Owl and the City of Angels

by Kristi Charish

  “OK, you’re right. There is a disease in the Syrian temple,” I said, choosing my words with care as I licked the sweat off my lips. “It’s why the dig site is supposed to be closed. The artifacts they had you remove were probably contaminated—which I’m guessing is why they hired a bunch of uneducated pirates to handle it for them.” That would also have given whoever in the IAA orchestrated this fiasco the time and window to get themselves an airtight alibi. If I were an evil archaeologist trying to release dangerous artifacts into the world at large, that’s what I’d do . . .

  “Am I right?” I asked. “They made your men go inside and get the artifacts for them, while they stayed safe outside?”

  Odawaa leaned towards the cage. He spat out the words, “What kind of disease?”

  The first rule of lying convincingly is to never divulge details you don’t understand—especially to someone who knows a hell of a lot more than you do. “Ah, yeah, not so big on the details—”

  “It’s a bacterium,” Nadya said, interrupting what I’m sure would have been a plane crash of a lie. “Long living, not sure what species, forms cysts around itself, able to survive years like that—apparently hundreds of years. Like Owl says, the dig was supposed to be closed off. We don’t know who authorized opening it up.”

  Thank God one of us showed up to pathology class.

  Odawaa considered what Nadya said, then nodded. “That would make the most sense . . .” He then looked back at me. “They knew about this, you say?”

  “Oh yeah, they’ve got dig notes from as recently as thirty years back.” Though they sure as hell hadn’t used the words hemorrhagic fever . . . “Think of it this way, Mr. Barre: they wanted whatever was in that temple, and you and your pirates are a hell of a lot more expendable than their archaeologists.”

  Odawaa said something to his companions in Somali and without another word to us stood up.

  “Hey! We told you what you want to know.” Sort of—or the most believable version. “Your turn. What the hell do you plan on doing with us?”

  He ignored us and headed for the tent exit. The stale smell of uncirculated air hit me, along with a shot of adrenaline. Not the kind of place I wanted to die a slow death in.

  “Hey—if getting back at the IAA is what you want, let me out. They’ll really hate that.”

  I heard his footsteps stop. “Oh I thought about handing you over to the IAA. That is certainly what my contact requested, though you’ve been useful to me, and I hate to waste a useful resource.”

  He stepped back into view and motioned at the crates and already unpacked items stacked upon them. “All of these artifacts, much smaller and easier to negotiate than ships. More profit, less risk to me and my men. The problem was I never understood much about old relics. I was always better with diseases, broken bones.” He shrugged. “Cirro was our archaeologist who was in charge of making sure all these items were real enough. He spent three years studying in the United States and brought back many curious stories about the infamous Owl. A promising student who threw away her potential by falsifying research, then had no choice but to become a thief.”

  Oh buddy, if you knew the half of it. As I suspected, an undergraduate had been behind the cursed items getting out. I’m sure someone owed me a beer for that. If and when we got out of here . . .

  Odawaa frowned. “There was a medical student I knew, my classmate, ‘Johnny Boy’ we used to call him—fun fellow, well liked. He used to cheat on exams. At first it was every now and then, but he found he got ahead, and then it was a given he would cheat. Graduated too, became a well-known and respectable doctor. Do you know what you and Johnny Boy have in common?”

  I felt Nadya tense behind me . . . “No,” I said, “and you talk too much.”

  Odawaa’s smile was back. “Eventually the lies caught up with him. They always do.”

  I snorted. “If bad things have a habit of catching up, I’d hate to see what the universe has in store for you.”

  He shook his head and held open the tent flaps. “The world does not always catch up with bad people, that is its way. Only the ones who are so caught up in their own lies and half-truths they no longer know the difference. My archaeologist, Cirro, very sad. He died five days ago. I have no idea where any of these items go or what they are.” He whistled to the two guards, and they both hung back by our cage.

