from.
The change of angles brought new pressure points to bear on the iron. It couldnât hold, shearing away into dozens of fractured pieces.
Annja held her nerve, waiting for the last possible second to reach for the French balcony.
Her fingertips snagged the metal bar for a second, but as she tried to close her fist around it, an iron leaf stabbed deeply into her palm and pain exploded in her hand. She recoiled, and by then it was too late.
The world above her was filled with stars.
And then it wasnât.
10
Roux had been on edge as soon as heâd hung up on Annja.
The old man knew her too well. He knew that by saying donât go out she was going to go out. Annja wasnât the kind of woman you could tell what to do. Heâd known she was going to dive head-on into the investigation the moment sheâd called simply because there was something strange going on. It didnât matter that she didnât know what it was. That only ensured sheâd chase down every possibility until she did know.
He wasnât worried about her well-being; she was more than capable of dealing with the threat gripping the city of Prague.
That was not the issue.
The issue was that he knew who the killer was.
Or rather, what.
And it was his job to take care of it, not hers.
Maybe once upon a time, like in the fairy tales, he could and should have taken care of it, but heâd screwed up and the opportunity passed. How many people had died because of his mistake? More than the handful of most recent victims, that was for sure. That wasnât even the tip of the iceberg. This time he was going tohave to take care of it, no matter the cost to him, even if that cost was his life, which he suspected it would be. Heâd always known there would come a time heâd have to face the reality.
Even the great Roux couldnât expect to live forever.
But maybe there was another explanation?
Just because he saw patterns within the killings and could connect dots no one else seemed to see didnât have to mean he was right. Garin being there, for instance. Was he involved? It was inconceivable that his appearance in Prague was a coincidence. The universe and Garin Braden didnât function that way. Garin had chosen this time to track Annja down for a reason. But what might that reason be?
The flight seemed to take forever despite being a short-haul trip, and it wasnât helped by the fact it had taken hours to tie up the few loose ends he thought would take minutes. In the air heâd put out a couple of calls of his own to people to see if they could shed any extra light on what was happening in Prague. There was nothing in those conversations to make him doubt his gut instinct. He looked down at the world through the window, the lights of the city looking like ley lines directing power all across the surface of the Earth. It was quite beautiful, but he didnât have the time for beauty. The miles werenât passing fast enough.
There would be another death tonight. He knew that. It was part of a pattern that went back centuries now. In daylight it would be impossible to track the killer. It moved only at night, using daylight hours to recuperate, falling into an almost-hibernation state. It was how the monster had always worked. And yes, that was the word he chose to use, not killer, not beast, not man. Monster.
The time passed agonizingly slowly.
There was nothing he could do but think as the plane made its way toward its destination, beginning its descent. He needed to devise a suitable plan, something that would deal with the problem once and for all. The problem was, the only thing he could think of that stood a chance of working was no more sophisticated than scouring the streets. London would have been better, some kind of city with the level of surveillance cameras that covered every rooftop and every angle, not Prague, which was almost backward when it came to that kind of
The change of angles brought new pressure points to bear on the iron. It couldnât hold, shearing away into dozens of fractured pieces.
Annja held her nerve, waiting for the last possible second to reach for the French balcony.
Her fingertips snagged the metal bar for a second, but as she tried to close her fist around it, an iron leaf stabbed deeply into her palm and pain exploded in her hand. She recoiled, and by then it was too late.
The world above her was filled with stars.
And then it wasnât.
10
Roux had been on edge as soon as heâd hung up on Annja.
The old man knew her too well. He knew that by saying donât go out she was going to go out. Annja wasnât the kind of woman you could tell what to do. Heâd known she was going to dive head-on into the investigation the moment sheâd called simply because there was something strange going on. It didnât matter that she didnât know what it was. That only ensured sheâd chase down every possibility until she did know.
He wasnât worried about her well-being; she was more than capable of dealing with the threat gripping the city of Prague.
That was not the issue.
The issue was that he knew who the killer was.
Or rather, what.
And it was his job to take care of it, not hers.
Maybe once upon a time, like in the fairy tales, he could and should have taken care of it, but heâd screwed up and the opportunity passed. How many people had died because of his mistake? More than the handful of most recent victims, that was for sure. That wasnât even the tip of the iceberg. This time he was going tohave to take care of it, no matter the cost to him, even if that cost was his life, which he suspected it would be. Heâd always known there would come a time heâd have to face the reality.
Even the great Roux couldnât expect to live forever.
But maybe there was another explanation?
Just because he saw patterns within the killings and could connect dots no one else seemed to see didnât have to mean he was right. Garin being there, for instance. Was he involved? It was inconceivable that his appearance in Prague was a coincidence. The universe and Garin Braden didnât function that way. Garin had chosen this time to track Annja down for a reason. But what might that reason be?
The flight seemed to take forever despite being a short-haul trip, and it wasnât helped by the fact it had taken hours to tie up the few loose ends he thought would take minutes. In the air heâd put out a couple of calls of his own to people to see if they could shed any extra light on what was happening in Prague. There was nothing in those conversations to make him doubt his gut instinct. He looked down at the world through the window, the lights of the city looking like ley lines directing power all across the surface of the Earth. It was quite beautiful, but he didnât have the time for beauty. The miles werenât passing fast enough.
There would be another death tonight. He knew that. It was part of a pattern that went back centuries now. In daylight it would be impossible to track the killer. It moved only at night, using daylight hours to recuperate, falling into an almost-hibernation state. It was how the monster had always worked. And yes, that was the word he chose to use, not killer, not beast, not man. Monster.
The time passed agonizingly slowly.
There was nothing he could do but think as the plane made its way toward its destination, beginning its descent. He needed to devise a suitable plan, something that would deal with the problem once and for all. The problem was, the only thing he could think of that stood a chance of working was no more sophisticated than scouring the streets. London would have been better, some kind of city with the level of surveillance cameras that covered every rooftop and every angle, not Prague, which was almost backward when it came to that kind of
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