City of Swords

by Alex Archer

  “A professor?” Annja pressed. The monk in Avignon said a “doctor” had offered money for Roland’s sword. Dr. Lawton?

  “I do not know what he teaches.”

  She could tell he was tall, judging by how he sat in the chair. Gray tuxedo jacket, long white hair pulled back in a ponytail. She couldn’t see his face, Archard’s, either, but she would. They would have to walk by her to leave the room. She thought about bidding against them….

  “Two million euros to Archard Gihon,” the auctioneer announced.

  It was far too rich for her.

  Bidding continued in incremental jumps of a hundred thousand.

  Fernando craned his neck around, saw her and winked. She pretended not to see him. Annja figured he knew better than to raise his hand, lest the auctioneer take it as a bid.

  “Two million five hundred thousand euros.”

  There were small waves of hushed chatter. Everyone in this room was rich, but apparently even by wealthy standards this was getting a little pricey for one piece.

  “Three million euros.”

  The attendant leaned close. “It has now exceeded anticipated figures. The museum was reluctant to put it up, but they will be quite pleased.”

  “Four million euros to Archard Gihon.”

  The room fell silent. Four million euros for one sword. Annja held her breath.

  “Vendido!” Polite applause followed the signal of the sale.

  Another small table was brought out, filled with an assortment of jewelry, with a large tiara sparkling in the light. Annja ignored the spiel and the starting bids. Her full attention was on Archard Gihon and Dr. Charles Lawton, who had gotten up from their seats and were bent over a desk at the side of the room, no doubt making arrangements to pay for Tizona. There was a door nearby, and for a moment Annja was fearful they would slip out before she could catch up.

  But they headed down the far aisle toward the back of the room, where she was standing. She decided she would follow them out, rehearsing how she would introduce herself.

  They stopped directly in front of her.

  “Annja Creed.” Archard took her hand, bowing and lightly kissing the back of it. “I am Archard Gihon, and this is—”

  “Professor Charles Lawton,” the other man said. His voice was rich and melodic, and Annja studied his striking features. There was something vaguely familiar about him. “Good to finally meet you, Miss Creed.” His French accent was heavy, but he spoke perfect English. “I have heard a great deal about the famous American archaeologist.”

  “Ah, she is from…” Archard pursed his lips, as if searching his thoughts. “Ah…the program called Chasing History’s Monsters.” He gestured for her to precede them. “Shall we? So we don’t disrupt the others?”

  She stepped outside, and they joined her after saying farewell to the attendant.

  “What brings you to Spain, Miss Creed?” Archard asked. “And what brings you to this auction?”

  Annja met his gaze. His emotions were unreadable. He remained politely detached. She looked at Dr. Lawton, who appeared to be studying her.

  “Actually, I came looking for you,” she said. “Both of you.”

  Dr. Lawton clapped his hands. “Excellent,” he said. “A coincidence, Miss Creed, as I have been searching for you, too.”

  “You have something we need to acquire,” Archard explained.

  “A special sword,” Dr. Lawton said. “Did you bring it with you?”

  A shiver passed down Annja’s spine.

  Chapter 17

  Gaetan parked in front of a narrow, three-story house on Rue Lefort Gonssolin and turned off the lights, but he left the motor running. Sarah opened the glove compartment and took out a small flashlight, flicked it on and held up a piece of paper.

  “Yeah, right address.” She crumpled the paper and dropped it on the street as she got out of the car. “Last stop. Listen, Gaeton…Luc and I will take this, but keep a close eye out, ’kay?”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Eye out. You know, watch the neighbors. If it gets a little loud, we don’t need anyone coming over or calling the police.” One of the voices in her head told her not to call Gaetan an idiot.

  “I will keep both of my eyes out,” he said.

  “Just honk if there’s a problem,” Luc told him. He got out of the backseat and drew his katana, leaving the saber behind. “We will be quick. We’re due at the airport in an hour.”

