Owl and the Tiger Thieves

by Kristi Charish

  Oh, how things had changed for the Illuminati—it’s amazing the intoxicating effect immortality has on people. Power was transferred from the politically inclined to supernatural pursuits, and the organization’s very own inquisition of a sort began. All through Europe tomes were written on the supernaturals: dissections, diet analyses, catalogues of powers—everything from basic biology to more macabre questions was addressed, such as whether a severed limb or a removed tooth would grow back.

  And da Vinci’s work had been the linchpin of all of that.

  If not for him, we wouldn’t know nearly as much about the supernatural and magic as we do today.

  But that didn’t make it nice—intentional on da Vinci’s part or not.

  I found myself focusing on the earlier entries, while he’d still been sane enough to write and still held hope of finding himself a cure. The more I read, the more I was inclined to believe I’d done da Vinci a favor.

  I paused over the last sentence—the one pertaining to the device I’d taken, the one about da Vinci’s dealings with the Tiger Thieves.

  The Tiger Thieves are still reluctant to help me with my experiments; even though our goals for bringing the supernaturals in check are one and the same, they take issue with my methods. Science scares them, I imagine, though perhaps it is my mix of the scientific with the supernatural that turns them away. I wouldn’t be surprised, not with their particular lineages. Nevertheless, I am certain they know more about creating an elixir of youth and immortality than they are revealing.

  I have high hopes my new device will change their minds. Though I am not done testing all the variables, my calculations and models lead me to believe that when finished, it will have the ability to drain the powers of any supernatural caught in its radius. Now, clearly there is the potential for abuse as well as productive use; however, I will know more when I can determine whether the effects are permanent or temporary. I have proposed to my associates in the Illuminati that we attempt the first tests on the more aggressive and less cooperative of the supernaturals—perhaps a cemetery ghoul or a goblin, or perhaps even a vampire if one can be found.

  I went cold. That was the device da Vinci had been talking about—that’s what it did, stole the powers of supernaturals. But it hadn’t sounded as though the Tiger Thieves had been interested.

  I pulled out the silver ball. So small—and, to judge from the blueprints, so broken . . . I went back to the notebook, skimming the pages to find out if da Vinci had ever gotten it to work.

  We ran the first set of experiments yesterday on a cemetery ghoul, baited to cross our path with a freshly dug grave and plague-ridden body, as they prefer diseased flesh over pure. Unfortunately, the experiment was a success—too much of a success, I am afraid. Rather than weakening the ghoul, the device entrapped it, reducing it to a pile of dust in moments. I suspect it is an issue with the strength of the settings, and though the Illuminati are pleased, I am reluctant to make more devices until I am certain about the strengths. I considered showing the device to the Tiger Thieves but am reluctant; I fear a ghoul reduced to dust will be a deterrent to their cooperation. My own health has been deteriorating as of late, and I am unwilling to risk alienating them more than I already have with my demands for help with the elixir. On a bright note, after the unfortunate incident with the ghoul, it appears that my latest elixir has given my health minor improvements. Less convalescing this morning. I am optimistic to look at the formula once again and see if there is room for improvement.

  I flipped through the next few entries to see what had happened, but they were more about da Vinci’s attempts with the elixir. One thing was for certain: he had been getting more desperate with each passing day.

  Still, I couldn’t get the device out of my head. What if he’d gotten it working? What if I could use it to bargain with the Tiger Thieves?

  What if I could use it on Rynn?

  A cold shiver followed the thought. On the one hand, if it could save him, I’d be willing to try just about anything—on the other, da Vinci hadn’t said whether he’d managed to get the issue of killing the target fixed; nowhere in the rest of his journal was there another mention of the device, only his attempts with the elixir.

  Fantastic.

  I’d always considered da Vinci a voluntary participant in the Illuminati’s pursuit of the supernatural and immortality, complicit in any pain or questionable tactics he’d inflicted on some of the more harmless supernaturals—but the journal raised doubts about that.

  His intention to protect people from dangerous supernatural creatures with tools, not weapons, had been sincere, though his own struggle with immortality seems to have shaken his resolve on that. Eventually.

  It was sad to see the change on the pages as da Vinci faced his own declining health. I turned to Captain, who was still curled up behind my laptop. “What do you think, Captain? Was da Vinci weak, or would anybody faced with the same challenges have made the same choices?” Including me, I added silently.

  “He was naive.”

  Goddamn it! I turned, scaring Captain out of his spot. “Do you have to sneak up on me?”

  Artemis shrugged, lounging against the door frame between our adjoining rooms. The invisibility act was starting to piss me off.

  “And it won’t work, you know.”

  “What won’t work?”

  “Whatever it is you’re obsessing about. I’m not a mind reader.”

  “Then how do you know it won’t work?”

  “I don’t, but you do—or your skeptical brain does. That you don’t want to listen to your own common sense is your problem, not mine.” He took a seat on the corduroy chair, and with the jingle of metal his boots were on the coffee table. “Well, what is the link? Between da Vinci and the Tiger Thieves. Show me what that infamous archaeological mind can do.”

  I was tempted to tell him to go to hell, that I’d been at it three hours, but I didn’t think it would have the effect I wanted.

