Rogue Angel - Restless Soul Part 19

Annja was happy to be free of the nightmare, but aghast at the reality that had replaced it. She was in the back room of the antiques shop, trussed up in an uncomfortable straight-backed chair, her wrists and ankles tied with an electrical cord that dug painfully into her skin.

The air was heavy with the residue of cigarette smoke and the papery scents of packing material. A blackened window was open a few inches and the odors of the garbage in the alley came in with the rain.

The older man with stooped shoulders was at the desk, the younger man hovering over him this time. They had her f.a.n.n.y pack and were studying her pa.s.sport, which was how they knew her name. The business cards she'd had in her f.a.n.n.y pack were crumpled on the floor at their feet. Her backpack sat nearby.

"She is the one," the younger man insisted, stabbing a finger at the pa.s.sport and then pointing at Annja. "I tell you, Kim. This Annja Creed from New York City is the one who killed Dak and Soon in the mountains."

The man leaning over her, Kim, struck her hard on the cheek with his fist. "Annja Creed of New York City. She is a long way from the United States of America, and a long way from our mountains. Why is she here in our shop?" The question was asked with so much force that his spittle peppered her face. "Why is she here, so far from the cave she had no business being in? And she has no business being here!" He dug his fingers into her shoulders, the pain competing with the ache in her cheek.

"She had our card, Uncle. See?" He pointed to the cards on the floor. "She had all of them."

"What are you, Annja Creed?" Kim's eyes were hot black coals burning into hers. "Are you a thief? Did you come here to steal from thieves, Annja Creed from New York City?" His command of English was excellent, but it was thick with an Asian accent and she had to struggle to understand some of his words. He grabbed at her arm and felt her muscles. "Are you security? Were you hired to recover some relic that had found its way into my shop?"

A piece of information she'd just gained. The man Kim was the owner of this antiques store, maybe of all the stores she'd had cards for.

"You are not police, Annja Creed. The police were here an hour ago and left us alone. What...are...you?"

When she didn't answer, he struck her face again and again. She tasted blood in her mouth and felt it spill over her lower lip. He'd loosened at least one of her teeth. Her tongue felt thick and swollen.

"What are you?" This time he hit her in the stomach.

"An archaeologist," she managed. "I am an archaeologist." She'd give him that much.

He made a rumbling sound and took a step back. Behind him, the men at the desk picked through her wallet and looked at her broken camera. She'd kept it rather than toss it, putting the memory card back in, thinking the camera sh.e.l.l would protect the card.

"I am an archaeologist," she insisted. "I was in the caves looking for the teak coffins." It was the truth, and her voice was steady in telling it. "On vacation, I went to the caves to see the coffins. That I found your...treasure...was an accident."

"Pfah! You expect us to believe that?" He balled both of his hands and swung at the air with so much strength she felt a breeze in front of her face. "What are you, Annja Creed? A special agent of some government?"

"The business cards were Dak's, Uncle. I recognize his handwriting. She must have taken the cards from Dak after she killed him."

Kim hit her in the stomach again. "I want to know just what you have learned about our...business, Annja Creed. I want-"

"She is trained, Uncle," the younger man cut in. "I saw her dance like Bruce Lee. She had a sword and-"

A cell phone buzzed, and Kim turned away from Annja and walked into the shop. He spoke quickly in Vietnamese, and then switched to English as if he was now talking to someone else.

"The police were here, Sandman, but I convinced them nothing was wrong. I am merely an antiques dealer who struggles to pay his rent. They came in the front and looked through the shop. They did not see the Jeep and the crates in it." He paused, obviously listening to the individual on the other end of the call. "I have a spy here," he continued. "One that I am making less pretty by the moment. One who discovered our operation."

Annja had to strain to hear him over the quiet discussion of the two other men. They were futilely trying to get her camera to work so they could call up the pictures she'd taken. A large fly buzzed around the older man's head.

"A woman, this spy. My nephew Nang says she was at the cave and killed Soon and Dak with a sword. Pfah! Nang said there were two other men with her, one dead. I will find out where the last one is, and then I will kill her. No loose ends, Sandman. I will take care of her, my old friend, and I will see you soon. Tell my father I will bring him that case of Singha lager he asked for, and-"

Annja didn't need to see her reflection to know that her face was bruising and swelling. Her legs throbbed and her feet were numb, the cord around her ankles tied too tight. She thrust the noises of the shop-Kim's conversation...he was on his second call now, and the snarls of the two men cursing over her broken digital camera-all to the back of her mind. Out on the street a car honked repeatedly, and she ignored that, too.

