Owl and the Tiger Thieves

by Kristi Charish

  Then why the hell were the hairs on my neck bristling?

  Methodically I began fitting the keys on the ring into the grate lock. I found the right one on the second try, and thankfully this one opened without the screeching protest of iron I’d been greeted with upstairs.

  There was another stream of swearing, then Artemis hit the stairs above me.

  “You’re an idiot. You could have gotten the both of us killed,” he said as he joined me outside the door.

  “Someone once told me that only I could take responsibility for my own actions.”

  “It was probably my cousin—and he’s an idiot as well.”

  Again I found the right key, and with minimal effort the second lock clicked open. Adrenaline coursed through me again as I pushed the door open a crack and a gust of air rushed out, this one staler and carrying something I couldn’t quite place, a metallic sweet scent that wasn’t altogether in place in the stone caverns.

  Tentatively I shone the flashlight through. No movement, nothing hiding in the shadows, no moaning, shambling, growling. Just a deserted, dusty stone hall that hadn’t seen a footstep inside in well over a hundred years. Looks could be deceiving, however.

  I shone the flashlight into Artemis’s face. He swore and shielded his eyes.

  “Well? Any input from the supernatural peanut gallery?” I asked him.

  “No sense of anything magic down here, though I’m not entirely certain I’d recognize it if there were. And get that thing out of my face.”

  Straight ahead it was. I pushed the door open another few inches, and more stale air rushed out. I covered my mouth and nose with the sleeve of my jacket, getting a mouthful of dust. I hated when that happened. There hadn’t been an airtight seal around the door, but that didn’t mean air was flowing smoothly—not down here.

  I took the sleeve of my stolen jacket away and carefully inhaled. The strange scent wasn’t poisonous gas or anything dangerous like that, more like a rot I couldn’t place hanging on the stale air. Goose bumps rose along my arms, but, as Artemis had said, there was nothing I identified as overtly dangerous.

  Artemis nodded at the now-open door, the one I was standing in front of like a scared undergrad. “Shall you or shall I?” he asked.

  I shouldn’t be scared; there was nothing concrete to be scared of . . . then why the hell couldn’t I shake the feeling? “Still no sense of anything?”

  This time he turned in his pensive look for a smile. “No,” he said, and bracing against the stone wall loomed over me. I gave him about as dirty a look as I could muster. He was probably enjoying the fact that he could tell I was scared. “And to be honest, that has me even more worried. Still, there’s nowhere to go now but forward.”

  He pushed the door. Its iron hinges creaked in protest, but it swung open wide.

  I wrapped the sleeves of my stolen jacket around my hands to hide how much they were shaking as I aimed the flashlight through.

  A long stone hall with a low ceiling carved out of the rock, only six feet high or so, stretched out in front of us. The floors, made of the same carved stone tiles that lined the upper levels of the prison, were covered with a thick layer of dust, one that hadn’t been disturbed in well over a hundred years—not until now.

  I slowly let out the breath I’d been holding as my heightened nerves acclimatized to the idea that there wasn’t a monster on the other side waiting to eat me.

  Slowly I started down the silent hall, watching my footing on the uneven stones.

  “So how does this dungeon rate on the tomb-raiding scale? One star for tame, five for terrifying, or ten for certifiable? Potential off-the-beaten-track travelers are dying to know.”

  “Either finish telling me about the pirates or keep quiet while the archaeologist in the hall works. And you can start with how you got the locals to talk.” I’d tried and been met with derision and more than a few chastising stares.

  He gave me a terse, insincere smile. “I have a charming face and demeanor little old ladies love.”

  Probably used his powers . . .

  I shivered, thinking about Artemis turning his green incubus eyes at the defenseless old ladies.

  “Contrary to popular belief, I don’t spend my time flashing my powers around. Not when a simple solution will do. Do you have any idea how few people pay the elderly any mind at all? Why the hell bother using my powers when showing a simple interest in their stories will do?”

