Rogue Angel 53: Bathed in Blood (6 page)

“Ha!” she said, as if Garin could hear her back in Munich.

Annja then called up the photos she’d taken in the morgue office and searched them for the phrase. She found it on page four, and in the box next to it were the words
strata krvi
.

Another query into the online translator and she sat back, staring at the words blinking at her from her computer screen.

Blood loss.

There were several lines of notes directly beneath, no doubt giving more details, but try as she might she couldn’t get the translation to make any sense. The words weren’t all that clear in the photograph and without any real knowledge of the Slovak language all she was doing was guessing at what some of the words and letters might be. The translation software was kicking back nonsense as a result.

She sat there, tapping her fingers on the tabletop. Then, with a sigh, she turned and picked up her phone once more. She hit the redial button and waited for Garin to answer.

He picked up before it finished ringing the first time.

Of course.

“A weekend of skiing with me at my chalet in Switzerland,” he said.

“Lunch at the Mall of the Americas in Bloomington, Minnesota.”

She couldn’t think of a more innocuous place. It would drive Garin completely nuts.

He was far from finished with his bargaining, however.

“An overnight visit at my home here in Munich. Pajamas optional.”

Right
.

“Dinner in Paris at Roux’s, with Henshaw as chaperone.”

Garin sputtered indignantly. “Roux’s? Henshaw? Are you mad, woman? I’ve already spent more years than I care to count under that senile old man’s thumb, and his
manservant
—” Garin said the word the way someone else might say
the plague
or
hemorrhagic fever
“—is even worse than he is.”

Annja had him and she knew it.

“Fine. Last offer, take it or leave it. Dinner in New York at a restaurant of my choosing.”

“And a nightcap at that charming little flat of yours in Brooklyn?”

“Dinner. That’s it,” she said.

“Fine.”

Garin’s tone was one of annoyance, but Annja had learned to detect the subtleties in his voice, and she thought he was secretly pleased.

She had to admit she was, too. A little. At least she’d get a first-class meal out of it.

“The woman died of blood loss.”

“I already know that! What do the notes beneath the cause of death say?”

Garin was silent for a few moments as he puzzled it out. “Whoever wrote this has the handwriting of a child,” he said at last.

And you’ve got the disposition of one, Annja thought.

“A few of the words are hard to make out, but for the most part the notes appear to deal with the excessive blood loss the victim had undergone prior to dying.”

“Excessive?”

“That’s what it says. Apparently he didn’t have to drain the fluid from the body before beginning the autopsy. He found two large puncture wounds in the thigh close to the femoral artery and surmises that the blood loss was a result of these injuries.”

Annja knew the human animal was tenacious, that it would fight for its life with tooth and nail if necessary, and that sometimes—not often, but sometimes—people could cling to this world by the narrowest of margins, refusing to give in to that creeping darkness that waited to swallow them whole. But to remain alive with only the barest amount of blood left in the body? That went beyond tenaciousness, verging instead on the miraculous.

So says the woman carrying the mystical sword of a long-dead saint, Annja thought with a wry shake of her head.

One thing was clear: this had been no accident.

“Is that it?” she asked.

“Yes. So where shall we dine? I’m thinking perhaps...”

“Thanks, Garin, you’ve been really helpful. I’ll call you about dinner. Bye for now.”

She hung up the phone before he could say anything more. Annja knew he wouldn’t call her back; his pride wouldn’t let him. She would have to deal with him sooner or later, but for now, later was just fine.

She stood there, pondering what she’d just learned. It seemed clear that the woman had been the victim of a vicious attack. Maybe the killer was trying to tie his activities to the legend of the Blood Countess to earn greater notoriety. All hell was going to break loose when the press learned that the victim had been drained of most of her blood. If Annja was going to find justice for this woman, she needed to stay ahead of all that.

The first priority was finding out just who the victim was. Hopefully the woman’s identity would lead to the killer.

The police hadn’t been able to identify the victim through fingerprints or dental records, so she must not have been in trouble with the law. Nor had she applied for work with any government agency or any major corporate firm. Given that Nové Mesto was one of the larger communities in the area, it seemed likely that the woman had not come from the city but from one of the smaller, rural towns nearby.

Like Čachtice.

Best to start there, Annja thought as she headed for her car.

10

Annja had learned that crimes were not usually solved by brilliant deductions or leaps of logic in the style of Sherlock Holmes but by the slow and steady accumulation of information. Like archaeologists at a dig site, sifting through layers of dirt to get to the artifacts buried by the passage of time, so, too, do detectives sift through the evidence to find out who committed the crime and why.