Instead, she closed her eyes and concentrated on her sword.

She reached out and felt the pommel form against her numb hands that were still tied behind her back.

She opened her eyes to see the men using a tool on her camera with some measure of success by their happy reactions. The sword held awkwardly behind her, she shifted her grip and turned it so the blade was against the cord and the pommel rested on the floor. She started cutting and almost immediately felt the circulation in her hands improve. The cords might have been strong, but they were like warm b.u.t.ter to the ancient blade. The cords fell to the floor, the men not hearing the slight sound because they were so preoccupied with an image they'd managed to call up on the viewer of the camera.

Annja brought the sword around in front of her, her sore shoulders practically screaming in protest at being moved. Then she cut the cord holding her ankles to the chair.

"Nang-" the older man warned the other. "She is-"

"Free!" Nang shouted. He tugged open the top drawer and reached inside it as Annja stood. She fought a wave of dizziness that threatened to spill her to the floor.

Her legs felt like lead, asleep, and her feet still were numb and clumsy, but she forced them forward, turning the blade as she went and striking the flat of it against the older man's side. He fell with the second blow, the wind knocked out of him.

Nang drew an old pistol out of the drawer, and with a shaky hand waved it at her. "Kim! She is free! Kim!" He fired, the shot going wild and ricocheting off the counter behind her. A second shot also missed.

Annja held the sword in one hand. The other shot out and grabbed the gun barrel, yanking it out of Nang's hand and hurling it toward the back door.

"Down!" she yelled.

He dropped to his knees.

"Down!"

He flopped to his stomach and laced his fingers behind his head like a thug in a police movie might. She would have knocked him unconscious, but she heard heavy footfalls and the squeak of old hinges. Kim had come back, his fleshy face contorted with rage.

"What are you?" he demanded.

She took a step toward him, both hands tight on the pommel, sword up perpendicular to the floor. The fly that had been pestering the old man had switched targets to Annja now. It landed on her arm and she wriggled to chase it away.

"What are you? A demon?" He retreated into the shop, and she rushed after him. "Where did the sword come from?"

In the light that filtered in through the smudged front windows and seeped in from the back room, she made out tall elaborate urns; statues of long-legged birds with wings tucked close to their sides; old swords on a rack with dingy, ta.s.seled guards; and graceful ladies in painted gowns that pooled around their bases. The shelves were narrow and filled with ceramic figurines that looked delicate and valuable, and old.

She spotted Kim ducking behind a shelf filled with terra-cotta pieces that could have come from a dig.

The rest of the details were lost in the shadows and in her hurry to catch the man.

26.

Faint sounds indicated Kim was making another call. "Get here now!" he whispered to someone. Then he snapped the phone closed and turned down another aisle.

Annja stalked him, brushing by a lamp styled after an old Tiffany. The shop apparently carried an a.s.sortment from different places and time periods. How much of it was authentic? And how many pieces were forgeries and knockoffs...if any? The antiquities she'd seen in the cavern had certainly been real.

She didn't hear him anymore, but she saw his shoes at the base of a unit of shelves. He'd taken them off to be quiet. A smart, vile man. He'd moved quietly behind her before to clock her on the head without warning. She studied the statues against the wall, looking for one that might be breathing; it would be a good place to hide.

Nothing. They looked stiff like department-store mannequins, though much more intricate and valuable. Annja breathed shallowly and stepped slowly, careful not to let her clothes rustle or catch against the unfinished wood of the shelves.

Where are you? she thought. He'd called her a demon, but he was that-a man who trafficked in treasures and who had a highly illegal operation in place. She'd heard him on the phone telling whoever was on the other end that he would kill her. A demon in man's clothing. How extensive was the smuggling? Annja needed to take him alive; she had too many questions that demanded answers.

Annja reached the end of the aisle, which was near the front of the shop. Holding her breath, she looked around the shelf. Still nothing. A glance at the front windows showed that the grime she'd thought was on the outside was actually on the inside, as if it had been smeared with something to make it difficult to see much...or at least to see any of the pretty details. The door had three dead-bolt locks on it and a wire that ran up one side. There was a motion sensor and a security camera that looked pretty high-tech in comparison to the building and its furnishings.

Maybe the entirety of the store was a front. Maybe the place was always closed to the run-of-the-mill customer. Annja retraced her steps, heading to the back of the shop. He'd probably doubled back to the other room. Or else he- It was the faintest of sounds, and had she not been paying especially close attention, she wouldn't have noticed. Wood squeaked, like weight was shifting on it. Her head snapped up just as a figure jumped off the top shelf. She leaped away as his blade whistled in the musty air and sliced off a hank of her hair.

