For an instant terror seized Annja. This isn’t supposed to happen! she thought desperately. I’ve failed!
A sense of betrayal flooded her like fire. No one is supposed to be able to take it from me!
The sword had vanished.
With a flash of near manic relief Annja realized her sword had gone back to the pocket universe where it customarily awaited her summons. Then momentum slammed the back of her skull against the deck. Purple-and-scarlet lightning shot through her brain. A black fog swirled behind her eyes.
She snapped back to herself at once.
A concussion might yet be on the agenda, even a potentially lethal subdural hematoma, but she was able to focus enough to perceive that Eliete von Hauptstark sat straddling her hips, hands on her shoulders, pinning her to the deck.
The animal fury that had propelled the supermodel seemed to have subsided into systematically murderous intent. She cocked a fist.
Annja jerked her head to the right. She felt a wind of passage, then heard a terrifying crunch and felt a sting at the back of her scalp as some of her hair was driven through the deck along with Hauptstark’s fist.
The power she had packed into the blow—and possibly the surprise that she had missed—made the tall woman loosen her grip on Annja’s right arm. Annja moved quickly. She twisted free and drove a punch against the side of the Brazilian’s jaw. Pinned as she was, she could get none of her body mass behind it; it was a pure arm punch.
Annja had very strong arms. But the model’s head merely jerked to the side. Her expression didn’t change as she ripped her hand free of the deck in a shower of dust and splinters.
With a convulsion of back and belly muscles Annja lifted her upper body off the deck, trying to writhe free. With her hips immobilized she had little force. Hauptstark slammed her head down into Annja’s. It struck too high; they clashed forehead to forehead, instead of Annja’s nose being smashed. More sparks shot through Annja’s brain.
The Brazilian supermodel shook her shaggy blond mane. Annja got her feet planted and thrust upward with all the strength in her legs.
Hauptstark folded herself against Annja, wrapping her arms around her neck and shoulders. Annja heard the bestial panting behind her head, felt the woman’s breath on her neck. It was like the wind from a blast furnace, hot and damp.
Momentarily freed, Annja’s arms flailed. Her right hand encountered something of smooth texture but rumpled feel. She realized it was the anchor rope.
Her left arm struck her foe’s forearm. She felt blood, sticky on the model’s skin. Her fingers brushed sharp hardness. It was the wood splinter that had been driven through Hauptstark’s forearm when she punched through the cabin wall.
Annja grabbed it and twisted as hard as she could.
Hauptstark threw back her head and howled in agony.
With the force of desperation Annja heaved her shoulders off the deck. Her right hand scrabbled like a terrified animal at the coiled rope. As the supermodel raised her free hand to chamber a hammer-fist blow that would smash Annja’s skull a strand of rope came loose in Annja’s hand. She hauled on it for all she was worth.
She didn’t know exactly what the anchor lying atop the rope coil was for. Despite having been raised within spitting distance of Lake Pontchartrain, in a town that spent a certain amount of time underwater even before Katrina brought much of the Gulf of Mexico to town for a protracted visit, Annja knew almost nothing about boats. The anchor seemed too light to make a vessel this size stay put. She figured other anchors must have been deployed.
It was still a good-sized hunk of iron. It felt as if it must have weighed eighty pounds. Under most circumstances Annja knew she would have strained to lift it one-handed.
But these weren’t most circumstances. The rope snapped taut as she yanked. The anchor flew through the air, the point of its wedge blade descending like a pickax between Eliete von Hauptstark’s shoulder blades.
Annja was already moving. Her right hand whipped a coil of the rope, still rippling the air, around her opponent’s neck. The weight of the anchor had pushed back Hauptstark’s center of mass. With a heave of the muscles of her lower back and abdomen that sent pain shooting through her belly, Annja thrust her pelvis into the air.
The supermodel was thrown bodily off her. Bleeding and weakened, Hauptstark was momentarily stunned.
Annja jackknifed. She came forward onto her own feet facing her foe. With a scream of pent-up frustration and rage of her own she skipped forward and fired a side-thrust kick into the front of Hauptstark’s pelvis with all her strength.
The supermodel was long and lean, but no one could have accused her of being gaunt. Annja knew the woman was incredibly strong and still very dangerous. She also knew something more than simple jealousy was fueling her killer rage.
A voice deep inside her head was telling her what had driven the insane, and insanely powerful, attack. But she wasn’t ready to listen to the voice. For all the miracles she had witnessed—had taken part in, had performed herself—there were some vestiges of her rational world-view she wasn’t willing to surrender just yet.
And there were some things she didn’t want to believe.
Annja turned to lean on the rail and look off across the water while she recovered her breath. She knew she had to take some decisive actions immediately. But her mind and spirit had taken as brutal a battering as her body.
The water was a lovely deep blue between the sailing vessel and the shore, with its buildings marching up Jaffa Hill. Gulls and terns wheeled and called out to each other overhead. Below them, a variety of watercraft, mostly smallish vessels, rocked gently at anchor or swooped to the impetus of sails or small engines. She gave herself over to a deliberately thought-free contemplation of the postcard prettiness of the scene.
Then, before Hauptstark could attack again, Annja climbed over the rail and jumped into the sea. She swam as hard as her tired muscles would allow. Her instincts told her to get as far from Mark Peter Stern as possible.
A sudden flash caught the corner of her eye. She turned her head to see a puff like a cotton ball, pure white, roll away from one of those pretty little watercraft, perhaps a quarter mile away across the crowded water. In the midst of it blazed a spark like a miniature blue sun. It moved. It seemed to be circling slightly, and drew behind it a corkscrew trail.
Annja dived deep.