Owl and the Electric Samurai

by Kristi Charish

  Rynn was testing the rope attachment when my phone buzzed. I swore and pulled it out to silence it; I did not need the mercenaries hearing it.

  Carpe. Son of a— I should have known. Lousy timing; I was thinking it was a species trait.

  I declined the call, only to have a text appear next.

  Not that way. They’re covering the windows.

  Oh for Christ’s sake. I hit Redial.

  He answered before the first ring had a chance to go through. “Now you want to help us, you miscreant elf?”

  “Can the insults and just listen. I’ve been watching the South Africans online for a couple days now. I don’t think they’re on to me, but these guys are packing some serious tech and muscle, and they’re totally on to your boyfriend.”

  I heard noise on the stairs. “We figured that out, thank you very much,” I whispered into the phone. Rynn nodded to me to close the door and I did, as carefully and silently as I could, then reinforced it with one of the cheap metal chairs that furnished the dorm. “And why the hell couldn’t you have mentioned the South Africans were watching earlier?”

  “Because unlike you, they aren’t fuckups. They’ve been using code words and keep radio silence. And I couldn’t tell you before because I’m being watched.”

  I paused. That was what Rynn had suggested.

  I heard footsteps in the hall, followed by the sound of metal jarring against wood. The South Africans were trying the doors now. “Carpe, if you are trying to fuck me over, I swear to God—”

  “If you don’t do exactly what I say right now, you’ll be in no position to exact revenge from whatever cage the mercenaries put you in.”

  I covered the mic and turned to Rynn, who’d been listening. He was watching the commotion on the street below. “As much as I hate to admit it, the elf is right, Alix. The mercenaries have the streets and external building covered. We need another way out.”

  Rocks and hard places . . . I uncovered the mic. “All right, Carpe, shoot.”

  “Okay, I’ve got your location. There’s a side passage in the room, inside the closet.”

  I checked. Besides some towels, bags, and bed linens . . . “I don’t see it,” I said.

  “It’s behind the wall. An old laundry chute that was covered over—accident hazard—but the pulley lift was never removed. Too expensive. The side passage below is covered over too; it’s behind the walls and was taken off the official blueprints decades ago to avoid building code questions.”

  Rynn pushed me aside and checked the wall. Then he took a knife out and started to cut through the drywall.

  I listened for the mercenaries. The sound of doors being tried was getting closer. I fixed my eyes on the door and hoped that the door handle wouldn’t start turning.

  There was still something bothering me about what Carpe had said. “Carpe,” I said while waiting for Rynn to cut through the drywall, “why would the elves care about you warning me about the IAA?”

  “Because who do you think told them you were there?”

  I went cold. Rynn was almost through now, but I could have sworn I heard the door across from ours being tried. We were next. “That makes no sense—the elves hired us to get the suit.”

  “And some of the higher-ups really don’t want you to find it. I don’t know why. I just know they’re watching me close and passed on your whereabouts to the IAA.”

  Son of a bitch. Why the hell would they hire us to get the suit, then try to stop us?

  I heard the door to the dorm turn then jiggle as it met with resistance from the lock, then the metal chair. The attempts abruptly stopped, but instead of shouting, silence filled the hall. I think that made it worse; the shouting would have been easier. I was really starting to hate competent bad guys.

  “Just a sec, Carpe,” I said, and put the call on hold before shoving my phone back in my pocket. “Found us,” I whispered at Rynn.

  He abandoned the knife and, holding onto the closet doorway, kicked the drywall in. “They can bill the South Africans,” he said.

  Sure enough there was a passage inside, along with an old rope-and-pulley-system metal laundry bucket. Rynn slid through first, testing the rope and rusted metal crate. It held. He waved for me to join him. Not exactly the most stable getaway, but it had to be better than facing off with the South African mercenaries. I grabbed Rynn around his middle before stepping onto the bucket. It rocked and squeaked on the rusted hinges, but it held both our weight and Captain’s.

  “How far a drop?” I asked.

  “I wouldn’t look.”

  I swore and made sure I had a good handle on Rynn’s jacket.

  “Since when do you have a fear of heights?”

  “Since I started letting you come on my jobs. Shit!” The sound of wood cracking and the pop of metal hinges came from inside the dorm room.

  Before I could register anything resembling an opinion on the matter, Rynn cut the pulley’s anchoring rope, and the bucket started its rapid descent down.

  “Son of a—” Rynn clamped a hand over my mouth to stop me from yelling anything more. I think I heard a commotion above us, but I was too busy hitting the ground. The bucket struck the basement floor, and a cloud of dust rose up around us. For the most part, Rynn absorbed the shock from the impact—wonders of not being human. Captain, not impressed with either the landing or the cloud of dust, let out an indignant mew.

  “Sorry, buddy, trust me, neither of us wanted that to happen. Blame him.” Captain snorted—whether in agreement with me or dust in his nose I didn’t know and didn’t care.

  I took a look around. From what I could see in the very low light coming down the hole in the shaft, we were down in the closed-up guts of the building, amongst stuff that probably hadn’t been seen for a good few decades. The rodents, bugs, and dust had had a field day. I found a spot under the rafters that was out of the way and hopefully out of sight of any flashlights from above. If the mercenaries weren’t in the room yet, it would be moments.