  I didn’t answer him; I didn’t want to. I was familiar with Artemis at his worst.

  “Point is, they were more than happy to share. Now, I’m not familiar with all the names and language nuances, but apparently the caverns under this mountain were the last major stronghold of a minor Incan kingdom. One of the ladies even bragged about being one of their blood descendants—” He trailed off, and I could have sworn his nostrils flared. I knew Artemis’s sense of smell was much stronger than a human’s, but I’d never noticed him using it quite like that.

  “What?”

  He shook his head, snapping out of it. “Honestly? Don’t know,” he said. “It doesn’t smell right, but not entirely wrong either. Not yet, anyway, which is why I suggest we get on with this. Now where was I? Ah, yes—the local Incans. Apparently they didn’t need the conquistadors to help their little kingdom hasten itself towards ruin. That happened when the local priests started sacrificing too many of their flock, who decided that they’d rather not—”

  “Get to the point.” Again, it was nothing I didn’t already know. Contrary to popular belief, human sacrifice wasn’t nearly as big of a hit with the local Incan peasant populations as the history books make it out to be. Oh sure, it’s interesting to watch when you’re sacrificing criminals and prisoners of war, but when the priests turn on the locals? Oddly enough, I’d argue that despite their reputation, the European Christians were much more prone to human sacrifice than the South American civilizations ever were—witch trials and Inquisition, anyone? Torturing people to death to appease your God is the same regardless of what religion you ascribe to.

  Artemis made a face at me over his shoulder. “Well, one of their witch-priests—a young one not nearly as well versed in magic as she should have been—decided to cast a spell as a last act of defiance before the locals overran this temple. Probably wasn’t planning on cursing or killing anyone; probably meant to protect the place or weed out her enemies, but like most every other time supernatural magic gets in the hands of humans, things went horribly, horribly wrong.”

  If it even worked. “So what? Magic explosion?”

  Artemis shook his head. “Nothing so drastic. In fact, after a bit of wind whirling around the woman, everyone figured that the spell had failed; the peasants won the fortress and promptly set about punishing the priests, priestesses, and the rest of the ruling class.” He glanced back at me. “I wonder what it feels like to have the tables turned like that? To go from spectator to sacrificial lamb? Can’t imagine it’s a pleasant contemplation while your innards are being spilled over a holy rock.”

  “Still not hearing anything about a curse,” I said. I could see where the lamp casings had been left mounted on the wall along with odds and ends: buckets, tools with the untreated wood more or less rotted off. People had obviously left here in a hurry.

  “I’m getting to it.”

  “You’re telling a story,” I said as I examined a doorway to my left. A quick pass showed it had been used for storage, not as a cell. If the map was right, I still had a way to go before we reached the cell wings.

  “For context,” Artemis continued. “Something you woefully ignore. Now, according to the half-cut little old biddies, no one knew there was anything wrong, least of all the peasants who took over the place. They sacrificed a few hearts, locked the priests and priestesses in this very dungeon into which we’re descending. It wasn’t until the priests and nobility who had been entombed alive started dying from dehydration and starvation that the warnings began.”

&nbs
p; Before I could stop him Artemis took my flashlight and shone it on his own face, giving it a sinister glow. “Moaning and shrieking in the middle of the night, rattling of chains and bones in the corridors.”

  I snatched my flashlight back. “They must have checked.”

  “That’s the interesting part. No one who went to check on the priests and priestesses ever returned. Though they did find the odd human bones washed up below the cliffs, covered in human tooth marks, bone marrow removed.”

  I waited for more, but apparently Artemis’s recounting of his dalliance with the local knitting club was over. “And that’s it? It sounds like an old wives’ tale, no pun intended.”

  “Maybe,” he said with a shrug. “But you know more than most that there’s often a bit of truth to the old legends that survive for centuries—especially the ones that march out ancient curses, misused magic, and monsters.”

