Книга - The Mortality Principle

The Mortality Principle
Alex Archer


When legend becomes deadly reality…In Prague researching the legend of the Golem, a fantastical "living" creature made of clay, archaeologist Annja Creed is faced with an even bigger mystery on her hands when someone begins murdering the homeless. And every day there's a fresh corpse.As the suspicion that Golem is behind the deaths circulates quietly on the streets of the city, Annja cannot resist unraveling the thread that binds science to superstition. According to Czech history, these aren't new attacks. They're part of a greater pattern of murders that have gone unacknowledged over centuries. And now Annja is the next target. Unless she can find the real monster behind the myth…before it finds her.







When legend becomes deadly reality…

In Prague researching the legend of the Golem, a fantastical “living” creature made of clay, archaeologist Annja Creed is faced with an even bigger mystery on her hands when someone begins murdering the homeless. And every day there’s a fresh corpse.

As the suspicion that Golem is behind the deaths circulates quietly on the streets of the city, Annja cannot resist unraveling the thread that binds science to superstition. According to Czech history, these aren’t new attacks. They’re part of a greater pattern of murders that have gone unacknowledged over centuries. And now Annja is the next target. Unless she can find the real monster behind the myth…before it finds her.


Annja held out her sword in one hand.

Holding her phone in the other hand, as if its glow were a shield, she stared at that strange, incomplete face as he raised his hands to shield his eyes from the bright glare. At least, she thought it was a he….

There was so much of the thing in front of her that she couldn’t see around it, but she knew it was there by the blast of its foul breath, a waft of stale sweat.

Then it staggered forward, striking out at Annja, its great clubbing fists slashing at the light, the creature seemingly ignorant of the threat her sword presented. She pushed the blade as hard as she could, feeling it slide through its heavy coat and into the flesh beneath.

A vibration ran the length of her blade all the way into her fingertips.

There was no pain in its childlike sketch of a face, no change in the thing’s expression despite her sword plunging through its body.

Annja pulled the hilt to free the sword, but as she did the thing swung a fist at her. The impact of the blow sent her sprawling.

Before she hit the ground the world faded to black.




Rogue Angel: The Mortality Principle

Alex Archer








THELEGEND (#ulink_762af415-aab2-576c-9c8c-220a2ce45a93)

...THE ENGLISH COMMANDER TOOK.

JOAN’S SWORD AND RAISED IT HIGH.

The broadsword, plain and unadorned,

gleamed in the firelight. He put the tip against

the ground and his foot at the center of the blade.

The broadsword shattered, fragments falling

into the mud. The crowd surged forward,

peasant and soldier, and snatched the shards

from the trampled mud. The commander tossed

the hilt deep into the crowd.

Smoke almost obscured Joan, but she continued

praying till the end, until finally the flames climbed

her body and she sagged against the restraints.

Joan of Arc died that fateful day in France,

but her legend and sword are reborn...


Contents

Cover (#u7476b25b-739a-5a66-a64e-c9c282e19c72)

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1 (#ulink_343a82f2-8bce-545b-b468-f7061f02beb2)


The peace was broken by the clatter of a trash can being overturned, which was followed by a burst of laughter.

Annja Creed glanced out of the window into the road below. Illuminated by the streetlights, a gaggle of young men jostled one another. She couldn’t tell if the shoving was playful or if there was a simmering undercurrent of real violence to it. One thing was for sure, the young men were more than a little the worse for wear from the night’s drinking. Her first thought was that it was the same in cities and towns the world over, but that wasn’t true. This kind of rowdiness, playful or not, wouldn’t happen in a Muslim state, or in places where poverty placed survival above pleasure.

She wasn’t even sure it would have happened here in Prague thirty years ago. The world had changed just like the regime, and after the first flush of greedy capitalism, Prague settled down to become one of those cities. It promised excitement and just enough culture to satisfy the tourists, whether they came to cast off some imagined loss of freedom that marriage was about to bring, or simply to soak up another way of living.

For Annja it was simply a case of another city and another hotel room. They all began to bleed together in her mind these days. She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept in her own bed. No, that was a lie; she could remember the last time she’d crawled into it, but she hadn’t actually slept. It had been the night of the big network meeting. Doug Morrell had called her into the office with an ominous message of “Big changes are on the horizon. We need you here, pronto.”

She’d crossed town to the office, carded her way through security and ridden the express elevator up to the boardroom on the top floor of the skyscraper, every step of the way imagining a worst-case scenario that was just a little bit worse than the last one she’d just imagined.

She opened the boardroom door to see the army of assembled faces looking up at her, Doug halfway down the line. He looked like someone had stolen his toys from his stroller. “Miss Creed, good of you to join us. First, let me just say what a huge admirer I am,” one of the nameless suits said, indicating the only empty chair at the table. Annja took her seat, waiting for someone to explain what was going on. “We were just in the middle of discussing corporate restructuring,” the suit went on. “We’ve got some exciting plans for the network.”

Annja’s mind raced, trying to play catch-up. She really didn’t understand what was happening. Restructuring? Exciting plans?

“Obviously Chasing History’s Monsters is a bit of a niche program,” another suit spoke up. His thick-knuckled hand was wrapped around a network mug, warming himself. “It’s got a loyal audience, but over the past eighteen months it’s struggled to bring in new viewers, which means it’s struggled to bring in more advertising revenue and basically isn’t paying its way.”

“In short,” the first suit picked up, “we’re not here to educate the world, we’re here to entertain it, and if we’re not entertaining it, we’re not doing our job properly.”

The man stared daggers at Doug when he delivered this last line. Annja sensed a serious undercurrent of dislike between the two. It wasn’t simmering so much as threatening to boil over. Somehow Doug managed to keep his mouth shut while the suits took potshots at the program he produced and, by inference, at him.

“We’ve got a duty to the shareholders,” another voice chimed in. This one was female. Annja turned to look at the woman, realizing that with the exception of Doug, Annja didn’t have a single ally in the room.

The first suit took that as his cue to drive home the obvious. “Meaning we can’t keep on throwing good money after bad. Chasing History’s Monsters is expensive for what it is. We could just as easily screen episodes we’ve got in the can in the same time slot, given there are almost one hundred now, or alternate them with stuff we can buy in from other networks that come with an established audience.”

“Are you canceling the show?” Annja asked, sensing where this was going.

“Not yet,” the suit said, dangling the threat of cancellation like the Sword of Damocles over her head. “But I guess you could say we’re putting you on notice. Things have to change.”

“Okay, so why am I here? What do you expect me to do?”

“We want you to justify the money the network is investing in you, Miss Creed,” the fourth and final suit said, speaking up for the first time.

He was the youngest of the four, Annja observed, no doubt fresh out of some Ivy League school with a point to prove—that point being to tear down everything that had been created and rebuild it from scratch, reinventing the proverbial wheel.

“We want you to prove to us you’re worth the long-term investment,” he went on, “meaning we want you to go out there and interact, hit the social networks, build up followers on Twitter, post compelling little Vine video hints about what’s coming up to lure people in, use hashtags to get people involved in your investigations, turn the viewers into your army of citizen archaeologists. Make them feel like they are part of the show.”

“How’s that supposed to work?”

“Well, one idea we’ve had is live broadcasts,” the woman said, leaning forward. “So they can tweet you with what they want to see happen when it comes to the hunt. Say you’re going after the Amber Room and there are three possible sites you’ve identified. They can vote which one you check out. Or maybe they can Tweet questions at you during live interviews, that kind of thing.”

“Do you have any idea just how bad an idea that is?” Annja said, shaking her head. She couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing.

“It doesn’t really matter what you think, Miss Creed. You either find a way to make this work, or you don’t. But if you don’t we’ll be forced to look at the alternatives. Tonight’s meeting was merely a courtesy. We wanted you to understand the orders weren’t coming from Mr. Morrell. He’s fought your corner passionately, but some things are bigger than a mere producer. They come down from on high. In this case, all the way from the top. From the owners themselves. As I said, I’m a huge admirer of yours, Miss Creed. For your sake, I can only hope you’ve got a truly gripping segment lined up.”

That had been a week ago. Now she was in Prague, unable to sleep, trying to work out how on earth she was going to make these changes work. Part of her wanted to ignore them and just turn in a segment like the hundred other segments she’d turned in, but she knew something like that would just rebound on Doug. It would have been different if it had only been her job on the line, but she wasn’t about to put his in jeopardy, not after hearing how he’d gone to bat for her against the suits. For all that they argued, she knew he was on her side deep down. It was just that sometimes those subterranean depths were somewhere near the earth’s core. She needed to map out a few prerecorded minutes, little minisegments to set up a bigger mystery that could go out live.

And that thought terrified her: a live feed going out to the world, warts and all, with so many variables she couldn’t possibly hope to control. It wasn’t just about veering off script, either. The suits wanted to set the lunatics loose to run the asylum. Somehow she needed to engineer it so they wound up making the choices she needed them to make, a bit like a magician onstage. It was all about direction and misdirection. Make the masses think you were giving them what they wanted, when really you were giving them what you wanted. Her head ached just thinking about it.

Annja’s laptop stood on the desk that doubled as a dressing table. The cursor flashed on a blank screen, taunting her. She’d read all the research she had brought with her a dozen times in the past week, and she’d spent days just wandering around the city, getting a feel for the place. The amount of information on the internet about the city was overwhelming. Even when she tried to narrow the search parameters, the amount of data she had to wade through was daunting. She kept finding references to the city being Hitler’s favorite, and how he’d preserved a lot of the Old Town because he wanted to keep it for himself. Every time she saw the same statement it was prefaced with the words little known fact despite that putting the words Hitler and Prague in Google returned several thousand identical little-known facts. For Annja, though, it was all about one thing, one story that had endured so much so it was part of the fabric of the city itself: the golem.

She’d sketched out brief notes covering myth behind the creation of the creature made of clay and given life by Rabbi Loew, but most of them were nineteenth century legends that claimed the Maharal—Loew—created the golem to defend Prague from anti-Semitic attacks back in the sixteenth century. Of course, now it was virtually impossible to tell how much truth was hidden within those sensationalized tales. As with most European legends, it didn’t take long to isolate the common elements. There were enough of them for her to be sure that they originated from the same source, no matter how fantastical they eventually became.

