Owl and the City of Angels

by Kristi Charish

  Not my proudest moment, a bit of an overreaction, but you got to admit I’d had a point.

  “Like I said. Authentic,” Nadya replied.

  I was fixated on the decoy to see what the hell else Nadya had told her to do, so I missed customs handing back our passports and waving us through. Apparently we didn’t look like a threat, and the commotion on the cruise ship was incentive to get everyone boarding faster. The cruise representative steered us past security. Craning my neck, I caught the IAA plainclothesmen push their way up the plank in pursuit of the decoy.

  “Nadya, it’s not an escape plan if we all end up on the same boat. These guys aren’t like regular suits. They’re smart.”

  Nadya shook her head as we speed-walked to keep up with our cruise hostess. “Not them, whoever is pulling the strings. Besides, we’re not getting on that cruise ship.”

  “It’s the only one in the harbor.”

  “That’s because the one we’re on has already left,” she said.

  For not having a goddamn ship to walk onto, Nadya didn’t seem nearly as perplexed as she should have been. Screw appearances. I spun her around. “I think we should be a hell of a lot more concerned about not having a ship.”

  She pursed her lips and grabbed my hand again, pulling me after her before the hostess noticed we’d stopped. “We’re VIP-class passengers. We don’t worry about silly things like departure times. We have helicopters. So look like you care a hell of a lot less before you screw this up. I plan on spending tonight on a six-star luxury cruise ship, not in an Egyptian jail!”

  We turned the corner, and sure enough, there was a helicopter with the cruise ship logo waiting for us.

  I readjusted my sunglasses as the two of us settled in. “Have I mentioned lately how frighteningly good you are at espionage?”

  “No, but I’ll take it as a compliment. And thank Rynn, he gave me the idea of using a decoy a while back.”

  Yeah . . . thank Rynn, for going behind my back and discussing my work strategies with Nadya. I had a sinking suspicion Rynn and I were headed for “off” again at warp speed.

  It wasn’t until we touched down on the cruise ship deck that I gave my nerves a break. The ship was already well out of port, so I doubted the IAA would search for me on the open seas when they eventually clued in to the fact that the decoy wasn’t me.

  Something occurred to me that a better person would have asked much earlier. “What happens if the IAA gets hold of her?”

  “They won’t,” she said, and glanced over at the cruise hostess leading us towards our cabin. “She is Rynn’s contact.”

  So she was supernatural. Yeah, if the IAA did get close enough, they were in for a treat. Shame it hadn’t been the agent who’d threatened to shoot me in the leg . . .

  Our hostess came to a stop partway down the hall and, with a flourish, opened a door made of polished teak.

  I let out a whistle. Man, I thought first-class planes were cushy . . .

  There was a full kitchenette and bar, accompanied by a plush living room done in a classier version of a nautical theme, with couches, drapes, and linens in coordinating blue, tan, and white. The furniture, like the door, was teak, and the balcony was . . . damn, I wish my balcony in Seattle was that nice.

  Nadya had the sense to thank and tip the woman, while I just stood there, drooling at the decor.

  “Don’t get used to it,” she said after the hostess left. “The next port of call is Greece, where we’ll be transferring off first thing in the morning. We’ll fly out of wherever they aren’t looking.”

  Nadya gave me a pointed stare and picked up Captain’s carrier, cooing through the screen at him before picking the larger of the two bedrooms. “In the meantime, I’m taking a nap.”

  I ran my hand through my hair. After the run through Egypt I just had? Less nap, more drown my shot nerves in alcohol. “I’m going to go find the bar,” I said.

  Nadya frowned from the doorway. “You should probably call your boyfriend first. I did not tell him about our side trip to Algiers, but you should.”

  I winced. Yeah, I think that’s what I needed the drink for.

  As Mr. Kurosawa’s interim security, Rynn was somewhat responsible for knowing what happened during my retrieval jobs, as well as assessing risk. That’s where the problems had started. I’m not exactly one for well-drawn-out plans—I have plans, they just tend to be more “let’s see what happens when we get there” over drawn-out steps. What can I say? I like flexibility.

