Destiny by Alex Archer Read Free Book Online Page B

heart beating a little faster, Annja spotted the great body stretched out on the floor. For a very tense moment, she’d thought the animal was lying there waiting to pounce. She froze.
    The light played over the mummified lips pulled back in a savage snarl that exposed huge yellow teeth. The eye sockets were hollow, long empty and dry. In that moment, the animal musk she’d smelled seemed even more intense.
    Death had stripped the fantastic creature of much of its bulk, but it was still easy to see how huge it had been in life. The head was as big as a buffalo’s but more bearlike in shape. Its body was thick and broad and the limbs were huge. It was unlike anything Annja had ever seen before.
    Making herself move despite the fear and astonishment she felt, Annja took pictures of the creature with the digital camera. Maybe she’d made two incredible discoveries in the same day.
    Finished with the camera, she hurriedly took out a small drawing pad and a mechanical pencil from her backpack. If the camera failed to capture images, she could at least draw them.
    On closer inspection, Annja saw a broad-bladed spear shoved through the beast’s chest. Beneath the corpse of the impossible animal was a human corpse.
    Decomposition hadn’t settled in. Locked in the steady climate of the cave environment, kept bug-free by depth and ecology, the dead man had mummified as the beast had. His hands, the flesh so dehydrated it was almost like onionskin over the bones, still held tightly to the spear. Man and beast, locked in savage combat, had killed each other.
    Kneeling beside the dead man and beast, she reached out her empty hand.
    Something gleamed at the dead man’s throat.
    Taking a surgical glove from her backpack, Annja plucked the gleaming object from the corpse. It had partially sunk into the dead man’s chest. A leather thong tied the object around the corpse’s neck.
    After freeing the gleaming object, Annja held it up so her flashlight beam could easily illuminate it. A jagged piece of metal, no more than two inches to a side, dangled from the leather thong.
    The piece looked like an ill-made coin, hammered out on some smith’s anvil in a hurry. One side held an image of a wolf standing in front of a mountain. The wolf was disproportioned, though the oddities seemed intentional, and it appeared as though the wolf had been hanged. The obverse was stamped with a symbol she couldn’t quite make out.
    Annja remained kneeling. She was checking the image when a flashlight beam whipped across her face.
    Instinctively, she dodged away, remembering the motorcyclists and the old man she’d seen outside. She tucked the drawing pad, pencils and charm into her backpack as she scooped up her flashlight and switched it off.
    â€œWhere the hell did she go?” someone demanded in French.
    Shadows created by the glow of the flashlight trailed the beam into the chamber.
    Annja stayed low as the light sprayed around the room. She barely escaped it before reaching the pile of skulls. Once there, she flattened herself against the wall.
    Light played over leather-clad bodies that stepped into the chamber.
    Evidently the motorcyclists had made their way down the sinkhole. They’d come along the passage Annja had found. She’d been so absorbed by her discoveries that she’d forgotten all about them and hadn’t noticed them. Silently, she cursed herself.
    â€œShe can’t have just vanished,” another man said.
    In the soft glow of the reflected light from the flashlight, all six of them stood revealed. All of them held pistols.
    â€œIf we lose her, Lesauvage is going to kill us.” The speaker’s voice was tight with fear.
    â€œWe haven’t lost her,” someone stated calmly. “We came in that hole after her. There’s no other way out.”
    â€œYou don’t know that, Foulard.”
    Another man gave a startled curse. “What the hell’s