Cradle of Solitude

by Alex Archer

  That wasn’t a good sign.

  Step by step, teeth gritted against the pain, she made her way up to the monastery gates as quickly as she could.

  The gates stood wide open, which wasn’t a good sign. As she hobbled through them, she caught sight of a brown-robed figure lying unmoving in the grass between the gates and the small guardhouse nearby. The dark stain that covered the front of his robe didn’t bode well for his chances, but she had to check to be sure before moving on. If he was only injured and she left him behind…

  As she drew close enough to see his face, she recognized the silent monk who had let her into the complex earlier. From the looks of it, he’d been shot with a short burst from an automatic weapon. Kneeling down next to him, she checked for a pulse but, as she’d expected, didn’t find one. His eyes were open, staring at the sky above, and so she brushed her hand over them, and then got back to her feet.

  Her car was still in the parking area, but the driver’s window had been smashed and the line of bullet holes stitched across the hood let her know that she wouldn’t be taking it anywhere in the near future. Since it wasn’t her car, she didn’t feel all that torn up about the damage; it wasn’t the first vehicle wrecked by those she’d been forced to confront since taking up the sword. No, what made her want to scream in anger and frustration was the fact that they’d gotten the chest, and therefore the puzzle box that it contained. When she’d returned to the complex and rushed back into the monastery, she’d left the chest on the rear seat of the car, easy pickings for anyone looking for it.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid!

  Of course, hindsight was twenty-twenty. There was nothing to do now but soldier on and see what she could make out of the mess.

  There were two more bodies on the front steps to the main building and another just inside the door. Each of them had been gunned down in similar fashion. Farther inside she found more of the same. It appeared that the intruders, whoever they had been, had wanted to be certain there wasn’t anyone left to serve as a witness to what had happened here.

  She kept up her search for survivors all the way to the cathedral, but she didn’t find a single one by the time she reached her destination.

  Inside, she found the abbott lying on the floor in front of the altar, a bullet through the skull. Four of the fingers on his left hand were broken and horribly twisted, letting her know that there’d been a serious effort to get him to tell them something. Whether he’d divulged what they wanted or not was uncertain, for they could have executed him after he’d given up the information or when they’d decided that they didn’t have any more time to waste.

  In the end, it hadn’t really mattered, she thought. They’d gotten what they’d come for, anyway—thanks to her carelessness.

  Standing there, looking down at the body of the man who only hours before had helped her uncover a key clue to the mystery unfurling before her, Annja felt a rage begin to build inside her. She vowed that she’d bring the perpetrators to justice, no matter what.

  She searched the rest of the complex, but didn’t find a single survivor. The monks living there had been slaughtered to a man.

  No witnesses, she thought bitterly.

  She did, however, find a phone on the abbot’s desk. It was the only one she’d seen so far in the entire monastery, so she was thankful that the intruders hadn’t torn it loose from the wall. It was an oversight that could have come back to haunt them, had any of the monks been quick enough to capitalize on it, and Annja was pleased to see it. It meant the enemy, whoever they were, made mistakes.

  Mistakes could be exploited.

  She punched in 1-1-2, the general emergency number throughout all of France, and explained to the operator that there had been a violent attack on the monks at the monastery. She identified herself when asked and stated that they could contact the American Embassy for confirmation of who she was so that they would know this was not a crank call of any kind. Given the nearest town was almost an hour away, and she didn’t remember seeing any kind of emergency response services when she’d driven through, Annja knew she had a long wait ahead of her.

  Now that she had taken care of the most pressing issues, she realized that her teeth were chattering and that she was shivering violently. Her clothing was still wet despite the long walk and the chill mountain air hadn’t helped any. She suspected she might be slipping into hypothermia and knew she had to do something about it quickly.

  But a search of the abbot’s quarters turned up nothing but boxers, socks and the long brown robes she’d been seeing on every monk she encountered. The same held true of the rest of the rooms she looked into at the other end of the hall.

  The idea of meeting the authorities dressed like Friar Tuck didn’t appeal to her at all, but what choice did she have? She selected a robe that looked to be the closest fit, stripped out of her wet clothing and used a towel from a nearby bathroom to dry herself as best she could. Resigning herself to the inevitable, she pulled the robe on over her head. To her surprise, the fabric was much softer than she’d expected, and warm, as well. She might be stuck looking like an extra from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but at least she’d be comfortable while doing so.

  Only half an hour had gone by when the sound of a helicopter’s rotors caught her attention. She glanced out the window, saw it approaching in the distance and went out to meet it.

  The aircraft came in over the trees, nose forward, so Annja didn’t get a good look at the aircraft until the pilot spun it around and lined up for landing. That’s when the insignia, a stylized dragon in midflight, became visible on the black fuselage.

  Annja knew that logo.

  It belonged to Dragontech Security Services, one of the many companies owned by her sometime-ally, sometime-nemesis Garin Braden.

  “All-the-time pain-in-the-ass Garin Braden is more like it,” she said.