She knew the police were hoping someone would see the press conference, recognize the woman’s picture and call to tell them who she was. But that could take days, maybe even weeks, and Annja was convinced the killer would strike again, and soon. Better to act now than to wait for information to come in on its own timetable.

When Annja arrived in the village of Čachtice, she parked in the town square. Taking the photograph of the dead woman with her, she began knocking on doors, asking those who answered if they knew the woman in the picture.

She had spent some time with her English-Slovak phrasebook and memorized a few key phrases, such as “Do you speak English?” and “Have you seen this woman?” Combined with the words for “yes” and “no”—
ano
and
nie
, respectively—Annja had all the Slovakian she needed to make a little headway into the subject of the murdered woman should anyone be willing to talk with her.

Unfortunately, she soon discovered that they weren’t.

Time and time again Annja would knock on the door and be greeted pleasantly enough by the home owner, only to have that same individual shake their head and withdraw the moment she pulled out the victim’s photograph. Several times those of the older generation took one look at the picture and gave her the sign of the horns to ward off evil—a hand gesture formed by extending the index and little fingers while holding the ring and middle fingers down with the thumb—before slamming the door in her face.

Annja put their reactions down to their not wanting to talk about the dead with a stranger, but she had to admit to a certain amount of unease each time it happened. She knew it was crazy, but it still made her wonder just what these people knew that she didn’t. The hairs on the back of her neck would stand at attention every time they forked their fingers at her.

She wandered down street after street, knocking on every door she found but getting nowhere. It was long past dark by the time she decided to call it quits. Tired from being on her feet all day and frustrated at the lack of results, Annja headed back to her car. She glanced over her shoulder and thought she saw something duck out of sight behind one of the buildings about thirty yards away.

Probably just a dog, she thought, and kept walking.

But after a few more minutes an itch began to form between her shoulder blades. She’d had the feeling often enough to know what it meant. Someone was watching her.

She stopped, turned and scanned the road behind her.

It was empty.

Or, at least, it appeared so, but Annja knew it wasn’t. She might not be able to see whoever was back there watching her, but she could feel the weight of their stare.

Nothing about it felt friendly, either.

Annja turned back and continued on her way, her thoughts churning along at a furious pace as she analyzed the situation.

The streets were deserted at this hour, since the rural residents of this community synchronized their lives with the rise and fall of the sun. The road she was on was lit only by dim lamps spaced about a hundred yards apart, creating large stretches of shadow that were dark enough to hide anything.

To get to her car, which was still at least half a mile away, she was going to have to brave that gauntlet and hope whoever was behind her didn’t catch up before she reached the safety of the rental.

A head start would be nice...

And she knew just how to create one.

She looked back over her shoulder, betting that whoever was following her would duck out of sight, just as they had before. Her guess proved correct; she caught the barest flash of movement as her tail slipped behind a parked car.

It was the break she was looking for.

The moment her tail went to ground, Annja took off running, the hard rubber soles of her boots pounding out a rhythm against the blacktop. She pumped her arms as she ran, wanting to put as much distance between herself and whoever was behind her as she could before they discovered she’d played them.

Five yards.

Ten yards.

Twenty yards.

She was starting to think her imagination had been running wild when there came a shout from behind her, followed quickly by one—no, two—sets of footfalls pounding the pavement in her wake.

Apparently whoever was back there wasn’t alone.

Things were about to get interesting.

Annja thought about running to the nearest door and pounding on it while yelling for help, but she decided against it. Who knew how long it would take for someone to answer. Given the reception she’d received earlier, she wasn’t confident anyone
would
answer her pleas.

She had no idea what those chasing her wanted, but if they were willing to go through this much trouble to catch up to her, then it probably wasn’t good.

Better to try to increase the distance between them while looking for other options.

So move it, girl! she told herself.

She tucked her head down and ran.

The street she was on was entirely residential, but she remembered some shops and a restaurant or bar about four blocks away. If she could reach that area ahead of her pursuers, she could slip inside one of the stores and ask for help. The men following her might be happy to chase her down under the cover of darkness, but she doubted they’d do the same once she was in the light.

She passed beneath one of the streetlamps and kept going, counting silently. When she reached ten she chanced a look back and was just in time to see two large figures sprinting through the glow of the lamp.

The two men were gaining on her.

Annja was a good runner, and her strength and speed had seemed to be slightly enhanced when she’d taken possession of Joan’s sword, but even that extra edge wasn’t going to be enough, she realized. She’d been walking the streets for hours and was already tired before this chase began. She wouldn’t be able to maintain her short head start for very long, not if those behind her were fresh and in reasonably good shape. If she was going to escape, she needed to outwit them rather than outrun them.

