Читать книгу Mystic Warrior - Alex Archer - Страница 11

4

The papers Dr. Vincent Orta possessed had a sketch of the scrying crystal. The drawing was on the fourth page of Julio Gris’s manuscript. The parchment was old and weathered, unevenly burned along one side, and had turned the amber hue of honey. All twelve sheets were hermetically sealed in individual plastic protectors.

Some of the ink had faded, but Orta had brought the lines back to clarity with a chemical treatment. Annja just hoped that the work hadn’t erased the hidden message she thought might be there.

She sat on a high stool at an architect’s desk in the university classroom Orta had opened for their use that night. He’d also taken the liberty of sending out to a Mongolian restaurant and had ordered enough so that Krauzer could join them for dinner.

Orta had been polite about the unexpected company, but he wasn’t overly friendly to Krauzer, who continued to be loud and obnoxious. The director didn’t notice the snub on Orta’s part, though.

“So that’s my scrying crystal?” Krauzer leaned over Annja’s shoulder to look at the page.

“I believe so.” Once she’d carried the crystal in, Orta had become as excited as she was, and he was just as certain it was the artifact described in Gris’s papers. Krauzer shook his head. “Nah. Doesn’t look anything like my crystal.”

Annja shot him a look. “It’s round. It’s glass. It has four flat spots on it. That,” she said, pointing the chopsticks at the glass ball, then at the drawing, “is this.”

“I don’t see it.” Thankfully, Krauzer’s phone rang and he turned away to answer it.

Orta shook his head. “That man’s an idiot.”

“I heard that,” Krauzer said.

“Good. I don’t have to repeat myself.” Orta heaved a sigh.

“So we’re in agreement?” Annja asked.

“Definitely. I can’t believe you found this.”

“I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t shown me these papers. Sometimes it’s like that. There are places all over the world where artifacts have sat in plain sight for years and no one knew what they were until they started investigating.”

“Do you know where Krauzer got it?” Orta asked.

“Not yet.”

Orta studied Krauzer. “He didn’t tell you?”

“He doesn’t know. He got it from a set designer. She’s out of town on a shopping spree somewhere in South America. I’ve sent emails, so hopefully, when she gets somewhere with internet access, she’ll have more information.”

“There’s not a bill of sale or something? No means of tracing this?” He shook his head in disbelief.

“Set designers collect from everywhere and often the objects sit in warehouses—or their homes—until they can find a movie to sell it to. They’re given a budget and, more or less, told to spend it. I’ve also discovered that sometimes the bills of sale are as fictitious as Hollywood. Tracking down where things actually came from can be difficult. Besides, we’re more interested in where this is going to take us. If we find out for sure what this is, we’ll figure out where it’s been.”

A rueful frown pulled at the corners of Orta’s mouth. “Where it takes you, perhaps. One of us still has classes to teach.”

That was true. Annja felt bad for him. She couldn’t imagine being trapped on a schedule without recourse to follow up on an artifact. “I appreciate you calling me in on this. And I appreciate dinner.”

“It’s the least I could do. I haven’t forgotten you agreed to take a lecture for me at some point.” Orta grinned. “That’s got me in pretty solid with the dean.”

“Well, let’s see if we can decipher what Julio Gris was protecting.”

* * *

“ARE YOU GOING to get me out of here?” Melanie Harp pulled at the oversize orange jumpsuit as she sat at the visitation window in the LAPD jail. “This place is horrible, Ligier. They’re treating me like I’m a criminal.”

She spoke in French because using the language made her feel special and because she didn’t want the guards and prisoners around her to listen in.

She ran her fingers through her hair and tightened her grip on the phone that connected her to the man on the other side of the bulletproof glass that separated them.

“I’ll get you out as soon as I can, baby,” Ligier de Cerceau replied calmly. He was always calm. That somber solidness was one of the things about him that had first attracted Melanie. When he was in LA, he was her rock.

He looked as if he was carved out of rock, too. He was six and a half feet tall and broad shouldered. His blond curls hung in disarray around his bronzed face, making his bright blue eyes appear startling. Amber stubble covered his square chin.

For the jail visit, he’d claimed to be her lawyer and had dressed the part: Italian suit, nice loafers, a high-end watch and a leather briefcase. Instead of softening him up, the suit made him look even scarier.