  I shrugged. “Da Vinci was in business with them before he turned himself into that vampire thing. He claims he used to provide the Tiger Thieves with weapons, except after he turned himself into a monstrosity they stopped returning his phone calls. Not exactly what I’d call long-term friends.”

  “What about the device?” The way he said it was nonchalant, but I could have sworn there was tension behind the words. The glance I caught confirmed it.

  Tread carefully, Owl . . .

  “He said it didn’t work.” I held up the two halves of the sphere. “Just another broken piece of equipment.” I shrugged, doing my best to return Artemis’s detached affectation. “I grabbed it because he rambled on about it killing a vampire. You can never have too many vampire repellents in my book.”

  Artemis glanced up at me but didn’t pursue the topic. Whether I’d satiated his curiosity or he was choosing his moments, I didn’t know.

  “So the thieves felt no responsibility for da Vinci’s predicament?”

  “I got the distinct impression that giving him the cold shoulder had more to do with the morality of his elixir—that and his ramblings that the Tiger Thieves were responsible.” I opened da Vinci’s red journal and flipped through it until I found the pages that detailed the elixir. “Nymph, vampire, even used troll and incubus blood.”

  “That’s madness.”

  I inclined my head. “Or genius. It’s not a horrible idea, like trying to inoculate yourself with a disease, only in this case the disease was death and he ended up with a round of symptoms he never bargained for.”

  “So he found the cure for mortality?”

  I thought back to da Vinci and his corpse. “If you call that a cure from dying.” I sure as hell didn’t. “Oh, and he claims that the Tiger Thieves aren’t human.”

  Silence descended between us. Finally I said, “Your turn—spill. What is it you know about the Tiger Thieves?”

  Artemis glanced up and made a tsking noise. “What do I know? Well, for starters, the
Tiger Thieves are not supernatural. They’re of supernatural design; they even smell and taste a bit of magic but not supernatural.”

  “But if they’re not human—” I started.

  “Then they’re something different than supernatural,” Artemis said carefully.

  “Well, regardless of what they are, this journal, the notes, the amulets. I still have no idea how they all fit together.” I held open the book. What I wouldn’t give for Nadya, even Carpe—though the pain that second thought brought made me wince.

  Artemis sighed. “Here, give me the notes.”

  What did I have to lose? I passed him the notebook with the metallic lines that matched the amulets.

  “It’s as if he’s trying to work through a decoding himself. They’re familiar, but the way he’s arranged them—” Artemis snapped his fingers. “I know what these are. Give me your necklace.”

  God, I hoped I wasn’t making a mistake. Then again, if he really wanted it, he could probably steal it from me. I handed the two Tiger Thief pendants over.

  Artemis placed them on the paper from da Vinci’s collection that was decorated with similar gold markings, then held his wrist over them. He took a guitar pick from his pocket and made a small cut in the skin. “The Tiger Thieves were never supernatural, but they share our magic. They don’t like us, but still, it takes a supernatural—willing or unwilling—to uncover some of their secrets.”

  A drop of blood fell from his wrist onto the first pendant, followed by the second. It spread onto the page, running over the smooth gold lines. I waited. It didn’t take long. The blood sparked as the lines on the page started to expand, crawling over the gold lines as if filling in the blanks. Blood started to collect on the second pendant and run onto the page. Those rivulets added to a different set of blanks.

  “See?” Artemis said.

  The drawing was part of a larger picture, and the pendants were keys to filling it in. The question was, what kind of larger picture? Despite the fact that the lines were more filled in, I still had no better sense of what the hell I was looking at. “What is it? A code, a picture?”

  Artemis offered me a sly smile. “A map. See these lines that run parallel to the page—and these that run vertical?”

  Faintly crisscrossed amongst the less constrained parts of the design was a series of more structured vertical and horizontal lines. “They’re not evenly enough spaced to designate latitude and longitude—not in a conventional sense,” I said dubiously.

  “You’re thinking like someone from the twenty-first century—GPS coordinates, distances, and map positions. The trick isn’t getting a location, it’s getting the route. Once you’re on the path? Well, the Thieves find you, not the other way around. It’s always worked like that.” He pointed to a pair of narrowly spaced lines. “This means easy terrain, most likely a desert—followed by rougher terrain,” he said, pointing to the next set.

  I frowned at the next vertical line—though it ran parallel to the side of the page, it wavered, going from thin to bold.

  “Water, most likely—large, considering the next two lines are the same. A sea—maybe the Red or Mediterranean. Hard to say, though, without a starting point.”

  Five hundred years ago, I imagine, it wouldn’t have been much of a conundrum; people didn’t have the global mobility they have now, not even the supernaturals. I took the book back from Artemis and began flipping through the rest of the large pages.

  “What are you looking for?” he asked.

  “Leonardo da Vinci was one of the greatest minds the world has ever known. If anyone could figure out the starting point, it would be him.” I couldn’t help but sigh, though, as I turned over the workbook pages. It was going to take me a while to start making heads or tails of this. And right now I needed to clear my head.

