Owl and the Electric Samurai

by Kristi Charish

  “It’d all be easier if you opened the case and took me out.”

  The armor. “Yeah, you’re so not convincing me to take you out for a test drive,” I thought back.

  I grabbed one of the tables least covered in treasure and pushed it over. I found a second one and did the same. Figured it couldn’t hurt to “talk” to the mercenaries from behind cover.

  There was another blast from behind the door. This one left a dent. Nope, definitely not going to hold. I crouched down behind the thick table as the third and final blast blew the metal into a shredded mess.

  I waited for the smoke to clear. Four Zebras came through. They were wearing gas masks, so I had no idea which one Williams was.

  Rynn asked you to stall, Owl. Speaking of which, he was nowhere in sight. “Ah, hi there,” I called out. “Can I help you with something?”

  I was answered with a round of bullets that were surprisingly accurate at hitting the table.

  “I promise, I can get you out,” the armor prompted again.

  I glared at the sarcophagus. I won’t lie, I was tempted . . . “Just because I didn’t have refreshments ready is no reason to open fire!” I yelled at the mercenaries.

  I ducked as they responded with more gunfire.

  Well I suppose this encompassed both “talk” and “distraction” Rynn wanted in spirit . . . “Williams, you there?” I shouted. “Tell me, was it the IAA payment plan that roped you in, or did you know you were working for the elves from the start?”

  One of them removed his mask. Sure enough, it was Williams. “I admire your tenacity, Owl, but you have no chance of escape—not unless there is a portal hidden in there. Why don’t you and the incubus hand yourself over? I hear the IAA is still willing to negotiate.”

  “Was never impressed with the IAA grievances policy. Figure I’m better off taking my chances with the ancient booby traps.”

  He didn’t look angry—more disappointed. “Do the sensible thing. You won’t get a better deal.”

  “You’d be amazed how many times people tell me that, but it seems like my life turned around when I stopped doing the sensible thing.”

  Williams might have said something else, but at that moment, a sizzling ball of cloth—silk, maybe—sailed over my head and landed in the doorway.

  I took that as the signal to get away from the entrance. I dove for the treasure. There were shouts behind me, and I could have sworn I heard bullets striking loose treasure and stone tiles equally.

  The gunfire was interrupted only by the explosion. My ears rang as the entire temple shook. I looked in time to see the doorway collapse, blocking off the entrance, the mercenaries on the other side.

  My ears were useless, which is why I didn’t hear Rynn calling for me—not until he was directly behind me, pulling at my arm.

  I let him help me up. Where was Captain? I found him cowering at the bottom of the canvas. I glanced back at the entrance, the metal door now reduced to layers of rubble. “Think it’ll keep them out?”

  “Provided there isn’t another entrance? Yes.”

  We bolted for the tunnel.

  “You’re making a big mistake,” the armour pleaded.

  “Yeah, well you can fuck off.”

  I crawled into the tunnel, Rynn behind me. Ten meters in I spotted light up ahead—sunlight. I sped up my inelegant shimmy until I reached an overgrown pathway. Rynn spilled out behind me.

  “Quick, help me set the next two,” he said, and hefted the dynamite in his hands, as if weighing it against the tunnel. “If I’m right, two more should collapse the entire tunnel.”

  I hesitated. Should. What if the mercenaries and IAA wouldn’t dig it out?

  “The smartest thing we can do is get away. There’s too many of them.”

  I knew he was right, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was leaving the job half-assed done.

  Rynn set the explosions—two rolls of dynamite wrapped in silk, which he threw into the tunnel. “Run,” he said.

  I didn’t need to be told twice—my ears were still recuperating. We bolted through the brush until we found steps, then headed downward into the city proper. I spotted the yellow-and-blue temple Michigan had instructed us to run for. I hoped to hell they’d gotten out—and that Carpe had kept the gate open.

  We ducked behind a set of statues to avoid a pair of mercenaries patrolling the market, then bolted for the temple, jumping the stone fence and landing in a garden overcome with weeds. Michigan was standing at the edge of the courtyard, his back to us. The gate wasn’t open.

