Mystic Warrior

“I am sorry, my lord.” The innkeeper wrung his hands, then lurched forward as a blade burst through his chest. Blood spilled down his quivering lips as he struggled to stand. Then the soldier behind the dead man kicked the corpse forward, freeing his blade.

A dozen armored men swarmed into the dining hall. Their drawn blades flashed in the firelight.

Pepin heaved himself from his seat and freed his sword from the scabbard beside the table. He was not a gifted fighting man, but his father had trained him in the way of the sword.

Steel shrieked and bit, and the screams of dying men filled the dining hall. In mere moments, blood covered the stone floor and made footing treacherous. The attackers fought with skill and fury, but Pepin had chosen some of his best warriors to accompany him on his journey with the deposed king and the prince.

With his back nearly to the wall, Pepin blocked another swing, then reached to his waist for the long knife he carried there. He fisted it and turned aside another blow, then slid beneath the bigger man’s right arm as the heavy sword cut the air over his head. Before the man could turn, Pepin thrust his knife between the man’s ribs in the chain mail opening under his arm.

Even though the man was already dying, Pepin shoved the knife into the man’s throat and robbed him of the last few seconds of his life. Breathing hard, Pepin studied the room. Though his men had been surprised, they had recovered quickly. Corpses now littered the dining hall, and only a few of them were his soldiers.

Childeric knelt on the floor and bled profusely from his nose while two soldiers with drawn blades flanked him. The soon-to-be-deposed king swayed unsteadily and looked disoriented. Theuderic lay on the floor nearby with a sword to his throat, his eyes round with fear.

“Do you see?” Childeric gazed balefully at Pepin. “My people will never accept you as their king. They will fight for me. This night or some day later, they will kill you.”

“These men?” Pepin spit on the corpse nearest him. “These are not warriors who sought to aid you. These men were brigands hoping only to loot who they presumed to be only wealthy travelers, not soldiers. You cling to false hopes, Childeric, and it does not become you.”

“Liar!”

Pepin strode over to Childeric. The king struggled to get to his feet, but the soldiers beside him held him in check.

Pepin sheathed his sword and the clang of metal against metal suddenly filled the hall. “I grow weary of your lack of acceptance of reality.” He held the bloody knife before his prisoner. Pepin knotted a fist in Childeric’s hair. “Tell me what I want to know and I will suffer you to live.”

Childeric glared up at him. “Never. You will live in fear of the Merovingian power coming back to strike you down.”

“Father!” Theuderic tried to push away the sword holding him in place. Instead, the blade bit into his unprotected chest and he lay there helplessly.

“I will not live in fear. And I will have your secrets. If they exist.”

Childeric locked his eyes on Pepin’s. “For everything, runt, there is a time. God made this so. You will regret everything you have done.”

For just a moment as he looked into the other man’s gaze, Pepin felt the cold breath of fear.

1

Present day

Annja Creed sat braced in the passenger seat of the burnt-orange Lamborghini and tried to divide her attention between the GPS screen on the dashboard and the late-afternoon traffic in West Los Angeles as they peeled around yet another corner. Traffic flashed by, though the number of cars was sparser than she had thought it would be. Los Angeles gridlocked a lot, and the streets were often choked with stalled vehicles.

Of course, their luck could end around the next corner, which was coming up much too quickly. She pulled her chestnut hair back and tied it in a ponytail. Dressed in charcoal pants, a dark green pullover and a short-waisted jacket, Annja had been prepared to spend the day at the Hollywood lot where she was currently consulting on a movie.

Riding kamikaze through LA traffic hadn’t been on her itinerary.

The voice streaming from the GPS was a steamy contralto Annja hadn’t heard before, but it sounded familiar and comforting.

“Steven, you need to make a right turn in one hundred feet.”

The voice had to be a custom package. That was something Steven Krauzer would want as a member of Hollywood’s elite director-producers.

“Turn now, Steven.” The car slung around the corner and the tires shrieked and slipped wildly before grabbing traction again. Annja’s seat belt tightened around her. She was safe, for the moment, but certainly not comfortable. Especially with an insane person behind the wheel.

On his best days, Steven Krauzer was believed to be not quite in touch with the real world. This wasn’t a good day at all.