  Yeah, yeah. I was an outright expert on how to stumble into a curse, a recent feat I hoped never to repeat. The problem was, besides the reported hauntings, the gates, and Artemis’s tale, there was no sign of anything supernatural here. No markings, no scent of blood, no magic-laced scriptures. Just centuries of superstitions, and those tended to feed themselves.

  I wrested control over my misgivings and pushed away the chill that flooded my senses as I continued down the hall. Ever since the disaster in Shangri-La I’d been jumpy, more paranoid. It came on in waves, taking over and sending me into a panic, but usually never amounted to anything more than an empty corner or shadow. I couldn’t trust my senses and hunches right now—not entirely. I needed proof, not Artemis’s stories.

  “Oh, I have no doubt something horrible happened here.” Kill that many people, even with only remnants of ritual magics disguised as religion, and you were bound to have some kind of magical misfire. “My problem is, if this place is cursed, then how the hell didn’t the conquistadors and Spanish only ever tell the odd ghost story? They ran this part of the prison for almost three centuries. And for that matter, why no stories amongst the pirates? They loved that kind of stuff, especially once they got into their rum. Ravenous undead Incan priests or priestesses that devoured bones? I mean, that’s hard to miss.”

  Artemis inclined his head. “Magic is sometimes tricky,” he said, stealing back the flashlight and angling it up ahead where the hall curved to the left before handing it back. “Sometimes magic waits until the most inopportune moment to wreak havoc. It leans towards chaos, a bit of a bitch like that and not unlike supernaturals.”

  “Some of you, anyway.” I noticed the dust had changed from gray to a white crystallized powder. I moved it with my toe, then collected it between my fingers. Salt. I wondered how that had gotten in here.

  “All of us are—we’re an affront to nature. Some of us are just better at hiding it. Me? I prefer to be more honest in my dealings with humans.”

  We reached the corner and stopped to inspect what we hadn’t been able to see a moment before. It was a narrower hall with a lower ceiling—not enough to force either of us to hunch over, but I imagined it would have been claustrophobia-inducing in a prison population who’d never see a glimpse of sunlight again. It wasn’t in nearly as good a condition as the hall we’d entered through. A cursory look showed a number of collapsed wooden beams blocking the way, but nothing that indicated structural concerns. Unlike the walls in the upper levels, these hadn’t been so much built as dug out of the cliffs that lined the ocean town, then reinforced with the odd arch of masonry and wood. The corridor itself stretched farther than the flashlight could illuminate—as did the cells that lined the long corridor walls, a mix of what looked like Latin and Spanish carved into the stone around them.

  Cautiously, I approached the first set of collapsed beams. Rotted through, despite its being unusually dry down here. Maybe the water had managed to wind its way in . . .

  “Termites,” Artemis opined.

  When I frowned, he added, “The collapsed beams. Live a few hundred years without any pesticides or other insect repellents, and you get very familiar with the pests of humanity.”

  “Takes one to know one.”

  Artemis gave me a terse smile. “Will you do the honors, or shall I?”

  I crawled under the beams and made my way to the first cell. Its wooden door had been treated with creosote and reinforced with thick slats of iron that were large enough to prevent anyone inside leaving. Ever. They were still solid even if they’d rusted along the edges.

  Carved into the adjacent wall were names and dates, and the wood itself had been branded with a number one. Checking the surrounding wall, I hovered my light over a series of much older carvings, Incan, a series of murals carved into the length of the hall, worn by the years but the details still visible, albeit interrupted by broken and worn tiles—a progression of slabs with people lying prostrate in various poses, detailing an ominous progression: sacrifice. Out of all the artwork that could have survived . . .

  I glanced back at Artemis with a questioning look. He caught on and sniffed at the air, his nostrils flaring and his lips parting much like a cat’s. When he was done, he shrugged. “A little more carbon monoxide than I like, and a higher number of particles and dust particulates than at the entrance—molds, bacteria.” He shrugged again. “Not pleasant to breathe but nothing that will outright kill you—quickly. Still no magic I can sense,” he said.

