Owl and the Electric Samurai

by Kristi Charish

  It took me a sec to figure out that the bundle of mish-mashed feathers in its spindly hands was an arrow. And the rough feather-and-hide-­decorated item in its other hand? A bow. I ducked, this time pulling Rynn down with me as it readied and launched another feather arrow at us with unnerving speed. This one hit the tree trunk where we’d been standing a moment before.

  Rynn took in the scene as the yeti-goblins readied more arrows.

  I could hear other shouts, human ones, and the odd crash and yell coming from the other directions—back near the caves and toward the river.

  Rynn looked from the yeti closing in on us to the direction of the mercenaries crashing through the bush behind us. I watched his mouth move as he spoke to himself silently.

  “Rynn, definitely your area of expertise now. Plan of action?” I thought I could see red eyes under the yeti hides, but it was hard to tell. The eye holes weren’t exactly cut even—I could now see that each of the faces had been made from multiple attempts—and I figured it was the sheer volume of holes that gave them their vision, since clearly they could shoot.

  The shouting was getting closer, and the yeti began to look at each other—or as well as they could under the hides. One of them made a high-pitched chattering screech, returned by another.

  “Any idea what they’re saying?”

  “Haven’t a clue,” he said, taking a step back. He turned his blue-gray eyes on me. “Do you trust me, Alix?”

  “Oh God, you’re going to throw me over a cliff.”

  “In a manner of speaking.” He pulled me up and shoved me hard to the right, arrows thudding into the trees behind us. He kept his hand on the small of my back as we ran, pushing me any time I slowed.

  “Human here!” I managed to shout out in between painful, lung-­searing gulps of air.

  “Not much farther,” Rynn said, though even he sounded winded. I realized we were heading back toward the caves.

  “Here!” he shouted, as we spilled out of the bush and skidded to a halt before a rock face—steep, but with enough crags and outcrops that it was scalable. “Quick, climb, Alix. The brush should hide us.”

  Yeah, but for how long? My muscles protested while I inflicted a new and painful torture on them as I climbed, taking the easiest way, while Rynn took the fastest, spilling onto the top of a ledge a few paces before me, helping me up the last few feet.

  “Take this.” Rynn pressed a rock into my hand that was a little larger than a baseball, and much heavier and sharper.

  “And do what?”

  “Throw it at those trees over there when I say so.” He reached over my shoulder and used his arm as a sight, making sure I saw exactly the trees he meant, a copse of evergreens like miniature Christmas trees.

  I waited a count of five breaths, listening as the chattering and grunts and human yells and orders continued toward us, getting louder and more excited, figuring they had cornered their prey. They had. “This is not my kind of plan.”

  “Just wait, Alix, and trust me. I’m taking a page from your book.”

  “My book? What the hell in my playbook dealt with getting cornered by mercenaries and goblin kin?” My playbook was run—and if that failed, see if I could lose myself in the crowd . . . or a protest, or a riot. . . . Oh shit. Nooo, that was a bad idea.

  I didn’t get a chance to register my objection as Rynn picked that moment to shout, “Now!” as loud as he could. I tossed my rock at the copse of trees. I’m not much of a thrower, but I was impressed with how well I did, all things considering. The trees gave an impressive shake as if there might be some animal hiding amongst them. The yeti-­goblins seemed to think so too. With a universal screech that echoed throughout the trees, almost every yeti seemed to launch some sort of weapon at the copse, momentarily distracted by the potential of dinner.

  Rynn tossed something—but it wasn’t a rock. He threw a grenade.

  I dropped and covered my head as the first one detonated, sending up a cloud of debris and making my ears ring painfully. He threw three of them; one behind the goblins who had moved into firing range to explore the copse of Christmas trees, and one each behind the mercenaries’ tight lines. The point hadn’t been to kill any of them; it was to scare them. The mercenaries and yeti. Though, from the catlike shrieks I figured some of the yeti might have been incinerated— I wasn’t feeling as bad about that considering they’d called me meat.

