by Alex Archer
She was already several yards away, walking the path that hugged the historic canal. But she’d heard him. Turning, she smirked and called out to him, “Dumped it!”
“Wh-what?” He scrambled about the floor of the wide-bottomed boat, thinking he might find a little cubby where the case might be, but there were only life vests stuffed under the seat and the cooler. “It’s not here!”
“Because it’s in the canal!”
Laughing that bold, spectacular laugh he’d always loved to listen to because it usually followed some great sex, she strolled off and disappeared into the night.
“The canal?”
He peered over the edge of the boat and frowned at the rippling water. She’d dumped the case over the side of the gondola? When had she— It must have been when he’d been digging around in the cooler for a beer, trying to avoid her disappointed gaze.
“We have to go back that way,” he directed the gondolier. “I know you understand me. North.” He thumbed the direction over his shoulder.
But despite the gondolier’s nodding agreement and his patient navigation over their previous route, the thief spotted nothing floating in the canal. The attaché had been relatively heavy, around six to eight pounds. Hell, it must have sunk the instant it had hit the water.
Taking note of the buildings in the immediate area and where they were in the canal, he directed the gondolier to his hotel.
He left Venice that night because he didn’t want to miss his flight, and by extension his one shot to maybe repair the damage he’d done to his partnership. He was still hopeful even after he’d found his airplane ticket lying on their bed. She’d bought the tickets because she had always managed their finances. Foolish move on his part.
Equally foolish was his thinking that he might have had eight or nine hours on a flight to convince her not to dump him. She hadn’t been in the seat next to him on the plane home. Must have stayed behind?
His bad luck continued when he arrived at the apartment they’d shared in Manhattan, and found his bank account emptied and all the keys and combinations to their secret hiding spots gone or empty.
A knock on the door had been followed by the flash of an NYPD badge. Accompanying the cop had been a man from Interpol.
A woman scorned knew how to inflict revenge on a man’s soul. Maybe he should have proposed after all.
Chapter 2
Annja Creed checked the cell phone’s screen. She had the phone set to vibrate only because she was conducting an interview. A name appeared above the long-distance number. What did that man want with her now? He’d have to wait. She put the phone aside on the laminated table.
The woman sitting across from Annja in the bistro twisted the end of her napkin nervously. She was called Sirena. That was it—no last name. Doug Morrell, Annja’s producer, had made contact with her online. A segment for another episode of Chasing History’s Monsters.
Beside Annja in the booth sat Ian Tate, her cameraman. He worked freelance and was based in Scotland, but was fond of traveling the world. He was short of stature yet filled with the adventurous spirit required for the job, and she had gotten along with him as soon as they’d shaken hands and he’d teased her about this assignment.
They’d met up yesterday afternoon to film shots of the scenic shoreline here at Isola delle Femmine, a town in Palermo, Italy. The translation of the town’s name was the Island of Women. Annja hadn’t done any research on that before arriving, but she seemed to recall there had once been a women’s prison on a nearby unoccupied island.
Sirena’s hair spilled to her elbows in pale brownish-green waves. Annja wondered if it was a dye job gone wrong or if the woman had purposely chosen the muddy tones. She hoped Serena hadn’t paid for it. It wasn’t well done, and she needed a retouch.
“So you said you’ve been living with a man for three years and he won’t release you?” Annja posited.
The mythology on selkies fascinated Annja, but she didn’t believe in them for a moment. The idea of a seal-like creature coming to shore and shedding its skin to transform into a beautiful woman... Well.
On the other hand, this was exactly the sort of story Chasing History’s Monsters sought. Something her fans would eat up.
“Yes. Matteo has hidden my pelt so I cannot go home,” Sirena said. She toyed with the ends of her seaweed-colored hair. Bright, glossy gray eyes always seemed to be filled with tears, but not a one ever ran down her cheek. “I love him, but...” She glanced out the bistro’s window. Across the street the shore sat close. Seagulls swept down from the blue sky and tourists headed for the beach.
“But your home is in the sea,” Annja finished for her. She glanced to Ian. He gave her a thumbs-up. The guy was good at hiding his smirk. So long as he got this conversation on film, that was all that mattered. “Do you ever go in the water now? Swim in the sea? What would happen if you did?”
“I’d sink,” Sirena said. The waif sighed heavily. “When in this human form I am bulky and unskilled in the water. But I do like to soak in the bathtub for hours. Matteo laughs at me because I insist on remaining even after the water has grown cold.” She shivered and pushed aside her empty coffee cup.
Annja was not a good judge of another couple’s relationship. But something about Sirena seemed wrong. And it wasn’t at all related to the bleak possibility she may have once lived in the water.
She reached across the table and placed a hand over Sirena’s, knowing Doug would whoop when he saw the footage. Whenever she could capture an emotional moment, her producer always rubbed his fingers together in the universal money sign. Ratings gold, he’d say.
But she wasn’t forcing this feeling. She was genuinely concerned for Sirena.
“Are you and Matteo okay, Sirena? Is he...harming you?”
The woman’s head snapped up, and her gaze met Annja’s briefly. She pulled her hand from Annja’s and reached for the macramé purse at her hip and slid out of the booth so quickly, Annja slammed into Ian in an attempt to follow her.