“Why can’t you get me out of here now?” Melanie thought she was going to start crying again. Getting fired from the movie was bad. Getting locked up was bad. But there was nothing like coming down cold from an addiction. She was already covered in sweat and she was freezing. She felt as if her insides were about to explode.

“Because they haven’t charged you. Once they charge you, I can get you out.”

“Promise?”

“Sure, baby.”

De Cerceau blew Melanie a kiss and she felt a little better.

“Now tell me about this glass ball you had.”

“I already sent you pictures of it.” Melanie didn’t know what he wanted out of the prop. She wouldn’t even have stolen the stupid thing if he hadn’t told her to. It had been his idea for her to take it after she’d gotten released from the picture. He’d even flown back in from...wherever he’d been before he got back to LA. He didn’t always tell her his business, and she liked that he could be so mysterious. Just ride into town and sweep her off her feet. He’d told her he’d seen her in Fifty Hues of Indigo and had fallen in love with her. That had been so romantic.

“I got the pictures, baby, but I’d like to know a little more about the ball.”

“Why?”

He grinned at her the way he did that drove her crazy, and then he leaned close to the window. “Because I thought I’d steal it back for you, have it for you by the time you get out tomorrow, and we could make the studio pay to have it returned. That way you still get severance and a nest egg until you get a serious role.”

Melanie hesitated even though he always knew just what to say to her. “That’s what we were going to do the first time. That didn’t work out so well.”

“If I’d been here, things would have gone better—you know that—but I couldn’t be here until now. I came as soon as I could.” De Cerceau shrugged. “Besides, this time I’m going to take that director, too. Make the studio pay to get them both back. That way your nest egg will be even bigger.”

A bit of hope and excitement dawned in Melanie, curbing some of the monster that was struggling to get free inside her. De Cerceau was so good at providing for her. She was lucky she’d met him and he loved her so much. “That sounds awesome.”

“Where can I find Krauzer?”

“He’s probably with that woman. Annja.” Melanie struggled to think, but it was hard to do while she was sitting there sweating and freezing. “She’s a consultant Krauzer brought in. But she’s tricky, too. She knocked out Barney and made it look easy.”

De Cerceau smiled at her. “I’m not Barney.”

“I know.” Melanie smiled at him. “I just want you to be prepared.”

“Do you know what hotel she’s staying at?”

Melanie shook her head, but the motion only made her head ache. “No.” She thought some more because de Cerceau looked disappointed in her. “Wait. I know where she might be. She made Krauzer promise to let her examine the scrying crystal.”

“Why did she want to do that?”

“I overheard her talking about the crystal to some professor at SoCal.” Melanie dug for the name. It had sounded like some kind of whale... “Orta. He’s a professor of history or something. While we were waiting for the police to get there, she talked to him and asked if they could swing by tonight.”

“They’re going to the university?”

“Yeah.”

A frown crinkled de Cerceau’s eyes.

“Is something wrong?” Melanie asked.

The frown went away and he shook his head. “Nothing, baby. You don’t worry about anything. I have to be going, but I’ll see you in the morning. Just remember, don’t say anything to anyone until you hear from me.” He hung up the phone and blew her a kiss.

She mimed catching the kiss and smiled at him.

When he was gone, she felt completely empty.

She got up and followed the guard back to her cell.

* * *

OUTSIDE THE JAIL, Ligier de Cerceau walked toward the waiting dark blue Mercedes-Benz sedan. The driver got out, opened the back door and allowed de Cerceau inside.

“Thank you, Gerard.”

“Of course, Colonel.” Stocky and well dressed, Gerard Malouel was, like his employer, former Brigade des Forces Spéciales Terre.

As such, they’d served in the French army’s special forces unit. Both had undertaken missions in Operation Heracles in Afghanistan. That was where de Cerceau had discovered how much money could be made finding and selling relics. He and the core of his team—then and now, after they’d gone into business for themselves—had stumbled across a group of relic hunters, killed them and found out what the items they were smuggling out of the country were worth.

That discovery had been life changing. These days de Cerceau still did mercenary work, but he made a lot of money dealing in artifacts, as well. He didn’t care anything for antiquities, but he liked the money collectors of those things would pay for pieces they coveted.

Gerard slid behind the steering wheel. “Where to, Colonel?”

