One of the women turned over on the round bed, and Garin was so startled he nearly shot her through the head.
"Why are you calling me, Roux?" Garin asked. "The last time we talked, you swore that you'd kill me."
"I was angry with you."
Garin prowled around the room. If Roux wanted to invade his penthouse, Garin was certain the old man could do it. When they were partners all those years ago, Garin had seen Roux do some amazing things.
Shortly after that, the friendship was lost. Only a few years passed before the old man swore to kill him. That had been over four hundred years ago.
"Aren't you still angry with me?" Garin walked to the brocaded curtains covering the floor-to-ceiling windows that peered out over downtown Munich.
It was late. Or early morning. Colorful neon lit up the city. A jet roared through the night, the red-and-white lights blinking slowly.
"I am," Roux admitted. "But not enough to kill you. At the moment."
Garin stayed behind the curtains. It wouldn't have been hard to set up with a sniper rifle on one of the other buildings and shoot him.
"That's good," Garin said. "How did you get this number?"
"I read it in tea leaves."
Garin said nothing. He didn't believe it, but he supposed if that were possible, Roux was the one who could do it. Remaining as calm as he could, he fumbled in the dark for the pants he'd worn earlier, then pulled them on.
"Are you all right?" Garin asked. It felt strange asking that. On several occasions, some of them not so long ago, he'd hoped the old man would die.
In fact, he'd even sent two assassination teams after Roux to accomplish that very thing. Garin had never heard again from the mercenaries he'd hired.
"I'm fine," Roux said.
"You're drinking," Garin accused.
"A little." Roux slurred his words slightly.
"Not just a little. You're drunk."
"Not drunk enough." His voice somehow managed to carry the scowl over the phone connection. "I don't think I'll ever be drunk enough."
Garin paced the room with the pistol in his hand. Talking to Roux was impossible.
"What's happened?" Garin asked. He was surprised that he still wanted to know. But then, Roux was the only man in the world who really knew him.
"I found the sword,Garin. All of it. All the pieces. Every last one of them."
"You're sure?" Garin asked, not wanting to believe it.
"It's taken me over five hundred years to find them all."
A sinking feeling filled Garin's stomach. He tried to detect something different in his physical well-being, then felt comfortable that nothing had changed. But that wasn't true. Something had changed. The sword – her sword – had been found.
"You found the sword?" Garin sat in one of the overstuffed chairs in front of the floor-to-ceiling window. He edged the curtain open with the pistol barrel.
"I said I did, didn't I?"
"Yes." Garin didn't have to ask why Roux had called him with the news. Even though they were enemies these days, there was no one else in the world Roux could tell about the sword. "What happened?"
Roux paused, then whispered hoarsely, "Nothing. Nothing at all."
"Something was supposed to happen, right?" Garin asked.
"I don't know."
"Have we changed?"
"Nothing happened, Garin. The sword is just lying there. Still in pieces."
"Maybe you've missed one."
"No."
Garin stood and walked into the next room where the wet bar was. Chrome-and-glass furniture, looking somehow fragile and dangerous at the same time, filled the room. He put the pistol on the bar and fixed himself a tall drink. Roux's announcement had taken the edge off his buzz.
"Maybe the sword can never be put back together," Garin suggested.
"I know it can be."
Garin didn't argue with that. He had always been sure of it himself. "You're missing something," Garin said.
"Don't you think I bloody well know that?" Roux snapped.
"Yes." Garin sighed and took a long drink.
"That's why I called you."
That would be the only reason the old man called, Garin thought. "Tell me what happened."
He listened as Roux told him of the discovery of the last piece of the sword.
"The woman – the American – she was the one who found the last piece of the sword?" Garin asked when he'd finished.
"It was by accident," Roux insisted.
"Roux," Garin said in exasperation, "the earth openedup for her. Don't you find something significant about that?"
"I was there, too."
Garin sighed. He'd forgotten about the old man's ego.
"Who's to say the earth didn't open up for me?" Roux demanded.
"The sword didn't fix itself," Garin pointed out.
"Maybe it's not supposed to," Roux said suddenly. "Maybe I'msupposed to fix it. It's possible that it simply has to be forged once again."
Before Garin could suggest that perhaps being around a forge after drinking as much as Roux had wasn't a good idea, the old man hung up.
Garin's immediate impulse was to call back. He checked the caller ID. It was blocked. He left the phone on the bar.
He sat and drank. By dawn he'd thought up and discarded a hundred plans. But he knew he really had only two options.
One involved killing Roux, which would not have been the most intelligent thing he could do, given that the pieces of the sword had all been found and he didn't know what would happen next.
The other involved finding the American woman.
Neither option appealed to him. Both included the possibility that his life would change. At present, he was worth millions, owned companies and parts of corporations and did whatever he pleased.
He'd come a long way for a German knight's bastard son who had once been apprenticed to an old man who claimed to be a wizard.
It had taken all of five hundred years.
He finished his drink, picked up the gun again and went to take a shower.
Shortly after dawn, Garin was in his car and flying down the autobahn. He just hoped Roux wasn't setting a trap. The old man had never seemed to take any of the assassination attempts personally, but a person never truly knew.
Chapter 11
ANNJA WOKE FEELING refreshed but sore. A quick check of her e-mail and the newsgroups showed that Bart McGilley hadn't responded but there were twenty-seven hits on alt.archaeology.esoterica.
Nineteen of them asked for personal information, as if her age, sex and location had anything to do with the charm's images. Four solicited further information, but Annja didn't have any and suspected the authors just wanted to open a dialogue. Sometimes it felt as if alt.archaeology.esoterica were a lonely-hearts club for geeks. Two offered to do further research – for a price.
But Zoodio@stuffyourmomdidnttellyou.net wrote:
Don't know about the image of the wolf and mountain, but the other side – the stylized rain –
Curious, Annja looked at the images of the charm. She hadn't thought of the die mark as rain. She'd thought of braille at first, but the coin had been too old to use braille. That language for the blind hadn't even been invented at the time the charm disappeared in La Bête's cave.