  The helicopter landed on the grass beside the parking area. The door opened almost immediately and a squad of armed gunmen disembarked, moving with the kind of crisp efficiency that marked them as former military personnel. They fanned out in a half circle, the assault rifles in their hands pointing beyond her at the windows of the monastery.

  Behind them came Garin Braden.

  She’d met Garin at the same time she’d acquired her sword, the one that had once belonged to Joan of Arc. Whatever power had been imparted to the sword at the moment of Joan’s death had also affected Garin and his former mentor, Roux. Both of them had been her failed protectors. Both of them had been there to witness Joan’s execution. Both of them had subsequently discovered that they no longer aged as other men did, that unless they were killed by injury or violence, it seemed they would most likely live forever.

  Over the years they’d gone from being squire and master to equal competitors to deadly enemies. Only the arrival of Annja, and the reforming of the sword that had been broken, had brought them grudgingly back together again.

  At first, Garin had been convinced that the sword controlled his destiny, that by possessing it Annja could threaten his very existence. He’d schemed to take it from her on more than one occasion, but thus far without success. Lately his overt activities toward that end had seemed to have been put on hold, but she was still wary around him.

  Even knowing he often didn’t have her best interests at heart, Annja found it hard to simply dismiss Garin Braden. The fact that he was terribly handsome, with his black hair and immaculately trimmed goatee, didn’t help. He was also one of those larger than life personalities and being in his presence made her forget some of what she’d experienced with him. She constantly had to remind herself that he had a devil’s heart to go with his devilishly good looks.

  Even that didn’t dampen her attraction to him, however.

  He had a habit of turning up unexpectedly but just what the hell was he doing here?

  Annja waited for him at the base of the front steps as he strode across the lawn. He was dressed beautifully, as always, in
a suit that was tailored to show off his muscular frame. It was only as he drew closer that she remembered she was barefoot and naked beneath the monk’s robe. She wanted to sink right into the stone beneath her feet.

  “Hello, I’m looking for… Annja, is that you?”

  She used irritation to try and hide her embarrassment. “What are you doing here, Garin? Did you get lost on your way home?”

  He ignored her jibe, focusing instead on what she was wearing.

  “I must say you look ravishing in mud brown, Annja. And the way it accents your curves—”

  “Cut the crap. What are you doing here? What do you want?”

  A pained expression crossed his face. “Must I always want something?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

  “Well, you have me there,” he replied, grinning.

  Annja tried not to think about how that grin made her feel.

  Garin surveyed the scene behind her, taking in bodies just inside the open door. When he looked at her again his expression had gone serious. “Any survivors?”

  “I haven’t checked the entire grounds, but inside, no.”

  He nodded, acknowledging her remark, and then waved to one of his men, summoning him over. They had a brief conversation outside of Annja’s earshot and then the first man was joined by two others as they fanned out to search the grounds.

  “Come on,” Garin said. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”

  Annja snorted. “I’m not going anywhere with you, Garin. The authorities will be here soon. Do you just expect me to leave all these bodies behind because you say so?”

  The only person who knew where she was going was Bernard and she had no reason to believe the two men even knew each other. The more she thought about it, the more Garin’s sudden appearance wasn’t making any sense.

  Garin’s joking manner abruptly disappeared. “Yes, that’s exactly what I expect. Every minute you stay puts you in more danger. We need to leave.”

  “I told you, I’m not leaving. I called this in. I have a responsibility to be here when the authorities arrive.”

  “That’s exactly what they are counting on!” He clenched his fists in frustration. “Do you think I came out here just to see you looking like a reject from the local Renaissance faire?”

  Garin’s insistence, and his single-mindedness, had her worried.

  “What’s going on? What aren’t you telling me, Garin?”

  “For heaven’s sake, woman, we don’t have time for that—”

  “You’ll make time,” she cut in, “or I’m not going with you. Now out with it.”

  But rather than say anything more himself, he pulled a digital recorder out of his pocket and hit the play button.

  “The Creed woman apparently survived the fall from the roof. She needs to be eliminated before she speaks to the police. Get back up there and get rid of her before she becomes more of a nuisance.”

  Annja didn’t recognize the voice, but it was clear that whoever he was, he had intimate knowledge of what had happened at the monastery.

  Garin wasn’t kidding around.

  “How did you get that?” she asked.

  “I’d be happy to explain everything, but right now I think it’s better if we got out of here, don’t you?”

  As Annja opened her mouth to answer, the sound of a racing engine reached their ears. They turned to see a dark model Mercedes bounce through the iron gates less than three hundred yards away and rush toward them. Even as they watched, the front passenger window rolled down and a man’s head and shoulders appeared.

  In his hands was an automatic weapon.

  “Run!” Garin shouted as the bullets began to fly.

  15

  Annja didn’t need any further encouragement. She turned and ran for the helicopter…only to fall flat on her face as the hem of the robe got tangled in her feet and spilled her to the ground.

  The sound of gunfire joined the growl of the car engine, both of which were suddenly drowned out in the rhythmic beat of the helicopter rotors as the pilot saw what was going on and prepared to get his aircraft out of there.

