Blood Cursed (Rogue Angel) (12 page)

It was risky to attempt surveillance in daylight, but Garin was parked close by, and though Annja constantly vacillated on whether or not he was friend or foe, when the chips were down, the man did tend to rally to her side.

On the other hand, he was obviously keeping information from her—had even said he’d be better off without her—so she wouldn’t grow complacent. It was not out of character for Garin Braden to stab a friend in the back if it suited his needs. Or drive off, leaving her to fend on her own.

From where she knelt, she couldn’t hear voices from inside, but she did pick up the gurgle of running water around back of the house. Sounded larger than a stream. She guessed they could be close to the Jeřice brook, which she’d noted from the train as they’d neared Chrastava. Almost a river, the Jeřice provided a convenient escape route if those inside the house were suddenly pressed to leave in a hurry, and in a different direction than they had arrived. And if they were spooked by Garin’s SUV.

Annja crept along the side of the brick house. Cool vines brushed her arm and leg. The back shed, where the car they had tracked was parked, sat only ten feet from the house. She scampered from building to building, keeping low. The pistol pressed against her spine had warmed and she liked the safety of feeling it against her skin, though she wasn’t keen on guns. Murder was never right. Except sometimes she had no option but to make the kill. She never did it lightly.

A peek inside the shed through a dirt-frosted window showed her it was empty, except for a few garden implements, hoes and a rake leaning against one wall, and beside them some stacked tin buckets. This place may have once been a thriving farm or even a vast garden.

Angling around the back of the shed, she spied a dirt path that led to a narrow copse of oak trees, and beyond that...

“The brook.” Running low and quickly, she reached the tree cover and passed through to the other side where a sturdy wooden dock boasted two boats with their motors propped up at the hulls. “Getaway vehicles?”

But to where? And from what? Liberec would be the closest town, though she wasn’t sure if the brook wended that direction. The mystery of what exactly she was dealing with was driving her nuts.

Katana Man had said something about a child gone missing. Was there even a connection?

She hoped Doug and Luke had reached Luke’s hotel room safely, and with the skull intact. Doug was probably upset he wasn’t alongside her filming the action. The guy could be annoying at times with his overzealous dedication to recording the weird and wacky train wrecks that the show’s viewers tuned in to watch.

But whatever the men who had shored these boats at the dock were involved in did not include vampires, she felt sure.

Turning, Annja looked into the barrel of a gun. The arm extended beyond the pistol grip met a narrow shoulder and the face cracked a grin glossed with tobacco juice.

“You weren’t the one we expected, but you’ll do,” the man said.

She slowly moved a hand around her hip, but the guy wasn’t stupid. He shoved the pistol barrel between her eyes. “Hands up!”

Not wanting to risk reaching for her gun and taking a bullet, Annja complied, raising her hands slowly. He moved the gun across her temple and to the back of her head, and gave her a shove to walk toward the house.

She sneezed, and hoped the sound would carry.

Chapter 9

Garin saw the shadowed figure stalk toward the back of the property. Leaning across the shift, he palmed the Heckler & Koch he’d stashed in the glove compartment. With the growing darkness as cover, he made way across the gravel road and down to the house, using the high hedgerows to conceal his approach.

Annja’s signal sneeze had told him she’d been discovered. Already he heard shouts inside the house. He rushed the front door, shooting at the doorknob as he did. A bullet pierced the doorplate and, when he arrived, one kick pushed the door in.

Half a dozen shocked faces turned toward him—but not a single one belonged to Bracks. Damn it, where was that shifty Brit?

Annja took advantage of the element of surprise to kick away the man who’d been holding her wrists behind her back. She returned with a roundhouse kick to his jaw, the force of her strength and the hard boot toe dropping him flat. He lay on the floor, unconscious.

Garin fired at a man who aimed a pistol at him. Cartilage and blood split out from the man’s knee. Another shot to the man’s bicep injured his weapon arm. The semiauto went flying.

The rest of the team rallied, grabbing weapons and shouting to kill him.

The one man he had most hoped to see wasn’t here. Could Bracks be in another room, or had he already escaped? But how and where? They had sat watching the place for over an hour. And he’d followed the car since Chrastava. Had Bracks slipped out before or after he’d begun to tail them? This made no sense. He didn’t want to take the time to go through his former freelancers one by one to get to the core of the problem, but right now, the low men on the rack were forcing him to keep Annja safe.

The sound of a sword cutting through air filled the room. Annja’s battle sword sliced a clean line through one of the thug’s thighs. He yelped, going down, gripping the wound. Garin did love it when she wielded Joan’s sword. It was an extension of her body and mind. A beautiful thing to watch.

If there weren’t a pistol aimed at him. Shifting his own aim to the left, Garin fired. When he heard the opposition’s weapon report first, he instinctually ducked. Plaster from the wall behind him spattered the back of his head.

