Owl and the City of Angels

by Kristi Charish

  I slid across spilled beer to a precarious stop behind Artemis before ducking after him into a washroom.

  He raced to the cracked porcelain sink. It groaned under his weight as he used it to get a look outside the small bathroom window—the kind you find lining the top of a basement wall.

  “It’s only a small drop to the fire escape,” he said, and held out his hand for me.

  There was a loud bang on the washroom door. IAA or vampires—

  either one was a problem at this point. Didn’t need to warn me twice. I was a little more cautious in my bare feet, but I managed to scramble up. The pipes groaned again under the added weight. Somehow I didn’t think the sink would work quite the same after this.

  “You’ve got a lot of experience sneaking out of bars,” I said.

  “Necessity breeds expertise,” he said, and braced both hands to push me up. “Come on, that lock won’t hold long.”

  Like Artemis said, the fire stairs were only a three-foot drop. You’d think that’d be a concern for a bar, but this place was cash and carry. I dropped down on bare feet and held up my hands for Captain, then the artifacts. I was already racing down the stairs when I heard Artemis drop down behind me.

  “Run before the vampires wise up and run out the back,” he yelled down the stairs after me. Ignoring the protest the soles of my feet were making, I concentrated on taking the steps faster until I reached the pavement. Artemis had almost caught up, but I heard a door break up above. Shit. I hoped it was the vampires—the IAA was worse; they had guns.

  “Which way?”

  Across the road, a car lit up and gunned its engine. I shielded my eyes against the floodlights—UV floodlights . . . a jeep, military grade, with an open hood easy to jump into, and able to go off-road if needed.

  Rynn.

  I bolted for the car, not bothering to wait for Artemis. I needn’t have worried; Artemis outpaced me and hopped into the front seat. He wasn’t kidding when he said he had no intention of being caught by vampires.

  I tossed the bag of artifacts and Captain in before diving into the backseat. I saw a group of people braced at the front of the bar, staying out of the range of the UV headlights. As soon as I was in, Rynn hit the gas, and the jeep careened through the crowd of vampires, who scattered. Like I said, not supernatural juggernauts. Cockroaches. I didn’t bother looking to see if the IAA made it out the bathroom window.

  Only once we were woven into traffic did Rynn glance over his shoulder at me.

  “Are you all right?” he said, his face knit with worry.

  “She’s fine. I told you I’d get her out,” Artemis said.

  Rynn glared at him, not bothering to hide his anger and something else—disgust, contempt. I wasn’t certain, because those weren’t things Rynn usually expressed. “I’m fine,” I said, and held up the bag. “Guess who else was after these?”

  By the time I finished catching Rynn up, we were well on the highway, heading towards an airfield, and no one was following us.

  We still had a ways to go before we reached the plane, where we’d ditch the jeep—and Artemis—and be on our way back to Las Vegas, the first half of my problem solved. . . . Well, partially solved, since I only had a fake sword . . .

  I opened the bag—carefully—and removed the sword, now wrapped in an archaeology-grade muslin. Credit where credit was due; at least Alexander knew how to take care of the shit I used to steal for him.

  I started to unwrap it, thinking I’d get the flashlight out and examine it once it was sitting in my lap. Might give me an idea who Alexander had on his payroll as a forger. The muslin came loose, and I reached to turn the bronze sword over. If the artist left a mark, it’d be on the handle . . .

  It tingled as I touched it, and a shot of static electricity traveled up my arm and didn’t stop until it transversed my entire body.

  Captain’s head perked up and he chirped, ears tipped forward. Both Rynn and Artemis turned in their seats, nostrils flaring and eyes glowing blue and green, respectively, at the scent of magic.

  Unbelieving, I took another look at the sword in my lap. “No, No, No . . .” It wasn’t possible—I’d been sure . . . I rifled through the side pocket of my purse until the flashlight was in my hand.

  “Alix, what the hell did you just do?” Rynn said.

  I would have said something, but panic set in first. “No, this isn’t possible, this is a nightmare.” I turned the flashlight on, still shaking my head. “I don’t understand, I checked the sword,” I added, still trying to convince myself that what just happened hadn’t.