  I started for him, when Rynn stopped me. “Why isn’t he moving? And where are the other two?” Rynn whispered.

  He was right. The hairs along the back of my neck prickled. Something didn’t feel right.

  Captain let out a low growl.

  I was about to bolt—until I saw Carpe.

  “Was that who you were growling for?” I whispered to my cat, who had crawled out of his bag and was perched on my shoulder, watching the clearing, his ears set flat back.

  Man, at times like this did I ever wish he could talk. Carpe was searching the foliage and spaces between the buildings. He was looking for us—or someone . . .

  Go to Carpe, or sneak around?

  A scuffle on the other side of the clearing, which was hidden by foliage, stopped me moving. None other than Dev shot out.

  He looked ragged, panicked, as he searched the courtyard. His hands were bound behind his back. “Run, Owl, it’s a trap!” Dev shouted before two Zebras caught up and pinned him to the ground.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here now, Rynn—”

  I didn’t get the chance to finish my sentence. A safety clicked off behind my ear and the cold barrel of a gun pushed into the base of my skull.

  I started scanning the ground for a rock—anything I could use.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Hiboux,” the familiar voice of Dennings said behind me. “The incubus might survive a gunshot, but I assure you, you won’t—and he won’t be able to put you back together this time.”

  There were smart things that went through my head, like striking up a conversation with my newest captor, or trying to gain a better position. Hell, even collapsing in a heap on the ground would have been a better idea.

  But I couldn’t pull my eyes off Carpe as he stood there in the courtyard, mere feet away as the Zebras filtered out of the brush around him.

  Son of a bitch. He’d done it again. Despite everything he’d said, he’d gone and screwed us over again. Only this time he’d betrayed us. It was like having a knife turned in my gut. Sense went out the window.

  Before Dennings could do anything, I ran for him. “You no-good, lousy excuse of an elf,” I snarled.

  He looked shocked, then sheepish at my outburst. “It was to save the world. I’m sorry, I didn’t think it would be you—”

  He didn’t get a chance to finish before I slammed into him, knocking him to the ground.

  Carpe hit the ground—hard. I didn’t waste any time straddling him and getting my hands around his throat. “Alix, I had no choice! It’s for the better good—oomph.”

  “What did you do?” I shouted as I struck his face, which he had the sense to block.

  One of the Zebras finally reacted and delivered a nasty shot to my kidney.

  I doubled over. Contrary to popular opinion, that’s about all you can do when someone hits a kidney hard enough. I rolled over on my side. Oh, I was going to be feeling that for the next few weeks. That and my ears . . .

  “I told you things would go badly. You had your chance to do it your way. Now we’ll be trying mine,” the suit keened in my head as Carpe scrambled out of my reach.

  The mercenaries, a dozen or so, were all pointing guns at me now. I raised my hands and put them both on the back of my head befor
e turning around.

  Someone dragged Dev over and deposited him beside me, looking much worse for wear than when I’d last seen him. Rynn followed, though Michigan was nowhere to be seen. “Dev. How you holding up?”

  He inclined his head. “Still wishing I’d ditched Nepal a few hours earlier. You?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, well. What do we have here? Finally, the dragon’s thief,” the owner of the dry, reedy voice said, stepping out of the blue-and-yellow temple. Nicodemous. This time his hood was lowered. “Allow me to introduce myself and clear up any imminent misunderstandings,” the elf said, approaching me. “I’m Nicodemous. Leader of the council of elves.”

  “I’d say it was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, but I’d be lying through my teeth.” I winced as Dennings pressed the barrel of her gun into my back.

  Unperturbed, Nicodemous crouched down in front of me. I held my breath against the scent of decaying leaves and trees that emanated off him. “I’m the one you’ve been chasing after that suit for.”

  “You can’t have Owl, Nicodemous. I won’t let you take her,” Rynn said, not making any effort to veil his hostility.

