Rogue Angel 50: Celtic Fire (23 page)

Chapter 47

“Hello, Awena,” Annja said as the young redheaded woman emerged from the lane alongside the school. There had been a long moment where she worried Awena wouldn’t arrive. It had been a gamble, because once she got here it was impossible not to see the radio broadcast had been a hoax.

Awena stared at her, clearly confused.

She fumbled with the sacking, until the hilt of Gerald of Wales’s sword was exposed. She grasped it. Smoke filled the air as the sacking began to smolder and shrivel away from the blade as it responded to her touch.

Awena screamed and scythed the air with the blade, showering Annja with the last few scraps of burning rag.

Annja rocked back on her heels, the tip of the blade slicing though the air a whisker away from her cheek. She didn’t so much as flinch. She reached out with her right hand and smiled. “I’m really glad you did that, Awena,” she said as Joan’s sword crystalized in her grasp. “Now, that should even things out.”

She took the next swing on the sword, the impact shivering down the length of the blade. Flames and sparks cascaded as the two swords made contact; Annja felt the full force of the blow through her shoulder. She grunted and winced as her injured arm took the brunt of the attack.

Awena was stronger than before, faster, and obviously more in tune with the sword’s power. That was how it had been for her, too, back when she’d first drawn Joan’s blade. She’d felt the sudden rush of strength flow through her veins and not been able to control it. It had taken time to contain it, to master the weapon and learn how to turn it on her enemies. Awena was obviously a fast learner.

That wasn’t good.

She came at her again, driven by a rage that burned so furiously bright inside her the sword seemed to blaze twice as blue in her grasp. Annja barely held her off, blocking high, twisting her wrist and trying to yank the blade out of Awena’s hands, only for the woman to sweep her feet out from under her. Annja hit the ground hard and rolled, coming up to her feet again before the woman could press the advantage. She was breathing hard, the flame dancing spectrally across her face as she moved. The entire street was silent but for the clash of steel.

Annja backed up under a fresh assault, hoping the woman was too far gone to realize she wasn’t fighting back, just holding her off. The longer she kept her here in the street, the less chance she had of getting into the town before the prince arrived. It was as simple as that. Someone in the row of houses overlooking the schoolyard would see and call 999.

All Annja had to do in the meantime was stay alive, which for one treacherous second looked in doubt. Awena leaped, launching a spinning roundhouse kick that slammed into Annja’s jaw and sent her sprawling, the sword skittering away across the yard as she lost her grip on it.

Awena came in, running, sword raised.

Annja rolled over and rammed her hand upward, fist closing around the sword as it reappeared in her hand.

Awena Llewellyn barely avoided being impaled on it.

She stood there, gasping for breath and staring at the sword that had impossibly reappeared in Annja’s hand.

“Don’t make me kill you,” Annja said.

“You killed my father.”

“It was an accident.”

Sword clashed against sword again, metal against burning metal. The blaze threatened to blind Annja with each sweep and cut as the swords came together close to her face.

Awena was relentless.

There was a difference this time, though. The rage that Awena had harnessed when they’d faced each other in her father’s study was missing. She was more controlled. Less erratic. But that meant she was more containable, too. Maybe that would change if Annja backed her into a corner and gave her no choice but to fight for her life. As it was, she still had the illusion of control, the choice of flight. But that couldn’t last.

Roux’s request that she shouldn’t be hurt if possible rang inside Annja’s head.

It was easier said than done.

She needed to get the sword out of the woman’s hands.

Awena backed up a step, then another as Annja moved onto the front foot. She dropped her shoulder and whipped in a quick low swing toward her ankles, which had Awena darting another few feet. Annja pressed the attack, bringing her sword up fast in a vicious arc that would have gutted Awena if she hadn’t managed to bring the burning blade to bear in time. As it was the sword shrieked in protest and, for one heart-stopping second, felt as though it was going to shatter beneath the sheer ferocity of Annja’s strike. But that scream only intensified, and Annja realized the blades had long since ceased to resonate and the scream came out of Awena Llewellyn’s mouth.

It was a bansheelike howl that sent shivers to her very core.

The swords broke apart and Annja staggered away.

She’d backed Awena into the mouth of the narrow lane running parallel to the yard. She followed her.

“Come on, Awena. It’s over. Give me the sword and go back home to your brother. It doesn’t have to end badly.”

“Are you scared? You should be. I owe you for my father’s death. Blood for blood. I’m going nowhere,” she said. Backing down the path, she waved the sword in front of her to keep Annja at bay.

Just keep her talking,
Annja thought. That made her less of a threat. Maybe she could talk her down...

The burning sword brushed against the dry leaves of a bush that encroached on the alley and sent a shower of burning leaves into Annja’s face.

She was sure that Awena hadn’t done it deliberately, but the woman was smart. It didn’t take her long to realize she could use the fire and dry foliage to her advantage.

