Blood Cursed (Rogue Angel) Read Online Free Page A

regards. Tell him next time I’m in town, I’ll call first. Apparently I’m not on his list.”
    “If you could return in the morning?”
    “I’m headed to Chrastava. Archaeology always trumps a date with Mr. Charming. I’d tell you to give him my regards, but...save that.”
    She strode out, and instead of driving for more exhausting hours, decided to hop the train south to Liberec, so she could catch some valuable sleep before jumping into a new and exciting adventure. Or at the very least, an intriguing archaeological dig.
    * * *
     
    A NNJA MANAGED THREE hours of sleep on the train and did half an hour of yoga stretches and sun salutations from her seat before arriving in Liberec, once the unofficial capital of Germany within Czechoslovakia. The yoga woke her up and stretched her travel-weary muscles, and gave her an appetite. She managed to find scrambled eggs and sausage at a mom-and-pop restaurant near the train station—which was more a bar than an actual sit-down diner—then procured a rental Jeep and headed for the dig outside Chrastava. It should only be another dozen miles northwest.
    She was footing the bill for this trip herself, though this dig may have potential for an episode on Chasing History’s Monsters, the cable TV show she cohosted. She’d decide when she saw the site. And she certainly wasn’t going to call Doug Morrell, her producer, and fill him in until she knew more. Much as she didn’t mind her archaeological adventures being documented for possible show fodder, this one might push the limits of her patience. Her producer had eclectic interests. If Doug heard about Luke Spencer’s discovery, he’d put on a black cape and fangs and wield the TV camera himself.
    Annja, who’d been in Venice wrapping up an assignment, had gotten a call from Luke Spencer, the dig foreman yesterday morning. He’d said there’d been an exciting discovery that could date back to medieval times. She’d eagerly agreed to meet him today to join his crew.
    The dig interested her. But what held even greater fascination for her? Luke Spencer.
    She’d met the man a few years ago at a Natural History symposium at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London’s University College. He was a man of few words, smart. Not terrible to look at, either. They’d shared drinks after at the Volupte bar on Tavistock Street, and she couldn’t forget his soft Welsh accent.
    Driving into the small, industrial town, Annja took in the half-timber housing that likely hailed from early last century. In a quick online check about the city she’d learned Chrastava boasted many baroque-style buildings that hailed from the sixteenth century. There was also a firefighting museum she would love to check out if time allowed.
    Word of Luke’s find had traveled fast to judge from the hawker’s cart at the edge of the city square she drove slowly past, her window open. The young, bearded blond man sporting a colorful Hawaiian shirt looked American, and had a decidedly New Jersey accent, yet his wares were purely superstitious hokum. Garlic wreathes for the doorway and around the neck. Wooden stakes were lined militantly along the red felt tablecloth, and tiny beribboned vials of holy water labeled with a black cross.
    Annja couldn’t determine if the handful of people looking over the hawker’s table were serious buyers or after a silly tourist tchotchke. In this area of the Czech Republic, the modern blended with the classic, and there were many who still followed old traditions and beliefs.
    “Tchotchke,” she muttered, and smiled. Slavic in origin, a word for toys, actually. “Love that word.”
    But she certainly didn’t want to imagine children chasing one another with wooden stakes. Surely Edward and Bella had blown up all the old vampire myths in an explosion of ridiculous Hollywood Twilight sparkle.
    The Jeep was equipped with a detachable GPS device that spoke Czech, for which Annja only knew a few words, so