  I watched from the ledge as if in another world as the debris and devastated vegetation settled, and both the goblins and mercenaries shrieked bloody murder.

  Then, one by one, the goblins saw the mercenaries, who’d moved forward to escape the grenades, tightening their ranks. If they didn’t look like a threat before, they did now.

  The mercenaries, twelve of them, stood perfectly still, considering their options.

  Rynn wasn’t going to give them one. The mercenaries couldn’t see us yet, as we were still hidden by the tree line and the ledge.

  But some of the yeti could, the ones still in the trees. One of them, in a nearby tree, chittered and started to point at us.

  Rynn threw another grenade at it. It caught it and tried to bite, sharp white teeth showing through the holes in its hide. I ducked and covered my head as it went off. Something wet hit me. Oh man, the smell. It was all I could do not to puke.

  I looked at Rynn, who’d thrown himself down beside me. “Their population needed some thinning. Come on,” Rynn said as he stood and started to climb over the top of the rocky hillside, in plain view of the mercenaries and yeti. I followed. The mercenaries and yeti didn’t pay us one damn lick of attention this time—they were too busy attacking each other. The gunfire and yeti battle cries still punctuated the air as we climbed over the last set of rocks.

  The opposite side of the hillside was sloped, and we dropped down onto a flat area covered in soft grass. A ways from where we started, but I thought if we ran due east we’d eventually find the road we came in on.

  I heard a shot echo through the field and dropped down. Rynn pulled me back up, shaking his head. “Backfire, not gunfire.”

  Sure enough, Talie’s jeep turned and barreled out of the brush, then rounded toward us, the brakes squeaking to a stop.

  “The lines of fate broke quite wildly, but I was able to follow the tether that led me back to you, though we have a very narrow window,” she said.

  “She means get in,” Rynn said.

  “You said it, little demon.” Not wanting to waste time, I tossed my backpack onto the seat and dove about as gracefully as a walrus after it.

  As soon as we were in, Talie stepped on the gas, the engine grinding in mechanical revolt as she steered it down the grass-paved back road.

  “They’ll have the jeeps on us, Talie,” Rynn said.

  To that she shook her head. “The mountains tell me their two off-road jeeps are very happy to stay where they are in the”—her face squished up—“well, not so quiet forest, the forest with many screams of carnage and pain.”

  We both stared at her this time. She frowned, looking very childlike. “The engines are missing many parts.” She tapped the dashboard of her jeep. “Kitty needed them more than they did.”

  I glared at Rynn. “I notice you’re not on the Apsara’s case for theft.”

  He shrugged. “Different perception of ownership. Besides, it was an emergency.”

  I sure as hell didn’t have any problems with it. Now that we were more or less in the clear, I sat back and let everything sink in. My God, an entire lead—a doorway to Shangri-La—gone. “Goddamn it, Rynn, I had them.” This was just like when I’d had Carpe try to trace their location two weeks ago. Every time I’d gotten close to Michigan and Texas, it was as if something had been rigged to explode . . . like my computer. . . .

  “This isn’t a dead end. They were here.”

  “That’s just it—this wa
s it! No more credit cards, no email, no face recognition, no phones. This is where they vanished.” I let my head hit the back of the seat and closed my eyes. I’d been so close . . . if I hadn’t pulled a Pandora and knocked the lid off the box.

  Rynn turned to face me, letting some of his anger show through. “It wasn’t entirely you. There was something else back in the cave—magic of some sort, either the doorway or maybe something behind it.” He leveled a measure stare at me. “I’m starting to think Neil and Frank are doing everyone a favor not wanting to be found.”

  For a moment I pushed aside thoughts of the magic that had briefly taken me over. There was only so much I could worry about at once. “Well, they’re being idiots. Do you realize the extremes the IAA will go to in order to uncover human magic?” What would that be worth to the IAA? And more importantly, what would they do with it?

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer to that one.

  “I hate to say it, Alix, but maybe they don’t want to be saved.”

