The Dragon's Mark. Alex Archer

would try again at some point in the future. On any given day they could go from friends to enemies in the space of a heartbeat. Still, there was a bond between them that transcended such petty squabbles, and as fate would have it, Annja had become part of their inner circle.

      After all, who better to understand just what it meant to carry the sword that had belonged to Joan of Arc than the two men who had once been responsible for protecting Joan herself from the hands of her enemies? The same mystical force that had preserved the sword and ultimately brought it into Annja’s possession had also given them their extended life span. It was also part of the discord between them. Neither of them knew what would happen should the sword somehow come to harm. Would they at last be able to live out the rest of their natural lives, free from the influence of the sword, or would time suddenly catch up to them, exacting its toll then and there for all the years they’d escaped its grasp? They didn’t know and so, as a result, they had different ideas about how to handle the situation. Roux wanted the sword to remain with Annja, its chosen bearer, while Garin had made it clear he felt the sword should be locked away and protected. If that was even possible.

      Annja shifted her attention from the scenery outside the car to the sword itself. It rested there in the otherwhere, just as it always did, glimmering faintly as it waited for her to call it forth with just a thought. For a moment she was tempted, for she loved to feel its weight in her hand, loved the sensation it gave her as she carried it forth into battle, but her good sense reasserted itself before she did so; having a huge broadsword suddenly appear in the back of the limousine probably wouldn’t be a good thing for the upholstery, never mind the driver’s sense of reality.

      It was enough that it was there, waiting for her, and that she could claim it when necessary. She’d had to do so more times than she could count since taking possession of it and she knew that there would be plenty of other such situations in the future. It had become a part of her and she could no more give it up now than she could marry a pig farmer and retire to the country.

      The celebration was being held at Roux’s estate outside of Paris and it took them about half an hour to reach their destination.

      Roux’s house was huge, so huge that the word home just didn’t seem to do it justice. Palace might have been better. Ivy clung to the stone walls and helped the structure blend into the trees that surrounded it. It butted up against a hill and the overall effect was as if the house itself were a part of the natural environment around it, and from past experience Annja knew that the design was deliberate. Roux was a man who liked his privacy and went to some lengths to see that it remained protected.

      The driver must have called ahead, as Garin was waiting for her on the front steps when they pulled up. Standing with him was Henshaw.

      “Welcome back, Ms. Creed,” Henshaw said, giving her a small nod of welcome as she stepped from the car.

      She grinned. That was Henshaw, positively overwhelming with his emotional displays, she thought.

      “Good to see you,” she told him. She turned her attention to his companion. “Hello, Garin.”

      “Annja,” he answered just as solemnly, but his eyes twinkled with mischief behind his unruffled exterior.

      With her ever-present backpack slung over her shoulder, Annja entered the house with Garin while Henshaw got her overnight bag from the trunk. She could already imagine his scowl as he saw the size of her suitcase. She wasn’t the type to travel with more than the few basic items she needed, while he was a firm believer in a woman’s right to be prepared for anything and to travel with a wardrobe large enough to let her do so, especially a woman as attractive as Annja. He’d never come right out and said so—the sun would stop revolving around the earth when that happened—but she’d managed to piece together the gist of his viewpoint from the few comments and frowns he’d made to her over the years.

      The knowledge that he’d scowl all the more should he discover that she intentionally packed as light as she could just to tease him when coming here made her laugh aloud.

      Maybe this was going to be a fun three days, after all.

      Annja stepped into the foyer, with its vaulted ceiling and Italian marble floors. No matter how many time she visited, it never ceased to amaze her at the luxury Roux had surrounded himself with over the years. He seemed to be trying to forget the long, hard years he’d served in the field with nothing more than his arms and armor for material possessions and she had to admit he was doing an excellent job of it.

      Garin led her through the lower floor to Roux’s personal study, one of the largest rooms in the entire house. It was two stories tall and stuffed to the gills with shelves full of books, artifacts and artwork. Stacks of paper streamers rested on a nearby table, along with a pile of balloons. A tank of helium gas stood beside it.

      “Roux is out at a high-stakes poker game for the afternoon,” Garin told her. “Henshaw will be picking him up around dinnertime, which means we only have a couple of hours to get the place decorated and…”

      He trailed off at seeing her expression. “What?” he growled.

      Annja laughed; she couldn’t help it. Imagining him with those blue and yellow streamers in his huge hands was just too much. It was so not Garin. From cold-blooded killer to interior decorator—would wonders never cease?

      When at last she could find her voice again, she said, “I’m sorry, Garin, really, I am. I just never expected you to go to so much trouble for Roux and the change is a bit, um, unexpected. Nice, but unexpected.”

      He accepted her apology with a shrug and the two of them got to work. By the time Henshaw came in an hour later to check on them, they had finished strewing paper streamers throughout the room, even draping them on the massive stone sarcophagus that occupied one corner and wrapping them around the stuffed and mounted corpse of an Old West gunfighter that stood in the other, turning him from a cigar-store Indian-style display to a blue-and-yellow mummy. They were getting started on tying the balloons together into bunches.

      Henshaw gave the room a once-over, his only discernible reaction the slight raising of an eyebrow as he took in the steamerwrapped gunfighter in the corner. Turning back to his partners in crime, he said, “I’m off to get Mr. Roux. I shall return in approximately one hour. We shall dine shortly after that.”

      Garin had several phone calls to make so Annja spent the time wandering through Roux’s house, looking at the variety of artifacts that he had on display. While she might not agree with his methods of acquisition, since he had several items that were on current lists of objects either stolen or banned from being removed from their countries of origin, she could appreciate the beauty of the collection itself. She was examining a vase that had apparently been discovered in the remains of Knossos, the king’s palace on the island of Crete, when her phone chirped. Pulling it out of her pocket, she saw that she had a text message from Garin.

      They’re here, was all it said.

      She dashed back through the halls, slipping through the main foyer only seconds before Henshaw and Roux entered the house, and joined Garin in the study. There they waited for the guest of honor.

      “Surprise!” they shouted when Henshaw led Roux into the room.

      The older man started, then scowled first at the two of them and then back over his shoulder at Henshaw.

      “Traitor!” he said, “I suppose you’re in on this, too, then? What are they doing here?”

      Henshaw gave one of his rare smiles. “Celebrating your birthday, of course, sir.”

      Garin smiled easily, ignoring Roux’s brusque manner. “Did you think we’d forget?”

      “It’s not a question of forgetting. You’ve never bothered with my birthday before. What’s so different this year?”

      But he accepted the surprise good-naturedly and even began to enjoy himself as the evening wore on. They ate together in the dining room down the hall—braised duck in a pear chutney, which Annja thought was exquisite—then returned to the study for drinks and conversation.