Rogue Angel 49: The Devil's Chord

by Alex Archer

  “You brought me a cross instead of flowers,” she said. “Aw, now, that’s original.”

  “Anything for you, Creed.”

  “Hand it over, Merrick,” Garin said. He pulled out the Glock and aimed the gun in warning.

  “How about a partnership? Just the four of us?” Evan said, wavering too quickly.

  Roux shook his head. The brown paper bag crunched in his grasp.

  “It’s obvious the lot of you know more about this thing and how to use it than I do,” Evan continued. “And I’m pretty sure Roux has used it before.”

  Roux cast Annja a glance that told her he had no idea what the man was talking about.

  “You know, Roux,” she scoffed jokingly, “when you traveled through time using the device to meet Leonardo da Vinci? That’s why he was able to sketch your likeness in the notebook Merrick has all but memorized.”

  Roux bowed his head, smirked and glanced to Garin.

  “Seriously?” Garin said. “You’ve already used the device, old man?”

  “Not you, too,” Roux said angrily. “I won’t play along with this ridiculous ploy. I have never traveled through time. How absurd!”

  “Then how was a Renaissance artist able to sketch your likeness?” Evan persisted.

  “A coincidence! Besides, that’s not the point,” Roux said huffily. “The point is you will hand over that cross now, or the man standing on the other side of Annja will put a bullet in you.”

  “I like that.” Garin nodded and stretched out his arm to better aim at the body in question.

  “You’re not going to shoot me,” Evan spat. “There are tourists over there.”

  “Only two, and they’re casting moon eyes at one another,” Garin said. “Another minute or so and they’ll be eager to get to their hotel room. As well, it’s dark here. And I’ve a silencer.”

  “If you shoot me, I’ll drop the cross. It’ll break and then it’ll ruin whatever reason you have for pursuing this. And if you’re here, at the site where Joan of Arc was burned, because you think you can somehow save her, I don’t think the implications of changing history will go over so well.”

  “You can’t change history,” Annja insisted. “It’s not possible, no matter if you can travel back in time or not. Whatever has happened, has happened. That’s it.”

  Garin stared at Annja. That brow of his arched either in question or he was impressed with what she’d said.

  “As a fan of Joan of Arc—” Garin adressed Evan “—I know something you might have an interest in looking at. That is, if you’d entertain a fair trade.”

  Annja was curious. What angle was Garin working now?

  “And you just happen to have a Joan artifact in your pocket?” Evan smirked. “A desperate man will say anything to serve his needs.”

  “I’ve never been desperate in my life.” Garin switched the safety off on his gun and renewed his interest in Evan.

  “It’s Joan’s sword,” Roux stated matter-of-factly.

  Annja craned her neck toward the older man. “Really?”

  He winked at Annja. “Go with this one, will you?”

  “Take one for the team,” Garin added.

  The team? she mouthed.

  Since when had Garin and Roux ever really been a team? And they only seemed to include her whenever it would serve their interests. And when it didn’t? She was left out in the cold, With nothing. Nada.

  She should say something about this, bring it to their attention, maybe even redraw the boundaries of their relationship, such as it was.

  “Right,” she said sharply. “Joan’s sword. You want to hold it? You give us the cross.”

  Against all that felt right, Annja knew the deal had to be done.

  She was interested in the music box.

  Just a little.

  No.

  She really wanted to get the Lorraine cross back to the museum in Poland, from where it had been stolen, and then make sure the music box was placed with the proper authorities. As well, the notebook had to be turned in for possible authentication. And as soon as Evan or one of them tested the nonsensical time-travel device and found it worthless, they’d hand it over easily.

  “Joan of Arc’s sword?” Evan challenged. “The sword she used in battle?”

  “That’s right.” Garin answered.

  Annoyed now, Annja couldn’t catch Roux’s gaze, but she shot him daggers anyway.

  “Who’s got it?” Evan asked.

  “She does,” Garin quickly said. “You hand me the cross—”

  “Hand me the cross,” Roux interrupted.