  Yeah. I was getting that distinct impression. “Think we have enough to pacify Lady Siyu?” We’d been on the road for three weeks straight, chasing after Neil and Frank on Mr. Kurosawa’s dime.

  Rynn let out a long breath and seemed to consider it. “The Delhi bowl you picked up last week should be enough. There’s another artefact they made noise about in Kathmandu. Provided the mercenaries aren’t as thick as they were in Nepal, you could try for that.”

  I nodded. A set of suspected supernatural jewelry. “How much do you think your friend Talie the Royal Kumari is going to care if we hit her temple?”

  “Talie?” Rynn called out. “Did you hear that? Alix wants to raid the Kumari Palace.”

  I smacked him on the arm. “Don’t say it like that,” I said. “It makes it sound like I’m going to destroy the place.”

  But Talie turned to face me. “Lady, you can raze the place as far as I’m concerned. Sticking children in the temple as my reincarnated self? Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds?” She added something in Nepalese I didn’t catch, but I was pretty sure it included a derogatory word for priests.

  “Wise spirit once said the trick to being a God with a long life? Make sure the world ignores you. That beacon of worship gives me more headaches than you can imagine.”

  Maybe Rynn was right—maybe the majority of the supernatural world didn’t want a war or to come out in the open. Funny though how a few choice individuals always end up making the rules. What’s that saying, he who speaks the loudest?

  My phone started to buzz in my pocket. I checked the name and swore. Lady Siyu, aka Dragon Lady, my boss’s second in command. Lady Siyu’s intimate dreams included seeing me gutted by the next supernatural that stumbled along. The fact that she’d recently had to cure me from a curse had put her into a foul mood to no end.

  “Stop thinking about Lady Siyu,” Rynn said beside me, where he was strapping our gear in.

  Rynn might not be able to read minds, but there were very few things I got that angry about. “Next to impossible, Rynn; the damn snake is calling on the phone.” I took a deep breath before answering it. “Lady Siyu,” I said.

  “You will return to the Japanese Circus Casino at once,” she said without any greeting or attempt at niceties. “Your flights are arranged. You will be at the airport in two hours’ time. Tell the incubus I’ve relayed details to him, since you can’t be trusted to follow anything except the human lust for treasure and gold.”

  “Ah, in the middle of something, so, no.”

  There was a hiss of breath on the other end. “It is not a request. And you would be best not to make me angry. Your cat ruined yet another piece of Louis XIV furniture.” I wondered if he was going for the set. If it smelled like her . . . “The stupid beast thought it was a scratching post,” she hissed again.

  Yeah, I doubted that very much. “You know, he wouldn’t destroy your furniture if you just gave him back to me.”

  “And my orders remain. You and the incubus are to be on that plane in two hours.”

  “Give me my cat back and maybe I’ll think about it. Goddamn it!” I held up the phone. “She hung up!” I shoved my phone back in my pocket. “You heard?”

  “Alix, she can’t give you the cat back, she made a deal.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Supernaturals had a difficult time breaking their word. I wasn’t certain on the details, but it had to do with magic and biology. “There’s nothing stopping her from trading him back.”

  “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “Clearly. She won’t actually hurt Captain? Will she?”

  Rynn inclined his head. “Well, that depends.”

  “On?” I asked when he didn’t elaborate.

  “If we miss the flight.”

  I let out a long breath. Well, there went the rest of my expedition. If I had to guess, I’d say Mr. Kurosawa, my boss and a dragon, was as interested as I was in finding out what the IAA wanted. However, he also had his own agenda, which I was paid and contracted for. Meaning anything to do with the IAA and their hunt for World Quest would have to take a backseat.

  Dragons have a reputation for eating the odd thief.

  “On to the Japanese Circus, Incubus,” I said, doing my best to imitate Lady Siyu’s imperious tone, if not her precise British accent as the jeep made its way back onto the more traditional-looking back roads. Yet another dead end on my search for the World Quest duo.

  I leaned up front by the driver’s seat. “All right, you heard the lady, Talie?”