  Sarah didn’t expect trouble. It was after eleven, and while there were a few lights on here and there down the block, more than half the houses, including this one, were dark. People had to get up early for work in the morning probably, she thought.

  She crept toward the house, crouching like a secret agent from a B movie. Luc followed a few yards behind, checking left and right, then waited while she went around to the back. After a few moments, he slipped to the side door and put his ear to it.

  Sarah came back and whispered, “No electronic security on the outside, anyway.”

  He pointed up.

  “An open window?”

  “And the room looks dark. Maybe he isn’t home.”

  “Car’s in the garage. Boost me.”

  Luc set the sword on the ground and laced his fingers together. Sarah stepped into his cupped hands and he raised her so she could grab on to a decorative piece of brickwork. Her wall climbing at the gym had served her well. She scrabbled up and slid through the window, poking her head out and giving Luc a thumbs-up.

  Several minutes later, a light came on toward the back of the house, and Sarah opened the side door. “Easier than I expected,” she told Luc. “I’m getting good at this.” She motioned him inside and closed the door behind him. “He had a security panel in the front hall, but the idiot didn’t bother to turn it on.”

  Sarah had stuck her gun in the waistband of her pants, but pulled it out and waved it at the home’s occupant, now tied to a kitchen chair. “Make sure he can’t get loose.”

  Luc tightened the knots. “Where did the rope come from?”

  “Pull cords from a drape upstairs. So I did good, huh?”

  He nodded and stepped back so he was shoulder to shoulder with her, studying the captive. “I’m impressed, Sarah.”

  The man in the chair looked terrified, with sweat beading on his forehead and his lips working around the wad of paper towels Sarah had stuffed in his mouth. The front of his jeans was wet; she’d literally scared the piss out of him.

  “He was real cooperative when I showed him the gun,” she told Luc.

  The man mumbled in an attempt to speak.

  “Luc, meet François Lebeal,” Sarah continued. “He manages one of the smaller banks in Rouen. Fifth on our list. Last target tonight.” She leaned close to François and pushed the end of her silencer into his chest. “He thinks we’re here to rob him.” She paused. “Idiot.”

  “Oh, we will rob him, Sarah.”

  “Eventually.” She made a show of pacing around her captive. “If I take the gag out…and you talk above a whisper…it’ll be the last sound you ever make. Got it?”

  He nodded.

  She waited another moment and took the gag out.

  François whispered, the words coming rapid-fire in French.

  “English,” she warned. “If you’re going to talk that fast, make it in English.”

  “What do you want? Money? I have money upstairs. More. I can get you more. From my bank. I can—”

  She waved the gun under his nose. “We don’t want money.”

  “Jewelry,” he said, still whispering. “You said you were going to rob me. Gold. I have a gold ring with diamonds. On the bureau in the bedroom.”

  “We don’t want jewelry.”

  He stared at her, wide-eyed. “Then what?”

  “What do we want?” She looked up at Luc, then back to François. “We want to save your soul, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. I saw a cross hanging upstairs. Another one here.” She n
odded to the wall, and Luc followed her gaze.

  It looked like a Christian cross, but with four more points coming out in a starburst pattern from the center.

  “That’s a Scientology cross,” Sarah told Luc. “The other targets didn’t have them displayed quite so prominently. Eight points represent their so-called eight dynamics of existence.” She tsked as she turned back to the man in the chair. “Scientology. What an absolute mindless idiot.”

  “I…I don’t understand.”

  “What’s not to understand? You’re a Scientologist, François. You follow a religion made up by a science-fiction writer. Made up. L. Ron Hubbard probably meant it as some joke, and you and a couple hundred thousand others bought into it. I’ve read all about you.” Sarah spat in disgust. “If old L. Ron found his way to heaven, I bet he’s laughing his ass off at the lot of you.”

  “Please.”

  Sarah glared at him. The voices in her head told her to finish this up. She pushed the gun at him again. “We’ll see if the handful of other known Scientologists that I killed tonight are being reborn.”

