13

Annja! I never knew. Great assets.

Annja clicked the Internet link in the e-mail from a fan. It landed on a page titled “Celebrity Skin.” And there was her head, capped by the boonie hat she wore for her biography picture. From shoulders down she was naked.

“Oh, no. Really?”

She clicked the picture and it opened a page devoted exclusively to her, listing all the episodes of Chasing History’s Monsters she’d hosted, the books she’d penned and her various guest spots on Letterman and Conan. Her picture took up half the screen.

Annja cringed and looked away from the screen, but like an accident scene, she couldn’t make herself look away from the carnage. “Those are not my breasts. Those just look so uncomfortable. This is not for real. Seriously. I’ve never posed nude in my life. And who would think I could do something like this? For that matter, who would do this to me?” Annja couldn’t keep her thoughts to herself.

Her first guess was the most obvious culprit. Doug? Her producer was prone to practical jokes, but he’d never do anything to damage her reputation. Of that, Annja was confident.

So who else?

She searched the site for a contact e-mail. That wouldn’t help. Annja felt sure the site would merely brush off her claims to false photographs, even if they knew the truth. Sites like this were rampant online. They likely knew the photos they featured were fakes.

Whose assets were those?

“Argh!”

She checked her watch. There was no time for tracking this down. It was an hour before Serge made good on his promise to kill her. He did know where to find her.

She wasn’t going to run scared. Serge was the only one who knew anything about the skull.

“Looks like this girl has another date.”

A GRAVEYARD WAS the last place Annja wanted to meet anyone. Even a friend. And Serge was no friend. But at the moment he was her only link to the skull’s origins, so she wouldn’t miss this meeting for the world.

Rather, she was assuming he knew about the skull. Why attempt to steal it if he didn’t?

And what about that sniper? Serge had mentioned a name. “Benjamin,” she muttered. “Ben who?”

Annja shivered. The temperature was a blistering fifteen degrees. The wind was whipping and she was walking into its teeth. The windchill must be chasing zero, she thought.

She should have dug out her long johns. It was prematurely cold for late November, but this was New York, after all. Six feet of snow could fall any minute now and it wouldn’t be odd. It wasn’t the Arctic, but New York could chill ’em with the best of them.

Before stumbling onto the “Celebrity Skin” site, she’d found a view of the Linden Hills Cemetery, and spent an inordinate amount of time playing with the street view function. It was so cool what a person could do online and with a mouse. Now if only they could get a live feed to do things like track down a sidewalk and walk into an area and look about in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view and she’d—well, she’d spend far too much time drooling before a computer monitor.

Clad in dark jeans and turtleneck, she tugged up the furry collar of her jacket and the hood around her head.

Perhaps she should have told Bart about where she was going today. But their dinner had been too cozy to spoil with business. And he’d left her feeling at odds about being a rebound girl. Not that he’d mentioned it, or had even been thinking about it. But she had. And much as she wanted to, she couldn’t tell him about her sword or the kind of danger it seemed to draw to her.

She had fled her place quickly this morning. Though straightened and clean, Serge’s intrusion had changed the feel of it. It was no longer her private retreat from the world, not while his threat was hanging over her.

Sure, she’d once had ninjas drop through the skylight and try to kidnap her. She’d returned later to find the sultan behind the scare had sent in a cleanup crew and he’d then later tried to seduce her. Weird stuff like that happened to her all the time.

But Serge was beyond weird. Disturbingly calm before the maniacal storm kind of weird. She had an aching wrist to confirm that. Had the guy purposefully wanted a piece of her? That treaded in stalker or serial killer territory. What would he do with a sample of her flesh and bone?

She didn’t want to imagine.

By seeing him this morning, she could confront him in the daylight, see that he was just a man, and know he couldn’t do her any more harm than he had already done. In a manner, she could take back the sanctity of her home and psyche all at once. Kill two birds, so to speak.

It was snowing again. More thick, heavy flakes. She preferred the downy stuff over the tiny sleety pebbles that made for nasty weather. Flakes collected on the grass surrounding the tightly spaced grave markers.