With this in mind, Annja cut right, down the next street she came to, raced ahead and then turned left at the next corner. She was still headed in the same direction, but she hoped that by breaking their line of sight she might encourage them to give up the chase. If they were just random thugs, they might decide the rewards weren’t worth the effort now that she was on to them.

On the other hand, if they persisted, she’d know she probably wasn’t just some random target.

A dog barked suddenly and lunged at her from behind a fence nearby, but she ignored it and raced on. Moments later she heard the dog do the same thing at the men tracking her.

She could hear her boots striking the pavement as she ran, no doubt alerting her pursuers to where she was, and wished she could stop and kick them off. But if she did, they’d catch her.

Another street, another change of direction, her heart pounding in her chest and her breath coming out in short gasps. The initial adrenaline rush was starting to wear off and she was feeling the effects of spending all day on her feet. Thankfully she was closing in on her destination, and she began to think she might make it. She could only hear one pair of footsteps behind her now and hoped the second man had dropped out of the race. One person would be much easier to deal with.

A group of parked cars loomed to one side and she desperately wanted to stop and see if any of them might be unlocked but she didn’t dare. Stick with the plan, she told herself. Almost there.

As she passed the final two cars she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. Annja looked that way just in time to see a dark figure rise up from between the vehicles and lunge toward her.

Annja reacted instantly, her actions honed by years of practice with and without the sword. She swung her arm out beside her in a classic martial arts blocking maneuver, fist clenched and forearm tight, knocking her assailant’s arms away from her before he could grab hold. The move exposed the side of her attacker’s head as his body was pushed in a semicircle by the force of her blow.

The voice of her first martial arts instructor suddenly echoed in Annja’s head.
The best defense is a good offense. Strike and then strike again.

Annja took that advice.

She could smell oil and grease—mechanic, maybe?—as she continued her spin, lashing out with the elbow of her other arm, slamming it into the side of her assailant’s head with all the force she could muster.

The man grunted in pain and doubled over, only to have his face collide with Annja’s right knee as she brought it up toward him.

There was a dull crack as his nose, or perhaps his cheek, broke with the impact.

That was enough; the would-be attacker dropped between the cars like a wet sack of laundry.

Annja’s breath was heavy in her ears as adrenaline flooded her system, but that didn’t prevent her from hearing the sound of running feet coming from the darkness behind her.

Now the odds were in her favor, however, and she was tired of running. It was time to take a stand.

She reached into the otherwhere and drew forth her sword, the blade gleaming in the darkness as the moonlight reflected off its surface. She swung the sword in front of her, making it clear that she knew how to use it.

“Come on!” she shouted into the darkness. “Let’s see what you’ve got!”

The running footsteps slowed and then stopped.

Annja turned directly toward the sound and thought she could see a figure standing in the shadows about ten yards away. She took a few steps in that direction, sword held high, and that was enough to convince whoever was out there that discretion was the better part of valor.

Her assailant turned tail and ran off without a word.

Annja watched him go until he was out of sight.

Then, and only then, did she release her sword back into the otherwhere.

Her first assailant was still unconscious, which was good since Annja wasn’t all that delicate when she dragged him a few yards up the street and into the circle of light from the nearest streetlamp.

He wasn’t much to look at—just a bullnecked thug dressed in oil-stained coveralls and a pair of work boots. Annja quickly searched him, hoping to find some ID, but came up empty-handed. That alone didn’t mean anything—people left their wallets behind all the time—but given that the duo seemed to have been following her, Annja took it as a sign the entire encounter had been planned ahead, right down to the lack of identification should one of them be waylaid in the process.

That suggested something larger at play than a simple robbery or sexual assault.

So now what? She didn’t relish the thought of sitting in the police station all night while filing assault charges, especially when it was going to come down to a “he said, she said” situation. The cops would see that her assailant had come down on the wrong side of the situation, and they might even try to press charges against her if the “victim” came to and started spinning a story about getting attacked by a crazy woman who knew karate.

That, she didn’t need.

In the end she decided an anonymous phone call to the police about two drunk men fighting in the street would be best. When they arrived, they’d find her assailant unconscious, assume he’d gotten the short end of the stick and throw him in the drunk tank overnight for good measure.

Annja propped the unconscious man against the lamppost, made the call to the authorities and then continued down the street.

Five minutes later she reached the restaurant/bar—perhaps
tavern
would be a better word—she’d been running toward and decided that after the day she’d had, she deserved a drink.

She pushed open the door and stepped inside.