Free The Broken Sword by Molly Cochran

hard work and the effect it was having on his sensitive hands, Aubrey finally tossed the sledgehammer away and grasped the hilt, hoping to break it from the blade.
    Its touch was like an explosion. With a cry of pain, Aubrey flew backward, his feet off the ground, and crashed into a tree trunk.
    When his head cleared, he got on all fours to examine the ground. Someone—Lagouat himself, perhaps—had obviously planted a device, a land mine of some kind. But the ground was unbroken.
    Then, with his magician's senses, he heard the hum of the buried blade, saw the tendrils of energy curling like smoke up the golden hilt.
    The ancient gods, long vanquished and forgotten ... Was this their work? Had the terrible gods whom Sala-din so feared forged this sword against him and his kind?
    He was certain of two things: that this was the weapon that had killed Saladin, and that nothing short of the strongest magic he could summon would destroy its power.
    F or the task, Aubrey collected twelve of the most deadly magicians he knew. They were difficult to find, even more difficult to persuade to help him. But three years and several million dollars later, they arrived.
    In a rite that began at midnight, the thirteen sorcerers circled the sword, chanting, calling on their demon deities, building their power until Aubrey felt the dark forces inside him spill out of his eyes and ears and mouth like oily liquid. He became Thanatos the death god, ruler of the soulless places. His senses quickened until they were those of a beast; his very hands seemed to transmute into claws. With them he grasped the golden hilt and poured his evil into it.
    The sword crumbled under his touch.
    Later, after the magicians had gone, Aubrey went back to collect the dun-colored fragments. Why, it wasn't even real gold, he thought. The gems had been shattered; their dust lay sparkling in the dirt. The rock that had once encased the long blade so tightly now fell away beneath his fingers like rotten plaster.
    He felt slightly cheated. After spending a fortune to bring the magicians to this place, the sword had given up its power almost at once. Aubrey wanted to kick himself for assuming he needed the help of those greedy old men. The thing had probably given off its last spurt of magic on the day he'd discovered it.
    It had all been so damnably, disappointingly easy.
    As he swept the last particles of the sword into a pouch, he imagined Saladin at the end of his life, fearful, cowering at the thought of retribution by some ancient and forgotten gods.
    "They were nothing," he said aloud, hefting the pouch. "Here's the proof of it."
    S hortly after the ritual with the twelve magicians, Aubrey was called to Marrakesh for a fairly routine assassination. He would not normally have accepted the assignment—he was rapidly becoming bored with his gun-for-hire hobby and, besides, he was acquainted with the family of the man he would have to kill—but he agreed, finally, because he thought it might distract him for a time from his frustrated quest for the cup.
    He was beginning to wonder if Saladin hadn't made the whole story up just to send him on a lifelong wild goose chase when he saw William Marshall sit up after experiencing the impact of a bullet in his chest. A green metal cup which exactly matched Saladin's detailed drawings had rolled off Marshall's body as he was carried into the ambulance.
    Aubrey very nearly shouted with delight then and there, before remembering that he was viewing these events through the telescopic sight of a semiautomatic rifle. He would have to wait, he decided. Not long, just until the police and those Secret Service fools left.
    And then, just as he was about to discard the rifle, he saw a young blind girl pick up the cup.
    Aubrey groaned. The look on the girl's face was unmistakable. She knew what she had.
    Doggedly, seething with impatience, he got rid of the weapon, exchanged one disguise for another, then followed the girl