Of course, Annja was reasonably sure that what she was chasing this time was nothing more than a feat of deception that had fooled enough people when they needed to be fooled. Illusion was the simplest way to give birth to a legend. It wasn’t so different from the Hans Christian Andersen story of the emperor’s new clothes. You had this miraculous defender of the city only seen by some precious few, but then more and more accounts of sightings started to emerge, not because people had seen the golem but because no one wanted to be the odd one out.

However, given the additional pressure from on high, the piece on the golem was feeling like fluff, just a filler bit for the show, not an entire segment, and most certainly not enough to make it the focus of a live show. And being live, they wouldn’t be able to pad it with lots of shots of the city. Even if they could have, that would have made the episode about the city not the golem—hardly something that would satisfy the ad-revenue-hungry network executives.

Eventually she gave up staring at the screen and crawled into the uncomfortable bed, knowing she needed to grab some sleep if she was going to be good for anything in the morning. Coping with jet lag wasn’t the biggest problem, but even days after the event, being cooped up in a plane always left her feeling restless.

Her running shoes were still in the bottom of her case.

She was tempted to get up, get ready and go out for a run. She never felt more alive than when she was running, and these were new streets to pound. The problem was she wouldn’t be able to sleep after that. But maybe that was better than lying in the bed, restless?

Another noise from the street drew her attention.

It wasn’t the sound of the group of young men this time, nor was it a single drunk trying to find his way back home.

She recognized the sounds of violence for what they were. She heard a body fall and was at the window looking out into the near-darkness, unable to make out any sign of movement below. Annja threw the window open. There was nothing to hear but the distance rumble of traffic. No, she realized, under it she could barely make out the slap of a single pair of heavy footsteps moving away.

Whatever the argument had been, it was over quickly.

The question was how serious was it on a scale of licking wounds to bleeding out in a gutter?

In the week she’d been in Prague, she hadn’t had a reason to think of it as a violent city. Sure, its past was rooted firmly in revolution, but she didn’t think of any European city as being any worse than parts of New York or Chicago. That didn’t mean that violence didn’t exist here, just that tourists were kept away from it. Maybe it was the lack of gunfire, which seemed to provide a huge part of the New York night chorus, or the endless cycle of sirens that painted a sensory image of what a violent city ought to be like.

She waited at the window, listening, but heard neither so assumed the scrap had been fists not firearms.

The bedside clock flashed a few minutes shy of 3:00 a.m. Sleep still seemed a long way off. Annja turned on the radio, keeping the volume so low the half-whispered voice of the late-night DJ was so quiet it was impossible to tell what language he was speaking between the ripple of easy listening.

It was enough to lull her to sleep.

Annja woke to the sound of movement in the corridor outside her room.

The radio still provided its thin layer of background noise, but against the sounds of the waking hotel it was little more than a sibilant hiss. Her dreams had been filled with violence and fear. She knew logically there was nothing she could have done about the fighting in the street—it had been over before she was even aware of it—but that didn’t stop her subconscious mind from tormenting her with a guilt-tripped sleep.

She had no appetite for breakfast.

Annja showered, standing in the steaming hot spray long enough to turn her body a dark shade of pink, then wrapped a towel around herself and made a particularly foul cup of coffee from the selection of instant blends on offer. The heat alone was enough to make her feel more alive.

It was barely seven-thirty. If anything was going to revive her, it was the crisp morning air, which would only be clean and crisp for maybe another thirty minutes or so before the city filled with traffic.

Five minutes later she was stretching on the pavement, her hair pulled back in a still-damp ponytail.

She started to run, moving lightly on her feet, weaving a path through the narrow alleyways around the hotel, up beyond the corner that would have taken her over the Charles Bridge toward the palace on the hill, toward Wenceslas Square. Her muscles were tight, but as the blood started to flow they loosened up. Her breathing came in little wispy puffs of steam that corkscrewed up in front of her face.

In the distance Annja heard the sound of a siren approaching.

Without realizing it she was running toward the source of the previous night’s fight. Within the few minutes she’d been out, the streets had already begun to show increasing signs of life with café owners setting up the tables outside their windows. A newspaper vendor on the street corner beside the subway entrance was doing a brisk trade as people passed by in a rush to get to work. It was the kind of thing she saw in every street in every city. Every time she skirted that hubbub of life it reminded her how lucky she was not to be caught up in it. She couldn’t imagine drifting through life. Annja harbored no illusions just how lucky she was to live the life she did. That was just another reason why this live-broadcast Twitter-chasing plan made her so uncomfortable. She had secrets, just like everyone else. The idea of turning the world into citizen archaeologists and sending them out to chase monsters had the power to turn her life upside down.

She slowed as she reached the far end of the street. People had begun to gather, blocking the way.

One man stepped away from the group.

He pulled out his cell phone.

She was too far away to hear what the man said as he spoke into his phone, but his body language spoke volumes. He was calling the police.

At the sound of the approaching siren a few people peeled away from the crowd. They disappeared into the side streets and wider spaces beyond, happy not to be involved once the police arrived.

Annja stepped into a gap that had been created as a middle-aged woman stepped away. The woman’s rigid expression gave plenty warning of what she was about to see. A shiver raced up Annja’s spine as she peered through the cluster of bodies: a man in a blue suit crouched over someone lying on the ground in an alleyway that ran between two buildings. Annja saw the dark, damp patch staining the cobbles at his feet as she worked her way closer. The man was fighting for a life that wasn’t there to be saved. He stood and shook his head to no one in particular. There was nothing he could do. Nothing anyone could do. As he moved away to the fresher air of the street, Annja saw the body properly.

The victim had been dead for some time.

Four and a half hours, Annja thought, looking at the ragged clothes the body wore, and at the stains that had turned them the same dark color as the ground around the corpse.

Judging by the state of his clothes, there was every chance this usually quiet alleyway was where the dead man made his bed for the night. Could his death be the consequence of a fight over something as tragic as the meager shelter that the alleyway offered? If it was, then it was a poor way to end a life that had surely seen more than its fair share of troubles. Annja rubbed a hand through her damp hair. The body that lay in the narrow space was no longer a man; now it was evidence to be picked over in the mortuary.

It didn’t need a pathologist to read the crime scene. This wasn’t death by natural causes. There was nothing accidental about it. She’d been right the previous night; there had been violence in the air. She couldn’t have stopped it. She couldn’t even let herself think that way. The world wasn’t her responsibility. She couldn’t police every street and save every victim.

When the police car came to a halt only a few feet away from the crowd, the press of bodies miraculously thinned, gawkers suddenly remembering they had somewhere else to be. The man in the suit spoke to a policeman, no doubt explaining that he had found the dead man. Annja couldn’t understand the few words she caught. One policeman made a note in his small black book, presumably of the man’s name and address while the other worked his way through the remaining gawkers to the corpse. A few seconds later, after the briefest of glances at the dead vagrant, he began to usher everyone back.

The forlorn siren song of an approaching ambulance was wholly out of place and much too late, unless it was bringing a priest. By the look of the dead man, every last ounce of hope had been torn from him, shredded, before he had finally slumped to the ground and spilled what little was left of his bodily fluids out across the cobbles.

Annja was still wrapped up in her thoughts when she realized that the policeman was talking to her. She shook her head.

“Sorry,” she said. “I don’t speak Czech.”

“Ah, did you see anything?” he asked, switching to English easily, though his voice carried a heavy accent. There was no way anyone would mistake him for a native speaker. Annja shook her head, so he moved on to the next person, no doubt sure this was a crime that didn’t warrant investigating given who the victim was.

“I might have heard something, though,” Annja said to his back. “Last night.”

He made no effort to disguise his world-weary sigh as he turned back to her. His pen was still poised over his pad. “What did you hear?”

Annja chose her words carefully. She didn’t want to risk any misunderstanding. “I heard a fight,” she began.

“A fight?”

She nodded. “Two men,” she said, though even as the words left her lips she couldn’t actually be sure that it was the truth. She’d heard so little, even with the window open. In truth, she had no reason to believe the dead man had anything to do with the struggle she had heard in the night.

“Can you describe them?” the policeman asked. “Anything at all?”

Annja held out her hands, shaking her head slightly. “I’m sorry, no. I only heard them. I can’t even be sure what I heard. It just sounded like fighting, but it was over very quickly, then I heard footsteps running away. It could have been anything, really. I just thought you should know.”

“When was this?”

“A little before three.”

“And where were you when you heard this altercation?”

She pointed in the direction of her hotel room, and her window, which didn’t really overlook the street by more than a few degrees, the laws of physics explaining why she hadn’t been able to see anything. The expression on his face changed. She couldn’t read him. He looked tired, and the stubble on his chin suggested a long night on duty was about to turn into an even longer day on duty. He made a note of her name and the room number, and offered cursory thanks as he moved on to the next face in the crowd, repeating his questions.

A man tried to enter the alleyway, but the policeman stopped him. The newcomer wouldn’t be deterred. He was determined to cut through the narrow passageway, and no dead body was going to stop him. The officer prodded him in the chest with a stubby finger. He might as well have hit the man with a Taser gun; the effect was just about the same. Annja turned toward the hotel and walked away as the disgruntled man started threatening to have the policeman’s badge. At least, that was what she chose to imagine his rant entailed. He could have been asking for alternative directions or if the good officer fancied a nice game of global thermonuclear war, for all she knew.




2 (#ulink_2c6e9f74-8324-5722-9d7e-3e7d78a688d6)


Annja still had no appetite.

She made her way into the dining room for breakfast, though she wasn’t sure she could face much more than a cup of strong black coffee. The stronger, the better, given it was going to have to mask the taste of death that had been cloying at the back of her throat since she stood in the alleyway.

“Can I get you anything else?” the waitress asked as she topped up her cup with a third refill in half an hour.

“I’m good, thanks,” Annja replied, picking up the cup without even thinking about it. She was no stranger to death, which wasn’t something she would have ever thought she’d find herself thinking a few years ago, but things had changed since Roux and Garin had walked into her life. What should have been the most horrific thing imaginable had almost become a fact of life, and of course there were those harrowing times when it had been her doing, a matter of kill or be killed.

But this was different.

She couldn’t shift the guilt. She could have done something. She’d heard it happening, had known instinctively something was wrong, but hadn’t gone down to check it out. She’d simply lain there telling herself there was nothing she could do. And even now, knowing that she was right—at least academically—emotionally she couldn’t banish the self-loathing that came with not even trying.

