Restless Soul - Alex Archer [88]
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 butter 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, tasseled 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 assortment 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