Eternal Journey. Alex Archer
he wasn’t all right, she confirmed when the elevator doors opened onto her floor and she stepped out. At the end of the hall, the door to her room was open, and a thumping, bumping, crashing sound came from within. Someone was ransacking the place.
Annja didn’t panic. Danger was nothing new to her. In fact, it had been her constant companion since she inherited her sword and began her battle against whatever the forces of darkness decided to throw at her.
She reached for that sword now, touching the pommel with her mind and calling it from the ephemeral pocket of nothingness where it resided. She felt her fingers close on it, then just as quickly she dismissed it. Assess the situation first, she admonished herself. Don’t let worry rule you. She sprinted down the hall, flip-flops slapping against the soles of her feet as she went. She vaguely registered a door opening behind her, and then another, heard the curious whispers of hotel guests poking their heads out.
A heartbeat more and she was in the doorway of her room, staring at three dark-clad men who were tearing her things apart.
“That’s the woman,” the tallest of them said. He was standing on her shattered laptop. “That’s the one who was with the photographer. Kill her!”
4
Situation assessed, Annja thought. She mentally called for her sword again, in the same instant drawing it back as she leaped into the room, bringing the blade down decisively at the first man she came to, a swarthy, barrel-chested thug with deep wrinkles around his eyes. He was just beyond the doorway—the other two were farther back in the room, and he snarled at her and spit and fumbled at his back.
He was going for a gun, she knew instinctively, and she managed to turn her sword at the last second so she struck him hard in the side of the head with the flat of the blade, knocking him senseless. She would try to take them alive, at least one of them, she decided. Dead, they certainly couldn’t tell her what they’d done to her cameraman…or what any of this was about.
The barrel-chested man shook his head and continued to fumble at the small of his back. She released one hand from the sword and struck his throat with her palm, watching his eyes bulge. He was the oldest and appeared the most out of shape, the least threat, she judged. She turned her attention to the other two.
The slightest was a young man standing close to the window. He’d been pulling things out of her suitcase and tossing them every which way.
What was he searching for?
He’d dropped a pair of her shoes and gaped at her when she’d entered. He said something softly in a foreign language. She didn’t catch any of it, but she registered that his face was severely pockmarked, as if he’d had an illness or a bad case of acne in his youth.
The tallest, the one who had danced on her laptop, was near the desk. “Kill her!” he repeated. “Kill her!”
Clearly the leader, Annja thought.
“Are those the only words you know?” Annja instantly regretted her quip as he cursed and dug his heel into what was left of the hard drive.
The barrel-chested one, still doubled over from the second blow she’d delivered, made an attempt to regain his wind, but eased back against the wall and looked almost helplessly to the leader.
At first glance Annja had thought them all in some sort of uniform, but that wasn’t the case. Each wore black pants, the tallest in tight-fitting jeans, with the other two in slacks that one might wear to an office. The tallest had on a black polo shirt, with something embroidered over the pocket. He was moving now, and so she couldn’t read it because the fabric bunched. The wiry one wore a simple black T-shirt, while the wheezing man had a sport shirt with the buttons pulled tight across his middle. Two wore black leather shoes, the wiry one in a pair of new-looking gray running shoes.
All of them were slightly dark skinned, but not black or suntanned.
Not Aussies or aboriginals. Arabs? she wondered.
The barrel-chested man finally caught his breath, bolted upright and grabbed her arm, still grimacing in pain from her blows. His grip was strong and he maliciously dug in his fingers.
“She’s got a sword!” he hollered.
The tall one growled as he pulled a gun from his waistband. “I think we all can see that, Zuka!”
Zuka—she had the name of one, not that the tidbit was very useful at the moment. An unusual name, though.
“What should I do, Sute?”
Two names now. Annja knew Sute was an Egyptian name, a derivative of Sutekh, the name of the evil god of chaos said to have slain Osiris.
“Surrender, all of you,” Annja said, though perhaps too softly for the wiry one to hear.
“Kill her, I said! Kill her and we’ll be gone from here!”
Annja’s hotel room was not a small one, but it was confining to fight in, which worked to her advantage, as the men could not circle her. Zuka, the barrel-chested man, pulled her toward him, fingers digging in even harder. She didn’t resist. In fact, using his momentum, she slammed herself against him, pinning him to the wall. Once more the breath was knocked from him, but he stubbornly refused to release his grip.
Better he hold on to her, she thought, as that was keeping him from drawing a gun.
She drove her heel down on his instep and jabbed her right elbow into his gut. He wasn’t a soft man, she realized, just big, but neither was he well trained in physical combat. She slung him around just as the tall man fired.
The gun had a silencer, making a spitting sound followed almost instantly by the soft thud of the bullet striking Zuka, whom she’d inadvertently used as a shield. He sagged against her, and she jumped back, losing a flip-flop and bumping into the door frame.
The tall man fired again, grazing Annja’s shoulder. Then she was moving, thrusting the stinging pain to the back of her mind and bringing the sword around until it was aimed at his heart.
“Thrice damn you!” he cursed. His gun jammed, and he threw it at her.
Annja sidestepped the hurled gun and adjusted the grip on her sword.
“You will join Zuka, Annja Creed. Join him in hell, as my master commands!” In a flash the man reached behind his back again, retrieving a second gun as she lunged forward, the sword’s blade gleaming in the sun coming in through the window. A streak of flashing silver hit the barrel and knocked the gun away. “The pit for you, Annja Creed!”
Why? she wondered as she dropped beneath a punch aimed at her face. Why the pit for me? What have I done to you? I don’t even know you. And who is your master?
Then everything seemed to speed up, and she dismissed her questions and concentrated only on the fight. The tall man backed away to buy himself a moment, kicking aside pieces of her laptop and drawing a dagger. Small, it was nonetheless deadly.
The wiry one had a gun, too, but it wasn’t aimed at her. He was looking beyond Annja and to the doorway behind her, his hands shaking. She couldn’t risk a glance over her shoulder, but from the sound of hushed voices she could tell that curious hotel guests had spilled out into the hall and were looking inside.
“Get out of here!” she called to them.
“The police,” someone said, a young man from the tone of his voice. “Someone should call them.”
“I hear sirens,” another said.
“Bloke’s got a gun,” a third said. “And the sheila’s got a sword!”
There was a scream as the wiry man started firing.
Annja spun like a top and instinctively darted close to the man called Sute, plunging her sword into his stomach before he could use the dagger. A curse died on his lips as the blade slipped from his hand.
There were more screams,