Another shower of sizzling leaves came at her as Awena slashed forward through the bushes. Annja stayed back. Another cascade of leaves and smoldering ash filled the air, Awena’s sword rising and falling slash after slash, until the low-hanging branches of several trees lining the narrow path were ablaze. The flames crackled and spat, spreading with alarming speed as they fed on the brittle vegetation.

Annja sliced through the burning vegetation with her own sword, bringing a mass of it crashing to the ground. It wasn’t enough to stop the spread of the fire, and it blocked part of the path. She hacked at the overhead branches again, but it was obvious there was nothing she could do to stop the fire.

She really hated fire.

It made her skin crawl.

It blazed in her darkest, deepest nightmares.

She could feel its phantom heat bite into her flesh.

Annja rocked back on her heels and launched herself over the burning branches, and saw too late that Awena had spilled a blazing pile of cardboard across the pathway, which she came down in the middle of.

Raging flames licked out across the path. Through them, Annja caught a glimpse of Awena looking back over her shoulder as she bolted.

Flames tore at the asphalt-coated fence that separated the path from someone’s garden. The stench was foul. The rising heat battered her back. She felt the burning cardboard sear at her ankles, the heat coming up through the soles of her feet even as the branches overhead dripped fire down on her.

Getting through the cordon of fire wouldn’t be easy.

She tried to kick as much of the cardboard away from the fence and stamp the fire out even as more flames tore up the fence and raced down the path. The acrid smoke stung her eyes. She really felt it where her face was burned, as though the sores that had begun to scab the day before were opening up again to welcome the fire into her flesh.

She lashed out in frustration, but the flames battered her back.

Awena had used her time well, lining the alley with garbage and everything imaginable that would burn, knowing she might need a path of fire to make her escape.

Annja heard the sound of a car’s engine roaring into life.

Dizzy and reeling, she staggered away from the flames back toward the mouth of the alley.

Coughing and spluttering, she emerged by the school gates. The fire raged behind her. There was every chance it might make the leap from the trees to the roof of the school if the wind picked up.

She fished her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed 999. “Fire,” she said when the operator asked her which service she required. She read the name of the school off the sign beside the gate and explained that the entire alleyway running beside the schoolyard was ablaze. She could hear the wail of the sirens before she hung up.

She’d parked the Porsche in a side street a little farther down the road, knowing Awena would recognize it if she saw it anywhere near the school. She started to run toward it, but even as she did the bright yellow car swept toward her, Roux behind the wheel.

She hadn’t even realized she was still running with the sword in her hand until she saw a woman standing in a doorway across the street staring at her. That was one reliable eyewitness report the police were going to have.
A woman with burn marks on her clothes and clutching a sword got into a new yellow Porsche driven by a white-haired old man and fled the scene of the fire, Officer.
You didn’t get many of those to the dozen.

“In,” Roux snapped, not stopping the car.

He slowed just enough for her to pull the door open and throw herself into the vehicle. She simply let go of the sword, knowing it would return to its one safe place in the otherwhere.

Even before she’d slammed her seat belt into place, Roux floored the gas and roared away, the engine complaining that the gear needed shifting in less than two seconds. The sheer force of the acceleration pressed Annja deep into the passenger’s seat. Awena may have had a couple of minutes’ head start on them, but the Porsche was chewing up the streets in seconds. As Roux ramped up through the gears, it was a matter of seconds rather than minutes before they were closing the gap on her fender.

“Roux, Roux,” Annja said as the Frenchman powered on remorselessly. “Roux, you’re going to hit her!” Visions of the mountain road and Owen Llewellyn’s car going over the barriers flashed before her eyes.

“Enough people have died over this sword. It ends here,” he said. She couldn’t tell if he intended to ram the car in front of them off the road or not. There was something deeply troubling about the intensity of his gaze as he stared straight ahead, foot flat to the floor.

He pulled out to overtake at the last second, shifted gear and accelerated, pulling up side by side with Awena’s station wagon.

A car horn blared frantically.

Annja saw almost too late that another car was coming around a bend ahead of them, hurtling straight toward them.

There was no chance it was going to be able to brake in time.

Fifty yards.

It was a sports car.

Forty.

Thirty.

Roux wasn’t stopping. He wasn’t pulling over. He was driving straight at the car bearing down on them.

“Roux!”

She grabbed the wheel and yanked it sharply, pulling the car across the front of Awena’s station wagon. The sudden move meant their momentum threatened to put the Porsche on its roof.

It entered a gut-churning three-sixty, tires screeching, Annja screaming as she braced for impact as the cars tangled in a type of spin with the oncoming car. One carrying the other around and around in an endless dance of rubber, glass and buckled steel.

When the car finally slowed into the final arc of its wild spin, she saw Awena’s station wagon had left the road and come to a halt at an angle with one wheel caught in a ditch.

