"Now, you can blow my head off with that piece of yours," she told him. "It's possibleI'll just relax, and my arm won't twitch enough to sever your carotid artery before I fall. So you need to ask yourself just one question, Padre. 'Do I feel lucky?'"

He laughed incredulously. "You quote Clint Eastwood?"

"It was all I could think of," she said.

Sirens began to wail. They weren't far and they were getting closer in a hurry. From multiple directions, by the way the sounds surrounded the pair.

Godin tipped his gun toward the star-filled sky. His thumb let the hammer down and snapped the safety back on.

"If you want to cut my head off," he said, holstering the weapon behind the small of his back, "now's your chance. But I'd suggest you do whatever you choose to do quickly and leave with alacrity. The police will not care for any of the answers you will be able to give them."

For a moment she still stood, feeling the pressure of her steel against the skin of his neck through her hand and arm. Then she deliberately moved the blade sideways before making the sword disappear.

"I don't have it in me to kill a man who doesn't pose a direct threat," she said. "I hope I never do. But I also hope I'm not making a mistake not going ahead and taking your head off and letting my soul take the consequences."

"Refraining from burdening your soul with such a weight is never a bad choice, child," he said. "And now by your leave, I bid you adieu. You have given me much to contemplate."

She watched him walk away. Just before he passed out of the direct shine of the light illuminating the play area he stooped to scoop up his big, gleaming revolver and stuff it back inside his jacket. Then he continued on his way, moving along with no apparent hurry. Once beyond the circle of light he seemed to dissolve into the night.

She turned to run in a different direction.

Chapter 14

"Sit, sit," the big man in the herringbone coat with the black fake-fur collar said, gesturing her back down with a gloved hand. He beamed at her through his full salt-and-pepper beard. Cars choked the narrow street behind him. A horde of tourists, many wearing brightly-colored lapel pins in the shape of balloons, milled along the sidewalks to either side.

Halfway out of her metal chair on the small patio in front of the Purple Sage Coffee House, Annja halted. "You're Dr. Cogswell?" she asked.

"Affirmative, affirmative," he puffed. He was a tall man, heavyset, with round pink cheeks and lively brown eyes beneath extravagant black-and-white eyebrows. Like his beard his thinning hair was gray with a showy black streak down the middle. He held himself almost militarily erect and moved with brisk authority. "And you are the famous Annja Creed?"

"Not that famous," she said, resuming her seat. "I'm pleased to meet you, Doctor."

The coffee house was tucked back from San Felipe Street, just north of Old Town Plaza in Albuquerque. San Felipe Cathedral stood across the lane. It was a bright autumn noon. The sun was warm enough Annja had taken off her jacket.

"Puff," Cogswell said, taking his own seat across the round metal table from her. "The pleasure's all mine. I'm flattered you took time out of your busy schedule to meet with an old coot like me."

For a moment he sat regarding her. He had a keen gaze. His scrutiny could well have been taken as obtrusive and inappropriate, though she detected nothing sexual in it. She wondered if he understood that and was using the fact that his age and professorial mien made him relatively innocuous, or whether, like a great many scientists of her acquaintance, he knew too little of human interactions even to be aware of it.

Make no assumptions, she told herself sternly, behind a carefully bland smile.

He nodded his round head once, briskly, as if she had passed examination. He leaned forward slightly. "We live, it would appear, in interesting times."

He nodded to Annja's left, where a thirtyish brown-haired man dressed in slacks, a pullover and red-and-white athletic shoes sat reading an early-afternoon paper. The headline read, or rather screamed, Nine Die In Gang War.

Her smile crumpled a little. "Yes," she said. "I guess we do." She had never really thought she'd be grateful for the War on Drugs, but she had to admit it kept providing excellent cover for her. She wondered how long that could last.

Cogswell cocked his head to one side. "Ah, but I suppose you know that better than any of us," he said.

Her blood turned cold. She felt as if he had read the thoughts right out of her head. Her cheeks burned. What does he know?

The next moment he reassured her by saying, "You are acquiring quite a reputation in paranormal circles."

"Ah," she said. "Well. I hope they aren't too hard on me." Some people were, she knew. She had once made the mistake of wandering onto the public forum the Knowledge Channel maintained online for Chasing History's Monsters.

He smiled. "I suppose you've been quite occupied researching the remarkable events transpiring here in the land of enchantment. In fact, I gather you've been a firsthand witness of one of the more alarming phenomena."

"I'm afraid that's been a little blown out of proportion, Doctor," she said. "I don't think I saw anything but an eagle. The light wasn't very good."

"You maintain scientific detachment. Very good. But an eagle that flies without flapping its wings? An eagle that makes a sound like a baby crying? Or was it a woman screaming?"

She was getting those insects-crawling-down-the-spine sensations again. She searched her memory frantically. How much had the anonymous post from the San Esequiel dig revealed?

"A baby crying?" she asked.

"So what you heard sounded more like screaming to you," he said. "Reports vary. Still, the one seems rather similar to the other, don't you think?"

He smiled at her merrily. His coat had come open. Beneath it he wore a bright red vest and an emerald-green tie. It went beyond aging-professorial fashion blindness almost to the point of deliberate bad taste. Though the combination, she had to admit, lent him a certain cheery premature-Christmas air. And who am I to play fashion fascist anyway? My friends all accuse me of dressing like an archaeologist.

"Wait," she said. "An eagle has a pretty impressive wingspan. They glide pretty well. And while I'm no authority, I believe they have some pretty shrill, piercing cries."

"Could a bird as imposing as an eagle take off without flapping its wings?"

She shook her head. "I don't think so. But if you're familiar with my work on the show you know I'm sort of the house skeptic. I try to resist jumping to any exotic conclusions."

He nodded. "Commendable, commendable. But please, tell me truthfully, do you really think that all that's going on here is childish pranks and misapprehension of natural creatures?"

"Let's leave aside what I think, if we can, Dr. Cogswell. You have a most impressive résumé, I must say."

"Ah, the wonders of Google. You probably don't even remember the days when checking a person's bona fides required at least a trip to a well-stocked library, if not lengthy and tedious correspondence."

"My love for the past does not blind me to the advantages of climate conditioning and antibiotics and the other blessings of modern life. But you said you had some information for me. I'm very eager to hear it."