The Devil's Chord

“I guess that’s the boyfriend.” Annja offered a wave, then, sensing she wasn’t getting a warm stare in return, she nodded to Ian. “Let’s head back to the hotel and look over the footage. See if we have enough for a segment or if we need to entice Sirena to talk some more.”

After an afternoon of going through the footage, Annja determined they did have some great shots. She could cobble together a short segment for the show. Though Doug would still want to see fins slapping the water’s surface or some other bit of silliness. He could add that himself.

During supper Ian suggested they do a follow-up with Sirena, perhaps in a week or two. By then she would have had some time to think about what Annja had said to her today. It sounded like a good idea. Annja was not beyond extending her stay in Italy for a few weeks. If Doug would cover her expenses, she’d dig around for another story idea. She’d start with Rosalia, the patron of Palermo, who had lived during the twelfth century and saved the city from the plague. Her bones were interred here.

After supper, and still waiting for the okay from Doug to stick around in Italy, Annja and Ian headed back to the shore to capture some night shots. Moonlight glimmered across the water’s surface. She stood back, toeing a thatch of ragged grass while Ian strode the rocky shore.

The clatter of stones and footsteps alerted her just as someone grabbed Ian’s camera and shoved him hard enough to make her colleague fall backward and land on the ground.

Recognizing the man who’d pushed Ian, Annja rushed him and prevented him from swinging a fist toward the fallen cameraman.

“Shove off!” Matteo hissed at Annja as he wrestled away from her. “You two get out of town and stop harassing Sirena.”

“We’re filming a story,” Annja defended. “And we were invited by Sirena. Is there something you want to tell us?”

“I just did. Keep away from Sirena. You are not putting footage of her on TV.”

“Why? Because she believes she is a selkie?”

The dark-haired bruiser with a few days’ beard growth stared at her. He seemed overly worked up considering the circumstances. Why was he so uptight about them and what Sirena could tell them? Annja noted the reek of alcohol, which was likely only fortifying his mean streak.

Sirena had been afraid of him.

Matteo lunged for her. Annja bent at the waist, twisting, and kicked low, catching him below the knee. He yelped and toppled forward, but managed to grip her by the hair as he went down. She rolled over his body, landed on the loose shore stones and came up to her feet in a squat.

“Do you hurt her, Matteo?” she asked.

He sneered and pushed off the ground, coming to a stand.

Annja jumped up before him. She could feel the sword hum from within the otherwhere, there if she needed it. But she didn’t want to introduce a weapon to this scuffle. She didn’t suspect Matteo was armed with anything more than fear of exposure.

“She tells lies,” he hissed.

“So you’re not keeping her with you against her will?”

“She...she said that? You’re lying to me!” He swung at Annja, but she dodged him easily. The man wasn’t so drunk. He maintained his footing and, bouncing back and forth, showed her his fists. “Stay away from her!”

Out the corner of her eye, Annja saw Ian fumble to his feet. He didn’t go for his camera. Thankfully, he had the good sense that this would not make for good television.

Matteo dived for her and gripped her about the waist, pushing them both to the hard ground. “You give me what’s on that camera.” He punched, landing a bruising set of knuckles against her throat.

Annja kicked, connecting her boot toe with his gut, but not hard enough to injure. Instead, she flipped him onto his back and crawled on top of him, straddling his hips. A right fist to his jaw spattered blood across the rocks. She’d never backed away from a fight, and admittedly, it adrenalized her. Frankly, it was easy when she fought against a man like this.

“You let her go,” she insisted, landing another punch that served to loosen his tense jaw muscles.

His shoulders dropped and Matteo stopped fighting, though he hadn’t been knocked out.

“Let her do as she wishes. If Sirena wants to leave you, let her go.”

“But...” He fisted the ground at his sides. Growling in frustration, he sputtered, “I don’t know where it is!”

“Where what is?”

Behind her Ian scrambled with his equipment.

“The pelt!” Matteo cried.

Annja frowned and delivered another swift strike up under the man’s jaw. That tilted his head to the side sharply, stealing his consciousness. Blood drooled from his mouth. “He’s out.”

She rose and wiped her hands down her pant legs.

