Seeker's Curse
Enlisted by the Japan Buddhist Federation to catalog a number of ancient shrines dotted across Nepal, archaeologist Annja Creed is honored to help. Political violence has prompted the Federation to protect holy sites from desecration and vandalism, and Annja is their last hope to properly conserve these sites.Where there's vandalism, there's plundering, and local police soon become suspicious of Annja's presence. But she is more concerned about the antiques smugglers and Maoist guerrillas trying to kill her. When she must trek high up in the Himalayas to protect a sacred golden Buddha statue from falling into the hands of her pursuers, she's told that the place is cursed–and guarded by demons. And Annja has no choice but to face her demons….
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âYou were fated to come here.â
Annja thought she showed no reaction but the monk chuckled.
âOh, I know that you do not believe in fate, Annja Creed. Any more than you believe in demons. Despite the secret burden you carry. You are simply too polite to tell a fat old man to his face that you believe he is, as you might say, full of it.
âYou believe that only you, and those who think as you do, see the true face of reality. I can only shake my head sadly and hope that someday you might see that this universe of shining gears and ratchets you have constructed to believe in is itself merely a glittering toy, an illusion by which you hide the truth from your eyes.â
She started to say something. Whether to dispute him or make some polite evasion, she didnât know. But he held up a chubby finger.
âNo need exists for us to debate. My universe, like your unseeing, unfeeling, uncaring machine, shall carry on regardless of whether either of us believes or disbelieves. I only caution you for your sakeâdo not be too hasty to disbelieve in the help that comes to you in your direst need. You can explain it away later. What is vital to your quest, and possibly your survival, is that you not fight it.â
She nodded. âIâll do my best.â
Titles in this series:
Destiny
Solomonâs Jar
The Spider Stone
The Chosen
Forbidden City
The Lost Scrolls
God of Thunder
Secret of the Slaves
Warrior Spirit
Serpentâs Kiss
Provenance
The Soul Stealer
Gabrielâs Horn
The Golden Elephant
Swordsmanâs Legacy
Polar Quest
Eternal Journey
Sacrifice
Seekerâs Curse
Rogue Angel>â¢
THE LEGEND
â¦THE ENGLISH COMMANDER TOOK JOANâS SWORD AND RAISED IT HIGH.
The broadsword, plain and unadorned,
gleamed in the firelight. He put the tip against the ground and his foot at the center of the blade. The broadsword shattered, fragments falling into the mud. The crowd surged forward, peasant and soldier, and snatched the shards from the trampled mud. The commander tossed the hilt deep into the crowd. Smoke almost obscured Joan, but she continued praying till the end, until finally the flames climbed her body and she sagged against the restraints.
Joan of Arc died that fateful day in France,
but her legend and sword are rebornâ¦.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
1
The building fronts were whitewashed in name only. They had long since taken on a dingy cast.
Or maybe that was just Annja Creedâs frame of mind.
She wore a gray business suit over a pale lavender blouse and high-heeled shoes that were impractical and uncomfortable on the cobbled streets. With her head held high and shoulders thrown back she looked, she hoped, every inch the typical successful American businesswoman.
But the angles of Kastoria, strewed all up and down picturesque hills on a peninsula that undulated into a lake, conspired against her. The unfamiliar balancing act of walking in heels, which made her back ache and sent pain stabbing up her lower legs at every step, threatened to twist an ankle or send her tumbling down the lane.
As picturesque a little Greek Macedonian town as Kastoria was, Annja felt as if she could smell tension like a tang of wood smoke in the air. Panel trucks blared horns at men trundling crates across the crowded street on handcarts. The way people shouted and gestured at each other made Annja hunch her shoulders in unhappy anticipation that knives would come out at any minute.
And all that was before she reached her scheduled rendezvous with a gang of ethnic-Albanian artifact smugglers out of Kosovo.
Along with the diesel fumes and harsh tobacco smoke a chemical smell loaded down what should have been crisp air filtered through the pines on the surrounding hills. Annja passed a stack of cages where long slender animals paced nervously or stood with slightly arched backs and stared at her with beady black eyes. They were minks, destined to play a role in the fur trade, which was still the townâs main commerce and Annja reckoned also must account for the unidentified stink, since presumably the furs were subjected to some kind of chemical treatment.
She kept her head turning right to left, hoping she looked arrogant rather than furtive or paranoid. Furtive and paranoid would have been accurate. She was looking for a weathered dark blue sign with yellow lettering. Which of course she wouldnât be able to read because it was in Greek. But supposedly that wouldnât matter; it was only a landmark.
How the Japan Buddhist Federation had turned up the contact she didnât know and hadnât asked. She doubted theyâd tell her. Theyâd hired her, for a very nice sum, to investigate why artifacts from Nepalese Buddhist shrines had begun to appear on the black market in Europe, particularly the Balkans. If she had to guess, she suspected certain of their members posed as collectors none too concerned about the provenance of the items in their collections, so long as they were convinced of their genuine antiquityâand value. They were certainly heeled well enough to pull off the pose.