“The University of Southern California.”

Gerard pressed buttons on the GPS as he pulled out of the parking area and onto North Los Angeles Street. “Did everything go well with the woman?”

“She’s going to keep her mouth shut for a while, but she’s suffering from drug withdrawal.”

Gerard considered that for a moment. Then he shifted in his seat. “That doesn’t make her sound very trustworthy.”

“She’s not.” De Cerceau checked his email on his phone and discovered a new text from SEEKER4318. He didn’t know who was behind the name, but the man paid well and on time. He was new to de Cerceau, but he’d been vouched for by a past buyer.

SEEKER4318: Retrieve the object and I will happily pay you the amount we discussed.

De Cerceau responded, I will have it in my hands soon.

“Do you know anyone who can arrange something for Melanie?” de Cerceau asked.

“The women’s section of the jail can be a little harder to set up than the men’s, but I’m sure I can find someone. There are plenty of violent women in jail, and some of them are more cold-blooded than their male counterparts.”

De Cerceau agreed. In his business, he’d dealt with many dangerous women. “Get it done as soon as you can. I don’t want her talking to anyone and complicating this.”

Gerard nodded and pulled out his smartphone.

De Cerceau occupied himself with organizing a team for the USC part of the operation. He also wondered who Seeker was. The man had responded immediately when Melanie had posted pictures of the scrying crystal on the internet.

Glancing outside the tinted window, de Cerceau watched downtown LA speed by him, waiting for the call to be picked up at the other end.

* * *

WITH THE HARD-DRIVING sound of the Sex Pistols reverberating off the walls in the next room, SEEKER4318 stared at the young woman lying bound and gagged on the motel bed. Excitement thrilled through him as it always did when he had a woman helpless before him.

This one was in her mid-to late twenties and was trim and athletic, strong enough and quick enough to make kidnapping her in the parking lot of her apartment building difficult. But he’d watched her for weeks, and he’d known her schedule. All he’d had to do was lie in wait with a stun gun and grab her when she fell. He hunted regularly, but after finding out about the glass ball made by Julio Gris, he’d accelerated his schedule.

He needed a kill to calm himself.

The panicked woman struggled on the king-size bed. Usually a victim’s attempts to escape would have excited him even more.

But his anticipation was blunted. The news from de Cerceau gave reason to be hopeful that Julio Gris’s Key of Shadows would soon be in his hands. Everything else paled by comparison.

He sat beside the woman on the bed but didn’t try to touch her. Even still, she managed to push herself away a few inches.

“Don’t worry,” he told her and smiled. “I’m not going to defile you. I’m not interested in that. Do you know what heruspicy is?” he asked.

She didn’t say anything, due to the gag, but he liked the sound of his own voice.

“Do you believe in fortune-telling? Ever read your horoscope and tried to see if the day was going to go as it predicted? Surely you’ve done that.”

Cautiously, the woman nodded. Tears tracked down her face, and he knew she was trying to please him. He didn’t like when they did that. He wanted hopeful fighters, women who denied their own mortality even when it stared them in the face.

“Ah, you have read your horoscope?”

She nodded but didn’t try to talk through the gag.

“Sometimes they come true, you know.”

Shaking, she nodded again.

“Well, heruspicy is a lot like that. It’s a way to foretell the future. The Romans practiced it. But you still don’t know what it is, do you?”

She shook her head.

“It’s the practice of slitting open a sacrificial creature and reading its entrails. You do know what entrails are, right?”

The woman knew.

Frantic, she struggled against her bonds again but only ended up exhausted. SEEKER4318 allowed her to fight because she would tire herself out and that would make her easier to deal with in the end.

Finally, drained, panting for breath, the woman lay in a quivering mass on the bed. Nobody had heard the noise she’d made while struggling over the blaring punk music in the next unit.

Anxious to see what the future held, SEEKER4318 plunged his dagger into the woman’s stomach and ripped up through her breastbone. Blood poured onto the bed in a pulsing waterfall. Placing the knife to one side, SEEKER4318 pulled apart the wound he’d created and took out two handfuls of the woman’s insides for inspection.

He felt even more optimistic.

The Key of Shadows and the treasure of the Merovingian kings would be his soon enough.

All the signs pointed to a good resolution of his present problem.