“He believes it, too,” Ian said, the camera pointed toward the ground, the green run light showing he’d filmed Matteo’s confession. “Now what?”

The cell phone in Annja’s pocket vibrated. She swiped a loose strand of hair from her face and over her ear and strode toward the parking lot, gesturing for Ian to follow. Matteo would be fine.

Annja answered the call in a harsh tone. “Seriously? This had better be good.”

“Sounds like someone needs a nap.”

The French accent had become a familiar voice in her life. Yet it had been a while since she’d talked to the old coot. Usually it was she who contacted him.

“Roux.” She blew out a breath, calming her thundering heartbeat. “Sorry. It’s been a long day. And I think I’ve spent most of it with a selkie.”

“Selkies, eh? A bit fantastical, even for your wild adventures. I thought you preferred kneeling hunched over a pile of dirt?”

“I do, but I do work for a television program that tracks monsters. Selkies are not so fantastical when you think about it. You do know it’s—” she cast her gaze toward the sky, then turned the phone to check the time display “—close to midnight?”

“Not where I am. The sun is shining and I’m, well... What can I say?”

No details. Never any details unless the man considered them salacious or wanted to tease her, which was often. But Annja wasn’t interested. She didn’t want to do the math to calculate what time zone he could be in to be calling her during the day.

“Like you said, I need to get some rest, so make this quick.”

“I’ve a simple question. One I thought would intrigue you.”

She closed her eyes and blew in and released a deep breath. A half-hour shower was the only thing she could think about. Her neck ached. She’d have a bruise there by the time she hit said shower. “What’s that?”

“Very well. Do you know what Leonardo da Vinci and Joan of Arc had in common?”

Any mention of Joan of Arc straightened Annja’s spine. She opened her eyes wide and, seeing Ian’s intent interest, turned her back to him. Some things she only talked about with certain people. And those few people—actually, only two—also had a keen interest in the sainted martyr.

“Bonus points if you can name their common benefactor,” Roux added cheerily.

Well, that narrowed it down to one person. Annja liked a good quiz. But she needn’t the clue.

She’d read a lot on the young woman who had boldly led the French army to war in the fifteenth century, only to be labeled a heretic and burned at the stake by the English forces. Joan interested her because Annja had an inexplicable connection to her. One that she could never completely explain and so had accepted on blind faith. And there was the fact that whenever she was in trouble and needed protection, she could call Joan of Arc’s sword to hand from the otherwhere.

Cool. Weird. Fortuitous when she was in a bind. And she tended to find herself in a bind more often than the average archaeologist. Just call her a jet-setting dirt digger and sometime crime fighter and defender of the innocent.

It worked for her.

“Let’s see...” Annja kicked at the smooth stones that had been turned over and over by high tides and infinite time. “Joan was burned in 1431. Leonardo da Vinci wasn’t born until 1452. So someone who had known Joan and was very young at that time, who then later traveled to Italy, possibly— Aha!

“Good King René,” she answered. “I believe René d’Anjou’s mother, Yolande, tutored Jeanne at a young age. And René and da Vinci were quite possibly known to each other as well, both being men of the Renaissance.”

“Exactly. The Duke d’Anjou, besides being a philanthropist, was literally one of the first men of his age and time who sought to share knowledge instead of suppress it. He wasn’t as close to Jeanne as was his mother, but still, there was a loose connection, we think.”

That he paused now piqued Annja’s interest even more. If ever there existed someone who knew historic details—firsthand—it was Roux. He had lived through the past five hundred years. It meant that Roux had witnessed Joan’s sword being broken beside those very flames that had ended her life. Flames were a recurring nightmare of Annja’s. She hadn’t had any bad dreams lately and wished that would continue forever.

“That’s not the reason for my call,” Roux said, sidestepping what exciting secrets Annja had hoped he would reveal to her. “You guessed right. René d’Anjou was likely associated with both our Joan and Leonardo. Are you familiar with a theft that took place six months ago at the main antiquities museum in Poland?”

Annja glanced over her shoulder. Ian strolled along the waterline, kicking stones here and there, the camera held slack at his side.

“Are we on a new topic now?” she asked. “Renaissance painters, burned saints and add to that the fact my day has been occupied by a possible selkie sighting. My brain is fried, Roux. If you’ve got a point, please get to it.”

