"Okay," Annja said.

"Good. The ID is 'Avery.' The password is 'Mort,' " Lesauvage said.

Mortwas French for "death." Reluctantly, Annja entered the keystrokes.

Another window opened. This one filled with a video download that took forty-three seconds. When it finished, it opened and played.

There was no audio, but the video feed was clear enough. Avery Moreau, tied up and dressed in some garish costume, lay on a flat rock in a cave. Blood covered his face. There was too much blood for it to be his without some obvious sign of injury.

Wearing a similar costume but with a mounted-deer-head helmet, Lesauvage entered the camera's view. He raised a knife, then drove the blade down into Avery's left hand, all the way through to the rock beneath.

Avery jerked in pain and screamed. Even without the audio, Annja could hear his agony and fear.

Garin swore.

Thankfully, the video ended.

Annja was breathing deeply. "What do you want, Lesauvage?"

"As I told you, I only want the charm. Bring it to me and I will let Avery Moreau live. If you do not, I will kill him. Make your travel arrangements. Once you know when you will return to Lozère, let me know. I can be reached at this number at any time." He gave her the number and the phone clicked dead.

Annja cradled the handset.

"A threat?" Roux asked.

"Lesauvage is going to kill Avery Moreau if I don't bring the charm back."

"Well, that's a shame," the old man said, "but you can't be expected to save everyone."

"I'm not going to let him die," Annja said and immediately started looking on the computer for flight possibilities.

Roux stared at her. "You can't be serious. That man is a villain of the basest sort."

"I know the type," Annja said.

Garin grinned at her. "So you're going to rush off and play the savior."

"I'm not going to let Avery Moreau die." Annja backed up all her files on the charm, the heraldry and the Brotherhood of the Silent Rain onto an external hard drive.

"Lesauvage will kill you," Roux protested. "The sword will be lost again."

"One can only hope," Garin said.

"I'm not planning on dying," Annja said. She looked for her suitcase, then realized it was still at the Lamberts' bed-and-breakfast outside Lozère.

All right, then, I'm already packed. All I have to do is live long enough to collect my luggage.

"Don't be foolish," Roux said. "You don't even have the charm."

"I took pictures of it," Annja said. She brought them up on the computer.

"How did you do that? You didn't have time to photograph it like this in Lozère."

"I summoned it up on the sword," Annja explained as she stuffed gear into her backpack.

"It's still part of the sword?"

"I don't know. Maybe." Annja lifted the phone.

"Call the police in Lozère," Roux urged. "Let them know what is going on."

"Do you remember Police Inspector Richelieu?" Annja asked.

"Yes."

"He shot Avery Moreau's father."

"Whatever for?"

"Gerard Moreau was a thief. He broke into the house where Richelieu happened to be entertaining the wife."

"It wasn't the inspector's wife, was it?" Roux said.

"No." Annja dialed information and asked for the number to Air France.

"Excuse me," Garin said.

Annja looked at him.

"I've got a private plane. Actually, a Learjet, at LaGuardia."

"You'd let me use your jet?" Annja asked, surprised.

"If it's going to allow Lesauvage to kill you more quickly, certainly." Garin appeared quite earnest.

"You're going with us." Annja hung up the phone.

"Us?" Roux repeated.

"We're not finished talking about the sword, are we?" Annja asked the old man.

"Perhaps," Roux said.

"Fine," she told him. "Then you can stay here. If Garin and his pilot jump out of the plane somewhere over the Atlantic and I go down, you can hope you don't have to wait another five hundred years for the sword to wash up on some beach."

Roux grimaced. "If I was certain my part in all of this was finished, I wouldn't entertain this at all."

"Why am I going?" Garin asked.

"Because I don't trust you not to have someone fire a heat-seeking missile at us while we're en route. If you're along for the trip, I figure that's less likely to happen." Annja didn't know if Garin could actually get his hands on something like that, but she wouldn't put it past him.

"That's yourreason to get me to go," Garin said. " Idon't have a reason."

"If you go," Annja said, "maybe you'll get to see Lesauvage kill me."

Garin thought about that briefly. "Good point."

Garin's private jet was outfitted like a bachelor pad with wings. It was divided into three sections. The cockpit was the most mundane thing about the aircraft. The living quarters and the bedroom shared equal space and came with a personal flight attendant.

Annja sat in one of the plush seats. Equipped with a wet bar and the latest in technological marvels, including a sixty-inch plasma television and a Bose surround sound system, in-flight entertainment was no problem. There was also a satellite link for phones and computers.

The bedroom, which Annja had not seen and had no intention of seeing, contained a king-size bed.

Garin and Roux had settled into their seats and started watching a televised poker championship.

Hooked up to the Internet, Annja continued her research into the Brotherhood of the Silent Rain and the charm. Those were at the heart of the mystery before her.

There were new postings at alt.archaeology and alt.archaeology.esoterica.

Two were from Zoodio.

Hey! I traced that shield heraldry you posted. Interesting stuff.

From what I found out, the shield belonged to a British knight named Richard of Kirkland. He was thought to be a great-grandson of one of the English soldiers that burned Joan of Arc at the stake in France.

A chill passed through Annja. She hadn't expected the hit to be tied so closely to Joan.

Supposedly, the great-grandfather's luck turned sour after he got back from France. Devotees of Joan swear he was cursed.

Anyway, that curse seems to have passed down to his great-grandson, who somehow got himself titled along the way. He had a daughter in 1749 who was supposed to have horrible birth defects.

If you're not careful when you do your research, you'll find entries that list her as dead. She even has a gravesite in a private cemetery outside London. Her name was Carolyn. In 1764, Sir Richard of Kirkland took his daughter to the Brotherhood of The Silent Rain.

Why not an abbey? Annja wondered again.

Some reports say Carolyn died in 1767 when the monastery was destroyed. Hope this helps.

It did and it didn't, Annja ultimately decided. She skimmed through the list of sources he'd included. Many of them were on personal Web sites so she was able to check them out.

She saved the Web links to Favorites, then read the next posting by [email protected].

Zoodio has it wrong. Sir Richard's daughter wasn't his daughter after all. She was his wife's illegitimate child. While Sir Richard was off fighting in one of the wars, his wife was having an affair with one of the inbred members of the royal family. Which was why there were so many birth defects in the child.