Someone had torn that vagrant open.

“Is something wrong?” the waitress whispered, her voice so quiet that none of the other diners would be able to hear what she said.

“Nothing that another cup of coffee won’t put right if I know you,” a familiar voice said, the man joining her at the table.

Annja didn’t need to look up to know who her visitor was.

“Garin,” she said. “I’m not even going to ask how you found me.”

“Shall I get another cup?” the waitress asked, smiling at Garin.

“That would be great.” Garin Braden tilted his head and offered a killer smile. “And I think maybe eggs Benedict.”

“Of course.”

At times it almost felt like he was stalking her. Wherever she was, he had the unnerving ability to find her without calling first.

“I really need to change my cell phone number,” she said.

“Wouldn’t help, I’ve had you tagged.” Garin grinned, and she wasn’t entirely sure he was joking.

“What do you want?”

“Why so hostile?”

“I’m not, I’m just exhausted,” Annja said, which was partially true.

Garin nodded. “To be honest, I was just bored, and I hate being bored. I thought about taking a trip, but you know how it is. The thrill of white-water rafting and wing suits and bungee jumping and all that just pales into insignificance against everything else we do, so I thought, ‘I know, I’ll go see Annja. She’s normally up to her neck in something.’ And here I am. I took the liberty of checking into the room next to yours. No adjoining door, alas.”

“I don’t have time to amuse you, Garin. I’m working.”

“Actually, you’re having a cup of coffee.”

It had been a long time since Annja had worried about hurting his feelings; as far as she could tell he had no feelings to hurt. It didn’t stop him pulling a face as if she had mortally wounded him.

“I’d hate to have come all this way and not be able to at least share breakfast with my favorite television star.”

“Stop it, Garin. I’m not in the mood.”

“In the mood for what?”

“You.”

“Harsh, woman. Harsh.”

“The world doesn’t revolve around you. Hard to believe, I know, but someone’s got to tell you the truth.”

“And that, my dear, is why I love you most.”

“Shut up.”

Garin grinned.

“Anyway, I’m not sure I can sit around wasting more time today. I’ve already lost an hour this morning thanks to the police.”

“Oh, see, now I knew you’d be up to your neck in something interesting. The police? Do tell.” Garin leaned forward, elbows on the tabletop, all smiles and full of interest.

She knew that he was only sucking her in, a spider smiling at a vain fly, but she couldn’t help herself. It wasn’t that she was fooled by his easy charm; that only worked for so long. She needed to talk. If she didn’t, the guilt would only fester. She knew that. She knew herself. The sooner she gave voice to her thoughts, the sooner she would be able to leave it behind. It wouldn’t be the first time Garin had played Father Confessor to her. “There was a murder,” she said.

“Next time we sit down for breakfast I suggest you starting with that. ‘Hello, Garin, there was a murder.’ That’s so much more interesting than ‘What do you want?’ Did you see it?”

“No, but I am ninety-nine percent sure I heard it. I just didn’t realize that’s what it was at the time. I went out for a run this morning, and found people gathered around the body. I gave a statement to a policeman, but I’m pretty sure he was just humoring me by then. After all, it was just some homeless guy,” she said bitterly. “It’s not like the cops will lose sleep over it.”

“Oh, so cynical for one so young,” Garin said, with no hint of laughter even though his smile was still firmly in place, predatory now. “Sadly I think you’re right. The system doesn’t care about the poor bastards who slip between the cracks.”

“I care,” Annja said.

“I’m sure you do. So, what have you got?”

“Nothing, really. Time of death. That’s it. At 3:00 a.m.”

“I once heard that more people die at three in the morning than at any other time of day.”

“Not really very helpful.”

“No, but interesting. So, an argument over shelter? Or a bottle?”

She didn’t have time to answer him. The waitress returned and placed a cup in front of Garin, filling it with rich black coffee. Annja pushed the cream in his direction, but he waved it away. “Watching my figure,” he said.

The waitress laughed, no doubt another willing victim of Garin’s charms should he decide to stick around. And judging by his appreciative expression as he watched her retreat toward the kitchen, he’d decided to do just that.

“You know what else is interesting? I read about a dead vagrant in this morning’s newspaper.”

“Not a chance. There’s no way it was in the morning paper. They only found the body an hour ago.”

“I didn’t say your dead vagrant.”

“There have been others?”

“Oh, Annja,” Garin said patronizingly. “You really ought to take more of an interest in the here and now and pay a little less attention to what happened centuries ago. Dusty old books have nothing on television or the internet, you know. Not when it comes to living in the real world.”

“Don’t be a jerk. Just tell me what you know.”

“You take all the fun out of life, Annja Creed, but you know that, don’t you?”

“Share or shut up.”

Garin smiled, clearly enjoying the moment and determined to make the most of it.

That stupid grin was really beginning to grate on Annja’s nerves, but she wasn’t about to let him know that, so she smiled right back, sweetly.

“Okay,” he said at last, raising his hands in surrender. He’d had his fun. “There have been three deaths in as many weeks. Four now. One every week for a month. All of them have been street people. If the papers are right, the police are clueless. No one seems to know if this is a case of the city’s homeless fighting among themselves or if they’re looking for a lunatic who’s taken it upon himself to try to clean up the streets.”

“Clean up the streets? Surely no one in their right mind could think that they could kill every homeless person?”

“I did say lunatic, didn’t I?”

Annja shook her head. “There must be thousands of people living on the streets. It’s a capital city.”

“To clean up the streets you don’t need to kill all of them. You just have to make the ones left behind so afraid they gather up their few possessions and head out of town.”

“But they’ve got nowhere to go. They’re not on the streets for fun.”

Garin shrugged. “Right, but then they’re someone else’s problem.”

Annja knew he was right. “My enemy’s enemy is my friend, sort of thing,” Annja agreed. “And you think that’s what’s happening here?”

“I have no idea. Maybe. Hell, I’m sure Jack the Ripper thought that he was doing something positive about the number of prostitutes in London.”

Annja was doubtful. There were plenty of sick people in the world who would do something like this for kicks. She said as much. She wasn’t sure which was worse—someone killing out of some crazy idea that they were doing good or a calculating killer doing it for the simple pleasure of killing.

“Maybe the police are right,” Garin offered. “Maybe it really is just a case of the homeless fighting among themselves.”

His eggs arrived while she was thinking about the possibility.

One thing was sure—she didn’t feel any better about the fact that she hadn’t intervened, even if it had only been to call the police when she heard the scuffle. The time between the act and the discovery of the act only made it more difficult for justice to catch up with the killer.

She needed to get out of there.

Her head wasn’t in the right place. There was no way she was going to come up with something clever to say in front of the camera, at least not today. She made a call while Garin was eating and gave Lars, her cameraman, the day off. He wanted to know if she was okay. She assured him she was.

“So you’re going to have some free time, after all,” Garin said, wiping his lips as she ended the call. He’d made short work of polishing off his breakfast and was already signaling for a top-up to his coffee. He flashed the waitress that smile again, earning one right back.

“I’ve got things to do,” Annja said, dropping her napkin on the table. “I’m sure you’ve got enough here to entertain yourself.” She looked meaningfully toward the waitress, who in turn was pretending to look busy.

“I’m sure I can keep myself entertained for a few hours. After all, we’re in a hotel. Lots of bedrooms.”

“Just spare me the gory details.”




3 (#ulink_9fa4a0e3-f411-544a-a8cd-9d0b2bd09697)


Annja was itching to get out and about, to do something, see something, anything that would take her mind off the nagging guilt.

She picked up the research on the golem, skimming it without finding any inspiration in the dry text.

She needed an angle.

That was what made stories work.

A human element. Something…different. Fresh. Something that would make the whole thing a little more interesting. If she couldn’t do that, maybe there was a second story from Prague she could stitch together to make something that might work.

The rack at the back of the desk held a well-thumbed collection of tourist brochures with dull photographs of landmarks and sites to visit in and around the city. Some of those brochures probably dated back to the Charter 77 revolution. A few of the landmarks were too obvious. They offered the shots of buildings that appeared in every holiday brochure and website about the city. They offered little of real interest to her. She didn’t want to simply retread the footsteps of well-known history, especially with the added pressure on this segment from the suits. To be perfectly honest, it was bad enough that the golem was so ingrained in the psyche of the city that she couldn’t find anything to say that hadn’t already been said. It was the kind of myth that pushed all the other folk tales to one side. There was only room for one fantastic beast here. But surely that in itself should have helped her? It made the less well-known legends more appealing, didn’t it?

Maybe.

If she could find one worth telling.

And with that thought it was as if something had clicked inside her head.

She had found something to search for even if she had no idea what it was.

This might be the golem’s city, but there had to be a more fascinating story beneath it, something better, in a city as old as Prague. She’d come across an epigram in her notes: Your problem, city, is that you have no soul. She couldn’t recall where she’d come across it, but she liked it.

Annja pondered the notion of going out to Sedlec, in the Kutná Hora suburb, to check out the ossuary. There was a building with a story to tell—a church dating back eight hundred years, with upward of seventy thousand corpses exhumed, their bones used to decorate the chapels. Chandeliers of bones, garlands of skulls, an altar consisting of every single bone from the human body, monstrances fashioned from childlike skeletons and the Schwarzenberg coat of arms, also executed in bone. It was like nowhere else on Earth. That a half-blind monk had done the exhumation five hundred years ago was the stuff of macabre fairy tale, rather like the bone sculptures of the carpenter František Rint, who was behind the decor. Could she somehow marry that in with the stories of the golem? A made man against a backdrop of a quite literally man-made chapel? It would provide an incredible visual for the live broadcast, she realized. It was a possibility.

She stuffed a handful of the leaflets into her bag and headed out with a little more of a spring in her step than when she’d come back into the room.

Even without consulting the street map she’d picked up from reception, she knew that there were any number of places she could start looking for her story that didn’t involve heading out to the ossuary. The most obvious was the city’s Old Town.

A convenient signpost only a few yards from her hotel pointed her in the right direction. The streets were considerably more alive if not teeming with tourists. Give it another hour, though, and that would be an entirely different matter. She walked on, looking at the endless matryoshka dolls on display in the shop windows around her.