“The stolen items from the museum were believed to have been abandoned in a Venetian canal due to a quarrel between the thieves. Both were arrested, one in Milan, the other in the States. Neither has revealed where the items were dropped into which canal. And with little evidence, they were set free.”

“So there are valuable ancient artifacts sitting somewhere at the bottom of a Venetian canal? What’s new?”

“It’s not what is new, Annja, but what was old and possibly dumped in the drink. A Lorraine cross believed to have once belonged to Leonardo da Vinci.”

There were so many styles of crosses. The Lorraine cross was a particular favorite of hers. “Right. A heraldic cross with two horizontal crossbars of the same length. Got it.”

“The Lorraine type of cross was carried into the Crusades by the Knights Templars, and later, the image was adopted by the Duke d’Anjou, but only after receiving such a cross as a gift, reputedly from Joan of Arc.”

“So what you’re saying is...” She strode over to Matteo’s inert body and leaned over him. Still out yet, oddly, smiling in his unconscious slumber. “I’m not following you, Roux.”

“It is speculated that the cross that belonged to Leonardo da Vinci was gifted to him by René d’Anjou.”

“Are you supposing that the cross stolen from the museum was originally a cross that belonged to Joan of Arc?”

“That I am.”

“Huh.” Annja stood, hand to her hip, and paced the clattering stones. Ian now sat on the grassy hillside that inclined toward the parking lot, camera on his lap. A giddy excitement stirred her from exhausted to merely semi-tired. “So, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Absolutely, Annja. What do you say to a diving excursion in Venice?”

He was inviting her to do something together? Suspicion immediately set off Annja’s warning bells. Roux was always in it for himself, and he’d step over others to get what he wanted.

On the other hand, she’d just been invited to go diving for lost treasure. And she now had a reason to stay in Italy, as she and Ian had just been discussing. And if the stay was funded by Roux, she didn’t need to bother Doug Morrell with the expenses.

“Sounds good. When were you planning this adventure?”

“Now. I know you’re in Palermo. I’ll let the other diver know to expect you at the Fondamenta della Sensa tomorrow, probably afternoon, if you allow for travel time. I have a ticket waiting for you at the Palermo Falcone-Borsellino Airport now. Can you make it?”

How Roux almost always seemed to know where she was, was a question Annja had long ago given up attempting to answer.

“Yes, I can make it, but what about the other diver? You already have someone in place?”

The fact that Roux had expected her to say yes didn’t bother Annja. He knew her well enough to realize that any artifact related to Joan of Arc would pique her interest. And she was always up for an adventure, most especially after days of tracking selkies and only coming up with a bad romance plot.

“Generally I like to gather my own team,” she said.

“This is my expedition, Annja, and I am the one gathering the team. Have a problem with that?”

“Not if you’re footing the bill.”

“I am.”

“Great. What’s the diver’s name?”

“All the information has been gathered in a dossier that will be waiting for you along with the plane ticket.”

“I’ll need two tickets. I’ve got a cameraman.”

“Oh, hmm...”

While Roux considered that one, she gave Ian a thumbs-up and asked, “You want to fly to Venice to film underwater for a few days?”

Ian jumped up eagerly. “I’m in!”

“I’d like him along,” Annja said to Roux. “We’re scouting segments for the TV show.”

“A show which has given me a few knowing smiles and a couple of laughs. Very well, two tickets,” Roux said. “I intend to fly out in a few days. I’m tied up at the moment with, er, details. But fear not. I wouldn’t miss this discovery.”

“That’s it? Just a cross?”

Much as she knew artifacts related to Joan were a love of Roux’s, Annja found it hard to believe he’d invest in a mission simply to bring up a little memento that should by rights be returned directly to the museum from which it had been stolen.

“Just a cross,” Roux replied. “Have a good rest on the flight, Annja. See you in a few days.”

He hung up, and it occurred to Annja that he hadn’t told her when the flight departed.

“Soon,” she guessed.

The airport was a good hour’s drive to the south. The flight to Venice shouldn’t be more than ninety minutes if direct.

