Mystic Warrior

“Allow me.” Orta stepped forward. “Most of the classrooms on this floor open with the same key to facilitate matters.”

She stepped back and allowed the professor access to the door. He took a set of keys from his pocket and started sorting through them.

Keeping calm in spite of the tension that filled her, Annja divided her focus between the hallway and the shattered wall of windows. She’d noted the second helicopter circling the building, as well, and kept expecting one or the other to sweep in. She still didn’t know what the explosions outside the building had been about.

After succeeding in unlocking the door, Orta opened it and entered. The yellow rectangle of the hallway lights fell into the dark room. He started to reach for the lights but caught himself before Annja pointed out that wouldn’t be a good idea.

“What are you doing?” Krauzer glared up at them. “Get out of here! This is my hiding spot!”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Orta turned away from him and faced Annja.

“They’re after me.” Holding the crystal between his knees, Krauzer waved his free hand at Orta, keeping him away. “You’re leading them right to me.”

“They’re after all of us.”

“Really? Really? You’re here every day, so these guys just happen to show up tonight to get you and I’m unlucky enough to get caught in the middle of that? Do you even hear yourself?”

“They’re totally happy to kill all of us,” Orta stated. “They want the crystal.”

Krauzer wrapped his free arm around the crystal and turned his attention to the phone. “You need to get here. Now!”

“You know, if they get him, maybe they’ll leave us alone,” Orta said.

“Wait.” Krauzer wasted no time thinking about that. He grabbed hold of the desk and partially scuttled out from hiding. “You can’t just desert me. We need to stick together.”

Shaking his head, Orta looked back at Annja.

She slipped her miniflashlight from her backpack, switched it on and swept the high-intensity beam around the classroom. It was larger than she’d initially thought, actually built like a small auditorium with stadium seating. The only other door out of the room was on the same side of the wall.

Voices echoed outside in the hallway, and she knew they were out of running room.

9 (#ulink_b7eaa6ab-443c-5506-bc98-b6e7673b9395)

“Get down.” Annja switched off the miniflashlight as she closed the door softly and locked it behind her. The barrier was too flimsy to put up much resistance, but maybe the men looking for them would hurry on by. On the other side of the door, police sirens screamed and the whop-whop-whop of the helicopter rotors was somewhat muted.

“Up there.” She pointed Orta to the highest seat. “Stay away from the windows and hide in the corner—otherwise you’ll be skylined against the outside lights.”

Clutching the manuscript case to his chest, Orta sprinted up the long steps and hunkered down behind the curved row of tables. He disappeared in the inky pools of shadows, and Annja hoped that he would be safe during the coming confrontation.

Sliding back under the desk, Krauzer drew his legs farther into the darkness, but the phone’s light illuminated his face.

“Turn off the phone.” Annja slid the machine pistol out of the backpack and readied it.

Reluctantly, with a last whispered command to whoever was listening, Krauzer broke the connection and pocketed the phone. He held on to the crystal with both arms, and Annja didn’t know if he was trying to protect the object or hide behind it.

Quietly, breathing evenly, Annja put her back to the front wall, where both doors were, staying away from the gleaming whiteboard behind her so she wouldn’t be easily seen. She waited, willing herself to be calm.

Out in the hallway, the voices quieted. Annja didn’t know if the men looking for them had passed or if they were listening on the other side of the locked doors. A moment later, the door handle on her right twisted with a soft metallic click.

The gunman pushed the door open with a foot, letting the light from the hallway into the room. His dark shadow shifted slightly.

Annja waited, resisting the impulse to shoot the man in the foot, even though he was dressed like the other men they’d encountered. Wounding the man while they were trapped in the room wouldn’t help. A wounded man could call out for reinforcements, and if he was the only man, once she put him down, they might be able to get free.

The other door opened more, letting Annja know the attack was going to come from two fronts by an unknown number of attackers. She kept calm, knowing everything was going to come down to split-second reaction time.

A whispered conversation she couldn’t make out took place in the hall. Then the first man shouldered his way into the room with his weapon tucked in close to his shoulder. The noise outside became louder immediately.