  Nicodemous turned his red eyes slowly to Rynn, regarding him, then back on me. “You’re here because I decided I’d rather have you in my sights for the next while.”

  “He means he’s going to try and screw us over.” Rynn bared his teeth as he spat the words at the elf.

  Nicodemous seemed to find that entertaining more than anything else. “Oh, on the contrary. I’ve already reported to the dragon that our terms have been met. Rest assured our representatives are entering into an agreement with Mr. Kurosawa and his Naga as we speak.”

  “Fantastic. Then untie the ropes and let us go,” Rynn said, and held out his hands, which had been bound.

  Instead of addressing Rynn’s question, the elf smiled, and I got the first glimpse of his teeth. They were tinged pink, the gums a bright red, as if eternally bleeding. “The dragon and Naga never specified they required either of you back,” Nicodemous said to me as he examined my expression. “The elves never work on assumptions. A lesson the dragon will be wise to learn.”

  Well, now I knew how the elves expected to stick me in the suit. They’d planned on trapping me before I ever made it back to the Japanese Casino.

  “I thought you said they could go,” Carpe said from the spot by the wall where he’d retreated. A blossoming fat lip took the edge off my anger at the fact he was still standing. He made a point of skirting around me—and Captain. Captain gave him a warning growl, then threw a deeper one at Nicodemous.

  Nicodemous looked less than thrilled—with my cat or Carpe, but Carpe plowed on.“Once you had the armor, you said you’d let all of us go—that was the agreement.”

  “Why you sneaky, no-good—” I started to stand, but Dennings buckled my knees with a well-aimed kick.

  Nicodemous shrugged. “That was your ideal outcome, though as circumstances have changed, I am no longer able to let all of them go. If it makes you feel better, most of them will go free. Eventually.” Funny, he didn’t look the least bit put out by that fact.

  “Most of them?” Carpe said, clenching his fists. “Fine, take me then.”

  “Not you, you self-centered idiot,” Rynn said. “He needs a body. Maybe a few, isn’t that right?” he added. If looks could kill . . .

  Nicodemous glanced at Rynn, and his carefully schooled expression fell for a moment. “I remember you being more agreeable, Rynn. And asking fewer questions.”

  “I used to hold elves in higher esteem.”

  I glanced around. Dev, Rynn, Captain—there were too many of us to do something reckless and stupid, and Michigan and Texas were nowhere to be seen. Damn it—I really didn’t want to end up the newly damned Electric Samurai. Despite what the armor seemed to think, I was a thief. I’d make a lousy warlord. . . .

  “Look, there’s no reason to keep all of them,” I said. “If it’s me you want, then leave them here and take me.”

  “Alix, no—” Rynn shouted. He tried to break the mercenaries’ grip, but it was no use. They only hit him, again. That made Nicodemous laugh.

  “If things had worked out differently, I would have been considering your generous offer, Owl. However, circumstances have taken an unexpected turn, so we’ll be taking a different approach. May I call you Alix? Owl is such a . . . strange name.”

  “I’d actually prefer it if you didn’t say that much to me at all, to be honest. Especially since you plan on sticking me in that cursed metal death trap.”

  He tilted his neck to the side, reminding me of a long-necked bird, something Carpe had done on occasion. “Well, we can’t always have what we want. And who says I want you for the . . . Electric Samurai,” he said, stumbling over the foreign words.

  “Either you elves are more arrogant than Rynn said, or you just couldn’t be bothered to do your research. The suit decides who wears it,” I told him.

  “Mmmm. I suppose it does have a history of being obtuse when it comes to satiating its hunger for violence and blood.” He glanced over his shoulder at Rynn then, his red eyes catching the sunlight like sickly jewels, unlike the rest of his pale self, which seemed to suck the light away. “But who said I was going to let the suit decide anything? I’m not accustomed to letting inanimate objects dictate the terms of use, despite how animated they’ve become.”

  I felt the first pang of uncertainty from the armor.