The cameraman shuffled out of the booth, allowing Annja to pursue the escaping interviewee.
“I’m sorry, the interview is over,” Sirena said firmly. “I thought you wanted to know about my kind, not delve into my personal life. I have to leave now. Please don’t follow me. You are not welcome at my home.”
“Sirena, I’ll tell him to turn off the camera.”
Annja nodded to Ian, and he lowered the camera. She rushed after the anxious woman, who hustled outside.
On the sidewalk, Annja grabbed Sirena by the arm, standing so close she got a whiff of salt, as if Sirena had been swimming in the ocean and hadn’t rinsed off. “Wait. You can talk to me, Sirena. Woman to woman.”
Sirena tugged away from Annja’s grasp. “You could never understand the sacrifice I made for love.”
With that, she scampered across the street, and for the first time, Annja noticed that beneath the long skirt dusting her ankles, Serena was barefoot. A bohemian refugee plunked in the middle of a seaside village? Probably not a drastic leap to concoct and believe in her story of waves and woe.
“You think she’s going to be okay?” Ian asked from behind Annja.
“I’m not sure.”
Sirena stopped at a beat-up red pickup truck. A man slid out from behind the wheel and kissed her. When she spoke to him, his eyes darted across the street and targeted Annja.
“I guess that’s the boyfriend.” Annja offered a wave, then, sensing she wasn’t getting a warm stare in return, she nodded to Ian. “Let’s head back to the hotel and look over the footage. See if we have enough for a segment or if we need to entice Sirena to talk some more.”
After an afternoon of going through the footage, Annja determined they did have some great shots. She could cobble together a short segment for the show. Though Doug would still w
ant to see fins slapping the water’s surface or some other bit of silliness. He could add that himself.
During supper Ian suggested they do a follow-up with Sirena, perhaps in a week or two. By then she would have had some time to think about what Annja had said to her today. It sounded like a good idea. Annja was not beyond extending her stay in Italy for a few weeks. If Doug would cover her expenses, she’d dig around for another story idea. She’d start with Rosalia, the patron of Palermo, who had lived during the twelfth century and saved the city from the plague. Her bones were interred here.
After supper, and still waiting for the okay from Doug to stick around in Italy, Annja and Ian headed back to the shore to capture some night shots. Moonlight glimmered across the water’s surface. She stood back, toeing a thatch of ragged grass while Ian strode the rocky shore.
The clatter of stones and footsteps alerted her just as someone grabbed Ian’s camera and shoved him hard enough to make her colleague fall backward and land on the ground.
Recognizing the man who’d pushed Ian, Annja rushed him and prevented him from swinging a fist toward the fallen cameraman.
“Shove off!” Matteo hissed at Annja as he wrestled away from her. “You two get out of town and stop harassing Sirena.”
“We’re filming a story,” Annja defended. “And we were invited by Sirena. Is there something you want to tell us?”
“I just did. Keep away from Sirena. You are not putting footage of her on TV.”
“Why? Because she believes she is a selkie?”
The dark-haired bruiser with a few days’ beard growth stared at her. He seemed overly worked up considering the circumstances. Why was he so uptight about them and what Sirena could tell them? Annja noted the reek of alcohol, which was likely only fortifying his mean streak.
Sirena had been afraid of him.
Matteo lunged for her. Annja bent at the waist, twisting, and kicked low, catching him below the knee. He yelped and toppled forward, but managed to grip her by the hair as he went down. She rolled over his body, landed on the loose shore stones and came up to her feet in a squat.
“Do you hurt her, Matteo?” she asked.
He sneered and pushed off the ground, coming to a stand.
Annja jumped up before him. She could feel the sword hum from within the otherwhere, there if she needed it. But she didn’t want to introduce a weapon to this scuffle. She didn’t suspect Matteo was armed with anything more than fear of exposure.
“She tells lies,” he hissed.
“So you’re not keeping her with you against her will?”
“She...she said that? You’re lying to me!” He swung at Annja, but she dodged him easily. The man wasn’t so drunk. He maintained his footing and, bouncing back and forth, showed her his fists. “Stay away from her!”
Out the corner of her eye, Annja saw Ian fumble to his feet. He didn’t go for his camera. Thankfully, he had the good sense that this would not make for good television.
Matteo dived for her and gripped her about the waist, pushing them both to the hard ground. “You give me what’s on that camera.” He punched, landing a bruising set of knuckles against her throat.
Annja kicked, connecting her boot toe with his gut, but not hard enough to injure. Instead, she flipped him onto his back and crawled on top of him, straddling his hips. A right fist to his jaw spattered blood across the rocks. She’d never backed away from a fight, and admittedly, it adrenalized her. Frankly, it was easy when she fought against a man like this.
“You let her go,” she insisted, landing another punch that served to loosen his tense jaw muscles.
His shoulders dropped and Matteo stopped fighting, though he hadn’t been knocked out.
“Let her do as she wishes. If Sirena wants to leave you, let her go.”
“But...” He fisted the ground at his sides. Growling in frustration, he sputtered, “I don’t know where it is!”
