Laying her head back against the headrest, she slipped quickly into sleep.

Driving her rented Honda back to the motel room she'd relocated to on Albuquerque's west side, Annja realized with a start she was skating around the big thing, the elephant in the room – an image that momentarily gave her the giggles.

But that was sheer venting. There was nothing humorous about two attempts to murder her in the space of three days.

She had wondered, sitting in the sterile fluorescent police offices shivering in the air-conditioning and after-action adrenaline crash, why she'd never even tried to talk her way out of the ambush in the alley.

She knew she'd sensed a purpose even darker than kidnapping the instant the cab had turned into an inexplicable alley and stopped.

Perhaps it was because of the attack in the parking lot. Although that may also have been nothing more than a kidnap attempt. But she felt certain, irrationally perhaps, a darker force was behind it than that.

Perhaps it was the presence in those grubby hands of a very clean hypodermic – and equally clean firearms. Obviously, little about that incident had been as it seemed.

You're going into conspiracy-theory mode,the debunking part of her mind sneered. But the thought rang hollow. For two attempts on her life to be made in two different countries, a thousand miles apart, by sheer coincidencewas a theory as far-fetched as anything she could imagine. In a purely abstract, hypothetical sense, it could happen. But had it?

Stopped at a red light waiting to turn north up the entrance to I-25, she rolled down the window. She hoped the night wind blowing in her face would sharpen her thoughts.

Why would anybody want to kill me? Who?

One answer came to mind. Garin Braden. She knew he unabashedly enjoyed the immortality that Roux claimed to regard as a curse. He feared that the reunification of Joan's sword might jeopardize his apparently infinite life as a young, robust, healthy man. He had taken drastic steps to eliminate the sword before.

Garin had professed a liking for her. Frankly Annja found him charming and even likable, as well. But she knew he was willing to do absolutely anything necessary to get his way. He'd tried to claim her sword before.

He certainly had the reach. He was tremendously wealthy and influential, both acknowledgedly and, like an iceberg, she was sure, enormously more so beneath anyone's range of vision. But why now? Why here?

Freeway speed blasted cool air into her face. It helped keep her awake but forced no insights. She shook her head. Maybe Garin wasn't involved. Or maybe his involvement was very indirect. That's certainly his style, she reflected.

Whatever the truth was, she had to assume the attempts against her had some connection to her investigation. And that in itself meant she was on the right track.

Sitting cross-legged on the bed in her Motel 6 room Annja almost deleted the e-mail. The subject – Urgent Meeting Requested – tripped her mental spam filter. As did the sender's name, Dr. Raywood Cogswell. A lot of scammers styled themselves "Doctor."

Her virus-protection hadn't detected anything unusual so she clicked on the header to read the message.

Cogswell claimed to be a retired biologist turned cryptozoologist. He wished to meet with her to discuss anomalous sightings – including the one she was rumored to have shared. She grimaced but kept reading.

He was familiar, naturally, with her work on Chasing History's Monsters.He believed he might have information that could be of use to her.

She sighed and unwound the towel from her hair. It was mostly dry. That was one thing you could say for the high desert, she thought. Things dried quickly. She shook still-cool locks tickling down her T-shirted shoulders and tossed the towel at a chair.

Shut out of her hotel room in Pojoaque, she had shifted operations here. It was just as well. Even on the off chance the Pueblo could be talked out of pulling the plug on their dig, a heavy early snowfall had blanketed the area during her Mexico City jaunt. The dig season was over anyway. And the interesting action, for the moment, seemed to be developing in Albuquerque. Unfortunately, more centrally located rooms were unavailable with the balloon fiesta in progress.

Annja leaned over to the bedside table and picked up a hair brush. As she began to brush out her tresses she thought about where she was and what she was doing.

Someone or something had drawn her to this place. Maybe it was the sword itself. She couldn't be sure. She didn't like to think about what the sword's existence implied.

Her mentor, Roux, was half-cynical, half-devout, half-mad and a few halves beyond that. He had found her when she found the last remnant of the sword – the last piece for which he himself had been searching ever since Joan herself had been taken and executed, her sword destroyed. If he understood what forces were in play, he refused to tell her.

The sword belonged to her now. Whatever, exactly, that entailed. Neither the sword nor her new life came with an owner's manual.

She had always felt an impulse to protect the weak and defy the bully. If there really was a difference. If anything she felt more strongly now. She felt an overriding, almost obsessive desire to preserve innocence – where she could find it, and of course, where it could be preserved.

Maybe that was her mission. It would do until something better came along.

Meanwhile something strange was going on in central New Mexico. Several somethings.

Maybe.That was what had hooked her, she thought. The strange creature sightings and the sudden spate of well-attested encounters with the Holy Child. More coincidence?

No way to know yet, she reflected, grimacing as she broke through some split ends. Nor was she sure if innocence was involved, or if so, who the innocent was. The Holy Child himself? Whatever he was, it was difficult to envision what could threaten a being who apparently could disappear at will.

Ah, well, she thought. If no one going to give me any hints, I guess I'll have to go on relying on my intuition. It had always served her well – even before she encountered Roux, the sword and this madness.

Her instincts told her that whatever was going on here, she was meant to take part in it.

She sighed and put her notebook computer back on her crossed bare legs. A little practiced Google searching turned up some background on her mystery correspondent, Dr. Cogswell with the curious first name. He had a respectable if not extraordinary curriculum vitae. He had worked for Monsanto, apparently researching ways to make agricultural insecticides safe for creatures that weren't insects. From there he had gone to a professorship at an agricultural college in Nebraska, from where he had recently retired to the warmer climes of Albuquerque. Along the way he had contributed numerous articles on cryptozoology – the study of creatures whose existence was not acknowledged by science – to various publications. More recently he had been an active participant in Usenet newsgroups and on the Web.

He struck her as one of those scientists who, despite genuine intelligence and knowledge, tended to go a bit bizarre as soon as they set foot outside their own specialties. Nonetheless, he was as close to a lead as anything she had. Unless she wanted to hang around and try to interview the next tourist to encounter the Santo Niño before he, she or they fled home – as almost all the previous claimants had.

She reread Cogswell's message then hit Reply. He had suggested they meet for lunch.

So be it.

The morning air held an edge as Annja pushed the glass door of the motel lobby. Not enough to cut – just enough to make itself known. It was the sort of cool you tasted as much as felt – along with the inevitable exhaust fumes from the vehicles streaming past a parking lot dotted with cars whose windshields were white blazes of reflected sun. And a hint of that ubiquitous piñon smoke. Annja already knew she would associate that scent with New Mexico for the rest of her life. Adjusting the strap of her shoulder bag, she strode forth into the full light of the sun in search of breakfast.