Free Solomon's Jar by Alex Archer Page A

she guessed. The White Tree Lodge did not seem to disdain modern concepts of efficiency. She wondered, idly, how they justified their reliance on the techniques and technologies they so despised.
    The derelict abbey reared to the right. Ivy practically encrusted the limestone walls, which had fallen in at the top. A passageway led between rosebushes just beginning to bud with spring. Beyond lay another arched gateway. Through it the granite-and-limestone headstones of the churchyard were visible, jumbled gray-and-white shapes in the thickening twilight.
    â€œWe really don’t have to play it this way, gentlemen,” Annja said when there were walls all around. Flying things fluttered about, shadows tracing oddly irregular paths, bats or swallows she could not tell. The sun no longer shone here this day. It felt as if it never had.
    â€œCoo,” said the short, squat Dave. “I fancy hearing what the bird has to offer. What about you, Mal?”
    The albino grunted.
    â€œNot a bit of it, lads,” Reginald Smythe-George called out, coming along seven yards or so behind as if pulling rear guard. Maybe he didn’t want to risk getting his expensive trousers splattered, Annja thought. “This is lodge business. No time for frivolity,” he said.
    â€œWhat’s the point of belonging to a fertility cult,” Dave groused, “if you can’t enjoy a few rites o’ fertility—if you know what I mean?”
    Mal smiled.
    â€œSo this is the way it has to be?” Annja asked. She walked toward the churchyard with head down and shoulders slumped.
    â€œThat’s right,” Dave said, “and a damned dirty shame it is. But there it is. Just take it easy, now, and it’ll go easy, if you know what I mean.”
    â€œSure,” she said, and spun.
    Mal’s bulk and slow, shambling motion conspired to suggest slow-wittedness. But there was nothing slow about his response. No sooner had Annja begun to turn than he raised the shovel in both hands. Even as she came around to face him the blade descended to split her head.
    But her right hand was no longer empty. She hacked across her body right to left with the sword. She felt two moments of resistance.
    Blood hosed her from the stumps of two thick, severed arms.
    Mal’s mouth opened and closed. His tongue lookedred as blood in contrast to his colorless face. Or perhaps he had bitten it in shock. He made gobbling sounds, quick and bubbling with desperation as he stared at his massive wounds.
    â€œBloody hell!” Dave exclaimed. He brought up the Purdey.
    Annja was on him. A backhand slash severed both barrels of the priceless double shotgun with a belling sound. Reflex made the man yank the now-sawn-off shotgun skyward. Reflex clenched his finger on both triggers. The barrels gouted pumpkin-sized flames into the dove-gray evening air.
    Dave roared in surprise and pain as the unexpected recoil broke his trigger finger and possibly his wrist. He had not been gripping the gun properly when Annja amputated two-thirds of its barrel. The giant muzzle flames blossoming so close to his face had ignited the front of his curly hair.
    His cry was cut short as Annja took the sword in both hands and raced past him to his right, swinging horizontally as she passed him.
    He froze. Blood gushed from his mouth and jetted from his chest. He fell to flagstones half-buried in the turf.
    A flash snapped her eyes forward. Simultaneously Annja heard a pop, not particularly loud. Then another. Something plucked like fingers at a lock of her dark hair hanging by her left cheek.
    Young Reginald Smythe-George had a tiny black pistol in his hand and was shooting at her from twenty feet away.
    Her instructors had always told her to run away from a knife but charge a gun. Of course, they might not have been so cautious about the knives had they known she had a very large knife indeed, carried in the otherwhere where an act of will could bring it to