“That one is the brains,” Annja said, nodding toward the skinny man in a red vest who was reloading a rifle. “Please try to control yourself and keep him alive.”

“The rest fall,” Garin announced, ignoring her protest. He took no pleasure in killing men, but unlike Annja felt no angst in defending his own hide.

Two men were down and wounded. Annja dropped a third and the fourth, but didn’t kill them. That bothered Garin. They would prove messy if he allowed them to live. But he wouldn’t put a bullet in their brain with Annja watching him. The woman had morals, and he couldn’t argue with them.

Because she’d just argue back.

The skinny guy, whose magazine had jammed and he couldn’t get it placed, was down on his knees, pleading for them to spare him. Garin backed him into a corner.

Annja’s blade swept before Skinny, the tip of it cutting into a framed needlepoint pronouncing Home Sweet Home hanging on the wall and blockading him with the deadly weapon at his neck.

“Where’s Bracks?” Garin growled. “He was here.”

“He wasn’t! He got out before we got here. Told us to go ahead without him. The pickup is—” His eyes went wide, darting back and forth between Garin and Annja.

“Pickup?” Annja prompted. She kept an eye on the room behind Garin, where the others lay moaning.

Garin followed Skinny’s gaze along the wall and to the floor where a white plastic cooler sat. “What’s in there?”

Skinny shrugged. “Not supposed to look. It’s sealed. To open it will break the seal and damage the contents.” He patted his shirt pocket. “I was doing as I was told. I don’t know Mr. Bracks other than for this job, I swear. I never meet the bosses.”

Wise business practice, as far as Garin was concerned. Since the punk had just double-crossed one of them. Him.

“When and where is the pickup?” he asked.

“Outside, across the sunflower field. Soon. Don’t kill me.”

“Did I kill any of your colleagues?” Garin asked angrily.

“Uh, I think you took out Schweps. And the woman is scaring me. Where’d she get that sword?”

“You don’t like a girl with a sword?” Garin said. “Come on. Who doesn’t like a girl with a sword?”

Annja pulled the blade out of the embroidered wall hanging and with a sweep of her hand sent it off into the otherwhere. That continued to baffle Garin. When she needed the sword she could call it to hand. And when she didn’t? It just disappeared when she released it. That was more incredible than his longevity. He didn’t like not knowing the answers to things. He wanted to know what made the sword tick, and if, when it had been joined together from scattered pieces years ago and Annja had claimed it, it had somehow altered the length of his life. Until that point, ever since Joan of Arc’s death by fire, he’d felt...immortal.

He could still take a bullet and survive, but did he have a shelf life now? He and Roux were both tied to that sword, for good or for ill, because they had been there when the soldier had broken it into pieces while Joan burned at the stake. That sense of immortality wasn’t a gift Garin was willing to give up. Neither was he willing to let Annja hold some kind of power over him simply because she held the sword, now whole again.

The only way he’d ever understand would be to get his hands on the sword—and break it again. Restoring it to the form it had been in when he’d felt certain he’d live forever.

They heard the sudden juddering pulse of a helicopter above the cottage.

Annja lunged for the plastic cooler.

“Don’t open it!” Garin shouted. He had no clue what was in there, but what he’d seen the other night gave him a clue. Sealed? That meant the contents had an expiration date or were volatile.

Searching Skinny, he pulled a small piece of paper out of the man’s front pocket. A business card with an address. “Grab the cooler, Annja. Let’s get out of here.”

He shot Skinny in the ankle, putting him down in a dead faint. Stepping over the fallen, Garin followed Annja outside and toward the sunflower field.

* * *

“W
HERE
ARE
WE
going?” Annja asked as they ran out the back door. Twilight dropped a gray cloak over everything but she could still see well enough.

Garin took the cooler from her, which was fine. It weighed about twenty pounds―not overly heavy, but she liked to keep her arms free in case anyone followed them.

She twisted a look back toward the house. Everyone inside was out cold. She appreciated when Garin used restraint.

“To see where this all leads,” he replied. “I’m hoping it’s to Bracks.”

They entered the sunflower field, the heavy yellow heads hitting them in the faces. Moving into the lead, Annja took out her sword and used it as a machete. She heard Garin’s approving growl from behind. They passed through half an acre before arriving at an open dirt field.

About five hundred yards beyond them, a helicopter landed on the rough-plowed dirt. There were no business logos or identifying marks on the drab olive green exterior, not even a registration number. Private, and from the rust lacing around the rivets at the metal seams it didn’t look as if it could carry anyone more than a dozen miles.

Garin waved to the pilot as if he knew him. The pilot returned the wave and made a circling signal with his forefinger. Not much time. Hurry it up.