The traffic had started to build up toward the morning rush hour, but the way the city was constructed, most of it never entered the more pedestrianized center. Some of the wider boulevards with expensive designer-brand stores were lined with lush trees and lusher price tags while the narrower streets were snarled up with people trying to take shortcuts. That was another legacy of cities first built before the invention of the internal combustion engines; some survived by keeping the traffic out of town as much as possible while others allowed developers to gradually change the landscape. Prague, it seemed, wanted to be the best of both worlds, but just might be the worst.

She turned onto Karlova Street and kept walking.

A delivery bicycle hopped onto the curb to pass a stationery van delivering parcels. Annja had to step out of the way, ducking into the deep doorway of a building. There was no point in yelling at the cyclist’s back; he was already half a street away. No one was hurt, nothing was broken. An impatient car—a big black shiny SUV—behind the van sounded its horn. The van driver showed no sign of moving for the time being. He climbed out of the cab and gave a wave that, while it was meant to say Bear with me, I’ll only be a moment, came across more like Screw you, I was here first.

Annja realized he was heading straight toward her, package in hand.

She stepped aside to let him get to the door, catching sight of the confused expression on the man’s face, and guessed he’d thought she’d come down to take the delivery from him.

“Sorry,” she said as she let him ring the bell.

He just nodded, obviously uncomfortable with the foreign language.

It was an unassuming little archway that promised the internet, a hair salon and a tobacco shop farther inside. There was a face carved into the keystone above the arch. As she stood on the sidewalk, she read the sign on the door. Kepler Museum.

She’d heard of Kepler, of course. He’d been a key figure in the seventeenth century scientific revolution, with his breakthroughs in the understanding of planetary motion providing the groundwork for Isaac Newton’s gravitational theory.

She was still trying to trawl her memory for anything she could remember about Kepler when the door opened. A middle-aged woman appeared on the doorstep to take the parcel. She signed his clipboard, then looked up at Annja, obviously unsure what she was doing loitering in the museum’s doorway.

She was still looking at her when the man slammed the door on his cab and gunned the engine, much to the relief of the waiting line of vehicles that snaked down the length of Karlova Street.

“Hello,” Annja said.

“Ah, hello,” the woman replied. “I’m sorry, but we do not open for another hour.”

She took a step out from under the archway to look up and down the street, rather like some wartime spy looking for a tail. Annja couldn’t help but smile to herself at the image. Maybe being in Eastern Europe was beginning to rub off on her way of thinking.

The traffic began to move again, following the van down Karlova Street toward the wider roads that waited beyond.

There was no one else on foot.

“You’re welcome to come inside, if you don’t mind the old house being a little on the chilly side. We seldom get visitors so keen they’re standing outside waiting for us to open.”

“Thank you,” Annja said, offering a smile, happy to play the excited tourist rather than correct the woman’s assumption. The entirety of her plan today was to follow the whims of the universe. If this was where the wind blew her, to this door in this part of town, then this was where she needed to be. How she got here, by accident or design, didn’t matter.

She followed the woman inside.

The air was a good ten degrees colder on her skin than it had been outside.

The woman disappeared through a doorway along the corridor, the old wood-and-glass paneled door swinging closed for a moment before she opened it again. She wedged a rubber stop under it to prevent it from swinging closed again.

“Please,” the woman said, beckoning Annja into her small office where papers and files covered every inch of the two desks. “Would you like coffee? I find that I can’t do anything until I’ve had at least my second cup of coffee in the morning. That is, unless you’d be happier taking a look around yourself?”

“Actually, it’s been one of those days already, so I could use a decent cup of coffee. And then, if you’re willing, I’d love it if you showed me around,” Annja said.

“Then coffee and the grand tour it is.”

The woman busied herself with an expensive coffee machine.

Annja picked up one of the brochures from the pile that lay on the top of the filing cabinet. It was newer than the ones she’d seen in her hotel room, but offered much the same information. It was hard to imagine that the glossy paper produced all that many additional visitors. But then not all tourists were as jaded and world-weary as she’d been feeling recently.

Looking at the brochure didn’t inspire any great sense of adventure, though, and surely that was how you sold history? You made it come alive and feel real. This one offered little other than the fact that Kepler had worked in the city between 1600 and 1612, and was written in five different languages—though not well, it seemed, in any of them—beneath a reproduction of the portrait that was set in the keystone above the arch outside. There were a few pictures of the exhibits, as well. The flipside provided a small street map with an arrow pointing to the museum’s location, which, given that she was already standing in the middle of it, was fairly redundant. That said, Annja wasn’t sure she would have been able to find the small museum on the basis of the map alone, even though her hotel was only a few streets away.

“It doesn’t give a lot away, does it?” the woman said with a beaming smile on her face. She handed Annja a mug that bore the same portrait. She wondered idly how the astronomer would have felt to know his face had become a brand. “But then, we wouldn’t want too many people banging down the door in search of some Holy Grail or other. We like it just as it is.”

If it was good enough for the woman, it was good enough for Kepler himself, and that meant it was good enough for Annja.

“So, tell me, what brought you to our doorway? Do you have a special interest in Kepler? Or is it going to rain?”

Annja smiled at that.

“Perhaps I should explain,” she began. She fished out a business card from her bag. She handed it over. The woman looked as if she was being offered confirmation that they were receiving a surprise visit from the tax man, but eventually her expression lightened.

“Annja Creed,” she said. “Chasing History’s Monsters.”

It never ceased to amaze Annja when she came across people outside the mainland United States who’d heard of the show.

“I’m afraid I’ve never seen the program,” the woman said, piercing that particular bubble apologetically. “But my sister lives in New York and her son loves it. He talks about it every time I speak to him. You’ve made quite an impression on him, but then, he is a teenager.” Her grin was knowing.

“Do you think I could get you to sign something to send to him? He would be absolutely thrilled.”

“Of course,” Annja replied.

The woman looked around for a piece of paper, then decided it might be more fun if Annja signed one of the museum’s brochures. She was more than happy to oblige. It wasn’t exactly a hardship to send her best wishes to the budding archaeologist, and it gained the woman’s gratitude. She had no idea if there was a story here, but if anyone was likely to be able to help her find it, it was the curator.

“So are you thinking about doing a program about Kepler?” Her brow furrowed for a moment, seeming to realize something. “I would never have thought anyone would consider him a monster.”

“Unless you know some deep, dark secrets,” Annja said. “I’m in Prague to make a segment about Rabbi Loew and the golem, but I’ll be honest, I’m not exactly finding it inspiring.”

“Ah, yes, the golem. Now there was a proper monster,” she said. “In the oldest sense of the word. So what are you looking for?”

“Inspiration,” Annja said, painting as broad a canvas with the single word as she possibly could. “The city has to have more than one story to tell. If not here, then somewhere nearby. I am just following my nose. If I can’t find anything, then I’m not really sure what I’m going to do just yet. Maybe back to the golem if I can find a fresh perspective.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” the woman said. “It would probably be more than my job’s worth to help you if you wanted to turn Kepler into a monster. After all, the whole purpose of the museum is to celebrate his life and work.”

“Fear not, you bought me with coffee.” Annja raised her cup as though toasting the astronomer, and took another gulp. “The show’s never been about tarnishing someone’s reputation, living or dead.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” the woman said, the concern that had begun to build up on her face melting away.

Which of course only served to make Annja wonder if that meant Kepler had a secret worth hiding. But that was just the way her mind worked.

“So, inspiration…”

“Indeed,” said Annja. “Inspiration.”

“Finish your coffee and I’ll give you the grand tour.”

Annja took another sip, surprised that the woman had already finished hers, and then offered the mug back with half of the black treacle still in the bottom.

“That’s the best part,” the woman said, taking it and putting it next to her own like paperweights atop the bundle of papers. “Let’s make a start, then, shall we?”

Annja followed her around, listening to one explanation after another. The woman was a wealth of information when it came to the twelve years Kepler had spent in the city. Annja didn’t hear anyone else enter the building during the hour they walked between display cases, moving from room to room. She wondered how many visitors the museum received every day. It was getting on toward lunchtime, or at least brunch, so the tourists were no doubt still enjoying a leisurely stroll around the town, waiting for the hour to chime and the figures of the astronomical clock to do their macabre dance come midday. Perhaps more would come by in the afternoon. Or had people stopped caring about men like Johannes Kepler and all that they had done to further humankind’s understanding of the world?

She listened attentively, and it was obvious that much of the talk was stuff the woman had learned by rote and recited many times each week. It covered most of Kepler’s scientific achievements and the contributions that his studies had made to the science of astronomy. It was interesting, but it wasn’t show material. She’d already begun to forget some of the opening facts and she hadn’t even walked out the door.

She concentrated on what the woman had to say about his involvement with the city itself, but there was very little of that in her prepared speech.

As they approached the end of the tour, Annja knew as much as anyone could possibly ever want to know about the astronomer, but there’d been nothing to send a shiver up her spine. Nothing that told her she was listening to a story that would be worth chasing.

“A few of the places connected to Kepler are still standing,” the woman said. “Obviously you’re standing in one of them, but there are a few others worth taking a look at, if you are interested.”

Annja said she was. “Where would you recommend?”

“You might like to take a trip out to Benátky nad Jizerou if you’re taking a tour of the area. It’s a small town, half an hour away. It was where Tycho Brahe was building his observatory when he invited Kepler to join him. I’ve no idea how much they have there, but the town and the castle are worth visiting.”

Annja had heard the woman mention Brahe several times as they walked through the exhibits. Like Kepler, Brahe had been an important figure in the study of the planets at the time. Although his name hadn’t left such a lasting global legacy, he had clearly been an instrumental figure in the foundation of Prague as a center for scientific thought.

“I might just do that,” Annja said. “Thanks.”

They headed toward the door, making small talk as they took the wooden stairs back down to the street level. It had been an interesting way to pass an hour or so, but it hadn’t solved Annja’s problem, and as far as she could see there was nothing pointing her in the direction of the next story.

“It’s been lovely to meet you,” the woman said as they reached the door. She made a show of looking up and down the street and shaking her head. “I’m starting to think that you might be our only visitor today.”

“Things are that bad?”

“Worse,” she said.

“How come?”