  She took her eyes off the road, a downtrodden look on her face. “I thought you were going to destroy my temple.”

  I frowned. “I said break in, not destroy.”

  She glanced back at Rynn. “Typically when the Owl enters a site for confrontation with historical elements, the result is a cataclysmic event,” she said.

  I shot Rynn a dirty look.

  “You have a reputation for destroying things,” Talie said, assuming I hadn’t understood her the first time. “Like Kali. Rynn said as much.” Talie took her eyes off the road again and looked at me like a puppy might. “I was hopeful your presence might result in its destruction.”

  “She was locked in that palace for a long time,” Rynn offered. “Two hundred years.”

  “Three hundred,” she said, her pretty face etched with a frown.

  Rynn acknowledged her. “My mistake. Three hundred years she was locked in the Kumari Palace after the human priests trapped her the first time.”

  “They didn’t just trap me, they lured me down from the mountains with a promise of a party—with lanterns and children,” she said as she looked at me woefully. “I like playing with children. They rather look like me.”

  “It’s rigged to imprison her if she steps foot on the grounds,” Rynn added as way of explanation.

  Oh God. That was so sad. I mean . . . “Why didn’t you just use your powers?”

  She shrugged. “My powers don’t do as well in Kathmandu. I work better in these mountains.”

  “I remember you distinctly raining avalanches and snowstorms down on the surrounding areas,” Rynn said.

  Her eyes furrowed. “Only for the last hundred years of my imprisonment. What can I say? I got desperate.”

  “She escaped in the eighteen fifties.”

  “Thanks to you and that onryo.”

  Onryo—a Japanese vengeance demon. The corrupt version of a kami, a very powerful supernatural being that appears throughout Japanese mythology. Loyal to a fault and bound by a strict honor code, kami were one of the few species that tolerated humans, even advocating for them occasionally. And they were terrifying warriors. An onryo was what they became when they died, a monster not tied to any code beyond vengeance. I imagined there couldn’t be too many onryos out there, and fewer that Rynn knew. It could only be Oricho.
/>   “And a lot of good it does me,” Talie continued. “I can barely enter the capital without those priests trying to track me down and put me back.” She turned to me again, treating me to the full effect of her large, sad, painted eyes, which reminded me of a doll’s. “Did you know fifty years ago they tried luring me back to Kathmandu with another party? ‘Oh no, it won’t be like last time,’ ” she pantomimed. “ ‘You can leave whenever you want, we promise we won’t trap you in the palace. We’re different.’ ” She spit out the jeep window and uttered the kind of phrase that would have been more appropriate on a sailor, not a small, childlike supernatural. “Humans get to break their word. We don’t, but them?”

  Rynn interrupted her tirade. “She’s been trying to come up with a way to destroy the palace bindings without killing anyone.” He stressed the last words, as if that was not exactly a forgone conclusion between them—or as if he needed to remind her.

  Talie shrugged. “I was hopeful,” she repeated to me with the doll eyes.

  “Ah, sorry, but your temple will have to wait. I promise,” I rushed to add as her face fell, “that I’ll take a crack at it another time and see whether I can’t trash the bindings.” Actually, if she hadn’t been in the palace since the 1850s, this generation of caretakers might not realize they were there. Often with supernatural bindings, all it took were a few misplaced rocks. For all I knew, it might have already happened. “Mr. Kurosawa’s list isn’t going anywhere.”

  That seemed to brighten her up. “You’re certain?”

  “Kid, if there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s that the dragon has one hell of an appetite for treasure and I don’t want to be eaten by vampires. Trust me, I’ll be back.”

  “Kathmandu it is,” she said, sounding more cheerful than she had a moment before as she kicked the dilapidated orange-and-fuchsia rhinestone-­encrusted jeep into a higher gear.

  World Quest, IAA, and whatever else had been lurking inside that cave would also have to take a backseat to whatever it was Mr. Kurosawa and Lady Siyu had for me now. I just hoped the mercenaries didn’t catch up—for Michigan and Texas’s sakes.