The headlamp flashed in her eyes, blinding her. Pummeled against the chest, Annja caught the man as he charged her with his fists. Breaths chuffed out. Her shoulders met the wall in a crunch of vertebrae. He gripped her right wrist so she could not control the sword. She released it back to the otherwhere.

The taste of blood swirled on her tongue. She must have bitten her lip when she'd collided with the wall.

Kicking, she managed to knee her aggressor inexpertly, catching the side of his kneecap. It was enough to detach him from her. The headlamp beam zigzagged across the quarried limestone ceiling.

Annja called back her sword, and making swift work on a man she felt would kill her rather than allow her life, she stabbed the double-edged blade into his chest. In the glow of the green light, his body convulsed once, and his muscles relaxed.

Holding the sword hilt with a firm grip, she leaned over and tugged the headlamp from his head. Then she patted him down, claiming a small flashlight from inside his vest pocket and the pistol, which lay near his head. A 9 mm Ruger, it still had two rounds in the clip.

Pulling the headlamp on over her forehead, she then stood. Tugging out the sword from the insistent suction of his flesh, with a sweep of her hand to fling off the blood, she then dismissed it from this realm.

Ascher let out a hoot when she returned to him. The green headlamp highlighted him like the bizarre night-video clips Annja had filmed previously for Chasing History's Monsters. Chasing History's Monsters. He stood against the wall, supporting himself with both hands, and his right leg dragging. He stood against the wall, supporting himself with both hands, and his right leg dragging.

A flash of the headlamp across his face revealed beads of sweat on brow, cheekbones and upper lip. Yet a slap of her palm to his forehead found him clammy. Shock?

"I don't know how you do it," he said. "But I am thankful that you can do it. Why does not Chasing History's Monsters Chasing History's Monsters bring to light your skills beyond standing before a camera and tromping through old castles?" bring to light your skills beyond standing before a camera and tromping through old castles?"

"I have no television-worthy skills, Vallois. You're delusional."

"Perhaps for a show like the American Survivor? Survivor? You can stand your own against some of the toughest men." You can stand your own against some of the toughest men."

"Yeah? But I'm not big on munching bugs. How's the leg?"

"I am standing. But not for long."

She bent to inspect her makeshift bandage. It wasn't as soaked with blood as she might have expected. Not a bad thing, but not consistent with his condition. They needed to find a way out fast.

"I am very thirsty," Ascher said.

"To be expected. Your body is working hard to keep you upright."

"You think you can find a way out?" he asked.

"Let me see the camera."

Cycling through about a dozen shots-the first few marked by Jacques Lambert when he and his crew had been with them, for they were in reverse order-Annja landed a picture of the wall right behind them. "We're back in business. This way."

She'd have to take him past the dead man. Ascher would see the gaping hole in his chest. There was a question she didn't favor answering.

"No questions, and I promise d'Artagnan's rapier is yours," she said.

"You mean it?"

"You intend to donate it to the museum in Lupiac?"

"Without the treasure, it holds no value for me."

"Yeah, but what treasure? It was just a box, Ascher. And it didn't feel like there was anything inside it, nothing rattling around."

"Y-you didn't look?"

She touched his face. He was shivering. If she could keep him talking, and walking at the same time...

"Lambert s.n.a.t.c.hed it from me before I had a chance." She hooked a shoulder under Ascher's arm and helped him walk with the wall to support his opposite side. "I thought I'd come here for a treasure hunt, but now I'm thinking that was just the lure to lead me to the real trouble."

"BHDC? But I had no idea, Annja."

"I believe you. The universe works in strange ways. Sometimes it draws me to where I should be, even when the reason isn't immediately apparent. But this time it pulled the rug right out from under me."

"But it was a g-good adventure, yes?"

"It's not over yet. Come on, Ascher, you can do this."

They rounded the corner, and Annja stepped over the fallen goon. She held her head high, directing the headlamp across the walls, so Ascher could only make out the outline of the man to step over him. The light didn't fall on the b.l.o.o.d.y hole in his chest.

AN HOUR LATER, thanks to the photos they'd taken, they surfaced through the cellar of the cheese shop. The owner and his wife were shaken, but not harmed. The old man apologized profusely that he'd allowed the big nasty men through the secret doorway, but Annja rea.s.sured him it wasn't his fault.