  Annja glanced back to see the Mercedes change direction and head right for her.

  She scrambled to her feet.

  Bullets whip-cracked through the air as Annja frantically glanced around looking for some protective cover, but there was none to be found. She could make a run for the helicopter over open ground or she could turn around and head back inside the monastery, hope to find a different way out before the gunmen caught up to her.

  She was wavering between the two actions when the choice was decided for her.

  A hand with a grip like steel grabbed her arm.

  “Come on!” Garin shouted, half carrying her along beside him as he ran for the chopper.

  This time Annja used her hands to hike up the hem of the robe, not wanting to trip on it again. There wasn’t anything she could do about the gravel slicing into the bottoms of her feet, though, so she just ignored it. She’d been through worse and it was a damn sight better than getting a bullet in the head.

  Garin’s security team had finally gotten into the act, sending a blistering hail of gunfire at the Mercedes as they raced forward to plant themselves between the enemy and their employer, protecting him as they had been trained to do.

  The open door of the helicopter loomed ahead of them.

  Garin’s longer stride put him out ahead of Annja by a few feet, so he reached the helicopter before she did. He jumped inside the open doorway and then turned to face her, ready to lend a hand.

  She was looking right at him when the bullet took him high in the right side of his chest, tossing him backward into the darkness inside the helicopter.

  “Garin!” she screamed.

  She covered the last few feet and then leaped inside the helicopter as bullets slammed into the metal fuselage around her. She barely had time to grab hold of a nearby seat before the pilot took them up, arcing away from the gunfire as quickly as he could.

  Annja spent an anxious minute holding on for dear life as the pilot leveled out and then she scrambled over to where Garin was lying against the opposite bulkhead.

  She ripped open his suit coat, desperately afraid of what she’d find. Whatever mysticism gave Garin his extended lifespan also helped him heal more quickly than the average individual, but a sucking chest wound was serious even for him.

  The black face of a bulletproof vest stared back at her.

  “Thank God,” she said.

  “Can’t keep your hands off me, huh?”

  Annja glanced up to find Garin watching her with an amused look on his face.

  “You bastard!” she said, backing up to give him some room. “I thought you were shot.”

  He coughed, grimaced and said, “I was. That’s how I ended up on the floor, remember?” He pulled himself up into a nearby chair, then indicated Annja should put on one of the headsets hanging off the nearby bulkhead as he reached to do the same.

  She did as instructed and she heard him telling the pilot to head for his Frankfurt house.

  “What about your men?” she asked.

  “They’ll be fine. They’ll neutralize the threat and then disperse as necessary. Don’t worry, they know what they are doing.”

  The flight lasted about half an hour. Annja was too worn out to say much and Garin kept his thoughts to himself, which was fine with her. She was still surprised at his sudden appearance and previous experience had her wondering what else he was keeping from her.

  As was typical of both Garin and Roux, the “house” could more accurately be labeled a mansion, with two large wings extending off the main building. The pilot set them down on a helipad atop the roof without issue.

  Once inside, Garin led Annja to a private suite in the west wing of the house and suggested that she meet him in the den after showering and changing into more practical clothes.

  She was all too happy to oblige.

  The sui
te was beautifully decorated, with a luxurious king-size bed and a sunken tub that one could probably swim in. She eyed it enviously for a moment and then decided that a hot shower might be more practical.

  She looked around for the clothes Garin had mentioned and found an array of styles and sizes in the wardrobe and the walk-in closet. She stared at all of them for a moment, wondering just who they belonged to. The styles were all quite current, so it couldn’t have been one of Garin’s lovers from ages past. Perhaps he just kept a well-stocked wardrobe of women’s clothing available for whenever one of his companions might need it?

  She wouldn’t put it past him.

  Annja sought out the most practical outfit she could, which wasn’t easy given most of the clothing was designed to be skintight or extremely revealing. In one of the drawers, however, she found a pair of cargo pants and paired them with a black T-shirt.

  She took a hot shower, scrubbing the last of the river grime from her body, and then dressed in the clothes she’d found. They fit her as if they had been custom tailored. That made her speculate that perhaps they actually had been, which took her down all kinds of roads she didn’t want to think about. She found socks in the wardrobe drawers and saw more shoes than she’d ever seen anywhere outside of a shoe store in the closet, including a pair of hiking boots that looked like they’d fit reasonably well. She decided to pad around shoeless for the moment.

  Feeling pretty much back to her usual self, she wandered out of the bedroom suite and went in search of Garin.

  She found him in the den, dressed casually in jeans and a loose-fitting shirt.

  Annja didn’t bother with pleasantries. She’d been patient; now it was time to get to the bottom of things.

  “What were you doing at Berceau de solitude?”

  Garin stared at her.

  Misinterpreting his silence, she said, “The monastery, Garin, the monastery.”

  His reply was in perfect French. “I understood you perfectly, Annja. I was simply distracted by the notion that I think you looked better in that brown robe of yours.”