City of Swords by Alex Archer Page A

the sword. She’d never been caught on tape wielding it. She would know if that had been the case; she had contacts all over the world who followed her interests on the internet and who would have notified her. If nothing else, Roux would have said something.
    “The sword! Hand it over! Hurry!”
    “I’ve got no sword here. No gun. No knife. You can see I have no weapon.” She paused. “But I have money. Euros. We were going to pay for an interview. We’ve got money for that. We can go back to the hotel, all of us, Gaston, and—”
    He laughed. “A ruse to get you here. Dog-men.” He spat.
    “Look, whoever you are—” She stopped when she heard the cry of some large bird passing low over the river, followed by the noise of a siren, which quickly receded. What sounded like a boat behind her on the river… She doubted anyone on board could see into the shadows under the bridge, but maybe she could do something to get their attention.
    “We don’t want your money, American.” The tall one spat again, as if the notion of cash left a bad taste in his mouth, and drew the knife down Rembert’s throat. The pressure was enough to produce a line of blood, but not enough to cause the photographer serious harm.
    “Annja!” Rembert howled. “Give them what they want.”
    “I do not think you worry about your friend, American archaeologist. I do not think you consider us serious. I can promise you, we are serious. We will kill if we have to.”
    His companion laughed and jabbed Rembert in the stomach, again enough to draw blood. “She should take us serious, eh, Dimitru?”
    The tall one scowled.
    So she had one piece of information, a name: Dimitru. Definitely Romany.
    “Dimitru!” Annja had the thug’s complete attention. “You say you want a sword. I could—”
    “No. Not a sword. Your sword. The one you flashed in Paris, that night so late. Before the police came and took my brothers.”
    “I’ll have to go get it for you.” She extended her arms to her sides and opened her hands as wide as her fingers would stretch. “I’m not carrying a sword.” She turned slowly, taking a deep breath, glad for the opportunity to look behind her. She saw the ship, a barge. Not yet close enough. It didn’t look as if anyone was on deck. She hadn’t heard anyone come up behind her. Other than the threats of the Romanies, she’d heard only the sounds of traffic across the bridge and past the embankment. Finished her circle, she faced the Romany again. They’d pulled Rembert a little deeper into the shadows under the bridge. “It won’t take me long.”
    “You think me simple,” the tall one hissed. “You have the sword, Annja Creed. You have it with you. Maybe it is invisible. Maybe it is a ghost thing. But I know you have it.”
    “We are done talking to her, right, Dimitru?” The other guy poked Rembert again. “A boat is coming. Someone might see us.”
    “They see nothing,” Dimitru said softly. “This rain.”
    “Annja,” Rembert pleaded. “What do they want? We can give them money, can’t we? My camera…I dropped it there. They can have that. Annja, tell them they can—”
    “We do not want your money,” Dimitru said in English. “We want the woman’s sword. I am done with this.”
    “Stop!” Annja cried. “Leave him alone. Let Rembert out of here, let him leave, and you can have the sword. Let—”
    “Rembert is our insurance, Annja Creed. Is the sword worth more than his life?”
    “Of course not.” She nodded. “Let him go.”
    “The ghostly sword for the photographer, then,” Dimitru said. “Now. Make it appear now. Like before.”
    Annja felt the pommel touch her palm, and she wrapped her fingers around it.
    “What the hell?” Rembert said.
    “This what you want?” she asked.
    “Drop it and back away,” Dimitru ordered her.
    Annja set it gently at her feet in the scrubby weeds and the remains of someone’s fast-food dinner that had been tossed off the bridge. From