They hadn't any time to drink a bottle of wine and have some cheese. Ascher needed immediate medical attention. The shop owner called for a cab.

Annja stood out front waiting the car. Ascher sat near her feet on the curb, his body slumped against a street sign pole. "There's a hospital on the island," she said. "I'll take you there, and-"

"And get rid of the deadweight?" He tugged the knotted T-shirt tighter about his thigh and winced.

"For a while. I can't have you drop dead before the adventure is resolved, can I?"

Sitting next to him, she stretched her legs out onto the street, bobbing the toes of her rubber boots together. Ascher, in a remarkable recovery from his waning strength, clutched her by the back of the head-and kissed her.

It wasn't a fast, hard morsel, like she'd given him below-ground to get him to move. This one took its time, and thoroughly impressed her. For a man half-dead, he certainly could curl a girl's toes.

"Thank you, Annja. I am sorry to have gotten you into this mess," he said.

"Nothing I'm not accustomed to. In fact, I might have been let down had this adventure been anything less."

And then she returned the kiss, because some adventures were not to be denied.

ANNJA LEFT ASCHER at the casualty ward in the Hotel-Dieu on the main island, and in the capable hands of a lovely blond nurse whose giggles had made the indomitable Gascon blush.

Night had arrived, and she had never been happier to revel in the gray illumination a big city gave off. No more pitch-black tunnels for her. At least, not for as long as she could prevent it.

Tossing the pommel of d'Artagnan's sword up and down in her palm, she stood at the corner of a street paralleling the Seine, pondering her next move.

She knew exactly where to find Jacques Lambert. And if he was smart, BHDC would be entirely cleared out of incriminating evidence by now. But the man wasn't that smart, and she suspected he felt as if he'd gotten away with murder.

Because he did it daily.

"Not on my watch."

25.

Seventeenth century The news of her husband's death shook her more than she expected it to. They had dissolved the marriage years ago. And in truth, while the vows had been honored, she had never felt married to the man who had flitted in and out of her life as if a nuisance insect. Though he had attracted with his musketeer's tunic and a bold honor that gleamed from him as if gold. A man of impeccable standards-military standards.

Yes, he had been a tender lover, and there was no denying he loved his children. But his very soul had been promised to the king long before she had entered his life.

He had never been completely hers.

Charlotte-Anne should have known when she'd decided to marry a soldier that she could never be first in his life. Only after military, the king, the queen, his troops-and then even the enemy troops-did she manage to toe a place in the line of his affections.

And now he was gone. A man who had given her two fine sons, and a few precious moments of joy.

The journey from Chalon to Paris required she rent a coach and endure half a day on the road. In the carriage, ill sprung and without gla.s.s windows, she suffered the interminable five-hour journey only by force of will. She had to return to the place where they once shared their lives. For one last breath of the air. And to claim a small piece of the musketeer who left her alone to raise their children, without thought to support said family.

Not that she wasn't well enough off. Charlotte-Anne de Chanlecy, dame de Saint-Croix, had certainly married below her station. A family stipend would see her through her end days, but it would not provide for her sons' futures.

Would there be anything left from their father's military life to provide them a start? She doubted it.

Her poor boys. They had not seen their father for seven years. And now they would never see him. Yet, they both desired to serve the military. Already the eldest sought to join the guards. Charlotte wished them a better life, but she knew their father's desire for adventure ran in their veins as molten lava creeps across the scorched earth.

That same inner fire had attracted Charlotte to Charles.

An inventory had been made of Charles de Castelmore's home on the quai Malaquais. Charlotte had been given a list by the auditor and told all items would go to pay off debtors. When she inquired if there was a small trinket she could keep, she was told to speak to one of the king's guards. A small cache of d'Artagnan's personal items was being held with the prefect of police until the king signed off on the musketeer's death certificate.

That very same evening, Charlotte was granted an audience with the king. She dressed in her finest, and even allowed herself to feel a flutter of antic.i.p.ation. In all the years she had been married to the king's favorite, somehow she had never been invited to court. Her husband, most uncomfortable around courts and fanfare, hadn't bothered to see that invitation secured.

Now she would be granted what she had been owed. But she felt no such desire to return to the glamour of Louis's court after the audience. His Highness had gifted her with the trinket she'd requested, stating cryptically, "This is the second time we have given this to a Castelmore. Make it stick."