Annja’s first thought was that the place wasn’t making itself visible enough. After all, it was hidden away, and failing to appeal to the young. But then Prague was more commonly thought of as a party city where visitors could leave behind the consequences of their actions, not the kind of place you came to soak in the legacy of almost-forgotten scientists. That being the case, no amount of glossy brochures or clever marketing gimmicks would help.

She’d jumped to the wrong conclusion.

“It’s the murders,” the woman said. “You can hardly blame people for keeping away, I suppose. Who wants to go wandering around when people are getting murdered right outside their front doors? So, we struggle, and if the police don’t find the killer soon, it will be too late for some of us.”

“Is it really that bad?” Annja asked.

She’d been in Prague nearly a week and had been so wrapped up in her own problems she hadn’t even noticed. That was what Garin meant about living in the real world for a while.

She avoided mentioning just how close she might have come to the killer, hoping that the woman would fill in some of the details Garin had hinted at over breakfast.

“Oh, yes. There have been several of them. Poor homeless people found dead in alleyways and parking lots. Some huddled in doorways, their blankets still drawn up under their chins as if they were just sleeping.” The way the woman talked about it, it sounded like there were far more than four dead bodies that had been accounted for.

“Are the victims always homeless?”

The woman nodded. “Yes. Every one of them. There’s nothing to say that ordinary people like you or me are at risk, but it has put people off coming into the city. The hotels are half-full where usually they’d be booked up at this time of year. It’s worrying.”

“I’ve been here a week and I didn’t even know about the murders until this morning,” Annja admitted. “Not that it would have made much difference if I had known. My bosses wouldn’t have let me duck out of this trip. The way things are back home, I think they’d probably like it if I came face-to-face with the killer. Better for the ratings than another show about the golem.”

“I’ve never understood why everyone is obsessed with that story,” the woman said. “It’s just a fairy tale. One of the newspapers keeps trying to link the killings with that old story, too. They’re willing to do anything to sensationalize the whole thing.” She shook her head sadly. “If you ask me, they’d be better off getting people to help find the killer or putting their efforts into making sure those poor souls had some kind of shelter for the night.”

Which, Annja knew, was not merely true; it was obvious. If a killer was targeting the homeless, the very best thing the city could do to protect its people was to see that they had somewhere to sleep that was safe. But it was also obvious, from a narrative point of view, for the journalists to build up a story that linked real life events to the myth. Myths had power—power to thrill, power to chill. Telling the story would not only increase the sense of fear gripping the city, but it would sell newspapers. And, judging by the suits back home, that was the only thing that mattered to some people.

She gave her thanks to her guide, accepting a couple of brochures that the woman offered her, and highlighted the village that she had suggested Annja visit. Annja slipped them in her bag and pulled out a twenty-euro note. The woman tried to wave it away, but Annja insisted on leaving it as a donation. If things were as bad as they seemed to be, there was no way that the woman could afford to refuse any money coming her way. Despite protesting, the woman put it into the donations jar beside the door.

Annja stepped out into the street.

She felt the warmth on her face that had been missing inside the building.

She might not have found anything new relating to her story, but she might just have stumbled onto the obvious angle for the story she had. People’s macabre fascination with murder sold newspapers. And if it was good enough to sell newspapers, then it ought to be good enough for the network’s suits. But would it be good enough to save Chasing History’s Monsters?

Only time would tell.




4 (#ulink_20a5ff4f-cb37-5945-93e0-aca6c36f1e59)


A quick visit to the newsstand confirmed which newspaper had been carrying the stories that connected the vagrant murders with Rabbi Loew’s golem.

Even though the words were incomprehensible, the front page of one of the papers in the newsstand’s racks carried Loew’s name and an etching in place of a photograph that detailed the golem’s nighttime wandering through these streets. Unable to read it, she decided she needed a different course of action. Thinking on her feet, Annja noted the name of the reporter whose byline appeared underneath the headline: Jan Turek.

A call to the newspaper resulted in her being passed from person to person until someone was found who spoke a language they had in common comfortably enough to answer a few questions. Then she discovered that Turek wasn’t on the staff at all, but was a freelancer, and the staff member was unwilling to pass on any contact details for him without knowing more about her and her credentials. She provided Doug Morrell’s contact information and told the staffer he could check in with him. She hoped that being on staff with a cable television corporation in the US would be enough to persuade them to put her in touch with Turek. She gave the staffer her number at the hotel and returned there to wait for Doug to confirm she was who she said she was.

When the phone rang she snatched it up and answered.

It wasn’t Jan Turek.

It was the staffer, who confirmed that Doug Morrell had vouched for her, though he hadn’t appreciated being woken up at six in the morning. Annja couldn’t help herself, she laughed at that, having completely forgotten about the time difference when she’d given the staffer Doug’s cell number. The woman promised to take a message and pass it on to Turek, but couldn’t promise when he’d get back to her.

“He’s not exactly the most reliable soul,” she explained. “Which is why he’s not on the staff here. But I’ll call him now and leave your message. He’s more of a night bird,” the woman said, which Annja immediately corrected to night owl in her mind. “I think he sleeps for most of the day, so don’t expect a call back from him for a while.”

“But he’s definitely the man I need to speak to about the stories you’ve been running about the killings?”

“Oh, yes. Can I ask, are you looking to buy the story from Jan?”

“It’s possible,” Annja said. She knew how papers worked. The reporter would have a lot of material that hadn’t made it into the finished copy. Was there anything in there that would be of interest to her? Maybe.

“I’ll make sure I tell him that. He’s more likely to give you a call if there’s a chance of money changing hands. You know how these freelancers are. If you don’t hear from him, you might want to check out some of the places where people sleep outside. He’s been talking to a lot of the homeless people late at night. I think he’s even slept on the streets himself a couple of nights this week in the hope that he might catch the killer himself. The police warned him off that, though, so hopefully he listened to them. To be honest, I don’t like the idea of him out there. It’s not safe.”

“Thanks,” Annja said.

If the man didn’t call her back, she was going to have to go looking for him, but she would have somewhere to start, which was more than she’d had an hour ago. How many Jan Tureks could there be in the city?

She was more than capable of looking after herself no matter who she found herself up against. But it was still seven or eight hours until it would start to get dark, and another six or seven until it was the right time to go hunting the killer, which made as much sense as hunting for the journalist who was writing about him.

That meant she was at a loose end.

She had time to kill.

She had exhausted the research she had brought with her three times over, but now she had another angle to chase. She decided to check the internet to see if there were better reports about the killings that had made it into the international press. Worst case, she could run Turek’s reports—assuming they were online—through a translation app and at least get some sort of idea what theories he was putting forward. It wouldn’t hurt to know just how much fear he was causing with his pieces, either. That was where the comments sections came in.

She headed back to the hotel, assuming Garin would still be occupying himself for a while yet.

From outside, the hotel was an unassuming building. It had been a Dominican monastery back in the golem’s day. Now it offered her space for quiet contemplation. Both the businessmen and the tourists had long since left, leaving the foyer empty. Annja walked toward the desk, which was between her and the single flight of stairs that led to the first floor where her room was. The receptionist looked up and smiled, returning to her work when Annja turned toward the stairs.

A middle-aged couple talking rapidly in German emerged from the stairway and walked straight to the reception desk without giving her a second glance.

Annja climbed the stairs two at a time, eager to get to work now that she had something to focus on.

She passed Garin’s room, hearing voices behind the door. No doubt he was charming the waitress with talk of his jet airplane and a trip to Paris for champagne and strawberries that evening. That was his usual technique when it came to sweeping women off their feet: leave them dizzy with the heady rush of a life barely even imagined. If not Paris, maybe it would be pizza in Rome or Venetian ice cream, gazing out over the Lido. How many times in the past few years had Garin tried to impress her the same way? More than enough was the answer, though in truth he’d never impressed her more than that very first time they’d come face-to-face as she hunted the Beast of Gévaudan. He’d saved her life that day. To Annja’s way of thinking that was more impressive than traveling half the world to dine at some fancy five-star restaurant, but as she’d quickly come to learn she was pretty much one of a kind.

She smiled to herself as she moved on to her own room.




5 (#ulink_f338ce4b-d276-575e-891c-05622ff8cfeb)


Two hours sped by with Annja reading the various reports. It wasn’t easy, the language barrier present even online, but she managed to track down more and more articles on the internet—though, painfully, as the translation site had a habit of turning the original Czech articles into gibberish.

She could have taken them to a translation service, but that would take time and cost money and probably only serve to annoy her paymasters. Or she could have asked around for a person who was fluent in English—fluent enough to give her a real idea of just how emotive the language in the articles was.

Of course, she had an ace up her proverbial sleeve. Roux. The man knew so much and had seen so much more. Even if he didn’t have the answers, he would know someone who did. And in this case, he had no agenda, no wish to gain anything from her requests for help. That was the primary difference between the old man and Garin. Garin was like the song: he was his first, his last, his everything. He always put the interests of Garin Braden ahead of the interests of others. It wasn’t just about being selfish, it was about being himself. You didn’t live six hundred years of decadence without picking up some bad habits along the way. It was only inevitable that centuries of getting neck-deep in fecal matter and somehow emerging smelling of roses gave you a warped perspective on life. Roux was different. She didn’t know why—on a fundamental level—that should be so. But it was. The only thing she’d noticed, and it was through years of quiet observation as opposed to direct confrontation, was that Roux welcomed the idea that he might not live forever whereas Garin dreaded it.

The old man might come across as cantankerous at the best of times, but he was the rock she could rely on while all else around her floundered. And he wouldn’t ask for anything else in return, even if he wasn’t completely enthusiastic about getting involved. That was another sign that age was catching up with him. She’d noticed it time and again since what had felt like Garin’s ultimate betrayal beneath the Pass of the Moor’s Sigh. He’d taken that hard. It wasn’t just that Garin had shown his true colors; it was that maybe, just maybe, Roux had finally accepted that he couldn’t change his former apprentice’s nature.

She played with the phone for a moment. Roux was the touchstone that linked both of the lives she lived. He was a constant in an ever-changing world.

She punched in his number and waited for the phone to ring.

“To what do I owe this pleasure, my dear?” the old man said. There was no hint of surprise in Roux’s voice.

“How are you doing?”

“Much the same as I am always doing,” the old man replied. “As wonderful as it is to hear from you, I take it this isn’t a social call? What can I do for you?”

