time at all she found herself backed into a corner, fighting for her life.
She could see several of the fighters she had already dispatched getting back to their feet and she knew it wouldn’t be long before she was again horribly outnumbered.
If you’re going to do something, Annja, you’d better do it now, she thought.
She gave a shout, putting everything she had into it. It distracted her opponent for the split second she needed to duck his current blow and strike out with her own.
For a moment she thought she’d done it, that she’d punctured his defenses and would score a strike against him, perhaps even a fatal one, but then his weapon came around impossibly fast and caught the hilt of her own. Annja was left watching in dismay as her sword spun out of her hands and away from her, tumbling through the air to clatter against the floor several yards to one side.
As soon as the sword struck the ground that it vanished into the otherwhere.
But even as Annja called it to hand once more, she realized that her assailant’s strike was already inside her defenses and time seemed to slow as she caught sight of that shining steel blade arcing toward her.
The gleaming blade grew in her vision, descending in a lightning-quick strike aimed at her exposed neck. But rather than take her head off at the shoulders, as Annja fully expected it to do, the sword was diverted at the last second so that it merely cut free a lock of her hair.
For a moment Annja’s gaze met that of her opponent and she could have sworn the other was silently laughing at her. I could have taken you at any time, those eyes said. And for the first time since taking up Joan’s sword, Annja felt outclassed.
Then Garin was looming in the doorway, pistols in hand, and gunfire filled the room. He mercilessly cut down those Annja had been unwilling to slay only moments before, their bodies twisting and jerking like marionettes as the bullets thundered into them. He was firing with both hands, so he wasn’t as accurate as usual and a few stray shots whined in Annja’s direction, forcing her to dive to the floor to avoid being hit.
When she looked up again, her attacker had turned from her and was already halfway across the room, headed for an open casement window that she had failed to notice when she’d first arrived.
So that’s how they got inside, she thought. And apparently that’s how they intended to get out again. But not if she could help it.
“Garin! The window!” she shouted.
Garin spun in her direction and brought his arms up, the guns roaring in the small confines of the room. Bullets split the air and slammed into the area all around the window, but Annja’s attacker managed to slip through the opening without being hit.
Annja wasn’t ready to let him get away that easily.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said through gritted teeth, angry at having been bested so handily. With her sword in hand she ran for the window herself, trusting Garin to stop firing when he saw her move.
Garin shouted something at her, but Annja didn’t hear. She was almost to the window itself when a hand appeared from outside and tossed something dark into the room in front of her.
It hit the floor and rolled toward her.
She had a split second to think, Grenade! and throw herself to the side before the explosive device went off.
4
It felt as if a giant hand picked her up and threw her against the floor, the concussion hammering her senses until her head reeled. She bounded off the marble floor and slid into the wall with enough force to nearly knock her senseless.
Only the fact that it had been a concussion grenade, rather than an explosive one, saved her life. She was still trying to figure out which way was up when Garin rushed to her side.
“Annja! Are you all right?” he asked, his voice seeming to come from miles away as the roaring in her ears continued.
She nodded, still too caught up in the emotion of the moment to speak. Her heart was beating like crazy and she fought to get her breathing under control as G
arin helped her into a sitting position.
At last she found her voice.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’m all right.”
Using his arm for support she pulled herself all the way to her feet and then stood on still-wobbling legs. Her gaze landed on the lock of hair that the intruder’s sword had cut from her head.
Too close.
She glanced over at the intruders. Or rather, what was left of them. Garin hadn’t spared any ammunition it seemed; every body was riddled with bullet holes and blood leaked across the marble floor beneath them.
“Did you have to kill them all?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Now why didn’t that surprise her? “But if you had managed to only wound one or two, we might have been able to question them. Learn who they were and why they were here.”
Garin grunted. “Or they might have managed to kill us both. Thank you, but I’ll take the safer way out every time, particularly where my life is concerned.”
Annja did not doubt that in the slightest. When it came to protecting his long life, Garin was exceedingly ruthless.
At any rate, it was too late now to argue about it.
Garin stepped over to the window and cautiously looked out, but the intruder must have been long gone for he turned away, shaking his head. He was on his way back to Annja’s side when Roux and Henshaw arrived.
“Is everyone all right?” Roux asked as he stepped into the room, surveying the death and destruction before him.
“We’re fine,” Annja replied as Garin nodded in assent.
“What happened up here?” Roux asked.