  Sitting unwrapped in my lap was not the fake I’d taken from Daphne’s collection but the real, cursed bronze sword. I spotted a note written in tight script.

  In case you do manage to escape my den, my dear Owl—which, knowing you and your infernal cat, is a distinct possibility—I took the liberty to reunite the true sword with its friends in hopes your reckless nature will prevail. If I cannot have my revenge, I can take comfort knowing you’ll die a painful death. Beneath Alexander’s scrawled and overly fancy signature was a ten-digit L.A. number and P.S: Give me a call. No hard feelings. It’s never personal.

  “Not personal?” I crumpled up the note and shoved it back in my pocket. “Goddamned vampires. Psychos, every one of them. The son of a bitch cursed me.”

  11

  Cursed

  Time: Who cares? I’m cursed.

  Las Vegas

  I don’t know what pissed me off more; the fact that I’d been stupid enough to pick up a cursed artifact, or the fact that Alexander outsmarted me. I think the latter.

  We hadn’t said much on the flight back after “How could you be so stupid?” and “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” I might even have been angry at Rynn except that (A) Rynn had a point, and (B) he only went really silent when he was worried.

  I’d been so certain the sword in my bag was a fake . . .

  My phone chimed a drawn-out, metallic hiss, followed by a roar. It was something I’d picked up off a ’90s video game—the battle roar of their version of snake people. Rynn shook his head at me, but I just shrugged. If I can’t derive some humor from working for a Naga and a dragon, I might as well be dead . . . no wait. That was already happening.

  I stopped to read Lady Siyu’s message twice and just about threw my phone at the wall. I would have if I didn’t need Carpe to get the fuck back to me on what his elf brain knew about ancient curses—like three hours ago.

  In answer to Rynn’s unspoken question, I said, “They’re never happy with what they get.”

  I shoved my phone in my pocket to get rid of the throwing temptation and headed for the elevator. Rynn followed close on my heels. Unlike last time, he’d be able to run some interference with Mr. Kurosawa and Lady Siyu. I almost wished he wasn’t coming with me. At the end of the day, I’m not sure how much interference he’d be able to run.

  “Whatever you do, do not piss off Mr. Kurosawa—and let me do the talking,” he said.

  “Trust me, I’ve got bigger things to worry about than mouthing off to the dragon this time.”

  “Or Lady Siyu.”

  “That I can’t promise—”

  “Alix!” Nadya raced out of the Garden Café bar, laptop in hand. With her formfitting “casual” black jeans and usual red wig absent in favor of her natural brown hair, she turned more than a few heads. If Nadya had pulled anything resembling an all-nighter, I sure as hell couldn’t tell.

  The elevator door opened, and Rynn held it until Nadya could duck inside, laptop under her arm.

  “Bartender not biting yet?” I asked.

  Nadya glared.

  So did Rynn. “Don’t you have better things to do than seduce my staff?”

  She gave him a noncommittal shrug before turning back to me.

  “Two of my contacts came t
hrough when I told them about the City of the Dead. Don’t worry, I didn’t mention you, just hinted the site might have been opened and sent them some of the new photos. That was enough; the Russian branch of the IAA takes their curses and supernatural plagues seriously. They’re trying to get the site shut down, but your old supervisor, Dr. Sanders, who signed off on the dig?” She shook her head. “He has vanished. Both my guys have been unable to get in contact with him. They think the signatures may be falsified.”

  Yeah, Dr. Sanders was a patronizing, self-important fool, but he wasn’t separated from his phone or email—not for long anyways. If the Russian IAA couldn’t get in touch with him, then chances were good something bad had happened.

  “Do we have any idea which of his fleet of postdocs is in charge of the dig yet?”

  Nadya shook her head. “No, and they find that peculiar as well—and before you even ask, no, I haven’t found anything useful about lifting the curse.”

  I swore. God, I hoped Carpe or Mr. Kurosawa pulled through.

  “How long?” I asked, my throat dry, even though I was pretty damn sure we knew the answer already from the old dig notes.