  François screamed and Sarah stuffed the paper towels back in his mouth. He nearly choked on them as he struggled in the chair, threatening to tip it over. Luc raised his katana, and François sat still, whimpering around the gag.

  “Like I said, we’d give you the chance to repent, but—”

  François nodded his head vigorously.

  “I’m doing you a big favor. You’re an alien, right? One who’ll get reborn, your literature claims. If you think about it, you should be grateful. We’re giving you a chance to start over.” She put the gun to the side of his head and pulled the trigger.

  Brains and blood exploded across the kitchen countertops and stove.

  “No need to make this one look like a robbery,” Luc said, staring at the mess.

  Sarah wrinkled her nose. “Well, this is the sixth Scientologist we got tonight. Police will figure out the connection.” She laughed. “Hey, they might think there’s a serial killer on the loose targeting Scientologists.”

  “The Buddhists—”

  “Well, yes, them, too. Serial-killer bait, Buddhists and Scientologists. And that’s just the tip of the religious iceberg. Dr. Lawton said once this started, the cops were going to go ballistic.”

  “We are not serial killers,” Luc insisted.

  “No, we’re crusaders.”

  “Paladins.”

  “Yes, paladins. And tonight…tonight, Luc, the cleansing has begun.”

  The voices in Sarah’s head congratulated her on a job well done.

  Chapter 18

  “I will offer you a more than fair price for your sword, Miss Creed. As you saw from the auction, I am willing to spend considerable money to acquire fine things.”

  “Swords. To obtain swords.”

  “Particular swords,” Dr. Lawton replied. His eyes narrowed, as if she’d affronted him. “Ones with an important history.”

  A handful of women in long dresses and capes left the auction, one complaining that she wasn’t willing to pay “those prices for that sort of jewelry.”

  Annja watched them make their way down the hall toward the front door. “El Cid’s sword, for one.”

  “Tizona,” Archard said. “This was only one of El Cid’s swords.”

  “The most important one,” Annja added.

  “Miss Creed, I am interested in discussing your sword, not one I have already acquired,” Lawton stated. “I am a busy man, and idle talk doesn’t fit into my schedule. Shall we begin with a price?”

  Annja locked eyes with his. She still couldn’t figure out why he seemed familiar, couldn’t place where she might have seen him before. Her temper might be getting in the way. She felt heat rising to her cheeks and considered denying the sword’s existence. “I don’t have the sword with me,” she finally said.

  “But you can get it.”

  “It’s not for sale.” She would have loved to leave now, get out of this building and Spain, go back to Brooklyn. She could consider this mystery closed; she’d found the collector. But why was this man collecting swords? To what lengths had he gone to get them?

  “The Japanese katana,” she said. “You bought that and—”

  “Honjo Masamune.” Dr. Lawton shook his head, strands of hair coming out of his ponytail like threads of a spiderweb loosened by a puff of wind. “Archard purchased that one,” he said. “I was committed to a series of lectures.”

  “So Mr. Gihon bought it for you.”

  “Again, I am not interested in talking about blades I have already acquired.”

  “Just the ones you’ve yet to collect,” she said.

  Dr. Lawton smiled, his expression smug and reptilian. “About your sword.”

  “It’s not for sale.”

  “Everything has a price, Miss Creed.”

  She was growing warmer, her temper simmering. This was not the time nor the place to confront this man. Now that she’d seen him, had his name—names had power—she could research him. Every good hunter knew to learn about her prey. She didn’t know enough about him…only that he had money, an associate named Archard Gihon, was a native Frenchman—that she could tell by his accent. Not enough information.

  “Shall we say one million euros?”

  She brushed by him, but a hand clamped on her arm. Her surprise held her in place. It was Archard’s hand, and his strong grip tightened for a moment before he released her.

  “What right do you think you have…” Annja let the sentence go unfinished.

  Archard took a step back.

  “Miss Creed, you talk of rights,” Lawton said. “By right, your sword should be mine, anyway. It should have passed to me.”