In the parking lot behind Ian, a black limo suddenly arrived. The limo driver got out of the expensive vehicle, introduced himself and informed her he was at her beck and call.

“Leave it to Roux to control me like a puppet,” she muttered.

“You were expecting this?” Ian asked.

“Nope. But it’s not a surprise. We’ll head back to the hotel, pack and then on to the airport.”

“But what about the selkies?”

Annja glanced to Matteo. He’d curled onto his side, apparently sleeping off the effects of the alcohol as well as her punch. “We’ll swing by after Venice. But I have a feeling if there is a pelt, it’ll never be found. Too bad for Sirena.”

“Maybe we should call a women’s shelter?”

Annja ran her hands through her hair. She was dirty and tired and yet exhilarated about the new assignment that lay before her.

“Yes, good idea, Ian.”

And then she smiled widely. Sleep? She’d worry about that on the flight like Roux suggested.

“I should let Doug know about our new plans.”

Her producer would probably research every Venetian myth to see if he could come up with a good episode idea for Annja to look into. If she had the time while she was there, she’d be all for it.

The twosome slid into the back of the limo, and the driver offered champagne, which Ian accepted. Annja refused. She was already mentally preparing for the next leg of the trip. It would take five minutes to pack her things because she generally traveled simply, always ready for just such spur-of-the-moment trips.

“On to my next adventure.”

Chapter 3

Roux had purchased her a seat in first class, though Annja wouldn’t award him brownie points. Ian’s seat was back in economy. The cameraman took the news with his usual good-natured attitude, knowing he’d been a last-minute add-on. Besides, economy was not filled to capacity, so he planned to snag a row of seats in the back and lay down to sleep through the flight.

The dossier was handed to Annja in a sealed envelope when she received her ticket. Once the plane was in flight, she pored over the information, which was sparse.

The man she was to dive with, Scout Roberts, was a former archaeologist who’d been stripped of his tenure at his university after he’d been involved in a sketchy dig in Peru. The operation had resulted in the unsolved deaths of two crew members. He’d insisted poisonous gases had leaked from the cave walls, yet a forensic team hadn’t found any trace of poison. He’d disappeared approximately five years ago and apparently hadn’t been seen or heard from since. He’d stopped publishing and there wasn’t a phone number or address for him. He’d turned himself into a ghost.

But ghosts didn’t accept offers to dive for lost treasure. He had to have a reason for accepting the invite from Roux. Unless cash was the motivator?

“Could be,” she muttered, knowing Roux’s pockets were deep.

Even deeper, though, was Roux’s love for Joan and anything associated with her. The cross qualified on that score and was likely enough to spur his interest in the artifact. It would probably only look good under glass or on one of the walls in Roux’s château.

The fact that Roux had brought her in on the job also didn’t make sense if he intended to keep the artifact.

“Very odd...”

Flipping over the single page in the dossier, Annja was surprised that was all the information he had. Apparently, Roux knew little about Scout Roberts. Where had he found him? On a street corner? While strolling a stretch of the French countryside in search of treasure?

Annja smiled remembering how she had first met Roux. It had been on just such a stretch in the French countryside. In the Cévennes mountain area in search of a loup-garou, she had stumbled upon a hiker, who’d told her he was after something that was lost.

She’d thought Roux a curious old man who possessed the strength of many, an agility that belied his age and a charm that had won her over despite his obvious nefarious dealings. Over an initial get-to-know-each-other meal, she recalled thinking how the twinkle in his eyes could mean trouble for her. And she hadn’t been wrong.

When they’d finally found the lost item he’d been looking for, it had been the final piece to Joan of Arc’s sword.

Who would have thought that meeting Roux would have led to her owning a sword that once belonged to Joan of Arc, and to a love-hate friendship with a man who had seen and done so much?

At times Roux was harsh and insistent, in it for himself and yet always on mark and aware. He may look old, but the man was agile and swift and could expertly handle any weapon he got his hands on. After she’d claimed the sword, he had mentored her and taught her how to handle the blade correctly and efficiently. At times, he felt very much like a father to her.

But Annja always cautioned herself against letting her guard down completely around the man. At times, Roux allied with Garin Braden. He’d been tied to Roux since Joan’s burning back in the fifteenth century. Braden was another man who possessed the same in-it-for-himself attitude as the older man. And he was not beyond lying to her to get what he wanted.