“How good is your Czech?”

“Written or spoken?”

“Written,” she said, unsurprised that he’d made the distinction rather than dismiss her question straightaway.

“Fair,” he said. “As long as it’s not too technical. What are we talking about?”

“A few tabloid articles. I’m sending you the links now.”

“I didn’t say that I was going to help you,” Roux chided lightly. “Sometimes you take things for granted.”

“You also didn’t say you weren’t going to help me,” she said, wishing that he would be a little more obvious when he was feeling prickly. Some sort of code word would save a lot of misunderstanding. “Let’s try again. Will you help me? Pretty please, O great and powerful Roux?”

There was an audible sigh that he exaggerated for her benefit, which guaranteed he’d read the articles for her.

“All right. Send the links. I’ll call you back once I’ve had the chance to digest them. I assume we aren’t looking at War and Peace here? I have a busy day ahead of me.”

“There shouldn’t be too much,” Annja said. “I’m only interested in the pieces that refer to the golem.”

“The golem?”

“Yeah, you know, Rabbi Loew… The Golem of Prague…”

“I’m not a simpleton, Annja, I know exactly what you’re talking about. I just don’t understand what your interest in it might be. After all, it’s a fairy tale.” He paused for a moment. There was an anguished tone lurking beneath his voice when he continued. “I’ve always thought that you considered what you do to be a proper job. Something worthwhile. Not frivolity. Was I wrong?”

Annja didn’t think she’d ever heard him use those kinds of words to describe what she did. “There’s a story here. It’s something that viewers might be interested in, yes, but it’s more than that. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were deliberately being antagonistic. This isn’t like you. So I’m just going to ignore it. I refuse to rise to the bait.”

“Not antagonistic, merely surprised.” She heard the tap of keys as Roux followed up the links to the web-pages she had sent him. “There’s quite a bit here,” he said after another minute or so. “I’ll call you in half an hour.” He hung up without waiting for her response.

It wasn’t the first time he had done that to her, and odds were it wouldn’t be the last. With half an hour to kill, she carried on scrolling through everything she could find about the recent spate of killings in the city while she watched the seconds crawl by. Once upon a time losing herself like Alice down the rabbit hole of the internet could have swallowed thirty minutes in the blink of an eye. All she had to do was follow a link, then another that branched off from the first toward something vaguely interesting, and then another, and suddenly half the day was gone. It wasn’t like that now. Now every second dragged and every link offered frustration.

Even so, fifteen minutes had been wasted by the time her phone rang.

Roux’s name flashed on the screen.

“That was quick,” she said, after snatching it up.

“Some things don’t take long to read,” the old man said. His voice had changed in the few minutes since he’d hung up on her. She knew him well enough to know that meant something was wrong.

“Talk to me. What do you think?”

He waited a moment, as though weighing up what, precisely, to say to her. Finally he said, “I think you might be getting caught up in something you don’t understand.” It was blunt and to the point. And it meant there was no way she was walking away from this now. Because, as well as she knew him, the old man knew her, too. He knew exactly what to say to plant the seed that would grow into obsession.

“I know what you’re doing,” she said. “You’re not the kid-gloves kind of guy. Spill.”

She could hear the smile in his voice. “I was merely observing that this might not be as simple as it seems.”

“And you know what it’s like when you dangle imminent danger in front of me,” Annja said. “I can’t resist.”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t rather your television show had taken you somewhere else, just this once.”

“So, what do they say?”

“Ostensibly they cover a spate of murders in the Czech capital, and the journalist who wrote these articles—Jan Turek—has found a way of linking them to the legend of the golem. But this, I suspect, you already know.”

“I do. It’s why I sent you them.”

“Almost everything in Prague can be linked to the legend in some way, Annja. It is a city filled with hidden dangers. Most of the time they stay hidden, but every now and then one of them finds its way out into the daylight.”

“What does it say, Roux? I’m a big girl. I can look after myself.”

“Just that Turek believes some ancient evil has stirred. I want you to promise me you won’t do anything stupid, Annja.”

“I can’t promise that,” she said, trying her best to sound light and breezy rather than like some petulant teenager. “Anyway, it’s not like I’m on my own.”

“I don’t think that cameraman of yours is likely to be much help.”

“I’m not talking about Lars. Garin turned up this morning.”

“Garin? What on earth is he doing there?” Roux asked. Annja noted the change in his voice. It was more than just the mention of Garin’s name. Maybe, she surmised, it was even part of the reason why he was here in Prague.

“Did he say why he wanted to see you?” Roux asked, following an identical train of thought.

“No. He made out that he was bored. And to be brutally honest, he seemed intent on relieving that boredom with the waitress who served us breakfast.” She expected some kind of response from Roux, some barbed comment about the younger man’s proclivities, some damning indictment of his lifestyle. None came.

Instead, he said, “If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it properly. I’m coming. Don’t go out after sunset. I’ll be there in a few hours.”

“Roux?” Something really had him spooked. “You don’t have to.”

“I do. Believe me. There are things about that city you don’t understand. Ancient forces. Evil. I am not leaving you alone there.”

“Okay, Roux, now you’re scaring me.”

“Good. It’s good to be scared.”

“Should I warn Garin?”

“He went there with his eyes open. He almost certainly knows what these murders mean. He isn’t a fool, and to use one of your own rather eloquent turns of phrase, he’s big enough and ugly enough to take care of himself. I have a few things to take care of, but I’ll be with you before sunrise. In the meantime, do not go out after dark. Promise me.”

“I promise,” Annja said, knowing it was a promise she was absolutely going to break, but promising it, anyway.

He hung up on her again. Twice within the hour, now that was almost a record.

What had gotten him so spooked? Ancient evil, dark forces. He wasn’t prone to talk like that. So what was so bad it would bring him running? And why no concern for Garin’s well-being? There was something she wasn’t being told and she didn’t like that. She didn’t like it at all. While she was the first to admit that she had a habit of getting into scrapes, she had something none of her enemies had: Joan of Arc’s sword. She didn’t need a bodyguard. All she had to do was to reach out into the otherwhere and close her hand around the reassuring familiarity of the hilt and it was there.

The sword had been reforged after so many years shattered, Roux having scoured the four corners of the Earth to find the shards of metal. That was how this had all begun so many years ago. It wasn’t a blacksmith who had healed the wounded blade—and yes, she’d come to think of the sword as something very much alive—she had done it, with nothing more than her bare hands. Garin had been there, as had Roux. They’d all been in this together from that moment on, despite some hiccups along the way.

Roux hadn’t exactly told her not to talk to Garin, only that he could look after himself. There was no way that she was going to stay cooped up in the hotel room. She thought about checking in with Garin, see if he wanted to do a patrol of the streets, try to shake something loose, but decided to call Lars, her cameraman, to warn him that he wouldn’t be getting a lot of sleep later.

“We’re going monster hunting,” she said when he answered.

“Now?”

“After sundown.”

Lars Mortensen sounded like his head was still somewhere up in Stockholm, his home base. When she’d settled on Prague for the segment, she’d reached out to a few of the cameramen she’d worked with in the region. Lars, who had been with her during their coverage of the Beowulf dig in Skalunda Barrow a couple of years back, jumped at the chance to work with her again. He’d told her he’d meet her under the astronomical clock in twenty-four hours, and like the punctual guy he was, he’d been waiting there for her twenty-three hours and fifty-nine minutes later.

“When you say monsters, you mean?”

“We’ve got a segment to tape.”

“Excellent. I’ve been getting antsy kicking my heels here all day.”

She laughed at that. “I don’t know if you’ve been watching the news, but there’s a killer on the loose in the city and we didn’t even know about it.”

The penny dropped. “Are you out of your mind? There’s a lunatic out there and you want us to go looking for him? I thought we were here to shoot a segment about the golem.”

“We are. But it’s not quite that simple,” she said. “There’s a journalist who seems to think that there’s a link to the golem.”

“You mean like it’s the golem doing the killing kind of link? Or some kind of homage?”

“I don’t know. I want to talk to him, but that means finding him, and the best link I’ve got is that he’s living on the street right now. He’s been covering the story since it began, living among the people who are the most vulnerable.”

“You mean he’s sleeping outside when there’s a killer who’s preying on the homeless? That’s one crazy mofo.”

“He’s certainly dedicated to the truth,” Annja said.

“And you want us to go out into his hunting ground? Are you planning on painting a target on our backs, as well?”

“Nothing so risky. I just want to poke about a bit.”

“I remember the last time you just wanted to poke about, Annja. Just promise me no burning churches this time.”

“We’ll be fine,” Annja said, trying to reassure him even though she remembered all too vividly what had happened the last time they’d gone out on a shoot together. How could she forget? She really hated fire.

She didn’t have to take him out on this little recce, but given what she had in mind for the live show, grabbing some footage of the homeless on the streets of Prague might just be useful filler, assuming the program came together the way she wanted it to. It certainly wouldn’t hurt.

“I’ll hold you to that. Just tell me what time you want me and I’ll be there.”

“I always want you,” Annja said, deliberately flirting with the Swede. They enjoyed a good bit of lighthearted banter. It helped to take her mind off what they were about to do, and that was not a bad thing. “There’s no point in heading out before dark, and this place doesn’t feel like it slows down even then. All the shops around the Charles Bridge are still open, selling their tourist crap, so we’re looking at a late night. Probably after eleven. Turek, the journalist, is almost certainly going to be tucked up in bed until then, but if I hear from him earlier I’ll let you know.”

“He knows you’re trying to get hold of him?”

“I left a message with the newspaper that’s been running his stories, and they promised to reach out to him. Who knows?”

“Well, if that’s the case I may just continue my sightseeing tour. First stop, I think, the House of the Black Madonna, the cubist café. Might even catch a movie after that. Someone mentioned an English theater in town.”

“Knock yourself out.”




6 (#ulink_6cdbf017-2ccf-5929-bbb7-7812adbd3f88)


The rest of the day passed slowly.

The hotel lobby filled and emptied, filled and emptied, all walks of life seeming to drift through the atrium and yet it maintained its sense of calm. She could imagine the monks all those years ago shuffling through the same chambers, heads bowed in quiet contemplation. There was a conference in town, medical supplies by the sounds of the jargon being bandied about by the participants as they tried to one-up one another with jokes and punch lines that made no sense to Annja.