  He was going to be pissed about Egypt and Algiers. As much as I hated to admit it to myself, I couldn’t blame him. This job had turned into a three-ring circus.

  I nodded to Nadya and headed for the fridge . . . God, I hoped the room was stocked. It was, in the form of a six-pack of Corona. Small miracles . . .

  Beer in hand, I grabbed my phone and headed onto the balcony. I leaned up against the rail and watched Alexandria get smaller and smaller in the distance.

  I couldn’t shake the feeling I was watching it burn, even though from all reports the protests were mostly contained now. A flash of chaos in the frying pan. Or maybe that was just the lingering smell of oil.

  The IAA. Out of all the specters from my past, they’d been low on my radar, well behind the vampires. The Algiers bait, the elaborate Egyptian sting . . . someone in the IAA knew what I was going to do before I did. The question was who?

  Benji’s words came back to me. Whatever I’d stolen this time had pissed them the hell off. Again, it’d be real nice if they bothered to tell me what it was, preferably before the shooting began. It wasn’t like I’d stolen anything earth shattering. The only contact I had in the archaeology community was Benji, and he was a reluctant contact at that.

  Speaking of Benji, there was another black strike for the IAA to throw against Owl; kidnapping and holding hostage poor unsuspecting graduate students. Damned if I do . . .

  Here’s hoping Mr. Kurosawa had a way to intercept them as well. My God, I was becoming more and more dependent on my evil boss to clean up my messes. Here’s to slippery slopes.

  Well, no sense putting off the inevitable. I took a deep breath and opened my phone. There were already two text messages waiting for me.

  The first one was simple. Next time, call. Preferably before someone is shooting at/trying to eat you.

  OK. Safe, no accusations or told you so . . . It was the second, most recent note that worried me though. Will route travel info to Nadya. Think someone is spying on you—explain when you land in Vegas.

  I almost put the phone away and bailed on calling. That’s my first instinct—ignore the problem and pretend everything is fine . . . or avoid it until it magically disappears, not that it ever does. Kind of the same logic Captain uses when he begs for people food and about the same success rate—zero—but hey, there’s always a chance.

  All right, I felt I owed him an apology too. That’s the worst thing about cultivating meaningful connections and relationships with ­people . . . well, not human, in Rynn’s case . . . I’m still wrapping my head around that small detail too. The point is, as soon as you start trusting people, no matter how much you fight it, at some point along the way you start caring what the hell they think of you.

  Damn it, I hate self-reflection.

  I dialed and waited for him to pick up. It only took two rings.

  “Alix?”

  In spite of all the lies I’d told myself over the past two years—hell, in the last hour running through Alexandria—there was another reason I needed to talk to Rynn. One I didn’t even want to admit to myself . . .

  “Rynn, things went really bad—and it’s my fault.”

  I was scared as hell of the IAA, and I desperately needed someone besides Nadya to talk to.

  And with that, beer well in hand, I began to explain just how badly things had gone over the past
two days, including how the hell Alexandria had happened in the first place. Algiers.

  There’s only so much you can lie to yourself before reality crashes in.

  4

  Enter the Dragon and Let the Circus Begin

  Three days later, 2:00 p.m., Mr. Kurosawa’s private casino

  I leaned against Mr. Kurosawa’s white marble bar. It was cold, and right now his private casino within the much larger Japanese Circus compound had to be a hundred degrees. I eyed the tray of champagne flutes sitting just a hand’s reach away. I was tempted—they’d be cold too. Unfortunately I needed to keep a clear head, since Lady Siyu was hell-bent on blaming everything that had gone wrong these past two weeks on me.

  This was exactly why I never used to meet my clients in person.

  “Look, the problem wasn’t me being there. The problem was they were looking for me before I even stepped on the plane for Morocco,” I said, and checked the front door again. Still no Rynn. Damn it, he was supposed to be at these debriefings . . .

