Annja reacted at once, throwing out a foot that caught Garin in the side and knocked him away. He scrambled to his feet and fisted the bread knife on the counter.

As Garin brought the bread knife around, Annja took a two-handed grip on the sword and slashed at the smaller blade wondering if it would pass harmlessly through. The bread knife snapped in two, leaving Garin with the hilt in his hand.

Annja planted the sword tip against his chest right over his heart. The material and flesh indented. Maybe Garin couldn't touch the sword, they both realized, but the sword could touch him.

"Are we done here?" Annja asked.

Garin swept his left arm against the blade to knock it away, but again his arm passed through. His effort left him facing Annja, his chest totally exposed to her retaliation.

Annja pressed the sword against his chest. "I've fed you breakfast," she said evenly. "I've overlooked the fact that you broke into my house. I'm even willing to forgive you for trying to break my sword."

"Your sword?"

"Mine," Annja responded without pause or doubt. The sword was hers. It had chosen her. That much was clear. "But if you ever make an enemy of me, if you ever try to kill me like you did Roux, I'll hunt you down and kill you."

"If I try," Garin promised, unwilling to back up another inch, "you'll never see me coming."

"Then it would be in my best interests to kill you now, wouldn't it?"

Garin stood stubbornly against the sword.

Annja pressed harder, watching the pain flicker through his features and hate darken his eyes. He stumbled back, then turned and walked away. She let him retreat without pursuit.

Garin wiped at the blood seeping through his shirt. "How much?" he demanded.

"For what?" Almost casually, as if she'd been doing it forever, Annja balanced the sword over her right shoulder.

"To break the sword."

Annja shook her head. "I'm not going to break this sword."

In truth, she didn't know what would happen if she tried. An image of the lightning bolt passing through it filled her mind.

She had a definite feeling that whatever happened if she tried to destroy the sword wouldn't be good. Also, she felt that she would be betraying the spirit of the sword. Joan of Arc had led people in a war against oppression with it.

"I could give you millions," Garin said. He waved to encompass the loft. "You wouldn't have to live like this."

"I happen to like the way I live." Annja watched the dark calculations take place in his eyes.

"You love knowledge," he said finally. "With the money I could give you, wouldgive you, you could go anywhere in the world. Study anything you like. With the best experts money can buy. You could open up any door to the past you wanted to."

The idea was tempting. She believed Garin could provide that kind of money. She even believed he would.

"No," she said. As if to take the temptation out of his hands, she willed the sword away.

He came at her without warning, rushing at her low and grabbing her hips as he shoved her back against the stove. He fumbled for one of the knives in the wooden block by the sink. Grabbing a thick-bladed butcher's knife, he raised it to strike.

Freeing her right arm from Garin's grasp, Annja drove the heel of her palm into his nose. Blood spurted as the cartilage collapsed.

He yowled in pain and tried to hang on to her. His knife hand came down.

Annja twisted and avoided the knife. The blade thudded deep into the countertop. She reared up against him, forcing him back.

Shifting, she butted him aside with her hip, heel stamped his foot, head butted him under the chin, and brought an elbow strike into line with his jaw.

Garin stepped back, his black eyes glassy. He punched at her but she slapped his arm aside. Then he caught her with an incredibly fast left hand.

Annja dropped as if she'd been hit with a bag of wet cement. Her senses spun and for a moment she thought she was going to pass out.

Garin came after her immediately. On the ground, she knew from experience, his greater size and weight would take away every advantage her speed and strength gave her.

She rolled backward and flipped to her feet in the center of the loft. Annja only had to think of the sword for a split second and it was in her hand. Stepping back, right leg behind her left, hilt gripped firmly in both hands, she readied the sword.

Garin halted, completely out of running room.

All Annja had to do was swing. But he'd stopped his aggressions. Will it be murder?she wondered.

"Are you going to kill him, then?" a raspy voice suddenly asked.

Circling slowly, Annja maintained her grip on the sword. She turned just enough to see Roux standing in the doorway.

"Don't either of you respect a person's privacy?" Annja asked.

"I knocked. No one answered. Then I heard the sounds of a scuffle." Roux entered unbidden. "I thought it best if I investigated." He closed the door behind him.

Okay, Annja thought, at least I know he's not a vampire.

Roux took off his long jacket. He wore a casual tan suit. "Are you going to kill him?" he asked again as if the question was a typical greeting.

Garin watched her carefully. He kept his hands spread to the side, ready to move.

Annja continued to slowly circle, never crossing her feet, so she wouldn't trip. She stopped when Roux was behind Garin.

"I don't know yet," Annja admitted.

"My vote is no," Garin said.

"You tried to kill me," Annja said, "right after I told you that I would kill you if you tried."

"I really didn't think you meant it," he said.

"You would have killed me."

Garin was silent for a moment, then nodded. "Probably."

"Miss Creed," Roux said.

"Do you want to kill him?" Annja asked. Maybe that would be better. Although it would still be in her loft. She wondered if she could talk the old man into killing Garin somewhere else.

"No," Roux answered.

"Why not? He's tried to kill you, too."

"I've been like a father to him. It doesn't seem fitting."

"He's tried to killyou," Annja said in exasperation.

"Ours has been a… difficult relationship at best," Roux said. "That's the way it is between fathers and sons."

"I'm not your son," Garin snarled.

"You were as close as I ever had," Roux said. He looked around. "May I sit, Miss Creed?"

"Could I stop you?"

"Not if you intend to continue menacing Garin with the sword." Roux sat in the window seat. "Is that melon?"

"Yes."

"May I help myself?"

"Sure," Annja replied, not believing he'd actually asked. "I'm trying to keep the homicidal maniac from killing us."

"I'm not a homicidal maniac," Garin objected. "If you'd just let me destroy that sword—"

"Apparently you can't," Annja taunted. At the moment, after he'd tried to kill her twice, she didn't mind acting a little superior.

"—we could all walk out of here happier," Garin finished.

"I wouldn't be happier," Roux said. He looked for a plate, found one in the cabinet and put melon pieces on it. He returned to the window seat. "I spent five hundred years and more looking for the pieces of that sword. I don't care to repeat that experience any time soon."

"We're immortal, Roux," Garin growled.