  “If you think for one second I’m helping the guys who’ve been masquerading as me for the past month—”

  “Not all people really believe we are the Owl,” Odawaa said. “Partly because the messenger, Hermes, would not be bribed, but mostly due to a strange practice you have of authenticating all of your merchandise. Very hard to replicate, Cirro told me, the mark of a very good archaeologist. But now with you here, we can have our items delivered by this Hermes and offer the authentic Owl experience.”

  “You can keep on being my second-rate, cheap impression for all I care—hey!” I yelled as one of the guards kicked the cage near my face.

  Odawaa laughed. “You know, I was very gifted in surgery. It has been a few years, but I believe my methods will convince you to cooperate. Chloroform only goes so far to dull the pain—hard to determine the doses with my current equipment. Of course, we need you in one piece. Not so with your friend and companion.”

  “And I’ll bet you’ll let them walk free if I help?”

  “Please, let us be honest with our barter. We both know none of you will be walking free. A quick death is better than torture, however.”

  I swallowed. “First off, you don’t have a fraction of the equipment we’d need.”

  He arched an eyebrow, driving a sick feeling into my stomach. “You misunderstand me. I do not need you to authenticate these, I need you to make it look like you have authenticated them.” His smile widened. “We are pirates, after all.” He whistled to his men, who approached the cage. “My men, Bhotaan and Odiye, will let you out and make sure you get to work. They speak no English, so they will not be able to answer any questions, and they have a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later. If you do not cooperate, they will shoot. Stray bullets get lodged in the strangest places. You will not want to watch me try to remove them from you or your friend.”

  “You seriously expect—shit.” As if to prove the point, the second guard this time delivered a kick to the cage.

  Odawaa turned his back on us. “You two can start with the items out on the crates,” he said, and then he was gone.

  “Finally. I could not wait for him to shut up,” Nadya said.

  “Well, there are two things we know now that we didn’t before,” I said as the first guard opened our cage.

  “What’s that?”

  “These pirates don’t have any idea what they’re involved in.” ­Furthermore, someone inside the IAA did.

  A bunch of pirates selling off highly dangerous supernatural artifacts. Under less dire circumstances, I might think it comical. “I don’t know about you, Nadya, but I have no intention of being here when the supernaturals start showing up looking for their shit.” I also had a sinking suspicion Rynn’s imprisonment by the pirates was a temporary predicament.

  “Ditto,” Nadya said.

  The guards cut the rope, and I rubbed circulation back into my wrists and ankles. “In the meantime though, I’m game to rummage around the pirate treasure. Do some souvenir shopping?”

  “Let me know where to sign up.”

  And with that we started our survey of the epic loot.

  If it wasn’t for the fact that these were pirates who were seriously screwing me over, I might feel sorry for them.

  I picked up the Tibetan scroll—it was nicely preserved. Until these ass­holes had gotten hold of it, I’m sure someone had kept it locked up in an airtight room . . . probably in a Tibetan temple . . .

  I held it up to the light sifting through a c
orner of the tent. Yup, definitely a spell scroll. “That makes four on my side,” I said to Nadya.

  “And that’s only what’s out of the boxes,” she replied from inside the wooden crate she was crouched in.

  I picked up a gold Buddha statue that was roughly the size of ­Captain. Again supposedly from Tibet—nice piece, hard to find; the Chinese made a point of destroying a lot of the Buddhist artifacts during the Cultural Revolution.

  Nadya looked up from the crate. “Don’t tell me they got a hold of a real prayer statue?”

  “Supposed to be.” I flipped it over and checked the bottom with a flashlight I’d found on the desk. There was a small divot in the gold—showing gray metal underneath. Gold leaf. “Would be a hell of a lot more impressed if it was real.”

  “Another fake? How many does that make now?”

  “Sixty-forty split in favor of the fakes. This one’s good though. They’ve got the tarnish and wear right on it. Might even be an old forgery from a hundred years or so ago.” And I was somehow supposed to create the paperwork saying it was real, when it took me less than a minute to figure out it was a fake?

