Rogue Angel 49: The Devil's Chord

by Alex Archer

  There were only four rooms on each level. The first two rooms she dismissed given the food trays sitting outside the doors. Unless Evan was eating for two and liked roses with his meal, she guessed rooming behind those doors were honeymooners or traveling couples.

  Two doors remaining. She stood before the first, poised to knock and heard the television beyond the door. Sounded like a religious program given the prayers being offered.

  Annja adjusted her position and opted for the opposite door. No light from underneath the door and no sound from a TV. She knocked and didn’t bother to step aside. When darkness flashed over the pinhole, she smiled and waved.

  The door opened and Evan conceded her win with a gesture that she enter his room.

  “Of course you’d stay at the da Vinci hotel,” she said, wandering in and scanning the surroundings.

  “I’ll give you that one,” he said. “Way too obvious.”

  “So we were having a conversation,” she said, “before you decided to leave me to fight the bad guys.”

  “Was there a fight?”

  “You weren’t followed? Figures. Was the harpoon in the canal meant for me? Because it doesn’t make sense otherwise.”

  “Ah, sorry, Annja.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Nah, I’m not really. Were they Braden’s men just now?”

  “I can only guess. But you’re not working for him, either. That’s why he sent the thugs. Am I right?”

  “I haven’t given you enough credit, Creed. Never thought a television personality would be so smart and observant. But then, I think you know both Roux and Braden much better than you’ve allowed me to believe, yes?”

  “Roux just hired me for this job,” she replied, unwilling to detail the complexities of their relationship. “Now, let’s continue where we left off. Why is Roux proof that the music-box device works?”

  Evan ran his fingers through his hair, exposing a healthy flash of ribbed abs as his shirt stretched up. Annja averted her eyes. He was working it. She was not interested.

  “All right.” He splayed his hands in surrender. “You’ve earned that much. But I’ll tell you right now that the Lorraine cross is not in this room.”

  “I believe that. It would be foolish of you to keep it out in the open. But you’ve got it close.”

  “Very close. You want to search me?” He lifted the shirt to again expose his abs.

  “Just explain about Roux.”

  “I can do better than that. I’ll show you.”

  He lifted up the duffel bag from the chair by the bed and picked through the contents. Pulling out a small leather-bound book, he then tossed it to Annja.

  Guessing what it was while it was midair, Annja deftly reached to catch it, but at the same time was careful not to do so roughly. She clasped it gently in both hands. The supple leather creaked and the loose leather tie rested over her wrist.

  “This is...” She carefully turned the antique over and studied the plain leather cover. “You idiot!”

  “What?”

  “This is five centuries old! And you just tossed it across the room like it was the remote control. Have a little respect, please.”

  She set the notebook on the end of the bed. Evan made a move to pick it up but she blocked him.

  “If you’ve no interest in looking at it...”

  “I do.” She shrugged the backpack off her shoulder and pulled out a pair of latex gloves. “I just need to do it right.”

  And she knew immediately it was that old when she peeled aside the cover and saw Leonardo da Vinci’s writing. “This is the notebook you nabbed during—what heist did you say?”

  “I didn’t say. But good try. The Lorraine cross is detailed on the first page. The info about the music box is toward the end. But there’s something even more interesting in the middle. Let me show you.”

  He held out his hand and she was reluctant to give him the notebook. This was compelling history that had been kept from the public. The first page was an orderly mix of text, and a sketch on a smaller card had been pasted onto the page—the Lorraine cross—and text written over what appeared to be erasures. Paper had been a valued commodity in Leonardo’s time, so it made sense that he’d used as much of the space as possible.

  Evan snapped his fingers. “You can drool over it later. Right now, let me show you what you wanted to know.”

  “You got gloves?”

  He nodded and from the nearby duffel bag pulled out a pair of black latex gloves. The color was appropriate.

  She handed him the notebook and he carefully paged through it, which she appreciated.

  When he found what he was looking for, Evan folded back the front pages against the back of the notebook, and even as Annja cringed, she saw that the papers curled easily like that. Perhaps it had been found rolled. It conformed to such a shape.

  He handed the notebook back to her, opened to a sketch.

  She was careful to only touch the leather cover and the very edges of the paper.

  Annja gasped at the sight of a man’s face drawn in red pencil on the lower right corner of the page. He was not young, nor very old. Middle-aged. Long white hair curled gracefully around his face, and a few marks crinkled out from the corners of his world-weary eyes. The artist had also illustrated a frown line at the bridge of his nose—a line with which Annja was all too familiar. The name Roux had been written near his ear, as if to label the face for future reference.

  Remarkable. Could this be the drawing Leonardo had made of Roux that night they’d met in the tavern? It made sense.

  Evan had mentioned he’d already obtained this notebook before any of this business had started. So, when he’d met Roux at the auction, he had already seen this sketch. Maybe? Had he tracked Roux down purposefully? No wonder he seemed to think he knew so much about Roux. But this was only a sketch.

  Before Annja could ask her first question, her eyes noted the bottom of the page where the sketch ended at Roux’s right shoulder. In black ink, written in thick angry letters, was the word ladro.