  “Maybe a few days until you begin to show symptoms. Then,” she shrugged, “a week at most.”

  Again, the way you know the good friends from the bad ones? The good ones tell you the truth you need to hear, no matter how much it sucks.

  Rynn was having a hard time reining in his temper now. “Alix, so help me God, why on earth did you risk—”

  But he didn’t get the chance to finish the sentence, because Nadya whirled on him in all her high-end-hostess glory. “That’s enough. It’s not her fault.”

  OK . . . that wasn’t what I expected . . . “Nadya, I knew better—”

  This time she whirled on me. “You were certain the knife was a fake?”

  “I—yeah, it was a fake.”

  “How do you know?” she asked, her accent coming through thicker with her anger, reminding me of an old Russian professor who used to enjoy putting us on the spot.

  Uh . . . where did I start? “First off, the weight wasn’t anywhere near right—the copper content should have been higher, since they hadn’t figured out the tin yet, which you damn well know. Second, there was the sheen. It didn’t match a five-thousand-year-old artifact, even one with magic. There should have been way more pitting. On top of that, the carvings—”

  She didn’t wait for me to finish before she whirled back on Rynn. “Alix knew exactly what she was doing—the knife she took was fake. Alexander made the switch. It’s Alexander’s fault.”

  He wasn’t focused on Nadya though; he was watching me. “She shouldn’t have tried opening it in the backseat—”

  She made a clicking noise. “Why? Because she should suspect ­Alexander’s smart enough to replace the fake one she already identified? No one in their right mind could predict something like that. Alexander isn’t that smart.” She shook her head. “I’m half of a mind he had help. He shouldn’t have known Alix would do that—it’s something you or I expect, but Alexander?”

  Rynn wasn’t happy, but Nadya wasn’t stepping down.

  I thought about what she’d said. After my disaster in Egypt, I’d been real fast to blame my own reckless streak, but this time . . . You know what, this fuckup wasn’t on me. “How the hell could I have known? I’m an antiquities thief, not a spy. The only reason I pulled the knife out was so I could get some clues as to who’d forged it.”

  Nadya nodded, as if I was confirming her own suspicions.

  “You’re blaming Alix for doing the right thing under the circumstances,” she said. “I would have done exactly the same thing.”

  Rynn looked for a moment like he might argue, but with Nadya and me . . . he backed down. “You’re right, you couldn’t have predicted the switch. I shouldn’t be this upset with you,” he conceded.

  Nadya settled against the elevator wall, satisfied.

  Still, he didn’t sound or look convinced enough—not to me.

  That . . . bothered me, more than I cared to admit. I knew what I was doing when it came to antiquities. I’m brilliant at spotting fakes—one of the reasons I make sure I document my stuff as well as I do.

  My phone chimed again, but this time it rang with the first few notes of the Lord of the Rings theme.

  “Please don’t say that’s the elf,” Rynn said.

  I shrugged. “Fine, I won’t tell you it’s Carpe,” I said, and fished my phone out of my pocket. Hopefully the damned elf had something.

  Nothing useful yet—give me another couple days . . . still have a few rocks to overturn.

  Shit. Fat good that does me—I wrote back. I didn’t really blame Carpe—solutions to ancient curses were a needle in a haystack. Even supernaturals had thought it best to leave curses buried over the past couple centuries. For good reason. Like genie wishes, magic tends to backfire spectacularly.

  Not the answer I wanted to hear, but still better than “you’ve got seven days, good luck with that.”

  The elevator doors opened to the twenty-third floor—Mr. ­Kurosawa’s casino.

  I stopped Nadya from following us out. “Trust me. You want to sit this one out. They’re pissed.”

  She looked like she was about to protest, so I handed her Captain’s carrier. “Don’t do it for me, do it for Captain. He wasn’t the idiot who decided to go to Algiers and Egypt.”

  She took the carrier tentatively, then nodded. “I’ll follow up with a couple academic leads. They’d never talk to you, but they might still speak with me.”

  The elevator doors slid shut, leaving me and Rynn outside the black and gold casino doors. Rynn took my arm and gently steered me towards them. “Stop panicking, Alix. You’re making me nervous.”

