Owl and the Electric Samurai

by Kristi Charish

  I still wasn’t certain Nicodemous realized what had happened even as he collapsed to the floor—dead.

  It was Karma of a sort—bloody, rendered Karma.

  I started to call out, but Dev clamped a hand over my mouth and dragged me off the platform and out of Rynn’s line of sight. With him was Neil, looking drained but alive. “What are you doing?” I snarled at Dev once I got his hand free.

  “Preventing you from getting his attention and getting us both killed.” He nodded back to the platform above us.

  Rynn was focused on the other elves now, still lying prone on the steps. The mercenaries were oddly frozen. Rynn glanced back up at us, but for now the elves were winning his attention. He dragged them back to the altar.

  The ground shook, stronger than it had before, loosening rocks above . . . all that magic in one place, then a death, and supernatural blood . . . shit.

  Michigan went white. “We need to get out of here—now,” he said.

  He was right; as much as it pained me, we started to run back up the steps.

  We were halfway up the steps before Rynn called out. “Alix?” His voice echoed off the temple walls.

  I stopped and turned, slowly.

  The mercenaries started to reassemble around him.

  Dev grabbed my arm and tried to steer me away. “Come on, we have to leave now—before he decides to get rid of you the same way he just did Nicodemous.”

  But I had to give it one last try. “Rynn, the elves did something to you. You need to take the armor off.”

  He just stood there and stared at me, on the verge of taking another step.

  “Just . . . will you say something?” I shouted, hoping I’d somehow managed to get through. He had to be in there still, somewhere.

  He shook his head. “Something made me head back this way, but for the life of me I can’t remember what it was.” He turned away, back toward the mercenaries. They didn’t attack; they fell in line.

  He was using his power, a lot of power. More than I’d ever seen him use before. Son of a bitch, he was compelling all of them.

  If I could keep breaking his attention . . . “Rynn, don’t walk away from me!”

  He crossed the floor and was up the steps faster than I would have thought possible. His gloved hand wrapped around my throat. I wanted to struggle, tried to, but I couldn’t move. Rynn had frozen me in place.

  He studied my face. “To be completely honest, I can’t tell if I loved or hated you,” he said, his eyes narrowing, cruel, calculating. “I think it might have been a bit of both.” He brought his face close enough to mine that I could smell him. His scent had changed to something darker, more sinister. “I’ll warn you once, Alix. Stay out of my way.”

  He let go, and I fell to the ground as he strode back to the mercenaries.

  I let Rynn walk away. I’d failed. Completely. When it actually mattered, I’d still managed to screw up.

  Arms reached under my shoulder as Dev and Michigan both helped me up. “We need to get out of here before he compels us to jump off a fucking cliff,” Dev whispered.

  I made myself move, following them blindly until I remembered something. “The book!” I broke their grips and raced back to the platform as the temple shook again. If the book had gotten Rynn into the suit, maybe there was something in there that could get him out.

  I skidded to a halt by Nicodemous’s dead body, the red blood collecting in a pool around him, smelling even more like death and decay. I hesitated only for a moment before prying the text from his dead hands, none too gently. I tucked the book into my bag and ran back up the steps, catching up to Neil and Dev as they reached the tunnel out. As we crawled in, yelling from outside reached us. I wasn’t sure if Rynn was compelling more mercenaries or just making the ones he had compelled shoot the ones he hadn’t.

  We spilled out of the temple as the entirety of Shangri-La shook to its core. There was a thick layer of heavy snow on the ground now, and the sky was filled with pitch-black clouds, the lanterns hanging from the buildings the only light to see by. We ducked behind a building as screams drew closer and a group of IAA suits bolted past, chased by the tiger golem.

  Won’t lie. Hard to feel bad about that one. It was a shame Dennings wasn’t with them.

  “This way,” Neil said, and set off at a breakneck pace up the hillside steps. We followed. I just hoped to hell the gate was still open—or functioning . . .

  We were so set on reaching the gate that we didn’t notice Williams and what remained of his band—which included those who hadn’t been in the temple or hadn’t been maimed by golems—until we ran into them. We all skidded to a halt, staring at each other. A few of his men pulled guns.

  “No offense, but I really don’t think this is the time or place to be shooting each other,” I said.

  Williams nodded. The guns went down. They weren’t bad ­people. Another time, another place . . . “Make sure you get your men out soon—before the IAA and the elves. There’s a problem with numbers. Not every­one will be able to leave,” I said.

  Williams gave me a wary nod.

  “We’re even now,” I said.

  Williams smiled. “I suppose we are.”

  And with that, we went our opposite ways.

  Between dodging golems and IAA, it took us longer than we would have liked to reach the portal. Texas and Carpe were still there. “I thought I told you two to open it.”

  “Fuck off, Hiboux. We decided to wait.” Texas didn’t say anything else, but gave Michigan a nod.

  I would have yelled more, but the wind had picked up and waves were breaking the ships in the harbor into pieces. In the distance, a temple crumbled to the ground, and Shangri-La shook. Captain found me and huddled by my feet.