  “Thief,” Annja interpreted.

  Why would Leonardo have written that? She knew Roux was a shifty old coot, but had he a deeper vein of thievery that had prompted him to steal from the famous painter? Had Roux stolen the music box?

  No, that made little sense. He was looking for the music box now. Although, if he actually had the music box, then all he would need was the Lorraine cross.

  She needed to talk to Roux.

  “As I’ve told you, I pored over this notebook for months after obtaining it. I know every line Leonardo sketched as if I’d drawn it myself. I recognized Roux immediately at the auction. But even more interesting? This sketch is the same man I saw in the SUV this afternoon outside the graveyard. You can’t deny it.”

  “You’re really pushing to make the uneven pieces fit, Evan. If the man in the picture was Roux that would make the Roux I know over five hundred years old.”

  “Yep.”

  Annja’s laugh was forced, and she knew it sounded that way, too.

  “Haven’t you ever heard of doubles?” she tried. “Doppelgängers? Throughout history the instances of people resembling historical figures are well-known. There is an entire subset of blogs and websites devoted to celebrity and historical look-alikes.”

  “You talk a good game, Creed, but I’m willing to bet you know the truth. And if you don’t, now you do.”

  “And what truth is that?”

  He rubbed his palms together in such gleeful delight Annja took a moment to consider his mental stability. He had poisoned himself—surely his sanity was questionable.

  “Roux is a time traveler,” Evan stated. “And,” he continued, “he’s traveled to our time via da Vinci’s music box, the time-shifting device everyone is eager to get their hands on. And Roux is after it to return home.”

  Home? Annja’s jaw dropped. It was a fantastical explanation. To have arrived at such a conclusion must have cost E
van a heap of brain cells.

  On the other hand, he’d provided a great cover for the truth. Far be it from her to rain on the man’s crazy parade.

  “Aren’t you the clever boy?”

  Evan dropped the excited pose. “Do not condescend to me, Creed. You think I’m deranged.”

  “I think you’re a man who will believe what you need to believe. It’s gotten you this far.”

  “Indeed, it has.”

  “But tell me one thing.”

  “I’ve already told you more than a sane man should.”

  “Yes, well, your sanity is under consideration,” she noted. “Where do you intend to travel once you get that device? And do you think you’ll come back? I mean, if Roux traveled from the fifteenth century to here, why didn’t he go back?”

  “Creed, would you go back to the fifteenth century if you landed in the technologically advanced twenty-first century? I mean, the modern sanitation system alone should answer that question.”

  He had a point. While studying the Middle Ages was fascinating, being a modern woman living in the Renaissance would present many challenges. Computers she could manage without. But no camera to record all that she saw? And to imagine never again eating at her favorite restaurants again? And if she went there, she had to consider the friendships she would miss. Doug and Bart, and yes, even Roux, and occasionally Braden. Some things were too valuable to live without.

  “I’m good with where I’m at,” she replied. “I’m going to guess that you are, too. Who are you selling the device to?”

  Evan’s shock gave him away. Annja knew if he had a buyer, he wouldn’t spill. And likely he did not have a buyer arranged just yet. He needed to have the music box before he could attract a buyer willing to lay down the millions, she estimated, he would ask for the prize. Though if he were so hard up on his financial luck, it did surprise her he wasn’t using every angle he could manage to bring in bids for the time-shifting device.

  “Don’t think about it too much, Creed,” he said. “It’ll give you a headache.”

  Indeed.

  “All parties involved know the cross is in play, Evan.”

  “As I’ve said, it’s safely in my hands.”

  “Yes, and that it is required to activate the device. Yes?”

  Again, he pointed to the notebook.

  Annja sat on the bed, taking advantage of Evan’s willingness to cooperate for the moment. She half expected he’d try to knock her out and make an escape. That was why she sat facing him as she pulled the notebook onto her lap.

  “See how I’m still wearing protective gloves?” She waved at Evan. She couldn’t stop herself from making the point.

  Paging toward the back of the notebook, as he’d indicated, Annja found the part that detailed the music box. It wasn’t labeled as a time-shifting device. There wasn’t a label at all. But she guessed this was it. It had a particular steampunk-ish look to it. A rectangular box with a compass and a crossbar fitted to the top, and gears at either end, which rotated—with a turn of the cross key? Another crossbar fronted the long, narrow side of the box with dials placed along it, like a combination lock. The box had been fashioned from wood and some kind of metal and had ornate decoration all over it.

  She did not see a revolving cylinder whose pins would pluck out a tune rumored to have once called to the devil, but suspected that was inside the box. There were no interior drawings, it seemed. She closed the notebook, looking again at the cover. Less fine forgeries had fooled many a scholar over the years.

  “It’s the real thing,” Evan offered. “I sure didn’t make up all that stuff inside.”

  “Someone else could have.”

  “Really? To have been aware of a device you’ve confirmed to me that only a few people should know about? Exactly one person, by my count. And that would be the man who came from that time period and who possesses such knowledge because he knew Leonardo da Vinci.”

  Annja tilted her head, silently conceding to his wild, yet remarkably accurate, guess. Not as far as Roux time shifting, but for having known Leonardo. Well.