  “Make you a deal. Get rid of the dragon and the Naga, and I’ll stop panicking.”

  That at least got a smile out of him—a strained smile, but the first I’d seen since I’d managed to curse myself.

  “Mr. Kurosawa says Lady Siyu is proficient with curse lore, so she may know how to counteract it.”

  “Great, the supernatural who openly wants me dead is the expert on curses. I’m fucked.”

  “You’re not fucked, not yet. We haven’t exhausted all our options. On the bright side, you returned all the pieces, so they can’t be upset about that.”

  Small comfort. “Somehow I don’t think that buys me much leeway with these two. Not after Daphne’s.”

  Lady Siyu was waiting for us on the other side of the doors, and she looked pissed. That I’d expected, not the complete lack of composure. I couldn’t look away from her collar . . . my God . . . was it crooked? Come to think of it, Lady Siyu looked downright disheveled . . . for her,­ that is.

  “Explain yoursssself,” she said.

  “Lady Siyu, I thought you’d be jumping for joy. Not only did I manage to retrieve all three artifacts, I cursed myself in the process. I ought to be dead in seven—no, wait, make that six more days. Oh yeah, and Daphne told a room full of supernaturals I was the thief—”

  “Enough!” Her hands clenched at her sides, the red fingernails digging into her pale skin. “Why did you touch the pieces yourself when you were specifically told not to?”

  OK, asking the obvious now . . . in spite of myself and being very familiar with her temper and disdain for, well, me, I frowned. “Wow, let me see. Minor act of rebellion against my Snake God overlord?” Lady Siyu’s snarl didn’t dissipate, so I added, “Trust me, I’m a hell of a lot more pissed off about it than you.”

  Lady Siyu snarled something in supernatural to Rynn.

  That was . . . unusual. I’d never seen her actually show anything but polite coldness to him before—not to his face, anyways.

  Apparently, Rynn knew something I didn’t. He stepped past a still fuming Lady Siyu into the slot machine
maze without a word.

  OK, I wasn’t even pretending to understand what supernatural bullshit had just transpired. Left with a choice between Rynn and Lady Siyu? I gave Lady Siyu a wide berth and caught up to Rynn. “Since when can you find your way through this?” I asked him.

  “Since I never told you because you’re a thief.”

  I heard Lady Siyu’s heels click behind us a heartbeat later, but she kept her distance.

  We took a right turn that hadn’t been there last time. I swear the place reorganized every time I walked through. Another right turn later and we arrived at Mr. Kurosawa’s private lounge.

  The first thing I noticed was that the décor had changed since the last time. The off-white and gold light fixtures were now deep red with a smattering of gold, casting the space in gold-flecked red light. Instead of the white leather couch, Mr. Kurosawa was sitting on a bloodred version, and the modern mirrored coffee table had been replaced by a wooden base topped with a slick black surface. It still reflected the room, but more akin to through a looking glass darkly. The white marble bar had also been replaced with a darker red—almost black—shade, run through with gold flecks. Mr. Kurosawa himself was dressed in a designer black suit, but his skin was tinged a deep maroon and his eyes were pools of black. Smoke rose off his skin in waves.

  God, I hoped to hell that wasn’t directed at me.

  As my eyes adapted to the low light, my stomach churned. The three artifacts were laid out on the bar. Reflexively I took a step back, hitting Rynn, who deftly placed himself between me and the maze.

  “Never run from predators,” he whispered in my ear. “They’ll always give chase.” For a moment I wondered if he was only talking about my present company. Mostly though I was glad he’d had the foresight to warn me. I don’t think I’d last very long in that maze.

  The hairs on the back of my arms rose as Lady Siyu took her place beside me.

  “Did she retrieve the right artifacts?” Rynn said, speaking to Lady Siyu but keeping his eyes on Mr. Kurosawa.

  She glanced over at the bar as she continued past us to join Mr. Kurosawa, and I noted she’d recovered her usual cold composure. “Yes, Owl obtained the correct artifacts,” she said. Her lip curled at the corner, exposing a fang. “The wonders never cease,” she added.