Mystic Warrior

The papers Dr. Vincent Orta possessed had a sketch of the scrying crystal. The drawing was on the fourth page of Julio Gris’s manuscript. The parchment was old and weathered, unevenly burned along one side, and had turned the amber hue of honey. All twelve sheets were hermetically sealed in individual plastic protectors.

Some of the ink had faded, but Orta had brought the lines back to clarity with a chemical treatment. Annja just hoped that the work hadn’t erased the hidden message she thought might be there.

She sat on a high stool at an architect’s desk in the university classroom Orta had opened for their use that night. He’d also taken the liberty of sending out to a Mongolian restaurant and had ordered enough so that Krauzer could join them for dinner.

Orta had been polite about the unexpected company, but he wasn’t overly friendly to Krauzer, who continued to be loud and obnoxious. The director didn’t notice the snub on Orta’s part, though.

“So that’s my scrying crystal?” Krauzer leaned over Annja’s shoulder to look at the page.

“I believe so.” Once she’d carried the crystal in, Orta had become as excited as she was, and he was just as certain it was the artifact described in Gris’s papers. Krauzer shook his head. “Nah. Doesn’t look anything like my crystal.”

Annja shot him a look. “It’s round. It’s glass. It has four flat spots on it. That,” she said, pointing the chopsticks at the glass ball, then at the drawing, “is this.”

“I don’t see it.” Thankfully, Krauzer’s phone rang and he turned away to answer it.

Orta shook his head. “That man’s an idiot.”

“I heard that,” Krauzer said.

“Good. I don’t have to repeat myself.” Orta heaved a sigh.

“So we’re in agreement?” Annja asked.

“Definitely. I can’t believe you found this.”

“I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t shown me these papers. Sometimes it’s like that. There are places all over the world where artifacts have sat in plain sight for years and no one knew what they were until they started investigating.”

“Do you know where Krauzer got it?” Orta asked.

“Not yet.”

Orta studied Krauzer. “He didn’t tell you?”

“He doesn’t know. He got it from a set designer. She’s out of town on a shopping spree somewhere in South America. I’ve sent emails, so hopefully, when she gets somewhere with internet access, she’ll have more information.”

“There’s not a bill of sale or something? No means of tracing this?” He shook his head in disbelief.

“Set designers collect from everywhere and often the objects sit in warehouses—or their homes—until they can find a movie to sell it to. They’re given a budget and, more or less, told to spend it. I’ve also discovered that sometimes the bills of sale are as fictitious as Hollywood. Tracking down where things actually came from can be difficult. Besides, we’re more interested in where this is going to take us. If we find out for sure what this is, we’ll figure out where it’s been.”

A rueful frown pulled at the corners of Orta’s mouth. “Where it takes you, perhaps. One of us still has classes to teach.”

That was true. Annja felt bad for him. She couldn’t imagine being trapped on a schedule without recourse to follow up on an artifact. “I appreciate you calling me in on this. And I appreciate dinner.”

“It’s the least I could do. I haven’t forgotten you agreed to take a lecture for me at some point.” Orta grinned. “That’s got me in pretty solid with the dean.”

“Well, let’s see if we can decipher what Julio Gris was protecting.”

* * *

“ARE YOU GOING to get me out of here?” Melanie Harp pulled at the oversize orange jumpsuit as she sat at the visitation window in the LAPD jail. “This place is horrible, Ligier. They’re treating me like I’m a criminal.”

She spoke in French because using the language made her feel special and because she didn’t want the guards and prisoners around her to listen in.

She ran her fingers through her hair and tightened her grip on the phone that connected her to the man on the other side of the bulletproof glass that separated them.

“I’ll get you out as soon as I can, baby,” Ligier de Cerceau replied calmly. He was always calm. That somber solidness was one of the things about him that had first attracted Melanie. When he was in LA, he was her rock.

He looked as if he was carved out of rock, too. He was six and a half feet tall and broad shouldered. His blond curls hung in disarray around his bronzed face, making his bright blue eyes appear startling. Amber stubble covered his square chin.

For the jail visit, he’d claimed to be her lawyer and had dressed the part: Italian suit, nice loafers, a high-end watch and a leather briefcase. Instead of softening him up, the suit made him look even scarier.

“Why can’t you get me out of here now?” Melanie thought she was going to start crying again. Getting fired from the movie was bad. Getting locked up was bad. But there was nothing like coming down cold from an addiction. She was already covered in sweat and she was freezing. She felt as if her insides were about to explode.

“Because they haven’t charged you. Once they charge you, I can get you out.”

“Promise?”

“Sure, baby.”

De Cerceau blew Melanie a kiss and she felt a little better.

“Now tell me about this glass ball you had.”

“I already sent you pictures of it.” Melanie didn’t know what he wanted out of the prop. She wouldn’t even have stolen the stupid thing if he hadn’t told her to. It had been his idea for her to take it after she’d gotten released from the picture. He’d even flown back in from...wherever he’d been before he got back to LA. He didn’t always tell her his business, and she liked that he could be so mysterious. Just ride into town and sweep her off her feet. He’d told her he’d seen her in Fifty Hues of Indigo and had fallen in love with her. That had been so romantic.

“I got the pictures, baby, but I’d like to know a little more about the ball.”

“Why?”

He grinned at her the way he did that drove her crazy, and then he leaned close to the window. “Because I thought I’d steal it back for you, have it for you by the time you get out tomorrow, and we could make the studio pay to have it returned. That way you still get severance and a nest egg until you get a serious role.”

Melanie hesitated even though he always knew just what to say to her. “That’s what we were going to do the first time. That didn’t work out so well.”

“If I’d been here, things would have gone better—you know that—but I couldn’t be here until now. I came as soon as I could.” De Cerceau shrugged. “Besides, this time I’m going to take that director, too. Make the studio pay to get them both back. That way your nest egg will be even bigger.”

A bit of hope and excitement dawned in Melanie, curbing some of the monster that was struggling to get free inside her. De Cerceau was so good at providing for her. She was lucky she’d met him and he loved her so much. “That sounds awesome.”

“Where can I find Krauzer?”

“He’s probably with that woman. Annja.” Melanie struggled to think, but it was hard to do while she was sitting there sweating and freezing. “She’s a consultant Krauzer brought in. But she’s tricky, too. She knocked out Barney and made it look easy.”

De Cerceau smiled at her. “I’m not Barney.”

“I know.” Melanie smiled at him. “I just want you to be prepared.”

“Do you know what hotel she’s staying at?”

Melanie shook her head, but the motion only made her head ache. “No.” She thought some more because de Cerceau looked disappointed in her. “Wait. I know where she might be. She made Krauzer promise to let her examine the scrying crystal.”