Annja had released her seat belt and was out of the door even before the car had come to a complete halt. She sprinted toward the car as fast as she could. Smoke billowed up from the radiator grille.

She heard an ominous ticking coming from deep down inside the wrecked station wagon.

Chapter 48

“Awena!”

A strong smell of gasoline filled her lungs.

She grasped the door handle and pulled at it, but the door was locked or the impact had buckled it so much it wouldn’t open no matter how hard she pulled at it. The engine was still running and one wheel continued to turn even though it was off the ground.

“Awena,” she called out again, hammering on the glass.
“Get out of there!”

Awena was slumped over, barely stirring as Annja hammered on the window.

There was blood smeared on the inside of the glass where her head had hit it hard.

The air bag had deployed and the inside of the car was filled with the mist of propellant.

Annja banged on the glass frantically, but no matter how hard she did, Awena wasn’t coming around.

The first sign of a flame licked out from under the hood.

She knew that she had only moments to spare.

“Get back,” Roux called, running toward her.

The engine ticked alarmingly. The station wagon was seconds from bursting into flames; Annja knew that, but she couldn’t leave the woman to that fate. She couldn’t let her burn. No one deserved that. Ever. She had to get her out of there one way or another.

Without thinking about it, she reached into the otherwhere, her fingers closing around the reassuring grip of her sword as she pulled it into existence.

She stepped back and hit the rear window with the pommel. One single rock-hard blow with every ounce of strength she could muster behind it.

Glass flew in every direction, shards gouging into the fleshy parts of her hand even as she dropped the fabled blade and reached inside to unlock the driver’s door. She heaved it open. Awena gave out a groan and shifted. She wasn’t coherent. She wasn’t helping herself.

Annja pushed the air bag aside and reached across to release Awena’s seat belt.

As she did, Awena opened her eyes and reached out viper-fast, grabbing a tangle of hair and slamming Annja’s head against the steering wheel.

The impact filled her ears with ringing and left her blind and dizzy and reeling.

Somehow the clasp on the belt released and Annja lurched away from the car dazed and confused by the ferocity of Awena’s attack.

“Get out!” Annja shouted, clutching at the side of her head.

Part of her wanted to leave the woman there, let her pay for her crusade with her life just like her father, but Roux was right—too many people had died for this sword.

Annja stumbled forward again, determined to drag her out of the car even though Awena was still hell-bent on killing her.

She grabbed Awena’s arm and pulled her until she started to tip out of her seat.

Awena struggled against her, obviously in serious trouble.

The flames climbing out from under the hood grew higher and higher by the second, the explosion gathering, ready to blow. It could only be a heartbeat away. Two at most. Annja pulled with all of her might, and Awena tumbled out of the car. The sudden shift in balance betrayed Annja and sent her tumbling backward.

In an instant the woman was standing above her, half of her face covered in blood, eyes bulging with the effort of standing, screaming, the sword of Wales swinging down toward her face.

The air was filled with the sound of thunder that wasn’t thunder.

The explosion ripped through the car, tossing huge twisted metal parts of the frame into the air and down the street.

Awena fell on top of Annja, blown forward by the force of the blast, and inadvertently shielding Annja from the worst of it.

The world fell silent.

Annja struggled to push the woman off her, rising painfully to her feet. She could feel the heat of the fire against her face.

Frantically she looked around. She saw Roux running toward them. His mouth was opening and closing but she couldn’t hear anything.

She bent down to see if Awena was still breathing. The woman was stubborn. She clung to life every bit as tenaciously as she clung to the sword, but now its flames barely flickered along its length, dimmed as though in response to the strength and vitality leaking out of her body.

Awena shifted, and for a sickening moment Annja thought she was going to lash out with that damned sword, using her dying breath to take her down. Annja had had enough and instantly Joan’s sword was miraculously in her hand as Awena struggled to get to her feet.

It seemed impossible that Awena could survive the blast but then she had fallen out of a second-story window and walked away. She seemed capable of enduring any amount of pain. She lifted her sword once more, meeting Annja’s gaze head-on. But she couldn’t maintain the stance and sank to her knees even as the sword seemed to be spilling out of her hands. With one colossal final effort she drove the blade into the ground in front of her to act as a support and lowered her head.

Annja felt Roux’s hand on her shoulder.

It was over.

It had to be over.

The emergency services would be there soon. She could hear the sirens. It was the only thing she could hear. Faint. Muffled. The paramedics would give Awena all the help she needed. They had to pry the sword from her hands, but at least they weren’t cold, dead hands.

The woman’s mouth moved silently.

A smile spread across her face.

Annja saw someone walking toward them. The driver of the other car.

It was no random stranger; it was her brother, Geraint Llewellyn.

Enough of Annja’s hearing returned for her to hear him calling his sister’s name.