He followed her, kicking as he went, landing a solid blow to her arm as she ducked beneath his sword, then kicking out with his other foot as she spun away between terra-cotta warrior statues. She couldn't identify the style of martial arts he employed. It looked like karate, but it had elements of qwan ki do qwan ki do, which consisted mostly of jumping and scissor techniques with the hands and feet. The manner in which he used his sword also hinted at qwan ki do, qwan ki do, which she'd studied briefly in New York a summer ago. which she'd studied briefly in New York a summer ago.

He came at her as she darted out from between the statues and dropped beneath his next kick. He held the sword in his right hand and performed a praying-mantis move, then followed it with rapid lightning thrusts with the heel of his left hand. The quick moves were intended to overwhelm her and smacked of karate or kenpo. kenpo.

He shifted from one foot to the next, always kicking or punching or slashing and keeping her off balance. He knocked over a shelf of melon-size monkey carvings, and Annja cringed. She'd not been fighting back, only defending, on three counts. She wanted to study his technique and look for an opening; she didn't want to damage anything in the shop-the objects might be irreplaceable-and she didn't want to kill him.

She wouldn't kill him; she was adamant about that.

He shifted into an animal fighting style, leopard kung fu. Annja knew an old Chinese man who taught it in Central Park on Wednesday mornings. Like the other methods her attacker employed, leopard kung fu emphasized speed and angular attacks. He wasn't trying to rely on strength, which his frame hinted he had plenty of, but rather on his quickness and trying to outsmart her.

"Why block when you can kick?" the old Chinese man had posed to Annja and his other students. "Why defend when you can attack?"

Her opponent focused on elbow jabs now, catching her on the shoulder as she brought her sword up, then focusing on a series of low kicks that though she avoided them drove her back into a counter covered with bra.s.s bells of various sizes. Many of them tipped, filling the air with a brief musical cacophony that managed to distract Kim.

Annja raised herself and rolled over the top of the counter, deftly avoiding a teetering bra.s.s urn and the next series of off-tempo sword swings that shattered the gla.s.s top and set the remaining bells clanking.

She made a move to slip around the corner, but instead vaulted it, planting her left hand on the intact edge of the countertop and bringing the sword up with her right. Her opponent was mixing martial-arts styles, so she did, too, landing a knee to his chin and at the same time hooking her leg around his sword arm, avoiding his blade and setting him off balance. She'd studied him just long enough to pick up a few flaws in his otherwise adept practice.

"Don't...want...to...ruin...anything," she told him through clenched teeth.

"Priceless antiques, all of these things," he returned as he took a step back and wiped blood off his lip with the back of his free hand.

Not all of them, she observed. Some didn't look all that old. Still, the lighting wasn't good enough for her to make an appraiser's judgment.

"Worth a fortune, all of them, New York City spy." His breath wasn't labored, evidence of what good shape he was in.

As she maneuvered around him and the closest high shelf, he drove at her again, using a series of lightning-fast low kicks, two of which connected with her shin. He had no way of knowing she'd been shot in that leg and that it was still sore.

Annja cried out, and he grinned, thinking it was his kicks that had hurt her.

"All of these things more valuable than you, New York City spy." He held the sword up high, the tip of the blade touching a dangling light fixture and disturbing a spiderweb that clung to it. He brought it down hard, the veins bulging along the sides of his neck, reminding Annja of the ropy roots of an acacia tree just beneath the soil.

She hooked her blade up at the last minute, the edges of the two weapons meeting with a shrill, sc.r.a.ping sound. In the back of her mind she saw the shards of silver arcing away from the fire that burned Joan of Arc, and she worried that the sword would again shatter and be forced to find a new wielder to make it whole.

But her sword withstood the blow, and instead Kim's snapped. He howled angrily.

"A fortune!" He tossed the broken blade behind him and clenched his fists, veins standing out on the backs of his hands, knuckles white. "A katana katana from the Muromachi period. Nearly seven hundred years old, that sword you ruined!" from the Muromachi period. Nearly seven hundred years old, that sword you ruined!"

"I believe you're the one who ruined it," she countered, turning her blade so the flat of it would strike him when he presented an opening. "My sword isn't quite that old. But it's getting there."

She performed a foot drop, fan kick and spinning kick, striking him soundly across the center of his chest with the sword as she danced around him and the edge of a tall, narrow case of antique hairpins and brooches.