  Garin and Roux locked gazes. Two bulls had just clashed horns in the ring. The younger one growled. Yeah, well, it couldn’t have gone any other way.

  “And I hand you the sword,” Annja finished.

  “I don’t see a sword.” Evan gripped the cross more tightly as he looked Annja up and down. She stood ready for action, fingers flexing, feet slightly parted and feeling her weight in the bend of her knees.

  “I’ve got it,” she reassured.

  “You’re lying. Only in movies or on TV shows can they whip out a sword from among the folds of a duster coat. You don’t have on anything that would conceal a weapon.”

  “Yeah, and time travel is real, too.”

  “Annja, just show him,” Garin said.

  “You’re going to owe me one,” she said.

  “Yes, yes. In our tally of favors and demerits, I’m sure my side is the most heavily loaded.”

  On a huge sigh, Annja called the sword from the otherwhere. The sword responded instantly. The hilt fit perfectly into her palm, with a sureness that she had come to admire. A claim that always lifted her, made her thrust up her chin and put her feet at a ready, fighting stance. This was her sword. And she rarely handed it over to another. She could do it. Someone else could hold the sword while she willed it to remain there, only until she wished it to return to the otherwhere. She didn’t know how it worked, only that it did.

  And that it was breathtaking.

  “What?” Evan lowered his hand, the cross suddenly forgotten. “That’s a...broadsword!”

  “Carried by Joan of Arc into battle,” Annja said as she swept the blade before her, noting its shine in the dim light. It wasn’t an ornately decorated sword; rather, it had been designed to take a beating and to give as good as it got.

  Evan held out his hand with the artifact. Both Roux and Garin stepped forward, but since Roux was closer, he was able to grasp the Lorraine cross. Garin countered the old man, stepping up close to him and staring him down, but Roux would not be so easily intimidated.

  “Boys,” Annja cautioned. “We’ll fight over it later. Yes?”

  Again the throaty growl from Garin as he stepped back.

  “Give it,” Evan said.

  Annja presented the sword to him. A jolt of regret buzzed through her nervous system as the exchange was made. She had to focus to ensure it remained in the here and now. And later? She’d show Roux and Garin no mercy. If they thought to use her in their underhanded dealings with a stolen artifact, they’d regret it dearly.

  Evan examined the hilt. It was worn smooth from all its many uses through history before it had found its way into Annja’s hands. Then his gaze ran along the blade, and he slid his fingertips over the flat of it. Annja thought she felt that touch down her spine. It wasn’t comforting. She curled her fingers into fists and fought to hold back a burst of protest.

  “This was really Joan’s? Have you had it authenticated?”

  “It’s real,” Roux confirmed. He moved into the bright light reflecting the Joan of Arc statue, which enabled him to examine the cross.

  Garin remained where he was, guarding Evan. Annja assumed it was in case the man decided to turn and run with the sword.

  “Yeah?” Evan suddenly slashed the blade near her, forcing her to jump back a few feet.

  She put up her palms in warning. “Watch it. That thing will take somebody’s head o
ff.”

  “And I’m skilled with a broadsword,” Evan said, sounding almost giddy. “Took a few reenactment classes in college. So you won’t mind if I borrow it a bit? After all, we did just make a fair trade.”

  He slashed at the air again and again.

  Annja winced. She could dissolve the sword from his grip right now. But she did not. They needed time to look at the music box. For Roux to do whatever he needed to with it, before Evan tried to stop them.

  She averted her gaze. Roux had placed the cross, like a key, into the mechanism at the side of the music box. He seemed to be trying to figure out how to turn the key, or if it turned at all. Garin had joined him, hands on his hips, the gun tucked away for now. Roux kept his back to the man, making it clear he wanted no interference.

  If both Garin and Roux suddenly vanished, she wasn’t sure what she’d do. Run, scream, maybe wish they had taken her with them. But...nothing happened.

  Evan was standing at the storefront where he’d been hiding earlier. He was still now, obviously waiting to see if anything would happen, as well. He stabbed the sword, tip first, into the cobbled ground.