Ever curious, and not about to let Garin leave with whatever was in the cooler, Annja said, “Let’s do this.”

“This is not an
us
adventure, Annja.”

She saw his fist plow toward her and blocked it with her forearm.

“I’m going,” she protested, and twisted at the waist, bringing up her foot to kick his thigh.

The man returned an uppercut and skimmed her jaw. Before she could straighten and prepare for the next blow, the man’s iron fist found her gut. She doubled, expelling her breath in a painful clench of abdomen muscles.

“Sorry, Annja, stick to skeletons. This is my battle. The spoils are mine.”

Lifting her by the hair, Garin then punched her in the jaw, knocking her out. She didn’t feel the ground catch her body as she collapsed.

* * *

T
REKKING
ACROSS
THE
field, Garin knew Annja would be okay to leave behind. Even if the men in the cottage rallied and went looking for them, they’d have to deal with a warrior armed with a sword who was pissed off at being cut out of the deal by him. He chuckled to think of the fight those idiots had waiting for them.

He hadn’t a clue who the pilot was, or what was going on, but sometimes the best way to get anywhere was to blend in and act like you’re a professional. That ingenuity had gotten him into and out of more than a few perilous situations.

Garin climbed into the helicopter and buckled in. The pilot, wearing eye goggles and a headset, turned and gave him the thumbs-up. “We’ll land in Berlin in forty-five minutes. Buckle in!”

“Roger that.” Berlin. Taking him back home?

“Wasn’t there another?” the pilot asked. “I only have orders to pick up one, but I thought I saw—”

“Staying behind,” Garin summoned quickly. “Let’s head out!”

Apparently the pilot didn’t know the identity of the passenger he was to pick up. Good for Garin. Between his feet sat the white cooler.

For the first time, dread trickled down Garin’s neck, and that was a rare and ugly feeling. If all suspicions were correct, he didn’t want to look in the cooler.

They lifted off the ground, and soared into the gray sky, high above the pinpoint lights from the small town of Chrastava below.

Should have left Annja the keys to the SUV, he thought. Oh, well. She was an industrious woman. She’d find a ride back to town somehow.

* * *

T
HE
FLIGHT
BACK
to London was quiet, the plane dark and the few other passengers all reading quietly on their electronic devices or snoring. Weston Bracks closed his eyes but didn’t find sleep.

He expected Braden to pursue him, to come back at him with something bigger and better than the shipping heist. He had almost snagged a nice load of artifacts with that one. Braden’s security had been lax, easy enough to slip in a spy. Though he’d have to write him off as a loss. Surely, Braden had tortured the man to find out who was behind the theft.

The almost-theft, that is. Damned Syrian authorities had charged in at the last moment and overtaken the ship. Thankfully, Bracks’s men had been well trained. They’d shot the captain and, wearing SEAL wet gear, had deployed into the ocean. They’d rendezvoused with a pickup five leagues north.

A loss, but so long as Braden hadn’t gotten the goods Bracks was going to tally that one in the win column.

But what an interesting surprise to take care of business with the immensely fascinating Annja Creed and to have Braden walk in on that. And it seemed Braden and Creed knew each other.

How to figure that one? Was she working for him? Yet he’d thought the job in Chrastava had been completely unrelated to anything Braden was doing. One of their employees must be moonlighting with the other. And Bracks pinpointed Canov. He was the only one in the Czech Republic he’d dealt with lately. Could he also be on Braden’s payroll? Possible, always possible.

The fun had only just begun in Chrastava. He couldn’t pull out now. And to sit back and see how Creed and Braden worked together would prove fascinating. Was she someone Bracks could ultimately use against Braden?

“We shall see.”

* * *

P
ICKING
A
FEW
stray sunflower seeds out of her hair, Annja trudged back to the SUV by way of the red-brick cottage. The place was empty, the car they had originally followed gone. She peered in the windows, but didn’t see any bodies, which gave her some solace.

She rubbed her jaw where Garin’s fist had landed solidly. That was going to leave a bruise. The bastard. She had no clue where the helicopter had been headed, so she now stood at a dead end. And she’d tried Garin’s cell number. Of course, he wasn’t answering.

As she neared the SUV, she felt thankful the tires hadn’t been slashed, or the car trashed. But though the doors were unlocked, the keys were not inside. They were probably in Garin’s pocket eight thousand feet above the ground right now. They had driven a good ten miles out of Liberec. She didn’t look forward to the walk back.

Climbing through to the backseat, she folded down one side to get into the trunk. Shuffling around in the trunk, she lifted the floor mat and found an emergency kit. Inside she found a flat-head screwdriver, exactly what she needed.

Sliding onto the driver’s seat, and pressing a foot to either side of the steering wheel on the dashboard for torque, she forced the ignition lock out and inserted the screwdriver in the slot beneath. The engine revved.