  Her mouth dropped open, but she instantly recovered. “If you’ll excuse me, Dr. Lawton, Mr. Gihon.” She managed a half-dozen steps before his next words stopped her.

  “Joan of Arc’s sword. Truly, it should be mine. I should have inherited it.”

  She whirled around, a thousand thoughts spinning in her head.

  “I know the sword you wield once belonged to Joan of Arc. It is a singular sword, with five crosses etched on the pommel. I know singular swords.” Dr. Lawton paused as a trio emerged from the auction room, two middle-aged women escorted by a considerably younger man. They were laughing at a joke he’d just told.

  “I know your sword’s history.”

  He couldn’t know how she’d acquired it, that it had been shattered and re-formed, that it hung suspended in the otherwhere, waiting for her to summon it. She wasn’t even sure how it had all come to pass. She sensed the sword now, waiting, felt her fingers start to curl instinctively around the pommel. No!

  “Dr. Lawton, Mr. Gihon—”

  “Dr. Gihon,” Archard stated.

  So he was a full professor. “Dr. Gihon. This is neither the time nor the place.”

  “So you will not consider selling it to me?” Dr. Lawton said. “Pity. Unfortunate for both of us.” His expression lost its smugness and he seemed genuinely sad. “I have more money than I need. You could be set for life.”

  This time when Annja walked away, Archard didn’t reach out to stop her. “Neither the time nor the place,” she repeated.

  “Then I will call on you later at your hotel,” Dr. Lawton said. “Perhaps I can convince you to change your mind. I can be quite persuasive. Do not dismiss me so lightly. Archard, shall we retrieve Tizona?”

  Annja set her feet in step with her pounding heart. It was late, but the city still bustled, with cars and horse-drawn carriages passing by, and lights from clubs, restaurants and other hotels looking like fireworks come to ground. She headed south, toward her own hotel.

  Why had Lawton upset her so much? He’d offered to buy her sword…which she couldn’t sell even if she wanted to. At least, she didn’t think she could. So why was she upset? He couldn’t get her sword.

  That he knew about it… She’d been so careful, or thought she had. Roux and h
is nemesis, Garin—another man helplessly tied to Joan of Arc’s story over the centuries—would not have told a soul.

  Five crosses on it. How had Lawton known that?

  The sword had a name. Or at the very least a title. What was it?

  A man stuck his head out a car window and whistled. Annja walked faster. The air was still and warm and felt good against her face even though it smelled of automobile exhaust so close to the street, of spoiled food from garbage near the curb and the stink of blacktop from a parking-lot paving project. Her senses were acute, and she siphoned through everything to the scent of flowers. She spied them in baskets hanging from street poles. And something else… The hair on the back of her neck rose. She spun around, peering into the shadows.

  Was she being followed?

  She turned back around and kept walking, her pace slower and determined, her feet aching from the new shoes that would eventually be comfortable.

  She was being followed. She just couldn’t see the watcher. Lawton lacked the speed to have kept up with her. Archard Gihon perhaps, as he seemed younger and more athletic. Lawton had the money to employ a lot of people. Like the Romanies.

  So he was collecting named swords. The Wallace Sword and Durendal were two, but they’d been stolen. Did Lawton believe the ends justified the means?

  She was certain the answer was yes. He wanted to purchase her sword, and she’d said no. He’d tried to have it stolen from her in France. Would he try the same here in Spain?

  When she reached her hotel room, she locked the dead bolt, set a chair in front of the door and tried to dull her concerns in a hot bubble bath. It was futile.

  Annja had intended to spend what was left of the night on her laptop, researching Charles Lawton, but sleep beckoned.

  She settled into the bed and pulled the covers up, seeing her sword hovering in the otherwhere. “What are you called? How can he know your name, and I don’t?” Annja forced herself to employ meditation techniques, finally drifting off.

  She found herself on a dirt road. The setting sun was warm on her back.

  She didn’t know where she was going, only that it was someplace at the same time important and peaceful, grandiose and humble. She—or whoever she was in the dream—was anxious about something and had the feeling of being followed.