“Where what is?”
Behind her Ian scrambled with his equipment.
“The pelt!” Matteo cried.
Annja frowned and delivered another swift strike up under the man’s jaw. That tilted his head to the side sharply, stealing his consciousness. Blood drooled from his mouth. “He’s out.”
She rose and wiped her hands down her pant legs.
“He believes it, too,” Ian said, the camera pointed toward the ground, the green run light showing he’d filmed Matteo’s confession. “Now what?”
The cell phone in Annja’s pocket vibrated. She swiped a loose strand of hair from her face and over her ear and strode toward the parking lot, gesturing for Ian to follow. Matteo would be fine.
Annja answered the call in a harsh tone. “Seriously? This had better be good.”
“Sounds like someone needs a nap.”
The French accent had become a familiar voice in her life. Yet it had been a while since she’d talked to the old coot. Usually it was she who contacted him.
“Roux.” She blew out a breath, calming her thundering heartbeat. “Sorry. It’s been a long day. And I think I’ve spent most of it with a selkie.”
“Selkies, eh? A bit fantastical, even for your wild adventures. I thought you preferred kneeling hunched over a pile of dirt?”
“I do, but I do work for a television program that tracks monsters. Selkies are not so fantastical when you think about it. You do know it’s—” she cast her gaze toward the sky, then turned the phone to check the time display “—close to midnight?”
“Not where I am. The sun is shining and I’m, well... What can I say?”
No details. Never any details unless the man considered them salacious or wanted to tease her, which was often. But Annja wasn’t interested. She didn’t want to do the math to calculate what time zone he could be in to be calling her during the day.
“Like you said, I need to get some rest, so make this quick.”
“I’ve a simple question. One I thought would intrigue you.”
She closed her eyes and blew in and released a deep breath. A half-hour shower was the only thing she could think about. Her neck ached. She’d have a bruise there by the time she hit said shower. “What’s that?”
“Very well. Do you know what Leonardo da Vinci and Joan of Arc had in common?”
Any mention of Joan of Arc straightened Annja’s spine. She opened her eyes wide and, seeing Ian’s intent interest, turned her back to him. Some things she only talked about with certain people. And those few people—actually, only two—also had a keen interest in the sainted martyr.
“Bonus points if you can name their common benefactor,” Roux added cheerily.
Well, that narrowed it down to one person. Annja liked a good quiz. But she needn’t the clue.
She’d read a lot on the young woman who had boldly led the French army to war in the fifteenth century, only to be labeled a heretic and burned at the stake by the English forces. Joan interested her because Annja had an inexplicable connection to her. One that she could never completely explain and so had accepted on blind faith. And there was the fact that whenever she was in trouble and needed protection, she could call Joan of Arc’s sword to hand from the otherwhere.
Cool. Weird. Fortuitous when she was in a bind. And she tended to find herself in a bind more often than the average archaeologist. Just call her a jet-setting dirt digger and sometime crime fighter and defender of the innocent.
It worked for her.
“Let’s see...” Annja kicked at the smooth stones that had been turned over and over by high tides and infinite time. “Joan was burned in 1431. Leonardo da Vinci wasn’t born until 1452. So someone who had known Joan and was very young at that time, who then later traveled to Italy, possibly— Aha!
“Good King René,” she answered. “I believe René d’Anjou’s mother, Yola
nde, tutored Jeanne at a young age. And René and da Vinci were quite possibly known to each other as well, both being men of the Renaissance.”
“Exactly. The Duke d’Anjou, besides being a philanthropist, was literally one of the first men of his age and time who sought to share knowledge instead of suppress it. He wasn’t as close to Jeanne as was his mother, but still, there was a loose connection, we think.”
That he paused now piqued Annja’s interest even more. If ever there existed someone who knew historic details—firsthand—it was Roux. He had lived through the past five hundred years. It meant that Roux had witnessed Joan’s sword being broken beside those very flames that had ended her life. Flames were a recurring nightmare of Annja’s. She hadn’t had any bad dreams lately and wished that would continue forever.
“That’s not the reason for my call,” Roux said, sidestepping what exciting secrets Annja had hoped he would reveal to her. “You guessed right. René d’Anjou was likely associated with both our Joan and Leonardo. Are you familiar with a theft that took place six months ago at the main antiquities museum in Poland?”
Annja glanced over her shoulder. Ian strolled along the waterline, kicking stones here and there, the camera held slack at his side.
“Are we on a new topic now?” she asked. “Renaissance painters, burned saints and add to that the fact my day has been occupied by a possible selkie sighting. My brain is fried, Roux. If you’ve got a point, please get to it.”
“The stolen items from the museum were believed to have been abandoned in a Venetian canal due to a quarrel between the thieves. Both were arrested, one in Milan, the other in the States. Neither has revealed where the items were dropped into which canal. And with little evidence, they were set free.”
“So there are valuable ancient artifacts sitting somewhere at the bottom of a Venetian canal? What’s new?”
“It’s not what is new, Annja, but what was old and possibly dumped in the drink. A Lorraine cross believed to have once belonged to Leonardo da Vinci.”