  Now where to go? I pulled my phone back out. “Carpe, are you still there?”

  “To your left—there’s a shortcut, it’ll circumvent the mercenaries.”

  I felt around in the low light. “It’s a wall, Carpe, a stupid wall. I’m not magic.”

  “Feel around the corners—there should be a latch at the top. It’s an old rum runners’ route from Prohibition. It’ll take you out to the water. They won’t know it’s there, I promise.”

  They might not know now, but they would soon. I made Rynn check, since I’m all of five four. He found said latch, and, with a push from both of us, the hinges creaked and the door swung open, sending a metallic, moldy taste of stale air our way. I covered my mouth and nose with my sleeve and pulled my gas mask back out. I ducked out of the way as flashlight beams were aimed down. The last thing I needed was to be hit with a chemical dart of unknown origin.

  Rynn stepped into the passage and shone his flashlight, illuminating a brick tunnel that was damp and slick with groundwater from above and a shallow run of water pooling in the bottom. We could see cracks where the bricks had buckled from decades of settling, but otherwise it was empty. More importantly, it continued as far as the light path stretched.

  “It’ll take you to the freight docks,” Carpe said.

  “And from there?”

  “I got you out. If you two can’t handle it from there, then you deserve the mercenaries. See you on World Quest, Byzantine. Carpe out.” And with that lovely sentiment, my World Quest buddy extraordinaire hung up.

  With friends like Carpe . . .

  More banging sounded upstairs, and a pair of light beams shone above before being aimed down. No time for considering our options. I followed Rynn into the tunnel and shut the door.

  I started to search for something, anything, to block the door. Rynn found it—a pile of broke
n and discarded crates. Good enough. I grabbed one of the pieces and wedged it in as tight as I could on the hinge side of the door, then followed it with two more. I stepped back and regarded my work. It’d keep them out for a while, but not forever.

  I refixed my gas mask and goggles before turning my flashlight on so there were two sources of light.

  Definitely time to run.

  We set off at a jog. Carpe hadn’t said how long this tunnel was, but I hoped it wasn’t more than a few kilometers. If it was, well, my cardio had improved over the past few months, but it was far from good enough to handle a serious run.

  I also really didn’t want to see what the mercenaries wanted with me—or Rynn. I forced myself to keep pace as we ran for the end and the water, hopefully without the South Africans trailing behind us.

  Carpe hadn’t sold me out. Part of me was happy about that. The other? Maybe I was just being paranoid, but Carpe had played his part on the phone just a little too well. I wondered how far our friendship stretched when it came to the elves..

  For once I’d survived an encounter with the bad guys without being beaten up. That had to be a win for me, but then again, I now had both the elves and the IAA to contend with. Two birds that were going to require two very different stones.

  I sure hoped Nadya was having better luck in Tokyo.

  8

  BREAD AND THE JAPANESE CIRCUS

  Midnightish back in Vegas

  We stumbled into the Japanese Circus around midnight. I’d spent the flight poring over Jebe’s journal and what I’d been able to copy off the university servers. After our run through the rain sewers of Vancouver, followed by an uncomfortable helicopter ride to the airport with a pilot who wouldn’t stop staring at our mud-covered clothes, we made it home. At this point though, I really didn’t care.

  “Of all the times you could have used your incubus powers,” I said.

  “There was no point. He was going to take us to the airport regardless, and he probably won’t want to admit we were even in there.”

  “He certainly didn’t make an effort to hide that fact.”

  “He didn’t have to.”

  I noticed a free spot by the bar out by the pool—the Garden Café. It was still hot despite the evening hour, so people were avoiding the outdoors in favor of the air-conditioned venues inside. There was one nymph behind the bar I recognized. Fantastic. The one thing I appreciated about nymphs? No need for small talk. They didn’t really have the muscle and nerve development for speaking. Might be pretty, but they were still ghouls.

  “I need to debrief with security,” Rynn said beside me. “I’m not happy with how quickly the IAA tried to push you around—I expected it at some point, just not so soon. I want to make sure whatever mercenaries they send next can’t get in.”

  That sounded just fine to me. I started for the bar.

  “And don’t get drunk,” Rynn called after me.

  I waved over my shoulder. I doubted very much I’d be paying attention to that piece of advice. “I do not start a bar fight in every bar I visit,” I called without turning around or looking back.

  “No, but you have a bad habit of ending your fights there,” Rynn called after me. “And don’t let Siyu find you in those clothes.”

  “I’ll clean up after that drink.” I didn’t need to see Rynn’s wry expression to know it was there. I was going to need that drink before attempting to clean up Captain. He’d been getting restless ever since I’d made him crawl his muddied self into the carrier.

  I exited into the pool area and grabbed a seat at the garden bar before letting Captain out in all his muddied glory. I figured the layers of grime Captain was sporting couldn’t do too much damage to the patio furniture. Captain lost no time finding a spot to dig in the garden, and I lost no time ordering a beer from the nymph. Out of all the supernaturals that worked at the Japanese Circus, I’d decided I preferred the nymphs—outside Rynn, that is. They never seemed to judge me; they always handed me my beer with a smile, not the once-overs I got from various other species, especially the radish and frog demons. Then again, that might just be their lack of facial nerves.