Annja pushed down the furred hood, and scanned the rows of tombstones. The graveyard was huge. A line of mausoleums stood south of her location. She expected Serge to pick the most out-of-the-way, least used area, maybe under some trees for privacy.

SERGE STOOD AT THE END of a long-neglected open grave sunk in around the four edges. The grave was half-filled with dirt. It could be dangerous to visitors, and had been marked off with orange cones that now lay in a pile tossed as far away as he could manage.

Open graves always came in handy.

The Creed woman stomped across the grass, her boots kicking up tufts of snow before her. Stomp wasn’t the right word. She was graceful, as she’d been when wielding that curious sword yesterday at her loft.

He still couldn’t believe he’d missed that when rummaging through her things. And then he’d forgotten to look for it before leaving.

Rangy, observant and confident, she appeared keener than the average woman. She was not the sort who preened and expected others to notice. She altered his equilibrium. It was hard to remain focused around her. She was different. Unafraid. Not like ninety-nine percent of the females in this world.

Fearless women fascinated him. There were many here in New York—especially on the subway—but none who had prompted him to look outside his own world and wonder about hers.

If he didn’t need to threaten her life, Serge imagined it might be a thrill to get to know Annja Creed.

She stopped thirty feet from him. Puffs of air fogged before her parted lips. She held out her arms to reveal she carried nothing. Not the backpack, nor could he see where she might have hidden the skull. Black leggings skimmed long legs. The jacket had many pockets, but it fit her body as if a second skin. A rim of fake fox fur on the hood dusted her ears and cheeks.

There was no three-foot-long battle sword in sight.

And no skull.

“Where is it?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I already told you I don’t have it. Can’t give you what I don’t have. Wouldn’t give it to you if I did have it.”

Clenching his leather-gloved fists, then releasing them, Serge calmed his anger. Nothing was ever accomplished out of anger. Or violence, for that matter. Yet, more often than not, violence was the only weapon capable of opening some minds to reality.

A reality Benjamin Ravenscroft had introduced to his life, damn that man.

“I thought my warning was clear,” he stated, jaw tight, more from the cold than tension.

“Crystal. But I can’t give you what I don’t have. Get that into your thick skull,” the woman said.

Obstinate and gorgeous. The combination tormented his need to remain stoic and alert.

“Speaking of skulls…” He paced to the grave head, hands crossed before him. He should have worn a hat. He didn’t like the feel of snowflakes dropping on his shaved scalp. But the snow had ceased melting and dripping down his face. The world was cold—like Benjamin Ravenscroft. “Have you learned more about what you claim not to have?”

“If I had, I wouldn’t tell you,” she said.

“So why did you come today, Annja?” He liked the feel of her name when he spoke it. It had Russian origins, he felt certain.

Stupid man, concentrate.

“To talk to you,” she replied. “To figure you out.”

She hooked her hands at her hips, matching him with a pacing stride. She was aware of his every movement, her body ready to dash, either into the fray or away from it.

He sensed she was more than a mere researcher who spent her days digging in the dirt. Yet he couldn’t figure out what experience on television could have taught her about self-defense or the fighting skills she’d used against him yesterday.

She was a well-rounded woman. Smart and capable of protecting herself. Unlike his family. They would never see it coming when the reality of Benjamin Ravenscroft came for them.

That was why he had to settle this matter and get the skull before Ben did.

“Is figuring me out so important?” he called through the crisp air.

“I’m a curious kind of girl, Serge. A guy breaks into my loft, then stabs me with some funky tool and it makes me wonder, you know?”

“How is the wrist?”

She stopped pacing. He saw the tiny wince she made at mention of the wound. It satisfied him. He was still in control.

“What the hell kind of weapon was that? You punched a hole right through me.”

“A specialty item. Necessary to my trade.”

He marveled inside as she wondered over that morsel of noninformation. She wasn’t a high-heels-and-lipstick kind of female. Not easily breakable. At least, not yet. He’d give it a go, if need be.