  Lady Siyu hissed softly and strode across the private casino floor towards me, her heels clicking against the gold-flecked black marble tiles; they were part of the redesign, since the previous wooden floors had burned to a crisp. If I hadn’t known any better, I’d never have guessed that this place had been a broiling inferno three months ago. Even the slot machines looked as good as they had before the fire. Not a trace of soot or smoke, not even singed wood. It was as if nothing had happened. Every piece back in its place, every last damned soul . . .

  Lady Siyu carried a heavy manila folder between her red lacquered fingernails. Today she looked less the geisha and more the businesswoman, dressed in a black pencil skirt, matching jacket, white shirt, and a simple gold pendant in the shape of a twined serpent. She also wore a pair of darkened sunglasses even though the light in the room was already candlelight dim.

  Not surprising though. Lady Siyu was a Naga, a half snake, half . . . well, not human . . . let’s go with really mean female version of the species. The brown eyes she wore, part of her human façade, tended to slide back to yellow snake slits when her temper got the better of her . . . which was most of the time she had to deal with me; hence the dark sunglasses.

  Before Oricho, the previous head of Mr. Kurosawa’s security, had tried to kill his boss and take any and every supernatural in a hundred-­mile radius with him, he’d hinted that Lady Siyu’s hatred of me had to do with her dislike of conversations containing anything more than the bare minimum of necessary syllables. I also figured it had something to do with me trying to blame Oricho’s coup on her . . . and harpooning her tail probably hadn’t helped.

  Mostly though, Lady Siyu just didn’t like humans.

  The feeling was mutual—about Nagas, I mean, not other humans.

  In fact, I’m pretty sure most human resource divisions on the ­plan­­et had rules in place to ensure employees like me and Lady Siyu never stood in the same room together.

  I sighed. Of course Oricho, the one half-decent supernatural under Mr. Kurosawa’s employ, had to be a murderous supernatural sociopath. Figured.

  Lady Siyu halted in front of me and lifted a corner of her red lacquered lip, exposing a fang as she removed a photograph from the folder. “You were instructed to maintain a low profile,” she said.

  “I was maintaining a low profile,” I replied. “What you’re referring to is what we humans call running for our lives.”

  She arched a black eyebrow over the top of her sunglasses and slid the photograph across the bar. “Then how do you explain this?”

  I glanced over at Mr. Kurosawa. He was still sitting on his white leather couch with his back to me.

  I took the photo. It was time-stamped three days ago and showed me in an Egyptian bar, a jar of pickled eggs held over my head, ready to launch.

  I held the photo up. “Oh come on. They were already after me when they took this.”

  Lady Siyu’s expression darkened. “That is still no excuse to give the International Archaeology Association a photo opportunity.” She tossed the rest of the folder on the table for me.

  “Where’s Rynn? Isn’t he supposed to be at these debriefings?”

  “The incubus is indisposed.”

  Fucking fantastic. Leave me to navigate these two on my own, because that never led to disaster. Only the casino almost burning to the ground.

  I flipped open the cover.

  Reports on my whereabouts the last month, plane tickets under my aliases . . . there was even a list of artifacts I’d potentially stolen. A few of them were dead-on, a few were absent, and the rest were damn good guesses.

  Creepy? Definitely, but even I had to admit a part of me was impressed. “Where the hell did these come from?” I asked.

  Lady Siyu arched one of her perfect eyebrows. “I find it interesting that only when something threatens to impede your thieving habits you rear your self-absorbed mind from whatever ditch it lies in.”

  I looked up from the papers and photographs. “Dear God, that was multiple syllables.”

  Lady Siyu looked like she was about to throttle me. “Necessary to convey your complete lack of judgment.”

  “Hey, it’s not my fault the IAA decided this was the month to remember they had a rogue archaeologist!” I held up the catalogued thefts. “You want someone to blame? Try all these jobs you’ve had me doing—”

  Mr. Kurosawa let out a sharp breath, calling me and Lady Siyu to silence. I froze and did my best not to make a sound. The last time I’d managed to piss off Mr. Kurosawa, I’d ended up almost dead; I would have been if not for Oricho. Rynn might be head of security—albeit temporarily—but he wasn’t here to help me if I screwed things up.