As soon as the gunman breached the entrance, Annja opened fire, aiming for the man’s shoulder and letting the machine pistol rise until the rounds hammered the man in the neck and the side of his head.

Dead, dying or unconscious, the man dropped as the second door exploded open.

Annja whirled, trying to cover the second entrance and knowing the gunman there had seen her muzzle flashes reflected in the dark windows on the other side of the room. He would know where she was standing. She whirled, but the man was already firing. At least one of his bullets struck her machine pistol and tore it from her hands, while the others dug into the wall behind her with jackhammer impacts.

Deserting her position against the wall, Annja slid and dropped behind the desk at the front of the room. As she came up again, she reached into the Otherwhere for the sword and instantly felt the hilt, sure and steady in her hand.

The sword looked plain and simple, three feet of double-edged steel forged in a simple cross pattern. The weapon was a warrior’s instrument, designed to kill and maim, meant to be carried onto a battlefield.

Annja rose on the other side of the desk while the gunman searched for her. His eyes hadn’t gotten used to the gloom trapped in the classroom, and he fired again, missing her by inches as she raced at him. The heat of the bullets burned across her cheek and the muzzle flashes lit up his hard face, hiding him in the sudden intense illumination.

Holding the leather-bound sword hilt in both hands, Annja slashed at the machine pistol as the gunman tried to correct his aim. The blade sliced through the weapon, cutting the suppressor and barrel from the machine pistol and knocking what was left from the man’s hand. He reached for the pistol at his hip but didn’t get to it before she put the sword’s point through his throat.

Bleeding, frantic, the man fell back into the hallway and tried to stem the wound in his neck.

“Annja, look out!” Orta called from the back of the room.

She’d already caught a peripheral glimpse of the third man coming through the door the first man had, and she took shelter in the door frame. Bullets drummed a lethal beat on the door, tearing through the wood.

The gunman, in a Kevlar mask and body armor, fired a couple bursts toward the back of the room. The windows there shattered and Orta cried out in pain. More of the outside pandemonium poured into the building.

“Get up, Krauzer!” The gunman kept his weapon pointed in Annja’s direction as he spoke to the director under the desk at the side of the room. Annja thought she detected a French accent, but her hearing was cottony from the noise in the room. “You can carry that crystal or I can take it out of your dead hands!”

“I’m coming! I’m coming!” Krauzer climbed out from under the desk on one hand and his knees. He carried the crystal in the other hand.

Annja glanced at the back of the room but she couldn’t see Orta. Frustrated, she watched as Krauzer joined the gunman in the hallway. She thought briefly of trying to reach the doorway but knew that she would be cut down by gunfire before she got to the man.

The gunman yanked Krauzer to one side. The director followed his captor’s snarled directions as they pulled back out of the room. Lifting the weapon in front of him, the gunman fired at the second door, driving Annja from her hiding place and back into the room.

Sliding into place beside the door, availing herself of the scant cover, Annja watched helplessly as the gunman pulled Krauzer farther down the hallway. Trusting that the director was safe for the moment, she turned her attention to Orta. The illumination from the open doors revealed where the machine pistol had landed after being ripped from her hands. She scooped up the weapon on her way back to the professor.

As Annja approached, Orta tried to raise himself from the floor, but his hand slipped in the blood that had gushed from the wound in his abdomen. His lips trembled and his eyes were wide with fear. He held his free hand to the wound.

“Lie back.” Placing the machine pistol to one side and letting the sword return to the Otherwhere, Annja put her hands on his shoulders and pressed him back against the carpeted floor.

“They shot me.” Orta pulled his hand from his wound and tried to examine it, but blood soaked his shirt.

“It’ll be okay.” Annja ripped his shirt open, searching for the wound. She slipped her miniflashlight from her pocket and switched it on, then clamped it between her teeth as she angled the beam on the gunshot. “You’re going to be okay. Do you hear me?”

“Yeah.” Orta nodded, but he was shaking and his eyes unfocused and refocused as he fought the onset of shock.