“Let’s quit with the banter,” she said. Flicking her gloveless fingers over her cheek, she swiped away a few snowflakes. “Why do you want the skull? And what is it, exactly?”

“So you have no clue. Good. It’s not information you require, Annja.”

Always be familiar with your enemy; it put them off guard. But was she really the enemy? he wondered.

Anyone who would keep from him what he most desired was definitely on the opposition.

“As for why I want it? Will you accept it means more to me than it ever could to you?”

“I’m an archaeologist. Old bones are like gold to us. And puzzling out their origins are the platinum sprinkles on top. If you’re not going to help me, then I can’t help you.”

He bit off the retort, But you would help if I did?

That was weak. He wasn’t about to cower to get what he needed. And this was more than a want; it was a need.

“Did you have anything to do with Marcus Cooke getting shot?” she tried.

The thief Ben had hired to obtain the skull. Serge had tracked him from the moment he’d landed in New York.

If a man thought to control him by threatening his family, then Serge made sure to keep a keen eye on that man. There wasn’t a move Ben made without Serge knowing about it. Mostly, he knew things like where Ravenscroft took his secretary for an after-work rendezvous, or at what clubs he entertained high-roller clients. Material bullshit.

But when Ben had returned from a trip to Venice and had gone to the Cloisters, a medieval museum in Manhattan, Serge had followed. He’d overheard Ben asking a curator about Sidon and a mythical skull rumored to be giver of all good things.

Could Ben possibly know what it would mean to Serge to possess the skull?

“I can honestly say I don’t know the man,” Serge offered. “The thief, that is.”

“But you knew the sniper?”

“Again, no. That surprised me, I must say. If someone was after the skull, why shoot the man carrying it and risk losing it?”

“That’s what I can’t figure out, either. So why were you there? How did you know Marcus had the skull, and who else is after it?”

“I thought I was the one asking the questions?”

She shrugged. “My bad. Looks like you hauled your ass all the way out here for nothing.” She scratched her head and looked at the grave markers. Puffs of breath condensed before her face. “Any family members you need to say hello to?”

“You do remember my threat, don’t you, Annja?”

“I’m not much for threats. They’re mostly hot air. Besides, if you’ve heard one threat, you’ve heard them all. And trust me, I get them a lot.”

“I sense that you do. Not the most agreeable woman, are you?”

She didn’t want to cooperate? Time to see how breakable she really was.

Serge kept a bowie knife tucked inside his coat, in a leather sheath right next to the bone biopsy tool. He did not draw it out.

This time, he wanted to see what she could do without weapons. She hadn’t brought a sword. It would be fist to fist. Or rather, fist to air, as his first strike was parried by a dodge from his opponent.

“What’s with you and beating on women, Serge?”

Light on her feet, she dodged another punch, and swung a return that connected with his jaw. But it wasn’t hard enough to make his head jerk.

“Violence is gauche,” he answered. “I would never harm a woman unless she disobeys a direct request.”

“Is that so? But taking core samples from people is cool with you?”

“As a matter of fact, it is.”

The heel of her boot soared through the air. Serge blocked the roundhouse with a forearm, and swung his other hand to grip her ankle. He twisted her leg, and she went down, her body spinning to land forearms and knees on the snow. But she was quick. Kicking back with her other leg, she managed to bruise the side of his knee.

Serge yelped.

The ground was slick with fresh-fallen snow. He teetered. His heel slid through the wet grass. In that moment, a kick to his ankle knocked him backward. It was humiliating to be felled by a female.

The woman landed on his chest, crouched and determined. She punched his jaw. Once. Twice. The third time, he clapped a hand about hers and kneed her in the gut.

With a ragged grunt, she spilled sideways and rolled across the snowy grass. The open grave lay nearby. She didn’t move. Had he knocked her out? Not from a gut kick.

A small storm aimed for his head was blocked with a fist. The snowball clattered against his elbow. Snow wet his face.

She no longer lay on the ground, nor stood in front of him.