  “Make it look authentic . . . What do they think I am, magic?” I placed the statue into the largest and first of the three piles. The harmless fakes.

  Initially we hadn’t planned on organizing the pirates’ treasure room. We’d planned on royally screwing things up and maybe pocketing a few things while we figured out a way out or Rynn caused a commotion—whichever came first. It was a decent—if random—amassment of antiquities.

  But Odawaa hadn’t been kidding. His two men were definitely ­trigger-happy. They’d already put a bullet in one of the crates when we’d gotten too close to the tent flap. We’d been planning on bolting, but that was beside the point.

  It was when we’d stumbled across the supernatural artifacts that we’d rethought our approach.

  I picked up another item—a goblet with gold details and a handful of sapphires. I hit it with the infrared light; most supernaturals could see infrared. Lines of painted magic lit up. “Hey, Nadya—got another one. Ever heard of a magic Persian goblet?”

  She stood up so she could see me. I held up the goblet for her inspection, and she frowned. “Is it covered with sapphires? And pass me the infrared laser.”

  “Yes, around the rim,” I said, and tossed the penlight overhand.

  She caught the laser and disappeared back inside the crate. “Twelfth century, Goblet of the Peri. There’s an incantation that makes the goblet cure all poison.”

  Be more impressed if it turned liquid into wine . . . better yet, beer . . . I could use one about now. “And if you fuck it up?”

  “If you fuck it up, the goblet poisons you. The Peri toed the line between angels and demons. They weren’t giving anything away for free.”

  Right. Dangerous stuff pile it was. “That’s what, ten total?”

  Nadya crawled back out of the crate. “Eleven. This one has a golem, pre-Christian, Jerusalem.”

  Jesus Christ, where the hell were they finding all this stuff? “It’s a wonder they all aren’t dead yet,” I said.

  Supernatural magic is designed for use by supernaturals only. Usually it’s written in blood or some other fluid of dubious origin spiked with magic. It’s also written in their languages—either the common tongue that just about everyone except the vampires spoke, or something species-­specific.

  Humans trying to speak supernatural and invoke their magic almost always backfired in spectacular explosions and magic gone wild, though every few decades some IAA idiot in the supernatural department decided it was a good idea to have a go invoking a charm, something as harmless-looking as the Goblet of Peri. Of course, this time was going to be different. They knew where the last guy went wrong . . .

  If they were lucky, they turned a half dozen people into rabbits or goats. If they were unlucky, a few buildings exploded . . . proving spectacularly why no one should ever try it again . . . which translated into roughly thirty years.

  Nadya frowned at me. “Alix, you are not looking well.”

  I wasn’t feeling well either. The chills and sweats had gotten more manageable, but I wasn’t convinced that was a good sign. My skin had grown clammy, and though I’d been doing my best to hide it, I was now soaked in sweat.

  Worrying about Rynn wasn’t helping. Supernaturals are hard to kill, not invincible. It was a distinct possibility the pirates had incapacitated him and we’d have to save him.

  I heard footsteps outside, and a moment later Odawaa stepped through the tent flap, carrying something under his arm.

  Carpe’s book—I’d wondered what had happened to that.

  “What is this?” he asked, handing it to me.

  I made a big show of examining it, then shrugged. “It’s an old Egyptian book, well preserved, authentic.”

  “I’ll tell you what I think,” Odawaa continued. “I think you know something I do not about its value.”

  “Where’s my bodyguard?” I countered.

  Odawaa smiled. “Maybe I shot him.”

  I could feel the sweat pilling on my forehead now . . . I hoped he didn’t notice or chalked it up to working in the heat. “Then I guess I don’t know anything.”

  Odawaa pulled out a handgun. Not the flashier, more intimidating rifles his men carried but a gun you pull out when you’re faced with the very real inconvenience of having to shoot someone. He pointed it at Nadya’s head. “I do not believe you.”