  Annja had had enough of him. She called the sword back. It disappeared from Evan’s grasp. The man yelped. It came to fruition in her hand.

  “Where you belong,” she muttered, tightening her hold on the hilt.

  “I wasn’t done yet!” Evan yelled.

  Keeping an eye on Evan, Annja approached Garin and Roux.

  “Nothing, eh? Well, I’m sorry to be the one to say I told you so, but...”

  “I think the key is stuck,” Roux said. “There must be a specific pattern to turn it. Give it a go, Garin.”

  “I don’t think so, old man. If it works, I don’t want to be cast off into some past land never to return.”

  Annja switched the sword to her left hand and used her right to trace the carvings on the surface of the cross. “You placed it directly in the box?”

  Roux nodded.

  “Then pull it straight out.”

  “That’s not how it works, Annja.”

  “And you know how it does? Because it looks like you’re having trouble.”

  Garin chuckled and walked off to stand beside the statue. He’d resolved that Roux was crazy, and had given up on his quest to wrest the items from him.

  At least one of them was thinking smart.

  Drawing out his gun, Garin aimed where Evan stood. “Not a single muscle,” he warned, “or you’ll miss breathing.”

  Chapter 32

  Annja released the sword to the otherwhere. Roux’s hands shook so much she decided he’d bought into the time-travel myth hook, line and sinker. And she found herself agreeing with Garin.

  Enough was enough.

  “Let me see that.”

  Frustrated, Roux allowed her to take the music box. It had a good weight, and with the cross inserted in its side, it really did look more like a strange contraption than anything that may have been invented over four hundred years ago to play music.

  She pulled on the cross and found it wasn’t willing to come free from the slots into which it fitted perfectly. So there must be a means to turn it, or perhaps slide it in order to release the mechanism.

  She shifted the key along the side of the box, upward. The topmost portion of the cross slid smoothly about half an inch.

  “It moved?” Roux asked over her shoulder.

  “Yes. Now. Let’s try this.”

  On a whim, she tried to slide it downward. The right arm of the cross guided the key gently until it caught. Recalling the sign of the cross the nuns had drilled into her head as she’d grown up in the orphanage, Annja then shifted the cross upward, as if she was making the sign of the cross over her chest. And the final movement was to glide the cross downward, completing the motion.

  Something inside the music box clicked. The gears turned. Annja chuckled. From within the box, plinked musical notes could be heard. Annja recognized them as the discordant ones she and Roux had discussed days ago.

  “The devil’s chord,” Roux said in wonder.

  Now Garin came forward to watch, intensely interested in what was happening.

  So the box could produce music. Shouldn’t a music box be required to do as much? That didn’t mean it was anything special.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Annja saw Evan leave where he’d been standing. She quickly sought to yank the key free of the box to keep the two pieces separate should another fight ensue over the artifacts. But her fingers slid against the Lorraine cross instead and the vibrations emanating from within shuddered through her. The resonance was so strong her teeth chattered. She clamped down her jaw to make it stop, and in doing so, a burst of brilliant light flashed before her.

  The air thickened. Smoke curled up around her. Her lungs grew heavy and began to burn. She choked, coughing. Her skin prickled painfully. Finding the ground agonizingly hot, she stepped from foot to foot.

  And she realized she stood on flames. Surrounded by a crowd. The eyes of many condemned her. She could not hear the people standing around her, yet she saw their mouths open as if to shout or—could it possibly be—to cheer?

  Annja looked about, though her twisting only intensified the searing pain in her lungs. Despite her feet being free, she couldn’t move from the center of the flames. She screamed, but she only heard that agonizing sound in her head.

  Why wouldn’t anyone help her?

  Her gaze met a man’s eyes through the crowd. It was as if the crush of people parted and an aisle opened directly to the tall soldier who wielded a broadsword. She knew that man. A soldier who had ridden into battle alongside her.