Kim retaliated with an eagle claw and an overleap kick, still not tiring. A part of Annja reveled in the fight, the exertion blotting out the pain in her cheek from where he'd punched her repeatedly and the ache in her ankles and wrists from being tied so tight with the cord. Her breathing was deep and even, and she was aware of everything around her-the closeness of the antiques, which she tried so hard to avoid; Kim, who feinted and punched as she weaved through the shelves and matched him maneuver for maneuver; and the men in the back room, one of whom was moaning and stirring.

Annja would have to finish this soon before the odds worsened. She'd left the nephew's gun in that room.

"So you know who I am and where I am from. Give me the same luxury. Who are you?" It was a simple enough question, and Annja enjoyed banter during a fight, particularly one well matched like this.

"Kim Pham."

"Where are you from, Kim Pham?"

He smiled, showing off-colored teeth. Another smoker from the stains, though probably not a heavy one given his agility and stamina. "Bac Ninh Province."

Annja had no idea where that was. "In Northern Thailand?"

He shook his head as he took the praying-mantis stance. "Vietnam. Why is this so important? Why does a dead woman want to know about me? A soon to be very dead woman."

The last comment tipped her off. She glanced to the back of the shop, where Kim's nephew leaned against the door frame, one hand cradling the side of his head, the other holding the gun he'd retrieved.

Annja dipped down and reversed her grip on the sword, pommel facing out as she rammed it with all her strength into Kim's stomach. He was a big man, but it wasn't fat she connected with. The muscles were thick, and she'd hit him just hard enough to rattle him a little. Fortunately, she was close enough to him that his nephew was afraid to shoot.

She drove the pommel against him again and again, recalling how he'd pummeled her with his fists minutes ago when she'd been tied in the chair. The air rushed from his lungs and he doubled forward, hands clawing at the air and then finding her shoulders. He suddenly gripped her throat in a choke hold and slammed the back of her head against the shelf behind her. Something toppled off and crashed on the floor.

"b.i.t.c.h!" Kim cursed. "That was Ming! Look what you did!"

Annja jabbed him again with the pommel, this time under his arm, using all the strength she could summon. He gasped and relaxed his grip. She dropped beneath his arms, came up at him from the other side and kicked him in the groin.

"My fault? That's two antiques you've claimed I broke. You're a thief and and a liar!" Annja struck him once more with the flat of the blade, crouching when he doubled over again and using him for cover against his nephew. "I've been trying not to break anything." a liar!" Annja struck him once more with the flat of the blade, crouching when he doubled over again and using him for cover against his nephew. "I've been trying not to break anything."

When he cursed at her this time, it was in Vietnamese.

"And it's not polite to talk in a language I can't understand." Feeling a little better, and her feet no longer tingling, Annja had gotten her moxie back.

She lured him toward the front of the shop, farther from the nephew with the gun. As much as Annja didn't want to be shot, she worried that the young man, who had proven to have a lousy aim, might shoot his uncle. She needed Kim alive to answer her questions.

They continued to parry each other's blows, but Annja was gaining on him and he was finally tiring. Sweat grew under his arms and appeared on his forehead, and his eyes narrowed with hate. That was good; hate made people careless. Kim knocked over only two more pieces before she had him at the front door. Red-faced, he sputtered at her in Vietnamese and looked like a pile-driving machine aiming his fists at her and striking the door instead.

He cracked it down the middle, like a karate pract.i.tioner splitting a block of wood, and set off an alarm. It was her turn to curse.

The police didn't need to find her at this shop; she was supposed to be at their office answering questions. Now she'd have a lot more to answer...if they spotted her here. She wasn't guilty of anything, but she'd knocked out an old man and entered a closed store. If nothing else, the police would detain her. Maybe they would even charge her with something.

A new sense of urgency took over, and she dismissed the sword, wanting both hands free. Kim's eyes grew wide when he saw the blade disappear, then they closed in unconsciousness as she delivered an uppercut to his jaw, cracking it and sending him backward against an old piece of pottery that split in two.

"All right," Annja p.r.o.nounced. "That was my fault." She glanced at the price tag and whistled. "But I'm not paying for what I broke." She grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him down an aisle toward the back of the shop, stopping and peeking around the end to see the nephew still in the door frame, holding the gun with both hands now in an effort to steady himself.

"I'd drop the gun," she called to him. "Unless you want to end up like your uncle Kim."

He dropped the gun.

"And I'd back up a bit." He complied.

Annja wanted to put some distance between him and the gun.