As did she, really. So if the holder did not want for anything—felt they had good in their life—then the skull remained quiescent? Interesting idea.

Anyway, the last time I had it out was to show it to a visiting friend, Benjamin Ravenscroft.

Annja leaned forward; her toast went untouched.

He was fascinated with the legend. I felt a little odd watching him turn the skull over, tracing his fingers along the gold sutures. He’s quite the prominent businessman over in your country, or so he told me.

But you have the skull now, Miss Creed, and I would be grateful for its return. Of course, I’d graciously allow you to keep it for study as long as you wish. I believe, after noting your vigilant efforts to track its owner online, I can trust you with it.

Please instruct me what your plans are for the skull, and we can make arrangements.

“Huh.” Annja settled in the booth, the last pancake on her plate drowning in a pool of syrup. “Mystery solved. It belongs to some dude in Venice.”

She clicked open the photos he had attached. Three of them, featuring anterior, lateral and inferior view. “That’s the same skull, all right.”

A skull Mr. Wisdom did not name the Skull of Sidon, yet had detailed the same magical powers the legend spoke of. But if it belonged to his family, then she had every intent of returning it to its rightful owner.

“If I had the thing.”

Scanning through the e-mail again, her eyes stopped at the friend’s name. “Benjamin Ravenscroft. Why does your name keep coming up in association with this skull?”

It was about time she searched his name.

Forbes was the first site to bring up his name. It had just published its famous lists. Benjamin Ravenscroft was number twenty on the Top-Earning CEOs list. His company, Ravens Tech, auctioned intangibles and had a huge hand in the burgeoning enterprises in Dubai.

“Intangibles?” Annja was completely out of her element with anything white collar, Wall Street or high-tech.

A click on the CNN site brought up an article published a month earlier about Ravens Tech’s surprising rise to profitability. Who was Benjamin Ravenscroft, it posited? Where had he come from, and why was the world just hearing about him now? The man sold nothing. Or rather, things that could not be held, but only made, designed or promised for some future creation.

Like patents, air and domain names. Air? She read further. The guy started out in college selling air space to cell phone companies. Well, I’ll be. I bet he’s even sold the Brooklyn Bridge a time or two.

And yet each article about Benjamin and Ravens Tech also expounded on his charitable contributions. He’d established a foundation for children with bone cancer after his own daughter had been diagnosed. The most recent charity event had been held a month earlier, and had raised 3.2 million dollars. Unfortunately, the disease was a nasty one, and doctors forecast many decades before a cure is in sight.

“Sounds like a likable enough guy. Bummer about his kid.”

Annja scrolled through the search engine listing. They were all the same, listing Ravenscroft as the CEO to watch and extolling his charity work.

“And yet he’s had his hands on the skull once, when in Venice. Could he be the one who hired Marcus Cooke? Because I don’t think Serge did. Although Serge has had his eye on the skull ever since it arrived here, I’m sure. Are Serge and Ravenscroft connected?”

To think on it a few seconds tweaked a muscle at the corner of her eye. Really? Could he possibly? Annja reasoned the mystery behind Ravenscroft’s rise could be attributed to one certain bone conjurer.

Why not? He can summon the dead. Why not help a man make millions? Roux had said something about manipulating people and seeing the future. What a dream to see the future stock market.

The article had conjectured about his sudden rise over the past year.

She could go there with the theory. Hell, she was starting to believe a necrophilic liaison produced a skull.

Wonder how long Serge’s been in town? I’ll have to ask next time we chat. Because she knew she hadn’t seen the last of the necromancer, by any means.

Neither Serge nor Benjamin Ravenscroft holds the skull right now. And I think I’d like to keep it that way.

But the option of Garin Braden holding the skull wasn’t desirable, either. It belonged to Maxfield Wisdom, and Annja would see it returned to him.

Five minutes later her plate was clean, and she’d downed another cup of coffee. Annja had a plan. “Manhattan, here I come.”

29

“You just don’t care anymore, Ben! You didn’t even come home last night, and Rachel is not feeling well.”

Ben rubbed his temple and considered laying his cheek against the cool desktop. Instead, he propped an elbow and caught his head in a palm as he listened to Linda rage over the phone.

“How dare you say I don’t care about Rachel?”

“You don’t know the meaning of caring, Ben. Starting a charity means little. You’re just doing it for the media exposure. You don’t even know what Rachel’s T-cell counts were the last time she was at the doctor, do you? Do you!”

“I’m doing my damnedest, Linda.”

“Well, it’s not enough. I can’t do this anymore, Ben! I’m tired. I—I can’t look Rachel in the eye when she asks me when she’s going to be better.”

“Linda, put the whiskey back in the cabinet. It’s too early in the morning for that nonsense.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Ben. You don’t get to tell me what to do since you’re not even in this family. I can’t do it, Ben!”

It had become Linda’s script. She’d call him up after she’d had a few drinks, then rail about her inability to cope.

He was an asshole for hating her slip into drinking. An even bigger asshole for not being able to rush home, wrap her in his arms and promise he’d make everything better.

Ben didn’t know how to make things better through normal means. He wasn’t wired to be compassionate and offer gentle words of reassurance. He only knew how to get a deal done. And he’d be damned if the skull was going to slip through his hands.

He would make things right for Rachel. No matter who he had to kill.

“You’re a bastard, Ben.”

The slammed phone surprised him. Nowadays most people couldn’t slam the phone anymore. But Linda insisted on using the landline because she thought cell phones caused cancer. She also thought processed food, plastic and anything artificial could do the same—invade your healthy cells and kill you.

Rachel’s cancer had seeded Linda’s paranoia.

Now Ben did press his face against the cool desk and stretch his arms out above his head. “I’m trying, Rachel,” he whispered.

ANNJA SWIPED HER MetroCard and got on the train. The subway car was fairly empty except for a young guy, probably early twenties, with blond dreadlocks who bobbed his head to tunes. He did not look up to acknowledge her; his attention was on a textbook. Annja couldn’t see the spine, but it made her smile to see a young man with his head in a book.

Across from him sat an elderly woman, head bowed, snoozing. Annja thought perhaps she was homeless, for the layers of sweaters that bulged out beneath her tattered jacket. It was early morning, the weekend, so there were no commuters to jockey for position or seats.

Before the doors closed, two men rushed on. Each wore a long dark coat and dark sunglasses. Annja shook her head. The Matrixlook was so over.

She had a fifteen-minute ride, she estimated.