Gabriel's Horn

The car got under way. Annja fumbled for the seat belt to cover her reaction. Her heart beat fast and her hands suddenly felt clammy. She tried to relax. No one could find the sword. Only she could call it forth, she reminded herself. When she had the seat belt fastened, she asked, “What sword?”

“Policemen working this case canvassed the street where you chased the men,” the detective replied. “Witnesses said you threw a sword at one of the men and pierced him.”

Annja held up her hands. “No sword.”

Skromach scratched his jaw with a thumbnail. “They seemed most adamant, these witnesses. And there was a lot of blood at the scene.”

“One of the men fell.”

“The one with the sword tattoo?” Skromach touched his neck.

“I think so,” Annja said.

“I see.”

“Maybe the fall hurt the man and caused an injury.”

“The witnesses said the man had to be carried off.”

Annja waited. She wasn’t very good at lying, but lying was better than trying to explain a supernatural sword.

“If you or your men can find a sword up there, then I must have had one,” she replied. “Things got confusing very quickly.”

“They usually do.” Skromach shrugged. “We also had reports citing the number of men from two to eleven. Although how all those men fit into one car is beyond me. Eyewitnesses, as every policeman knows, are unreliable at best.” He leaned back against the seat. “Besides, even if you did have a sword, you would only be guilty of self-defense.”

“Yes.”

“If those men were the ones who hosed the gag, as I believe you said.”

“That’s right,” Annja replied. “That’s what I said.”

“Hopefully, we can find them.”

Annja hoped so, too. Because if they didn’t, she had the distinct impression the men might come looking for her again.

4

“Annja, you’ve got to listen to me. You’re in Prague. That’s almost Romania. They’ve got vampires in Romania. Therefore there are vampires in Prague.”

Seated at the small metal desk she’d been shown to in the police station, Annja stared glumly at the page of photographs of known criminals operating in Prague. Actually she’d looked at so many pictures of criminals now that she believed Skromach had borrowed books from other countries.

After a while they all started to look the same. There were some who were old and some who were younger, but they all had earmarks of desperation or deviance. She wondered if her best friend, Bart McGilley, the NYPD detective, ever noticed how similar the criminals he chased looked.

She glanced at her watch. It was after five. Dinner was at eight.

Now I’m going to have to rush, she thought as she listened to Doug Morrell continue his tirade about vampires. She hadn’t wanted to rush. This was a date. More than that, it was a date with Garin Braden, a man she knew she couldn’t trust.

And how did you dress for something like that? It was a question that had been plaguing her for weeks. Ever since he’d told her that it was time for her to pay off on her promise to have dinner with him after he’d helped her out of a dangerous situation in India ages ago.

“I must have been brain-dead when I made that deal,” she said to herself. At the time it hadn’t seemed like a big deal. Now it felt as if she’d made a deal with the devil.

That was one thing she was certain of—Garin Braden didn’t walk on the side of angels.

But what kind of conversation did she expect to have with someone who was seemingly immortal? It was intimidating and that was a feeling she rarely experienced.

“Doug,” Annja interrupted. Her head throbbed from studying photographs and trying to deal with Skromach’s suspicions about the sword.

The police detective had checked in a few times, usually to bring her something to drink and once to see if she wanted anything to eat. Despite the fact that he’d consigned her to this room and these photographs, he wasn’t a bad guy.

Doug hadn’t been thrown off his game. “Don’t you see that this is important?”

Be patient, Annja reminded herself. She took a breath. Then she spoke slowly.

“There…are…no…vampires…in…Prague.”

“There have to be.”

“Doug,” Annja sighed, “vampires don’t exist.”

“They hide,” Doug said. “No one’s as good at hiding as a vampire.”

“Really?” Annja leaned back in the straight-backed chair and tried to get comfortable. She couldn’t.

“I’m telling you there’s a story about vampires in Prague,” Doug whined.

“I’d rather do the one on King Wenceslas that I suggested.”

Paper turned at Doug’s end of the connection. “This is that sleeping-king thing, right?”

Annja felt encouraged that Doug had read her proposal. “The king in the mountain. Yes.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Doug said. “Sleeping king. King of the mountain. Same diff. Supposed to be called forth from the earth in times of great danger to the world. Did I leave anything out?”

“The legend of King Wenceslas coming back to fight evil is an important part of why I want to do the story. It’s been woven into the King Arthur myth.”

“He comes back from the dead?” Doug sounded excited.

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

Annja took a breath. “I did. I sent research notes.”

“You know I don’t look at that stuff. This is television. All you need is a good beat line to make anything fly. I like the idea of him coming back from the dead,” Doug said. “Kind of spooky, actually.”

Annja looked around the small office and spotted a picture of Skromach with a woman about his age and three kids, two girls and a boy.

“Didn’t they write a song about this guy?” Doug asked. “I seem to recall you saying something about a song.”