By early evening she was finally starting to feel hungry. She thought about calling room service, but the menu was fairly unappetizing and she had an entire city at her disposal. She’d heard about a place down by the river where the intellectuals and artists used to gather that had become a hive of secret activity during the revolution and now was renown for cheap good-quality eats in an authentic environment. It was proper precapitalism Prague, and it was only a five-minute walk away along one of the wider boulevards. Nothing was going to happen at five-thirty, she told herself, and ventured out in search of food.

Shop windows with words she couldn’t read emblazoned across them shone invitingly at one end of the street and were boarded up at the other. She saw young women walking in groups, laughing, and young men behind them, studious with book bags slung over their shoulders and earnest expressions behind their black plastic-framed glasses. She heard snatches of conversation in English about Kafka and a church around the corner that they were sure was featured in one of his stories. Those strands of intellectualism were cut across by more mundane chatter, including the fact that some website had gone down. What she didn’t hear was anyone talking about the murders.

The restaurant itself was the last building on the street, with huge plate-glass windows looking out over the Vltava. Inside, soft lighting from huge chandeliers gave the impression of opulence that was contradicted almost immediately by the tables beneath them, which looked like they would have been at home in a greasy spoon in the Bowery.

She sat at a table by the window, with a great view of the castle on the hill, and watched as one by one the stars came out. She asked the waiter what he’d recommend, something local, authentic Czech cuisine. He came back with a sampler filled with all sorts of peculiarities. She had no idea what she was putting into her mouth. Some of it was delicious, some of it wasn’t.

The meal killed another hour, the leisurely coffee after it another thirty minutes. Annja was good when it came to keeping her own company. She didn’t need to hide herself in a book, either. She was just content to simply be. To sit, gazing out of the window at the world as it passed by. To think.

And tonight she was thinking about Roux and Garin.

There was obviously something going on between the pair of them again. They were like a couple of teenage girls sometimes. She wanted to bang their heads together. But Roux was right: Garin’s simply turning up this morning was uncharacteristic even if he tried to pass it off as boredom. Very little Garin Braden did was without some underlying cause, and that cause only ever benefited Garin Braden. That was just the way of the world. It was hard to be angry with him for it. It was who he was. You might as well be angry with the wasp for stinging you or the milk for expiring. To quote the motivational poster: shit happens.

By the time Annja headed back to the hotel, the sun was a thing of the past, and the sky was verging on black. Cities were a different animal at night. Streets that had felt safe even just an hour earlier had a hostile undercurrent once the moon ruled the sky.

Annja made it back to her room for nine. Garin was nowhere in sight. It was still early to go out looking for the journalist, but she called Lars, anyway. “Fifteen minutes?” she said.

Getting back out there seemed to be more useful than sitting there tapping her foot. She didn’t know how life on the street worked. Turek might already be trying to lay claim to a sheltered spot for the night.

“Thought you’d bailed on me,” Lars replied. “I’ve been watching the news for the past three hours, but there’s been no mention of the killings.”

Annja wasn’t surprised. She said as much to Lars.

They arranged to meet down in the atrium.

Annja didn’t take much with her. All she needed was the street map where she’d marked a few possible locations and landmarks of interest. It hadn’t been difficult to identify the kinds of places where the homeless gathered, where soup kitchens were set up to feed them and where the hostel beds could be found to keep a few of them warm at night. But she wasn’t interested in those places. There was safety in numbers. She knew she should focus on isolated places where someone would be alone and therefore more vulnerable.

She headed to the lobby.

Her cameraman had managed to beat her to the punch and was leaning against the wall, his camera still packed in its flight case at his feet. He was chatting with the doorman just inside the glass doors. They slid open as she approached him.

“Ready?” Annja asked as she felt the cool air on her face. The temperature had dropped a good five degrees since she’d come back from the restaurant. It was only going to get colder out there as the night wore on.

The streets were filled with late-night tourists following the curves of old cobbled streets around to the famous bridge to get their photographs taken and gaze up at the castle under the bright spotlights. The distant sound of traffic was barely audible over the music piping out of the row of tourist-trap restaurants with their tables spilling out into the streets. That was where the lucky ones would be congregating—those who could afford to go out for a good time knowing that they would have a warm bed to go home to when they’d finished having fun for the night. Plenty of them would be there until the early hours, but they would have taxis to take them to their homes or hotels. They weren’t the ones at risk.

“The guy on the door told me that there are a few places around here where people try to make a bed for the night,” Lars said.

She fell into step beside the big Swede. He was every bit the archetype of his people—big, blond and burly. “We were just talking about the murder that happened last night. He said that it wasn’t far from here. Want to go check it out?”

“I saw the body.”

“You did what? And you didn’t think to mention it? Way to bury the lead.”

“Consider it exhumed.” She quickened her pace. There was no point in hanging around so close to the main roads and the hotels this early in the evening. They needed to find the darker corners, away from the eyes of the kind of people who would be uncomfortable if they saw the genuine poverty of the city they’d come to visit.

“I’ve already marked on the map a few places we might want to check out,” she said as Lars hustled to keep up with her. They moved with a purpose. No one else did. That meant she had to twist and weave between milling people, looking for breaks in the press of bodies to step into. Part of the reason for the haste was to avoid questions. It was harder for Lars to pepper her with them if he was chasing to keep up with her. Part, though, was that she was eager to find the journalist. He was the only one who seemed to know anything about what was happening on the streets. That, of course, had prickled her suspicions, too. It wouldn’t have been the only time a killer had played the press for his own agenda. But she didn’t think Turek was the killer. Not that she had anything to base that assumption on, not even his picture.

“Let’s start with some background shots of the conditions these people are forced to live in.”

“This really doesn’t feel like Chasing History’s Monsters,” Lars said.

He was right, of course. There was a fine line between history repeating itself and exploitation, and she wasn’t sure which side of that line she was walking right now.

“We don’t need much, just a few shots to give the story some genuine impact.”

She hesitated for a second when she reached the alleyway where she’d seen the body that morning. There were strands of police tape tied to downspouts on either side of the mouth, but the tape had been snapped and hung loose against the wall. The black stain on the ground wasn’t going to stop anyone from using the alleyway as a shortcut to wherever he or she needed to be.

“This is where it happened?” Lars asked, looking at the dark patch at his feet.

Annja found herself nodding. She focused on the gloom between the buildings. The streetlights penetrated only a short way before the alleyway was swallowed in darkness. She could understand why the homeless man had picked it for his shelter.

She heard the sound of something shuffling in the darkness and her heart skipped a beat.

“Hello?” she called to whoever was hiding inside the alleyway. It wasn’t like she thought they’d stumbled on the killer, no matter what pop psychologists said about returning to the scene of the crime. “Hello?” she called again, feeling a tingle up her spine.

Instinctively Annja caught herself flexing her fingers, ready to reach into the otherwhere to call on her sword. She glanced around, looking at Lars, who was peering over her shoulder, camera trained on the darkness. Well, she thought, if we get killed by some psychopath, at least he’ll get the shot. It wasn’t the most comforting of thoughts.

Annja took a step closer to the darkness, her breath catching in her throat as she strained to hear whatever it was that was hiding back there.

The shuffling stopped.

Annja didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe.

But she could hear breathing.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Each one grew louder with every tentative step that she took into the darkness.

The space was suddenly flooded with light as the lamp in the camera behind her burst into bright life. The only darkness that remained was cut out inside her shadow.

The blinding light was greeted by a scuttle of panicked movement and then, a fraction of a second later, whoever it was hiding in the darkness charged straight at her in a whirl of panic.

The source of the movement was much closer than she’d expected.

A body swathed in streaming rags of shadow barreled into her, slamming Annja back against the wall.

The air was driven from her lungs by the impact. Even as she gasped for breath, she grabbed out with one hand, her fingers snatching at the material of her attacker’s sleeve. Annja hung on until the owner of the coat lost his footing, and she used her weight and his momentum to help him stumble and fall.

The man stared up at her. Blinded by the light of the camera he threw his hands in front of his face. Annja looked down at him. He was babbling, pleading. She couldn’t understand a word he was saying, but the meaning was obvious: please don’t hurt me. She released her grip. This wasn’t the killer. This was one of his potential victims.

Annja held her hands up in apology, trying to help him to his feet as she said, “Sorry. Sorry. My mistake.”

The man didn’t take her proffered hand. He scrambled away, the soles of his feet pushing him along on the ground as he grabbed for his precious few possessions, which had spilled out of his pockets as he charged her in fear. She felt nothing but pity for the man, unable to imagine what it would be like to walk a mile in his shoes.

The world was cruel, that much was undeniable. She’d seen more than enough of that cruelty to last a lifetime, but she was lucky. She also got to see the amazing stuff, too, the stuff that made life worth living.

Did he? she wondered, and then hated herself for so immediately patronizing the man without knowing a thing about his life or what had driven him to this desperate end.

“Please,” Annja said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a neatly followed twenty-euro note. The look of fear and panic in his eyes was replaced with one of surprise, then avarice, as he reached out and took the money from her. He spirited it away in a heartbeat like the greatest magician to walk the streets of Prague, then scrambled to his feet without a word of thanks and backed away from her, nodding over and over as he pushed his way past Lars, who had stopped taping the events.

The man hurried along the street, clutching a plastic bag that she assumed was stuffed with his tattered sleeping bag.

“I’m thinking we need a better plan,” Lars said, deadpan.

Annja didn’t argue.

As plans went, it had been pretty thin, anyway.

“Maybe we should just head back to the hotel and wait to see if your man gives you a call?”

“Are you chickening out on me, Lars?” she asked.

“Just checking.”

“We need to get this right. I haven’t told you what’s going on back at the network, but basically, if I screw this up, no more Chasing History’s Monsters. I really don’t want to screw this up.”

“We don’t even have a story to screw up. Not really. We’re just wandering the streets at night.”

“Now you’re making me sound a little bit too much like a hooker for my liking,” Annja said, shaking her head. He was right, though. That’s pretty much what they were doing. “What else can we do?”

The question was rhetorical.

