The Bone Conjurer

Held by his pale gray gaze, she stared at him as if to dig the answer out from his expression. Phrenology was the science of determining character and personality from skull shape. She wondered what a big, rugged cranium meant.

The longer she looked into his eyes, the more she felt creepy crawlies skitter up her spine.

“No, I have no idea what it is.” She looked aside at the mess, then caught movement in her peripheral vision.

Serge reached inside his suit coat and drew out a blade.

Any previous reluctance to calling out her sword fled.

With a lunge to her right, Annja dipped low. She summoned the battle sword. It emerged from the otherwhere in an instant. It fit into her palm with a sure grip. She hoped she’d made it seem as though she were plucking the sword from the floor behind the couch. With a bend of her knee she thrust toward Serge.

With minimum movement, he flicked his wrist, blocking her stab with the edge of his bowie knife. A nod acknowledged her challenge. His dark eyes narrowed.

Annja swung low, seeing if she could get a rise out of the guy. He had only to step back, then forward, as the sword swept past his thigh.

He retaliated with swift grace. The knife passed near her cheek, but didn’t cut flesh. His reach was long and surprisingly agile for one so large and bulky.

“I don’t know how you think fighting me is going to help you find the skull,” she said. A twist of shoulder and a double step backward put her out of reach from his next swipe. Annja slashed her sword across Serge’s shoulder, opening the seam of his suit coat. “I don’t have it,” she said.

“But you had it. Which means, you know where it is now.”

She didn’t answer. Couldn’t. A knife to the thigh sliced out a painful chirp from her. It cut through her jeans and a couple of layers of skin. Score one for the bald guy.

Annja countered by spinning and putting her shoulder to his. She twisted and gripped his knife wrist. Releasing the sword she grabbed his sleeve. A twist moved Serge into a spin and he wobbled and fell. The force of landing popped the bowie from his grip. The knife flipped in the air and hit the wall with a clank, dropping onto a stray couch cushion.

He slapped a hand over her throat and shoved her off him. Annja’s hips connected with the desk. Turning and rolling across the desk she came to her feet with sword again in hand.

Serge stood, hands near his shoulders. He was not surrendering by any means, just making nice. “Proficient sword work. I didn’t notice the weapon earlier.”

“Because you were so busy throwing things about.”

He blocked her thrust with a jerk of his elbow, the flat of Annja’s blade sliding along the suit fabric. Serge gripped her left wrist, twisting it. Annja had to duck forward, bringing her sword arm down and away from attack. Moving with the twist, she spun under his arm, but came up to meet his fist. A backhand slap put her on the floor, arms spread and legs landing on a sofa cushion.

Serge leaned over her. Annja twisted her head to the side. Knuckles cracked the hardwood floor.

In no position to deliver a masterful riposte of sword, Annja thrust blindly. The sword slashed across his back. He didn’t cry out. Hell, she had only cut through his suit again. Must be some kind of Kevlar-reinforced stuff.

Before she could lever herself to stand, Serge gripped her hair and tugged her upright. She met the wall with her palms, dropping her sword. It slipped into the otherwhere, the sound of steel hitting floor lacking.

Knuckles bruised into the base of her spine. No knife? So he didn’t want her dead. Or maybe he liked to play before he did real damage.

“You like doing things the hard way?” she grunted.

He didn’t wait for her answer. A slam from his knuckles at the back of her head crushed her cheek into the brick wall. Blood spilled into Annja’s mouth.

“I have been doing it the hard way for longer than you can imagine. It’s my game, baby. And I can play it all night.”

Baby? Oy.

She coughed on the blood trickling down her throat. Blood from her nose. The sword’s image formed in her mind, but then streams of blood spilled over that image and Annja quickly lost the idea of summoning it.

Her body slung about, shoulders impacted against the brick wall. Serge grabbed her left wrist and smashed the back of her hand high on the wall over her head.

Seconds stretched as he peered into her eyes. His gray irises were wide, the pupil too small in the centers. Demonic, Annja thought. But she didn’t believe in demons. There were logical explanations to all things supernatural. And Serge was just a man.

“I’ll give you twenty-four hours to bring the skull to me. If you do not comply, at precisely five minutes beyond the twenty-four hour mark, I will kill you. Got it?”

She nodded. To argue might earn a broken nose. “How am I supposed to find you?”

He reached inside his coat. Would he pluck out a business card? Why did the hard edges of his jaw go all fuzzy? Damn, she was losing consciousness.

The flash of bright steel summoned her to a semiconscious state. He held some kind of weapon. He hadn’t been in position to retrieve the bowie.

Serge leaned close and hissed in her ear. “The Linden Hill Cemetery off Starr Street. Tomorrow morning, this time.”

“A graveyard? Swell,” she mumbled.

Something sharp pricked her wrist. And the pain only increased. The stab became a searing poker. Annja let out a yelp as what felt like a knife entered her flesh and, with a forceful shove, traveled through to bone.

Serge gave the instrument a twist. Annja screamed. He tugged it out with a gruff exhale.

Agony felled Annja to her knees. Serge stepped back.

Struggling to maintain consciousness, and looking up to see the weird tubelike blade he tucked inside his coat, Annja reached out—for what, she didn’t know. It seemed as though…something should come to her hand. Something that could protect her.

Instead, she fell forward and blacked out.

8

So far as apartments went, it was unassuming and quiet. Tucked in a dark corner of Lower Manhattan, in winter it got about an hour’s worth of sunlight around two in the afternoon, but grew dark before four due to the surrounding tall buildings.

The most crime the neighborhood saw was old lady Simpson going after the postman with her cane, or the occasional burglary. A diminutive Russian market stood three blocks west and sold dozens of varieties of caviar, and a homemade borscht that tasted excellent served with heaps of sour cream.

Serge closed the door, sliding the chain lock deftly behind his back. The room was dark. Peaceful. He breathed in and exhaled. Palming the smooth hematite globe sitting on the key table near the door, he released anxiety, ego and any anger the outside world had put upon him.

He tapped the globe once.

Moving around behind the black leather sofa with the low back, he scanned the living room’s cool shadows. There was but the sofa and a coffee table sitting before the slate-tiled hearth he used every night in winter. No nooks for anyone to hide.

Assured he was alone, he paused before the entry to the spartan kitchen and placed his palm upon the second hematite globe he kept on a hip-high iron stand. The cool stone took him farther from the world—into sanctity.

A glance assured the kitchen was empty. The short narrow aisle down the center was bare. Doorless cupboards revealed glassware and plates. A grocery list stuck to the refrigerator awaited Serge’s precise scribbles for the next trip to market.

Two taps to the hematite globe.

He crossed before the window looking over a chain-link fenced-in yard behind a textile factory but did not look outside. His sleeve brushed the cheap shades that had been in the apartment when he’d assumed rent. He liked the sound the thin tin strips made when agitated.

As with the kitchen, there was no bedroom door. It was a small, efficient room he used only for sleeping. He did not bring women home; sanctuary would be lost. Though certainly, he did go home with a woman when opportunity arose. His shoes creaked the fifth board on the floor, reminding Serge he had yet to pick up finishing nails to fix the squeak.