  Considering the way Lady Siyu was eyeing me, I wondered if that was on purpose.

  Mr. Kurosawa stood and straightened his suit before turning around.

  In human form he was average height, medium build, and not particularly memorable—except for the telltale waxy red tinge to his skin. Dragons in general take a lot of concentration to hold other forms well, even more so when they were pissed or irritated. The red skin was a tell, if you like, and a far sight better than destroying a suit worth more than most of his employees’ annual salaries. Myths and legends get a lot of things wrong when it comes to supernatural monsters, but the one about dragons hoarding their treasure is true.

  Mr. Kurosawa nodded to Lady Siyu and said something in the language I’d come to call “supernatural common”—though it has been strongly suggested by Rynn that I never repeat that term ever again on pain of death by said insulted supernaturals.

  Whatever Mr. Kurosawa told her, Lady Siyu spun on her heels and beat a hasty retreat through the maze of slot machines. I noted he hadn’t bothered to hide his black, whiteless eyes. That didn’t bode well.

  Mr. Kurosawa regarded me before retrieving two glasses of champagne and handing me one. I took it; you don’t refuse a dragon.

  He raised his glass and said, “I believe two successful acquisitions in a row deserve some praise.” I followed suit, remembered that poisoning me was a waste of time. Like Rynn said, if Mr. Kurosawa or Lady Siyu wanted to kill me, they’d do it themselves. I downed the glass in one shot to calm my nerves, glad I hadn’t taken one earlier.

  “The IAA has always had a passing interest in you, if I recall our research before approaching you with my offer,” Mr. Kurosawa said.

  I shook my head and placed the empty champagne flute back on the bar. “Passing is the operative word. Oh I’m sure they’d love to make an example out of me, but—and no offense to the things you’ve had me fetching—compared to the supernatural stuff they’re trying to shove under the rug, I barely merit a memo.”

  Mr. Kurosawa nodded, in thought. “What kind of contact did you have with the IAA while in Egypt?”

  “Besides them shooting and me running?�
�� I shrugged. “We didn’t exactly have time for small talk.”

  The black eyes focused back on me, and the start of a frown touched Mr. Kurosawa’s face. “I see. Please, humor me. Start at the beginning and relate the events in Egypt to me.”

  I shrugged. “Well, they were ready for me in Alexandria,” I said, and related the chase, the riots. Mr. Kurosawa ignored me until I got to the part about the theft. “Between trading insults and running into Benji, I got the impression they were pretty pissed about one of my recent acquisitions.”

  “Which piece?”

  I shook my head. “The IAA wouldn’t tell me, and Benji didn’t know.”

  “Are you certain of this, Owl?” Mr. Kurosawa said.

  I shrugged again. “As sure as I can be without knocking on their front door and asking.”

  His upper lip twitched, but whether in amusement or irritation I couldn’t be sure. “Perhaps,” he said.

  Perhaps? What kind of statement was that?

  Before I could probe further, Mr. Kurosawa snapped his fingers, and I heard the click of heels somewhere back behind the recesses of the slot machine maze.

  “You have the Medusa head?” Mr. Kurosawa asked.

  I nodded and wrapped my fingers around the gold-and-emerald ­figurehead in my pocket. I’d spent some time examining the Medusa head on the plane ride back. Out of all the things to go after in Egypt, why the hell this had piqued Mr. Kurosawa’s interest escaped me. There was equivalent stuff to be found on the black market, worth more money and easier to get hold of. Maybe Mr. Kurosawa would actually tell me what he wanted with this round of artifacts. I didn’t hold my breath on that though.

  “Two acquisitions in one trip, both the Medusa head and the Moroccan death mask. I am impressed.”

  Yeah, he’d said that already . . . this time I felt the “but” sliding in there.

  “The incubus reports he was not happy with your alteration of plans.”