  No, that wasn’t right. She’d never ridden into battle. Not unless it was on a motorcycle or speedboat. The man she recognized through the smoke and fire was Roux. But he no longer stood beside her holding a music box. Instead he wore a uniform and brandished his weapon. He was fighting to keep the crowd back as they pressed toward the flames, eager to gain a position closer to the horrific spectacle.

  Annja sensed she was the spectacle. Where was she? How had she...?

  Annja knew she must not let go of what she knew was real for fear of losing it all. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the sword that had been her companion for so long, and tried to reach out her hand for the hilt. It was there. It tingled just out of reach in the otherwhere.

  Until that tingling faded and finally receded. Moaning in frustration, she couldn’t grasp her most trusted means of defending herself.

  Stranded among the whipping flames, they burned and singed her skin. The agony of the heat was crushing her and she dipped her head, breathing in the vicious smoke and feeling tears sizzle at the corners of her eyes.

  She heard a shouted epithet. “Heretic!” It was echoed throughout the crowd.

  No.

  And her thoughts shifted to pray to the one God who had spoken to her all along....

  A confident, steady male voice shivered into her consciousness. It had the trace of a French accent. He called her name. Had Roux managed to push through the crowd to her? Someone seized her hand. Strong and sure, a male hand gripped her by the wrist and tugged her away.

  Annja’s fingers slid from the Lorraine cross where it had fit neatly into the music box. The attacking crowd shimmered away from the edges of her waking vision.

  Her body hit the ground. No flames licking at her now, there was only paved sidewalk beneath her. She rolled over, seeing the sword skitter across the cobblestones, before it disappeared into the safety of the otherwhere.

  Feet danced around her. Annja clasped her throat, gasping for clean air.

  “What was that?” said a voice she recognized, but it wasn’t Roux or Garin. It was that thief, that smirking pest who had attempted to thwart her at every turn. What an adventure.

  “Stand back!” Roux instructed. “Give her some room.”

  “There’s smoke coming off her. I think it worked. She traveled through time!” Evan an
nounced.

  Annja closed her eyes and passed out.

  Chapter 33

  Annja was aware of a scuffle nearby not twenty feet from where the Joan of Arc statue stood in a recess outside the church. Two men. One of them was losing the fight while Garin pummeled him with his fists.

  Evan Merrick. She’d recalled his name and now breathed in deeply, allowing the oxygen to clear her thoughts.

  Where she had been and when seemed irrefutable. Yet how? She may never learn the truth.

  Though wobbling, she managed to stand and then stagger to a bench next to the fountain. Sliding a palm down her leg and pulling up the hem of her cargo pants, she thought she would feel angry, burned skin, but her fingers only glided over the smooth texture of her intact leg.

  Someone paced before her, speaking to her, but she still couldn’t process him. She’d seen him. A knight. Standing with a broadsword in hand.

  She wanted to run. She needed to get away from here. To sort things out. She didn’t care what happened to Evan Merrick. Nor did she even care about that cross or the music box. What was going on? Where was she? How would she get home?

  Standing abruptly, she began to walk in an attempt to fight the woozy spin that struggled to pull her back down. Footsteps behind her quickened their pace. He followed—the one who had been beside her even then.

  She needed to be alone.

  “Did you see her?” Roux asked from behind.

  A desperation she had never before heard from him made Annja pause. He didn’t need to go back in time to change history. Why had he brought her here?

  “Annja!”

  Breaking into a jog, she called back, “Give me space, old man!”

  She wasn’t sure where she was going, but it didn’t matter. She had to get away from the square and any connection to the brave woman who had died for her beliefs.

  * * *

  TWO HOURS LATER the Rouen police, after receiving an anonymous tip, found Evan Merrick bound to a street pole near the market in the central square. His face was bruised and bloodied. He mumbled nonsense about Joan of Arc’s sword. And a Lorraine cross that had been stolen from a Polish museum earlier in the year was found tucked inside his shirt. The caller had also mentioned that Evan Merrick had been arrested on suspicion of stealing the cross, but that no evidence had been found.