  Texas and Michigan . . . that must have been why they weren’t here. “You want to stick someone else in the suit? Fine, but do you really want to go out on a limb and say two archaeology school dropouts are going to satiate whatever sick and twisted mind-meld blood lust preferences the Electric Samurai has? The suit’s had six hundred years’ worth of explorers paraded in front of it, and not once has it lowered its standards. You think you can convince it to take one of those two?”

  Rynn, seeing my logic—that there was more than the elf to rattle in the immediate vicinity—jumped in. “You only have four humans, Nicodemous. After the armor burns through them, the only humans you’ll have left are the mercenaries. Somehow I doubt those mercenaries are going to volunteer to step in the suit. Williams’s men don’t strike me as idiots. They do strike me as types who settle workplace disputes with flash bang grenades and bullets.”

  A few of the Zebras glanced between each other and Nicodemous, readjusting their firearms. They trusted the elf about as much as I did.

  “I remember you having fewer opinions, Rynn” was all Nicodemous said in reply as he turned and headed back for the center of the small square. “You’re right. None of the specimens here are ideal, including the mercenaries.” He fixed his red gaze on me. “And it does seem to rather like you. Though for the life of me I can’t fathom why.”

  It was probably the suit, but the idea of putting on the armor and frying Dennings and Nicodemous—and maybe Carpe—was growing on me.

  “Let them go and I’ll volunteer, no tricks. Promise.” Hell, the suit already loved me; I throw punches, pick bar fights, and tell every supernatural I come across to fuck off.

  But Rynn was less than impressed with my plan to get everyone out of harm’s way. “You can’t have Alix,” Rynn said again. “Whatever scheme you have planned, Nicodemous, I won’t let you take her.”

  Nicodemous didn’t seem to take Rynn’s threat seriously, but the mercenaries did. The ones flanking Rynn readjusted, and one hit him in the back of the head with a gun.

  “And what exactly do you plan to do about it?” Nicodemous asked him.

  “You know me, I have a reputation for being resourceful.”

  Nicodemous nodded, as if he’d expected such an answer. “Yes, you do. A frightening reputation, all things considered. If we wanted the girl, you wouldn’t be able to do much about it.” He turned those red e
yes back on me, the polite expression replaced with a cold one. “As it happens, I don’t want the girl.”

  We all stared at Nicodemous, but it was Rynn who looked the most wary.

  “No. The council of elves is not about to stick a thief into the Storm Armor. We need a warrior—one of unparalleled character, one not corrupted by thieving and selfish tendencies.”

  I went cold as I processed his words. But no—that wasn’t possible . . . “It won’t work—it wants me,” I said, my voice thinner than it had been a moment before.

  “Normally that would be the case.” Nicodemous held up a worn leather book, one I recognized. How could I not? It was the same one I’d retrieved for Carpe a few short months back. The spell book.

  All this time, they’d never wanted me to put the armor on. They’d wanted Rynn.

  Worse, I’d led him right to them—and the suit.

  I wasn’t the only one who was hit hard by that revelation. I felt the armor’s surprise, which fast morphed to outrage and anger. My expression must have betrayed me, because the next thing I knew Nicodemous was smiling, his pink teeth looking unnaturally sharklike in his pale face.

  As one of the mercenaries produced a syringe and pressed the tip into Rynn’s neck, I strained against Dennings, but she wouldn’t let go.

  Rynn managed to knock out one of the mercenaries restraining him, but the narcotic they’d used was fast acting. He stumbled as he reached for a still-standing mercenary, who wisely kept his distance. Dennings, figuring the damage was done, released me. I ran for Rynn, hoping to hell I got a bright idea real fast.

  Rynn grabbed my shoulders in an attempt to stay on his feet, but the drugs had hold. He sunk to his knees. “Alix, it won’t work,” he said. “The suit doesn’t want me, not when you’re this close. The plan is doomed to fail. He just doesn’t know it yet.” He tried to say something else to me but his eyes rolled up, then shut.

  Two Zebras towed his unconscious body back to the stairs and up, toward the temple.

  It was madness. I wasn’t the only one who thought so.