  “I can translate it for you,” Nadya piped up. “In fact, I’m better with languages than she is.”

  The way Nadya said languages . . .

  Odawaa narrowed his eyes. “Why would you help us?”

  She jerked her head in my direction. “Because she has a bad habit of getting people killed and I’m more interested in my own neck.”

  He seemed to consider that, then offered her the book before turning to his men.

  I shook my head at Nadya, indicating I thought it was a bad idea. Blown up by misfiring magic was worse than pirates.

  But she either didn’t see me—doubtful—or was ignoring me.

  I watched as she opened the book and flipped through the pages, settling on one I didn’t like the look of. A curse . . . a sleep spell, by the looks of it.

  “Nadya, bad—ow!” I turned to the guard, who’d rammed me again with the gun.

  “No speaking to your friend,” Odawaa called.

  While the guards were concentrating on me, I caught Nadya mouth the words, “Let me try to invoke it, all right?”

  Not that I had a choice. Oh this was going to be an unmitigated disaster.

  Nadya started to read out loud from the page, under her breath, pronouncing the ancient Egyptian deity supernatural words until she’d spoken the last one.

  I waited, all my muscles tensed. Nothing happened. We were still in one piece, which was a bonus, but Odawaa and his men were still awake.

  And then the wind picked up.

  “Is that supposed to happen?” I whispered to Nadya.

  “I don’t know, you tell me—you’re the one with experience in curses—”

  “Well, I don’t see any of them sleeping yet.”

  “Here, let me try another one.”

  “Try another one?” I grabbed for the book, and yelling from Odawaa’s right- and left-hand men ensued. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “If you had read it, there would be shrapnel already. Alix, let go of the book before they shoot us.”

  “No, you let go!”

  I’m sure either Odawaa or one of his men would have shot at us eventually, except that the crate Nadya had been in minutes before—the one holding the golem—shifted.

  Everyone in the room froze, including Nadya and I, with both our hands on Carpe’s spell book.

  “I though
t you said that was a sleeping spell you read.”

  “It was.”

  “Then why is the golem moving?”

  Nadya inclined her head and let out a breath. “Unforeseen magical misfire?”

  The crate shifted again—this time with more force rocking the crate from side to side.

  The two men holding the rifles both crossed their chests, said fast prayers, and backed up towards the exit—pointing the guns at the crate instead of us.

  Odawaa turned to face us. “What manner of trick is this?”

  “Yeah—I’d follow what your men are doing and back up,” I said as Nadya and I made for the stack of unopened crates behind us.

  Odawaa barked a command at his men. They stopped short of running out of the tent, but this was the first time I saw any inkling of dissension, with both of them barking right back. Superstition one, modern science, zero.

  Odawaa aimed his gun at me, not even a trace of the friendly façade left. “I do not know what trick this is, but you will bring it to an end now, or I will shoot you both.”

  To give you an idea how badly the thing in the box scared us, neither of us stopped backing up. “Odawaa, trust me, if we could stop it, we would,” I said. We were almost at the crates.

  Odawaa’s gun fired in the sand near my feet. Still I didn’t stop.

  “You can either stand here and shoot us, or run,” I said. “I strongly suggest you run.”

  The gun fired again, this time grazing my shoe. Well, it’s not like I hadn’t tried to warn him . . .

  The crate cracked along its front as the first stone foot hit the ground.

  That was it for Odawaa’s two men. They bolted for the entrance, ignoring Odawaa as he screamed after them.

  I shared the sentiment. Gun or not, negotiations were over. “You know all that stuff you don’t believe in?” I said to him, nodding at the crate. “That’s it.” And despite the gun still aimed at us, Nadya and I dove behind the nearest intact crate.

  Golems are . . . well . . . not a good idea is what it boils down to. Supernaturals used to make them to act as guards—ancient vampires were quite fond of them, as were genies and anything else that might have reason to hide from humans while they were sleeping. The problem is golems work on a primitive binary code, and you don’t always get what you pay for.