She casually stopped and looked around, making note of those in her immediate vicinity, but she didn’t see anyone who looked familiar. Still, she spent a few minutes checking out those she did see, trying to remember their faces and what they were wearing so that if she did see them again she would know it.

After a few minutes she continued on her way.

She was just starting to think the whole thing had been a figment of her imagination, just a result of the conversation she’d had with Garin, when the feeling returned. At the same moment she caught a mental glimpse of her sword, hanging there in the middle of the otherwhere, gently glowing, and that seemed enough of a warning for her not to brush aside her intuition.

There was a bank ahead—she’d seen it on the way to the restaurant—and its windows were made from reflective glass. She waited until she drew abreast of them and then stopped, pretending to be searching through her pockets for something while actually using the glass to watch those who were coming up behind her. She was looking for someone who stopped suddenly, or who turned away abruptly, anything that might give them away as the watcher she knew was back there somewhere.

But aside from an elderly woman on an electric cart, no one seemed to be paying her the least bit of attention.

If they were out there, they were good—she had to give them that.

She set off at a brisk pace, nearly twice what she’d been doing before. She cut down a side street, using the opportunity to look back in the direction she’d come for anyone cutting through the sidewalk crowd quickly enough to catch up to her, but again, no one seemed to be giving her any undue attention. She headed north at the next intersection, then cut back east at the next side street, bringing her back to her original route. Each time she changed direction she used the opportunity it presented to take a quick look at those behind her, watching for familiar faces, but there were none.

She hadn’t seen them at first the other day, either, though. Just because she couldn’t see them didn’t mean they weren’t out there.

She decided to try one more trick. She was approaching an intersection and as she got close she kept a near watch on the lights, waiting for her chance.

Just as the lights turned green, Annja shot out into the street, across the flow of automobiles and one very large city bus, rushing to get to the other side before any of them could move. More than one driver blew their horns, but she didn’t care; she was too busy reaching the opposite sidewalk and then looking back the way she had come to see if she’d left anyone flat-footed on the other side, trapped behind a wave of vehicles.

There was no one paying the least bit of attention to her.

Maybe I imagined it all, she thought.

While it might have been a possibility, Annja didn’t think it was a very likely one.

She stood on the corner for a long pause, watching those behind her, wondering.

Where are you?

HIGH ABOVE, ON THE ROOFTOP of the building adjacent to the corner where Annja stood, the very individual she was searching for at ground level watched her through a pair of military-grade binoculars.

From Annja’s erratic movements over the past few minutes, the Dragon knew that Annja suspected she was being watched again, but without any hard evidence to confirm the suspicion she would have no choice but to brush it off. Not once in the past few hours had the target looked up, so the Dragon was confident Annja would not be able to locate where the surveillance was coming from. The decision to use the rooftops, rather than put a team on the ground, was apparently paying off.

Maybe you’re not as good as you think you are, Annja Creed.

12

That night Annja spent hours on the computer, trying to learn everything she could about the Dragon. Unfortunately, as Bart and Garin had both explained, there really wasn’t much available out there that could tell her anything of value. Rumors abounded—about the Dragon’s background, personal tastes, business partners, weapons of choice, even what kind of women he preferred. But it was all nothing more than will-o’-the-wisps in the night, suppositions, maybe an occasional educated guess, but certainly nothing that could be labeled as cold, hard fact. She hadn’t seen anything so far that even assured her the Dragon was a man, though the general consensus seemed to be that he was.

She also wasted a fair amount of time trying to track down any rumors about a mystical sword on the various conspiracy Web sites and newsgroups that she knew about, but aside from half a dozen spontaneous sightings of Excalibur, the legendary sword of King Arthur, that was a dead end, too.

Finally conceding defeat, she decided to call it a night and get some sleep.

AN INSISTENT BEEPING woke her.

She reached out with one hand, fumbling for the switch, trying to remember just what on earth she had set the alarm for, where she was supposed to be this morning, when she discovered the alarm clock wasn’t where it was supposed to be.

Rather than resting on the bedside table where it had been when she’d gone to sleep the night before, it now stood across the room on the window sill.

That’s weird.

She had no memory of moving the alarm clock, but she’d been pretty tired when she’d finally tried to get some sleep, so maybe she’d done it so that she’d be forced to get out of bed and therefore had no chance of sleeping through the alarm.

But why had she set it in the first place?

Her eyes caught site of something on the pillow next to her and she turned her head to get a better look at what it was.

The origami figure of a dragon stood atop the pillow, its wings unfurled, staring at her with its featureless face.

Annja recoiled, throwing herself back off the bed in order to get as far away from the little paper figurine as possible. At the same time she called her sword to her, holding it out in front like a symbol of protection as she scrambled frantically to get her back to a wall and ensure that she couldn’t be attacked from at least one direction.

Then, and only then, did she look around.

Sunlight streamed in through the thin gossamer curtains over the windows, lighting up the room and showing her immediately that no one else was standing in the room with her.

She could hear the cars in the street below going about their early-morning business, but the noisy growl of their engines and the squeal of their brakes sounded as if they were from another country. She could see the curtains blowing in the morning breeze coming in the open window, could feel the shafts of sunlight reaching out across the room, intent on blanketing her in their warmth. But all she could feel was the icy touch of dread crawling about inside her mouth like a pair of disembodied fingers.

One thought kept repeating itself over and over again in her head, blotting out everything else.

The Dragon had been in her hotel room last night.

Had been standing there, right beside her bed.

Watching her sleep!

Being watched in public at the Chapelle was one thing. Being followed on the streets of the city was another. But having a killer there in her bedroom while she was fast asleep?

It was almost too much to take.

Only the thought that she might not be alone, that the intruder could still very well be there, inside her hotel room, perhaps in the bathroom or the sitting room, just waiting for his chance to strike, released her from her frozen state and got her moving again.