  I shoved the book at Artemis. “Here, see if you can make anything of the location.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To get some fresh air.” I headed to the balcony overlooking the alley and stepped outside. Captain followed me, scenting the air for prey—of the vampire or rodent variety. For a moment I stared at the buildings and the skyline, wondering what the hell I was going to do. A map was one thing, but a bunch of lines on a page? Riddles and more riddles. The more clues I uncovered, the further away the Tiger Thieves seemed. Da Vinci had driven himself irrevocably mad chasing after the Tiger Thieves. I was starting to think I was heading down the same path.

  Captain’s bleat brought me out of my rabbit hole of thoughts. He had hopped onto the rail and was staring at the rooftops of the adjacent buildings—a church, I supposed from the cross, though that might have been just a decoration. I narrowed my eyes at a glint of metal I thought I saw, reflected in the lamp and moonlight. Someone was on its roof.

  With my luck it’d be one of Rynn’s mercenaries.

  Captain bleated. I grabbed him, crouched down behind the balcony, and waited.

  Nothing happened. There was no more reflection, and I didn’t see any more signs of a spy.

  Captain continued to search the air with his nose but didn’t make any more sound. I kept my sight on the roof. Someone—or something—had been there . . .

  “What happened?”

  I swore and just about peed myself. Artemis had sneaked up behind me and was standing on the balcony.

  I glanced back at the roof. There was nothing there. I shook my head. “No idea.” And whatever or whoever I’d seen was gone now.

  He stepped to the edge and scanned the rooftops, but if he saw anything, he didn’t say, only stepped inside after me, locked the door, and closed the drapes.

  “Keep the lights off and these closed, at least until morning,” he said.

  “What was it?”

  He gave me a last glance over his shoulder and shrugged. “As far as supernaturals go? Your guess is as good as mine; they put themselves downwind. I don’t imagine they’ll give you any trouble though, otherwise you’d be dead already.” He turned to head back to his room.

  If he didn’t know who was out there, I’d—well—not drink for a week. Okay, maybe a day, possibly two. “Artemis, if you know who was just out there—”

  He stopped, his hand on the door handle. “There’s a thought that’s been crossing my mind, a problem, one I’m certain you haven’t even begun to contemplate.”

  Reflexively my hands clenched by my sides. I had a good idea of what was coming as I saw his eyes drift towards my desk, where the pendants and the device laid. “What’s that?”

  “That despite the incredibly remote chances, you need to consider the consequences of succeeding.”

  The face I made must have shown my confusion, because he added, “Let’s say that against all odds you get that device to work or you manage to get the Tiger Thieves to help you and Rynn comes out alive.”

  Engaging was a bad idea. Artemis was manipulative. I swore silently in my head. I couldn’t help myself. “Everyone gets out alive and lives happily ever after?”

  He offered me a sad smile, with none of his usual cruelty or sarcasm. “Ah—human fairy tales. Always thought they were quaint. My point is this: fairy tales always leave out the aftermath, such as whether you’ll be able to live with what you’ll have to do to succeed—no, on second thought, I think you’ll have no problem living with what you need to do, provided you get Rynn out of that suit—you and I really aren’t cut from that different a cloth in that regard. Rynn, on the other hand—” He tsked. “My cousin can forgive a lot. He’s better than the rest of us that way, but don’t kid yourself, Hiboux. You save him, and you just might lose him forever. Think about that—and sweet dreams.”

  With that he slammed the door between our rooms shut.

  It took me to the count of three to unclench my fists as I stared at the door. Then I headed back to my computer, where Captain was waiting for me. Artemis was manipulating me. The problem with a good manipulator is that he excels at believability.

  I did wonder about ho
w sure Artemis had sounded—and what he knew about Rynn’s past that I didn’t.

  The Tiger Thieves pendants were out on the room desk, alongside da Vinci’s broken silver ball, all so deceptively harmless. Dangerous? Maybe, but I’d rather have two birds in the hand than one. I just hoped I hadn’t ended up with two very dead ends of different carcasses.

  Captain mewed from behind my laptop, and I patted him. “Don’t worry, I’m not sympathizing with the devil. I’m just wondering what the story is.” He started to purr.

  I checked my email. Silence from everyone—Nadya, Oricho, Lady Siyu—though silence from Lady Siyu might be a blessing in disguise.

  My stomach started to grumble, reminding me that I’d had nothing to eat. Beer might have calories and coffee caffeine, but I was close to running on empty.

  I picked up the phone and called room service, ordering pizza off the evening menu—when in Italy . . . I even added beer to the mix.

  I sat back down to continue researching the Illuminati. About fifteen minutes later there was a tentative knock at my door.

  Room service was prompter than I expected. I got up to answer, Captain close on my heels. “The food’s not for you,” I told him. Still he sat back on his haunches like a begging prairie dog, waiting in anticipation. I shook my head. Captain and his nose for food, which I could now smell under the door.

  Regardless, I checked through the peephole. There was a silver tray on a cart and a young man wearing a bored expression pushing the cart. I opened the door just as Captain bleated.

  Two men who’d been hiding on the other side of the door, both of slight build and wearing hoodies, pushed their way past the confused and dazed waiter. I picked up the faint scent of forest leaves and grass.