  But that he hadn’t included Garin as a time traveler meant he knew little about his recently discarded employer. In fact, it was likely Evan hadn’t even met him in person, but rather had been manipulated through calls from Garin and visits from his thugs.

  “So where do you expect to find the device?” Annja asked. “The graveyard was a bust. Does the notebook indicate where it was kept?”

  Evan shrugged.

  She referred back to the page with the sketch, but the words around the sketch were in a strange sort of writing. She stood and held the notebook up to the mirror, but her interpretation of the Italian was slowgoing because the script was tiny and fading.

  A name did stand out, though.

  “Jeanne d’Arc?”

  “Really?” Evan joined her and stared into the mirror, squinting. “Where does it say that?”

  “At the right side of the box, see? Near that impression on the side. It’s very small. I wonder if that’s where the key fits. There’s only the one view of the box, as if looking on it from above. No side schematics?”

  “That’s the only page with the sketch.”

  She leafed through the notebook. The pages were delicate, yet at the same time, she didn’t expect them to crumble or fall apart. There were sketches of people milling in a market square. A closeup of a cross section of a pear, showing the seeds and growing seasons. Another drawing showed the pear cut through the center belly, giving a top-down perspective of the fruit.

  “Leonardo da Vinci was so meticulous,” she marveled aloud.

  The Lorraine cross had been drawn at the front of the notebook. Very small, about as long as her baby finger, though again, the detail was intricate. The three-dimensional drawing was drawn from the back of the cross, which wasn’t flat and plain as Annja would expect from a wall hanging or a personal item one kept on the end of a rosary or tucked in their pocket. It was notched, almost like a key, but an elaborate key at that. And a few pieces looked movable, and she guessed from the directional arrows drawn beside the cross that they did indeed move. It might snap out from the main part of the cross, like an electronic key some cars boasted, or perhaps the notches were inset for a reason. The cross fitted onto a specific position on the music box.

  “Interesting. This notebook needs to be studied by historians and placed in a museum for the whole world to share.”

  “Yeah, that’s not my choice. Highest bidder gets to do as he desires with it.”

  “I could keep it. Not give it back to you.”

  The almost imperceptible snick of a gun safety being slid off alerted Annja. She looked up from the notebook. Evan held the semiautomatic pistol casually and then aimed it directly at her.

  “Go ahead and finish browsing through the book,” he said. “Since you’re without a cameraman to record details, I won’t deny you the thrill. It’ll be your first and last chance, though, so look carefully. But understand, I have to protect my investment.”

  “Of course.”

  And instead of arguing or even lunging across the hotel room to fight for the gun, Annja switched her attention to the notebook. The historian in her was too greedy to give up this opportunity. As well, that part of her that preferred to stand up for what was right needed a few minutes to think through a plan.

  The only idea that spoke to her was to stay close to the notebook. Sooner or later it would lead to the music box.

  She returned to the page that had the sketch of Roux. Was he aware that Leonardo had drawn his face and labeled it thief? The painter may have shown him the sketch over a goblet of wine, yet to judge the ink used to write the word thief, as opposed to the red pencil used for the sketch and Roux’s name, she suspected Leonardo had added the accusatory label at a later point.

  What had Roux stolen from Leonardo da Vinci? And had it anything to do with the music box or the Lorraine cross? Again, she turned back to the first
page that detailed the cross.

  “You have the key all figured out?” she asked Evan.

  “As best I can figure, it fits onto the music box. There are no diagrams of the key mechanism, as you’ve seen. But the text that reads Jeanne d’Arc is now my best guess.”

  “But her name doesn’t mean anything. It’s just another detail...” That could mean something if Annja put some thought into it.

  She scanned another page that looked like a list of trees and another filled with sketches of various body parts, such as knees, elbows and wrists. The music-box page kept drawing her back to it. Annja tried to fix it and the page with the study of the cross to memory in case she did not see the notebook again.

  Back to the diagram of the music box. Could Joan’s name be the real key to unlocking that riddle?

  Wishing she had the actual object here so she could turn it over and study it from all angles, Annja traced the lines of the sketch carefully, yet her latex-gloved fingertip didn’t quite touch the paper.

  Evan leaned across the table and tapped the notebook with the barrel of the pistol. Annja had forgotten he was holding that. “You’re done. Close it up and slide it across the table like a good girl who doesn’t want a hole in her head.”

  “You won’t shoot me, Evan. A bullet through my skull would splatter the wall behind me and drip over the chair and probably into the carpet. Too much cleanup.”

  “Yeah, but you must know I didn’t use my real name to sign in.”

  “Right. But the noise of the gunshot would surely attract attention.”

  He smirked, shaking his head. “Why couldn’t it have been you in the gondola with me, Creed?”

  “You mean you wish I had been your partner in crime? I don’t steal.”

  She closed the notebook but didn’t slide it toward him. From the duffel bag, Evan produced a couple of white zip ties. He tossed them to her.

  “Put two together and use them for your wrists. I’ll tighten it. I can’t risk you running back to Roux, can I? You know too much.”