Several more car horns blared in protest as the Lamborghini powered through the turn, holding contact with the street through what had to be the thinnest layer of rubber. A cab loomed before them, growing larger as they approached. For a moment Annja saw the Lamborghini’s volatile color reflected in the shiny chrome bumper, but Krauzer yanked the wheel to the right, went up on the cracked sidewalk momentarily, then pressed harder on the accelerator. “Did anyone ever tell you that I trained to race at NASCAR?” Krauzer sat grinning confidently in the driver’s seat, belted in by a five-point system.

“No.” Annja caught herself lifting her foot for a brake pedal that wasn’t there. With effort, she put her foot back on the floor.

In his early thirties, and one of Hollywood’s wunderkinder as a child of famous parents—his father a powerful producer of movies and his mother an international film star—Steven Krauzer never really had time for anyone else in his life. He was lean and muscular, and he trained in a gym with near-fanatical devotion. He wore Chrome Hearts Kufannaw II sunglasses over dark eyes, and his black chinstrap beard matched his short-cropped hair. His jeans were custom-made and full of holes, and the tailored beige Carhartt men’s work shirt gave him that everyman look he cultivated. He was egocentric, prideful and a prima donna, but he tried to put himself out there as just one of the guys. Krauzer’s image was as much a production as any movie he’d ever directed.

“In one hundred twenty feet, turn left onto West Pico Boulevard, Steven.”

Krauzer was already sailing through the intersection. He missed colliding with a city bus by inches. “You know,” Annja said, “there’s really no rush to find Melanie.”

For a moment, the cool, cocky composure Krauzer displayed evaporated. He curled his left hand into a fist and banged it on the steering wheel.

“Melanie Harp stole from me! She took that scrying crystal because she knew I was going to need it for the scenes today. She’s trying to destroy my film.”

“She probably doesn’t even know the theft has been discovered.” The realization that the scrying crystal was missing had occurred only a little over twenty minutes ago. Since Annja had been hired as an expert on the authenticity of the props, Krauzer had demanded she come with him to find the woman he believed had taken the scrying crystal.

“Ha!” Krauzer reached down and flicked the gearshift, skidding through another corner and nearly locking bumpers with a delivery truck that pulled hastily to the side. “That just goes to show that you might know a lot about anthropology, but you don’t know squat about Hollywood.”

Archaeology.

But she didn’t press the issue, because it would only serve to distract the director. Since she’d been in LA serving as a consultant on his movie, Krauzer hadn’t paid attention to her anyway.

Krauzer hadn’t even known about her show, Chasing History’s Monsters. She’d been requested as a consultant on the film by one of the producers. When Krauzer had discovered she was something of a celebrity herself, he hadn’t been happy. He’d warned her about becoming a distraction to the filming. What he had meant was she shouldn’t steal any of the the director’s thunder.

Chasing History’s Monsters had a large international fan base, and Annja enjoyed doing the show. She strove for actual historical authenticity and audiences responded well to her stories. An elf witch’s scrying stone, however, was off the beaten path for an archaeologist.

“If you check social media,” Krauzer went on, “I’m sure someone has posted about the theft of the elf witch’s scrying crystal. Five minutes after Melanie Harp took that thing, you can bet the whole world knew. No. We’re going to be lucky if she hasn’t left town and gone back to wherever it is she’s from.” He looked at Annja. “Do you know where she’s from?”

“No.”

Krauzer returned his attention to the streets. “I thought you might have known.”

“Why would I know?”

Krauzer shrugged. “She’s a girl. You’re a girl. Girls talk.”

Annja struggled not to take offense at the offhand summation, but it was difficult. She took out her smartphone, entered the security code and studied the viewscreen when it opened up the websites she’d been inspecting.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“When we found out the scrying crystal was missing, I programmed in some online movie memorabilia sites to see if the prop showed up there. In case Melanie is trying to sell it.”

“The prop? Seriously? Just yesterday you were telling me that we might have a real artifact on our hands. You were begging me for a chance to examine it. Now the elf witch’s scrying crystal is a prop?”

Begging was a strong word. After seeing the crystal briefly in one of the scenes Krauzer had shot the previous day, Annja had been curious about the piece. She wasn’t all that invested in the crystal. She’d wanted to see it, but Krauzer had refused, insisting that the crystal had to be locked up when the filming had finally finished. She’d known the director was deliberately throwing his weight around.