A heavy rubber heel to the base of his spine stung and prickled through his extremities. Serge swung back, growling. He managed to clothesline her across the back of her shoulders.

He lunged and gripped one of her ankles. A hard heel crushed the side of his face. She went down, but gripped the front of his coat. He rolled over her, clasping her in an embrace as he did. Her face landed in the snow and she snuffled. A fist to her gut, right up under the lung left her motionless.

Jumping to his feet, Serge palmed the bowie knife.

Annja groaned and rolled to her back.

She was tiring. But he hated to see her brought to her knees when he was sure she didn’t have the skull. She must have handed it off to someone, or hidden it. And he wouldn’t be able to follow a dead woman. So he’d end this, but not completely.

Annja pushed onto her hands and jumped to stand. A fist to her sternum, right above the center of her breasts, put her back. She wobbled, sucking for the air the punch had stolen from her.

Working swiftly, Serge landed punches to her throat, her shoulder and her jaw. She spun, arms out and groping the air.

Striking her across the back produced an agonizing moan from the woman. She lost balance and fell forward, into the grave.

Working quickly, Serge kicked the dirt over her inert body.

“Sweet dreams, Annja Creed.”

WHILE HER MIND GREW heavy and her lungs took on the dirt’s muffling weight, Annja struggled with the idiotic situation. She’d let the man get the better of her again. And now he would bury her alive!

Why hadn’t she drawn the sword? The thought to do so had tickled her brain. And then Serge had smashed it with his fist. It was as if the sword was being fickle.

Serge still needed the skull from her. So what was his deal?

She’d landed facedown. The hard dirt froze against her flesh. Dirt crumbled on her tongue. Her chest ached from the forceful punch. The earth was icy cold and numbness already thickened her fingers.

Thought about worms crept in. Worms were just wrong. They were about the only thing that could make her get up from a dig and, shuddering, wander off for a deep breath.

They would not be so high in the soil this time of year, she thought hopefully.

Fingers curling, she clawed into the cold earth. The numbness reduced her efforts to futile movements. Lifting an elbow backward to drag through the dirt was difficult. There was little give.

A heavy thud of something landed on her back and squeezed her lungs. He was seriously burying her!

Eyes closed, because her face was flush with the earth, her ears popped. Being buried felt much like drowning. Not that she’d ever drowned, but she had survived a tsunami and was an excellent diver.

The grave had not been deep. Buried three feet under? This should be a piece of cake.

Cake sounded good right now. And what the hell was she thinking? Now was no time for dessert.

An inhale sucked dirt up her nose. She snorted and choked.

Stop panicking, she coached inwardly.

If her breathing accelerated, she’d use all her air. She had recently read about a man buried in thick mud who’d survived two hours through meditation, and a small pocket of air trapped in his hard plastic safety helmet.

No helmet here. And what little air that might have been trapped in her jacket had been crushed out on impact.

To release her next breath slowly, and concentrate on the careful movement of her fingers as they worked through the earth, brought sudden calm. Almost Zen, she stretched out a finger and curled it.

Could she do this? Mediate her way out?

Sound was muffled, yet her heartbeat pounded in her ears. And it was that frantic pace that made her realize meditation was for monks.

Her next intake didn’t enter her burning lungs. Stretching an arm, she thought she felt the dirt loosen. And then she felt…nothing. She’d broken through. The sheer joy of feeling the cold air on her palm ratcheted her anxiety and Annja choked, gasping for air.

When a hand slapped into hers and formed a tight grip, she was too happy to be fearful. She’d hug the bastard and then give him a taste of three feet of battle steel.

Pulled from an early grave, the dirt sucked at her limbs, wanting to pull her back, but relenting. When she was able, Annja toed the grave’s edge and stepped up. The hand released her.

She wobbled and her muscles gave way. Dropping, she landed a graceless, but sitting, sprawl.

Slapping away the dirt from her clothing, she sensed she’d find dirt in strange places later when showering. Almost as an afterthought, she looked up at her rescuer. She cursed.