Now, clutching the gold-hilt rapier at her side, Charlotte swayed as the coach took her away from the royal palace toward an inn at the edge of Paris where she would stay the night before returning to Chalon.

She had not begged, but a real tear had come to her eye when she'd bowed before Louis and Queen Anne and requested a piece of her husband's possessions for memory. It was the queen who had instructed Colbert to retrieve the rapier for Charlotte, stating quite firmly that it should be given to his sons, for it was well-known that Charlotte had renounced all common property upon her divorce with Charles.

Thanking the royals profusely, Charlotte then left the palace, with every intention of gifting the rapier to her sons. It was a mere sword. Decorative. Dangerous to consider brandishing at the vanguard. Why Charles had not sold it stymied her. And yet, a gift from the king and queen he would surely revere.

The gold hilt might bring a pretty price, but his boys would decide that, if they so chose.

A private family estate sat in the thick woods north of the Augustine convent in Chalon. There Charlotte retired, hoping to never look upon another handsome soldier with seduction on his lips, a promise in his eyes and adventure in his heart.

Over the years, the rapier was tucked away into a cove in the wall near the hearth for safekeeping. Upon Charlotte's death, the cove remained untouched and forgotten. Her youngest son had been forced to sell his mother's estate to provide for his own family.

D'Artagnan's eldest son died without progeny, while his youngest produced two sons. Both boys died without children, being the last descendants of Charles de Castelmore d'Artagnan.

Present day ANNJA COULDN'T LET things stand as they did. Not without the treasure. Not without knowing knowing if there was a treasure. if there was a treasure.

If treasure did exist, it didn't belong to BHDC, nor was it meant to subsidize cloning research. Lambert had gone too far. She would make the modern-day Frankenstein answer for the lives of the babies he had created and who had then quickly perished in the name of his twisted science.

Standing before the nondescript redbrick facade of BHDC, Annja summoned courage.

Yes, she had to summon it. Just because she possessed a sword that would help her to defeat the bad guys didn't mean she wasn't reluctant, if at times wisely fearful of the situations she got involved in.

Biopiracy was far out of her realm of understanding. Jacques Lambert may not be a man who threatened to destroy the world, but with his selfish experiments he crippled the future of the world, one small human life at a time.

"Oh, h.e.l.l, what is that?"

Up on the third floor, a window glowed strangely against the night sky. Almost as if it reflected the setting sun, golden and fiery-She knew what it was. Fire.

"He's destroying the evidence."

All her life Annja had had dreams about fire. She'd never been caught in a burning building or had any incidents involving fire. There was no explanation for the dreams.

"More like nightmares," she muttered.

Yet now the pace of her heartbeat brought her to that moment of struggling lucidity that followed after waking from such a nightmare. It wasn't an explanation so much as a knowing.

Your history. Her history. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake as a martyr. The two of you are connected.

With the sword, had she inherited the nightmares?

Breathing deeply from her stomach, Annja then let it all gush out. Focus. She wouldn't allow what wasn't real to bring her down, to cloud her thoughts. She needed to act. And fast.

Nothing would stop her from learning the truth and seeing justice done. "I can do this."

She marched up to the building where ten-foot-high brushed-steel doors guarded the entrance. No signs or plaques identified the place. It was locked-no surprise.

"Wonder who is inside? Just Lambert? A crew of pistol-wielding thugs?"

Hopefully, no pregnant mothers. If they implanted fertilized eggs into women here, then they very likely brought them back for the birth. There must be a clinic or hospital section in the building. Innocent women could be trapped inside.

Shaking the door, Annja guessed the solid steel would require forceful encouragement. Glancing over her shoulder to check her periphery-the street was quiet, the cafe down the road dark and the windows covered with bright words advertising the specials.

She summoned the sword.

The blade wouldn't serve to break the narrow gla.s.s windows set into the steel, but a firm stroke of the hilt straight down onto the biometric scanner cracked off the cover and exposed wires that short-circuited in tiny pops.

Smashing the pommel repeatedly into the exposed box, Annja was rewarded when the door clicked. It didn't open smoothly, yet she was able to ram her shoulder against the steel and push the door inside.

Releasing the sword from this world, Annja stepped quickly through the reception area and down the hallway that displayed ancient swords, rapiers and knives. A Gothic mace taunted beneath a halogen beam. Caltrops-medieval throwing stars used to take down horses-flaunted deadly iron points. None were encased in gla.s.s.