  “They’ve opened another gate,” Carpe yelled.

  Rynn—he must have opened it. “Then get the gate open!” I just hoped we could still leave . . .

  The ground shook again, and I heard screams as a temple toppled across the square. If it kept up, we had minutes at most.

  Texas cut his hand and dropped the blood on the three diagrams—the one on the floor, then the temple, and then the courtyard wall. The gate shimmered—and wavered—and for a moment I thought it might collapse. But it shuddered into existence. We all stared at each other. Who got to go first?

  “Michigan, Texas, Dev, Captain, Carpe, then me,” I said. Why Carpe before me? Because as much as it pained me to do it, I’d been in charge of this disaster. I watched as Michigan and then Texas and then Dev went through the gate. I set Captain down and pushed him toward it. He sat on his haunches and looked at me as if I was an idiot. All of Shangri-La shook, and to my horror, the blue-and-yellow temple started to crack. Lousy, no-good cat. I scooped him up and held him out to Carpe. “You take him through,” I said.

  But he didn’t take Captain. Instead, he took hold of my shoulders.

  “What the hell?” I snarled.

  “I told you I was sorry!” he shouted at me over the wind and thunder, and gave me a shove, sending me through.

  And that was the last thing I heard from him before Captain and I hit the ground on the other side. I waited, but Carpe didn’t follow. My nerves were so raw from everything that had just happened that I didn’t know how I felt in that moment—about anything—except completely numb all the way down to my bones. All I managed to do was push myself up on my knees before puking up the entirety of my stomach.

  We were stuck on a mountaintop. Definitely the Andes, though whatever civilization this had been had long been lost. We waited a day. It was cold, but I had to admit I welcomed the numbing effect it had—on my body and my emotions.

  I welcomed the numbness, because otherwise I felt empty without Rynn. I kept going over and over how I could have made it down to the platform faster . . . what I could have done differently . . . how I hadn�
��t seen it coming from the beginning . . .

  After all the times Rynn had saved me, the times he’d been there for me . . . At the end of the day, when it had counted, when it had been my turn, I’d come up completely short.

  I didn’t know if I could ever forgive myself for that, even if I managed to fix things. I spent a lot of time wondering how much the suit had taken over his thoughts, and how much had been the spell the elves had used.

  “Stay out of my way.” That had been the last thing he’d said to me.

  Hell would freeze over before that happened. If there was anything of him left, anything at all, I’d find a way to get him out.

  When I wasn’t dwelling on Rynn and my own failures, Carpe also invaded my thoughts. I was also glad for the numbness, because all my last exchange with Carpe did was confuse me.

  Goddamned stupid elf.

  Considering we hadn’t had an exact location for the gate beyond—assorted ruins in the Andes—I was surprised when a helicopter circled us in the early evening. More so when it landed and a heavily reinforced cat carrier, four bottles of water, and four gas masks were tossed out toward us. Peace offerings, vampire style.

  “May I offer you a ride?” a thick French accent shouted down at us.

  I wrangled Captain into the carrier—no small feat—and got him subdued to a low growl before stepping onboard.

  Alexander went so far as to offer me a hand. I pulled myself in. “Just keep to your side of the helicopter, Alexander.”

  “I believe this is the start of a wonderful friendship.”

  I knew I should be civil, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. “Stuff it.”

  We rode most of the way in silence, until Dev finally asked, “What do we do now?”

  I shrugged. “My advice? Lay low, stay far away from the IAA, and run if a dragon offers you a job. ”

  Dev made a noncommittal shrug and turned his attention back to the others. I was staring at a laptop I’d reluctantly borrowed from Alexander. Getting back into my email outweighed my indignation at having to talk to a vampire.

  A few messages from Lady Siyu—which I ignored—and one from Nadya.

  It was simple, straightforward, and had the dire undertones that lack of details often gave.

  Come to Tokyo as soon as you can.

  Looked like I was headed for Japan.

  I watched the night world pass by outside. As an afterthought, and searching for something to do, I opened my phone and messaged Lady Siyu.

  Things just got a hell of a lot worse. I hope you’re happy. And I’m keeping my cat.

  For once I didn’t get a response. I counted that as a good thing.

  Somehow I figured this had just gotten a lot bigger than just Mr. Kurosawa and Lady Siyu’s war with the other supernaturals . . . and I had the unsettling feeling that Rynn had just become the center of it.

  Captain stopped his growling and gave me a forlorn mew, as if sensing where my thoughts had gone.

  “You said it, Captain,” I told him.

  I’m Alix Hiboux, antiquities thief for hire, specializing in the supernatural. I need to save the world from my cursed supernatural boyfriend.

  As Texas was so fond of saying, “Sucks to be you, Hiboux.”

  Epilogue

  Tokyo, Space Station Deluxe

  I stood outside Space Station Deluxe, Nadya’s bar, for longer than I needed to. The place was deserted—not just closed, but deserted. As if the street no longer existed.

  I only knew of one supernatural who could do that.

  I pushed the door open and let Captain run ahead before stepping inside. He hugged the walls, as if he knew there was something out of the ordinary and we should have our hackles up.