  For all I knew there could be an onslaught of prejudice and judgment behind those pretty green eyes and genial smile. I doubted it though. Killian, as his nametag read, brought my beer way too fast to be nursing any well-hidden contempt.

  I settled into my seat and tried to enjoy the quiet. I was on my second Corona, staring out at the empty garden where Captain was rolling in the grass, trying desperately to scrape the mud off, when I became vaguely aware of my phone buzzing.

  It was Rynn. He’d been gone what? A half hour now?

  I answered the phone. “Tell me there’s good news,” I said.

  “There’s been a security breach,” Rynn said, his voice strained. “Some of the cameras in the lobby and main casino floor were accessed and are being monitored from off-site. We’re trying to trace it now.”

  I almost let it go, but there was something in his voice besides just the strain of the last few days. “What are you not telling me?”

  There was an uncharacteristic pause. “There might have been some fallout from Delhi,” he said carefully.

  I frowned. “More fallout?” We’d both already seen the news footage. I took a sip of my beer and glanced up at the TV screen. I spit my beer out over the bar.

  Oh no.

  I reached over and grabbed the TV remote before Killian could stop me, despite his best efforts.

  It was blurry on account of the low-quality traffic camera, and you couldn’t quite see my face, but it was me. Crawling out of a New Delhi sewer and tossing a Molotov cocktail back inside . . . then diving out of the way to avoid the flames from the oil embalming that had gone up like candle wicks.

  That hadn’t been in the newspapers. I winced. “Rynn, I think I found the New Delhi fallout,” I said as I watched the sewers go up in flames. “How about I call you back,” I said before hanging up.

  I flipped through the channels, which all showed the same thing. One Charity Greenwoods. What the hell were they getting at? Flushing me out? Not with images that blurry. The scroll across the bottom included a few more details about me; weight, hair color, age, but nothing definitive. One thing was for sure, the various channels were very fond of the Molotov cocktail shots . . . and me diving away as the flames boiled out of the grates. If nothing else, the embalming on those priests had certainly been flammable.

  I didn’t regret it; letting the undead priests crawl out of the sewers would have been multitudes worse. But the resulting fire that had spread for an entire block had most definitely not been part of the plan. Luckily the fire had been mostly contained and there weren’t any casualties being reported, but still. . . .

  My phone began to buzz again on the bar. Not Rynn, but a number I did recognize this time around. I needed to ditch it—and soon. Too many people had this number now. “Dennings,” I said, answering.

  “Hiboux. I take it you’ve seen the evening news?”

  “Bad shots, awfully blurry, didn’t catch my winning smile. You guys are losing your touch in the surveillance department.”

  “Just a reminder that we expect you to start delivering.”

  “Really?” I took a sip of my beer to give myself a pause. “Because I think it’s a sign of something else.”

  “Oh?” Dennings said in her condescending tone.

  “All this tells me is that you’re running out of leads,” I said, and hung up before she could add anything else.

  I continued to watch myself, over and over, tossing the cocktail into the sewer and running before I could see the flames burn through the grates, all the way down the street. I flipped through the channels and watched as various reporters tried to analyze one Charity Greenwoods. Well, there was one passport and set of credit cards that was about to be shredd
ed . . . and burned . . . then dumped down the garbage disposal. After a few reruns, even I had to admit my antics really lost their touch. I flipped to the Discovery Channel instead. Killian, if he’d been watching, didn’t say anything.

  I waited until I finished my beer and watched some cute, large African lions maim their prey before calling Rynn back. “They’re getting desperate,” I said as soon as I heard him pick up. Mercenaries, not too subtle threats, and now a smear campaign. The IAA was digging far into their card deck. I didn’t think it was bottomless; then again, it was the IAA.

  “Yes,” Rynn agreed. “The problem is, when people get desperate they do stupid things.”

  “And try to screw me all over again.” If their offer had already deteriorated this far . . . “There is no way they’ll hold up their end of the deal.”

  “They will—they’ll just make sure they have a loophole. That spectacle on the international news I’m guessing is their loophole.”

  I think I preferred it when I was trying to burn the institution to the ground—from well outside their walls, like across the continent.

  “They still haven’t given out your real name or location. It’s a smoke screen, meant to scrare but not incapacitate you. It means that you have time to think how you are going to play this.”

  I shook my head. This is why Nadya had gotten out. All the IAA did was screw over grad students. No one ever does anything about it because there’s the chance you’ll get one of the few cushy post doc or teaching positions and then the circle of abuse continues. . . .

  Rynn kept his voice even. “They need you, and someone’s figured out you aren’t playing ball. This—the news cheap shot—is almost certainly a knee-jerk response to the fact that you’re not behaving the way they need you to. It is poor strategy, and it is going to cost them.”

  “How? How is it going to cost them?”

  “Because it tells us just how desperate they are. By the time we’re ready to deal with them, we’re going to make sure that they’re going to have to meet our terms, not us theirs.”