So that left Scout Roberts as a possible ally in this new adventure. A ghost working for a person of questionable integrity.

Annja shook her head as she perused the sketchy details she held.

She’d worked with strangers before. The nature of her work—traveling to foreign countries, traveling to the middle of nowhere to dig in the dry, dusty dirt—led to interactions with all sorts. Unwilling to pre-judge someone she had never met, she looked forward to meeting Scout and delving into the mystery of how he’d gotten involved with Roux.

Setting aside the dossier, she settled into the cozy first-class nest and pulled up the blanket to her forehead. She wanted to be in top form when she arrived in Venice.

* * *

UPON DISEMBARKING AT Marco Polo Airport, Annja felt refreshed. It was 6:00 a.m. and the day was bright. Ian was also chipper. He’d had extra bags of peanuts and a couple of free drinks and was currently balancing his equipment on one shoulder, his backpack across both shoulders.

“We’ll eat after checking into a hotel. Deal?” Annja asked.

“Deal.”

Annja strode directly to the cabstand and was greeted by a tall, solemn man in black trousers and black turtleneck who held a placard with her name neatly written in block letters.

“Miss Creed. I am Paulo. Your driver here in Venice.” He spoke English well. “I’ve picked up the diving gear, as was requested by Monsieur Roux. Two sets. I’ve had them delivered directly to the boat docked in the canal.” He nodded to Ian. “Welcome to Venice.”

The men shook hands.

“You’re punctual,” Annja said. “I appreciate that. On to Venice?”

“I’ve a car waiting. There’s a bit of a traffic bind, I’m afraid. Accident as I was coming toward the airport. We may have a wait. And then we’ll travel on a water shuttle to the island. I live in the city, so I’ll be at your service. I do have a car and a boat.”

“Thank you. We’d like to head straight to the hotel. If you could recommend a good place to eat nearby, that would be great.”

“I’ll bring you there myself.”

Three hours later—indeed, the traffic had been backed up for kilometers while a crane worked to clear away lumber from an overturned truck—Annja and Ian dropped their things in their respective rooms at the hotel. Then they accompanied Paulo to a quiet restaurant that seemed lacking in tourists yet had immense personality. The cook sang from the back room, and the waitresses giggled as they delivered plates to the tables. Though they’d both skipped breakfast, Annja cautioned Ian against the full plate of pasta if they planned to dive anytime soon, and he reluctantly ordered the smaller size.

After they’d eaten and Paulo had given them directions, Annja and Ian strolled down the streets in the Cannaregio, where they were to meet Scout Roberts dockside.

“They say the city is sinking nearly a tenth of an inch a year,” she remarked as they passed a wet tiled courtyard sandwiched between two buildings.

“Point zero eight, to be precise,” Ian replied. She gave him a look that said she was impressed. “Two years ago I spent a summer here filming at San Michele.”

Named after the archangel Michael, the Isola di San Michele was located in the Venetian lagoon, northeast of the Cannaregio. It was about half an hour away. One of the first Renaissance churches in Venice, it had been built on the island sometime in the mid-fifteenth century. The same island that had also once served as a prison.

“The team I was traveling with was actually a forensic unit from New York City,” Ian explained. “They were digging up bones in the cemetery. One of the women was full of interesting details about Venice. You know the city is tilting, as well.”

“Yes, I had heard that. But let’s hope it doesn’t topple over while we’re here. I haven’t gone diving in these waters,” Annja said.

“I had the displeasure while at San Michele.”

“Displeasure?”

“The waters around the island were not bad at all. That’s fresh seawater. It’s the canals in the city proper. They’re not really fit for leisurely dives, especially during the hot summer months.”

“Right. Like now.”

Since the canals were the Venetians’ principal method of travel, cars in the city were rare and the water became unhealthy and murky. She wasn’t even going to think about it. On the other hand, the tidal flushes should remove much of the sewage. She’d think positive—only way to go.

Though, now that she’d begun to think about it, she picked up the salty wet-wood scent in the air. The sun was high today, and she sensed it wouldn’t be long before the obnoxious odors would really blossom.