  The lights were off, all except the red night-light, something both Nadya and Rynn had installed four or five months ago in each of their bars. Nadya’s in red, Rynn’s in blue. Seemed like an awfully long time ago now.

  Nothing jumped out at me, so I headed to the back. The red tinge was giving me an unsettling feeling.

  “Nadya?” I whispered. “Nadya?”

  I heard sound in the back—where her office was. The door was ajar. I held my breath and pushed it open.

  Nadya was sitting there behind her desk, waiting. Captain mewed and wasted no time jumping up on her lap. “Jesus, do you have to keep all the lights off like that? You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

  “Necessary. Come with me,” she said, and closed the door to her office before waving me toward the back of the club—farther away from the lights.

  “What’s going on? And why the cloak-and-dagger?” I asked, though I already had my suspicions.

  “You’ll see” was all she said.

  “No offense, Nadya, but I’ve had a lifetime’s worth of surprises this last week between the IAA, the elves, Rynn, and now this . . .” I trailed off as I spotted the lit cigarette in the back of the bar. At first I could only tell that he was male from his silhouette, but then I glimpsed the tattoo winding up his face as the cigarette once again burned bright.

  Oricho.

  I clenched my fists but held my tongue. This was the supernatural who only a few months before had tried to take down Mr. Kurosawa and wipe out every supernatural creature in Vegas, including Rynn. I’d briefly counted him as a friend. And told him never to cross my path again.

  Oricho stood, and the lights flared on, illuminating the back corner of the bar. Now I was certain why there were no other people hanging around. Oricho could do that. He was that powerful. And dangerous.

  “Well, I see the dragon and the snake didn’t eat you,” I said.

  He smiled. There was a gaping wound on his neck, half covered by the high collar of his jacket. “Likewise. I would say it is a pleasure, but I suspect from your expression you do not share my sentiments.” He bowed his head.

  “I’m pretty damn sure I said I never wanted to see you again. Ever.”

  He nodded again, but the slight smile—not vindictive or mocking, but sad—remained.

  “And I apologize for not following your request.”

  I was starting to wish I’d remembered to grab Nadya’s baseball bat. Not that it would have done any good besides making me feel a little more secure from having something violent in my hands. “What do you want?”

  Oricho inclined his head. “Due to recent events, you are at a disadvantage. The time has come where I believe I can help. And I owe you a favor, which I intend to repay.”

  The question always arises with supernaturals: what the hell happens after repayment?

  I pushed that thought aside. I didn’t think Oricho would kill me right now—he’d have done it already.

  “How do you think you can possibly help me?”

  He arched a single eyebrow, and the tattoo of the dragon winding down his neck moved, possibly a trick of the lights—or not.

  “Because I know what has befallen Rynn. And I can help.”

  There are moments in life when the things you swore you’d never do come into direct opposition with the things you promised you would do . . . I’d been running into a lot of that lately. Tell Oricho to fuck off, or find out if he really could help me get Rynn back from whatever the elves had done to him?

  I glanced over at Nadya, and she inclined her head.

  “All right,” I said to Oricho. “Say I’m willing to take you on a sign of faith. How? Rynn’s the Electric Samurai now, and Nicodemous did something to him and the armor with magic. We don’t even know what Rynn wants—”

  “He is driven by the corrupted armor and bent to its will, however warped the elf has made it and him,” Oricho said. “Its purpose is to rain war and destruction on the world. Rynn will become the warlord the elves wanted, but he will be outside of their control.”

  “You still haven’t told me how you can help.
”

  “I cannot.” Oricho paused to take a drag from his cigarette, savoring the smoke before turning his black eyes back on me. “But I know the ones who can. They call themselves the Tiger Thieves.”

  Acknowledgments

  As always, thanks go out to Steve Kwan, Leanne Tremblay, Tristan Brand, and Mary Gilbert, who read each and every Owl installment. Their encouragement keeps the series going.

  I also have to thank my agent, Carolyn Forde, who picked the original Owl and the Japanese Circus manuscript out of the slush pile; my editor, Adam Wilson, who makes Owl that much better and puts up with me; and Brendan May for his encouragement and handling logistics at S&S Canada. There are many other people who have mentored and encouraged me in my writing career—thank you all!

  Finally, there is one nonhuman without whom this series would never have been written, and that is my cat, Captain Flash, on whom the character Captain is absolutely based.

  About the Author

  Kristi Charish is a scientist and science fiction/fantasy writer who resides in Vancouver, Canada, with her spousal unit, Steve, and two cats named Captain Flash and Alaska. She received her BSc and MSc in molecular biology and biochemistry from Simon Fraser University, and her PhD in zoology from the University of British Columbia. Kristi writes what she loves—adventure-heavy stories featuring strong, savvy female protagonists.

  FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR: Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Kristi-Charish

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  Volumes in Kristi Charish’s Owl Series

  Owl and the Japanese Circus

  Owl and the City of Angels

  Owl and the Electric Samurai

  Owl and the Tiger Thieves (forthcoming)

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