Lars pointed his camera back into the gloom of the alleyway and shot some footage of the place where the body had been found. The spotlight from the camera gave the dark stain a macabre cast. Annja pointed out the strands of police tape, making sure that he got them in the shot, as well. She didn’t want him to linger on the stain. She didn’t want the viewers making the mental connection between it and the reality that they were looking at the last vestiges of the poor man’s spilled blood. Showing the police tape would be enough. It would pull the heartstrings of their audience and show that this was real. She didn’t even want the stain in the footage that went back to the network. She knew all too well what those ratings whores would use it for.

So often her contributions to the show had been about monsters from the past, just as the name of the program demanded, that had no relevance to today. This was the chance to do something different. She realized the shape of the show now; it was going to be a monster hunt, yes, but a live one. The trick would be linking the horrors of today with the horrors of the past, but that was what she was good at.

“Got enough?” she asked when he had covered just about every inch of the alley.

He nodded. “With plenty of space for you to add voice-over stuff. It’s pretty dark, though.” She didn’t know whether he meant in terms of exposure or content.

The sentiment, if the not the words, were becoming something of a mantra for this segment.

Annja liked Lars because he was never afraid of a challenge, and his eye when it came to framing the establishing shots was second to none. He had a way of making everything come alive when it fell under his lens. He was a pro. Versatile. And like a Boy Scout he was always prepared. He could have his camera in position, shooting, in seconds, more often than not before she’d even realized the shot was worth capturing herself. It was almost like telepathy sometimes.

It didn’t hurt that he was easy on the eye, either. “Let’s get moving,” Annja said. It felt like there were eyes everywhere, watching from the shadows, following them every step they took. That was another difference between the day and the night city: at night ordinary things turned creepy. Just thinking about it was enough to have a shiver chase up her spine as if someone had walked over her grave. She wasn’t superstitious. She didn’t believe in omens. But she trusted her instincts, and right now her instincts were telling her it was time to move.

Lars gave up his position two steps behind her to walk by Annja’s side.

The rest of the streets near the hotel were quiet, which, of course, was exactly what she was looking for. Too many people meant there was no chance the killer would strike.

They walked for an hour, hearing the distant chimes of the astronomical clock tolling on the quarter hour.

It was easy to get paranoid about all the things they couldn’t see.

Across the way she noticed crates and barrels being unloaded from a truck and carried in through the back door of one of the clubs. It struck her as odd that they’d take a delivery so late at night.

A naked woman walked down the street, followed by a man with a handheld video camera recording her. It was obviously some kind of exploitation flick destined to wind up on the internet. Annja was sickened. She was in half a mind to walk over there and have it out with the photographer. Lars sensed it, too, and very artfully steered her away from making a scene. “We’ve got a reason for being here,” he told her. “And it’s not to fix all the ills of the city. It’s to catch a monster. Let’s not tip our hand. We’ve got no idea who’s watching us.”

And as he said it, she knew he was right. Not that she shouldn’t intervene—that felt absolutely right. No, he was right when he said someone was watching them. She’d known it since they left the alleyway.

“I’m going to remember his face,” Annja said, fixing the man’s features in her mind. “And if I see him again, he’s going to regret it. That’s a promise.”

“I have absolutely no doubt you will. You’re a frightening woman, Annja Creed. I wouldn’t want to be on your bad side,” Lars said.

They walked down one of the narrower streets, emerging near some sort of outdoor theater with marionettes being artfully manipulated by hidden puppet masters. There was quite a crowd gathered around. The city certainly offered a rich and varied nightlife, considering it was now past ten at night, and showed no signs of slowing down.

There were plenty of shadows for them to explore, though they didn’t venture deeply into any of them. She was fairly sure that Turek wouldn’t be settling down in one place this early, especially if he had managed to gain the trust of the vulnerable people on the streets. He would keep moving, talking to the disenfranchised around the inner city. Most would be young, she reasoned, drawn to the capital by the promise of a better life, of excitement. Some would be like the girl she’d just seen paraded naked through the street, too. Exploited. Others might have had a good life and lost it, or suffered a breakdown or simply not been able to cope and have turned their back on society, not wanting to be a part of it. There were as many possible stories out there in the night as there were people to tell them. Only one of them would help her get closer to the monster she hunted.

Did Turek have any idea where the killer might strike next? Was he working on a divinable pattern? Chaos versus order. Chance versus predestination. But there were ways to limit the randomness of that chance. There were ways to help exert order on a chaotic city. Annja checked her street map a few times to be sure that she was still heading in the general direction of one of the major landmarks she’d marked, a church that kept its doors open to offer hot soup, sandwiches and salvation all night.

How many times had people accepted a mug of soup in exchange for their mortal souls? The thought put a smile on her face and for the first time that night she found herself thinking of Garin and Roux and their unique longevity. She was pretty sure they hadn’t bought it with soup.

They turned the final corner and saw the lights in the distance like a beacon to all who were looking for shelter.

Her cell phone rang.

Annja didn’t recognize the number.

“Hello,” she said, barely breaking her stride. “Who is this?”

“Is that Annja Creed?” the voice asked without answering her question.

“It is,” she replied. “Is that Jan Turek?”

“I’ve been told that you wanted to talk to me.”

“Yes. Yes. Absolutely. I’d like to pick your brains.”

“And not to be too blunt about it, but is there money in it for me?”

“I can’t make any promises.”

“And you’re the same Annja Creed who does the television show Chasing History’s Monsters?”

“That’s right.”

“I’ve never seen it,” he said. “But I did a search on the internet to find out who you were. Seems you’re quite the celebrity.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” she replied.

“You’re too modest,” he said. “You get more hits on your name than our own prime minister does.” She heard his laugh, but wasn’t sure she was meant to laugh along. A man could laugh at his own country, but from an outsider it could come across at worst as mocking, at best condescending.

“Can we meet?” she asked. “Tonight?”

“Where are you?”

She stopped under a streetlamp and checked her map, giving him the name of the street and the church they were heading toward.

“I know it,” he said. “I’ll meet you there in ten minutes. Don’t go inside. They won’t know you, and you won’t fit in. Strangers aren’t welcome these nights. I’m sure you can understand why. There’s a late-night café on the same street, a little farther along.”

It wasn’t hard to pick out the only shop front still illuminated.

“I see it,” she said.

“I’ll meet you there. Tell Maria that you’re waiting for me. She’ll take care of you.”

“I’ve got my cameraman with me,” she said, hoping that wouldn’t put him off.

“Then I’ll see you both in the café.”




7 (#ulink_ac4e5bc7-dd39-519a-b0a4-a1f7edcbefc7)


The café was like a Czech riff on the old Edward Hopper painting Nighthawks.

It had a central bar island and a huge brass espresso machine that dominated the back wall. Four diners were inside and a waitress wearing candy stripes. Annja opened the door. There were a dozen seats at the bar, another dozen tables. All four of the diners were at the bar. They seemed to know one another, and were comfortably chatting with the waitress as Annja walked through the door. The waitress—a middle-aged woman with tired eyes and a tired smile—walked toward them with a pair of menus in her hand.

“Anywhere you like, folks,” the woman said, in English, immediately picking Annja and Lars out as tourists. She gestured toward the private tables.

“Are you Maria?”

“Yes,” the woman responded cautiously.

“Great. Then we’re in the right place. We’re supposed to meet Jan Turek here in about ten minutes.”

“Ah, that old rogue.” All signs of concern disappeared in an instant. “Please,” Maria said. “This way. Let me take your coats.”

She ushered them to the booth near the window, away from the people propping up the bar. A plastic checkered cloth covered the stains on the old table. Marie gave a questioning glance at Lars’s flight case.

“Camera,” Lars said, patting it.

“Camera, eh? I’ve got one of those on my phone. Fits in my pocket, too.” The woman chuckled to herself. “Sometimes smaller is better.” She winked at the big Swede, who just shook his head with a wry smile. Maria wove a path back to the bar without leaving the menus on the table. She returned a couple of minutes later with a bottle of red wine and three glasses.

“Jan’s favorite,” she said. “Your food will be ready by the time he gets here.”

“But…” Annja started to say that they hadn’t ordered, but the woman was already heading back to the kitchen. This, no doubt, was what Turek had meant when he said Maria would take care of them. It was going to be interesting to see what came out of the kitchen.

It took nine of the ten minutes for the reporter to appear in the doorway.

Turek might well have been the mythical golem himself. Easily three inches taller than Lars, and twice as wide, he looked like a mountain as he lumbered into the room. It took Annja a moment to realize a lot of his bulk was due to the several heavy layers of coats he’d wrapped himself in.

Turek raised a hand to Maria, who was back behind the bar again.

She smiled back. Annja knew that kind of smile. Turek was more than just a regular diner at the café. Maria nodded toward their booth, and the reporter wandered over, sliding into the seat beside Annja.

“Jan Turek,” he said as he shook hands with both of them. He offered Annja an easy smile that softened the hard edges of his angular face. He had the dark shadows of four-day stubble on his cheeks, and hollow eyes. His many coats were wrapped around a rather fragrant body. There was no doubt in her mind that Turek was living the part, every night out on the streets among the homeless. She admired him for that. Turek poured himself a glass of the red wine and raised it in the direction of the bar before taking a healthy swig. “Nectar of the gods,” he declared. “Maria keeps a case in stock for me.”

The wine was a touch harsh for Annja’s palate, with a bite to the aftertaste that made it bitter going down. It was definitely an acquired taste, one that Turek had and Lars was happily in the process of getting by the looks of things.

“As nice as it is to share a glass with friends, we’re not friends, are we? You want something from me, so how about we get down to business. What do you want to talk about? No, let me guess. The killings. That’s all anyone wants to talk about.”

“In a way, yes, but actually I’m more interested in your angle about the golem,” Annja said, leaning back a little as Maria approached the table and placed a bowl of steaming soup in front of her.

“Kyselica,” Jan said. “Fermented cabbage soup. It’s Maria’s specialty. You have to try it.”

The woman returned with a plate of sourdough bread and put it down between them. “Enjoy,” she said, placing one hand on the reporter’s back and planting a kiss of the top of his head. He was definitely more than just a regular.

Annja pushed her spoon through the soup before lifting it to her lips to taste.

It was surprisingly good, and much better than it smelled.

Even though she’d had a good meal at the restaurant by the river, she took several mouthfuls before she spoke again. “It really is very good,” she agreed, nodding and smiling. Annja glanced across at Lars, noting that he’d already finished his.





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