  That would have to do.

  It was time to see what was behind door number one. I stood on my tiptoes in the too-large boots and shone the flashlight through the small grate.

  Stone, dust, shackles—I sucked in a sharp breath as my flashlight fell on something white.

  “What?” Artemis said, tensing behind me.

  I shook my head. Son of a bitch, it wasn’t even moving, not even a rodent, or a gust of wind to give me an excuse . . . “It’s just a skeleton—hey!”

  Artemis took my flashlight and angled it back into the cell for his own look. “Well, will you look at that? I wonder who this poor fellow was?” he said.

  I checked the carving in the stone outside the door. “Diego de Santiago,” I said, reading the name off. “They even bothered listing his crimes: pillaging, rape, stealing from the Crown—pretty well what you’d expect from a pirate.”

  “Well, hopefully it was a long, fun-filled run, because from the looks of it so was his imprisonment.”

  I took the flashlight back and looked into the cell. Artemis was right; it looked as though he’d starved to death, shackled to the wall . . . no shoes, the bones of bowed legs visible through what was left of his pants—burlap that had crumbled away into dust, probably bag scraps fashioned into pants after the original pair he’d entered with had rotted. The bowed legs were common enough for the times. Before the early 1900s, rickets had been a European epidemic in the lower classes, the malnutrition and lack of vitamin D inherent from city living. Whatever shirt he’d had—if he’d been given the dignity of a shirt—was long gone.

  There was only one set of shackles in the seven-by-seven-foot cell. He’d been confined in here by himself—left to either waste away from lack of food and water or to die of loneliness. “Guess the prison guards weren’t worried about wasting space,” I said. I noticed the scratches in the sandstone: days counted, years’ worth from the sheer number. I couldn’t help wondering when he’d given up carving them.

  “Or more likely ran out of space in their rush to catch pirates—they did love their gold and bullion.”

  He took the flashlight from me again and aimed it at the far wall. “See?”

  Sure enough, fixed into the sandstone amongst the familiar four lines with a fifth dashed through were the old bolt holes and grooves where storage shelves had likely once been.

  I shuddered. It was sad, pitiable, morbid, whatever description you could come up with. But this wasn’t the pirate I was looking for.

  The Mad Hatter, also known as Timid Jack, had been English, not Spanish. I turned to the next cell,
then the next, checking the names carved into the walls beside the doors. None of them were Timid Jack’s.

  Beyond more fallen beams, there looked to be another set of cells and what looked like another hall, likely leading to more cells.

  The space between the beams and the floor was too tight to crawl over or under this time; I’d have to move them—but if the Mad Hatter were still here, along with his pendant, it’d be past here.

  Artemis brushed his hands over one of the beams. “And wood rot.” He turned his light on the ceiling, examining where the wood had been fixed. “Probably added this near the end, when the place fell into disuse. Didn’t know enough to use tar to preserve and temper it. See how the edges began to crumble around the original arches? If that had happened earlier, the stonemasons would have been brought in to fix it properly. No, this was done by peasants.”

  By that point I’ll bet no one remembered what the prison had been used for—and I doubt any prisoners left alive would have been sane enough to tell them.

  The fact that Artemis could speculate on the decline of this place was not what I expected from him and a far sight removed from the debauched rock star image he’d cultivated—or the reckless, dangerous incubus . . .

  “You forget,” he said, “I’m the kind of supernatural who gets a good seat when Rome starts to burn. You start to recognize the signs. The little and big.”

  That figured. Carefully I tested what was left of the rotten wood beams, checking to see how fragile they were, while Artemis leaned against the wall and watched. As I pushed, one of the beams gave a little, sending a shower of sandstone down, but otherwise the ceiling and walls held.

  Something occurred to me regarding Artemis’s motivation, Lady Siyu aside. “Is that what you’re doing here?” I asked as one of the beams groaned as it loosened. “Getting a good seat so you can watch the supernatural world burn down?”