Owl and the Tiger Thieves

by Kristi Charish

  The jeep jolted violently and came to a shuddering stop.

  My headache revolted, and I swore. “What the hell was that?” I asked when I’d recovered from the shaking.

  “Pothole.” Artemis hopped out and checked the wheels. “Bad one. Will you find a stick? Something thick enough to get the wheel out.”

  I hopped out on shaky legs and searched the nearby underbrush for a stick the right size. I found a watered log that on further inspection hadn’t reached crumbling stage—yet. I maneuvered myself around a low-lying branch and pushed the leaves out of my way, only to yelp at the stick bug that had made the branches its home.

  “You know, it’s much more frightened of you, the giant loud thing stomping through the forest that might eat it,” Artemis called out.

  “I’m not going to eat the bug.” I pulled the small log out of the mud and returned it to Artemis, who wedged it under the wheel.

  “No, but from its perspective and life experiences, it’s a reasonable assumption.”

  At my expression he added, “Fine, then it’s terrified that your cat is about to eat it—and rightly so.”

  I swore and turned in time to see Captain batting at the unfortunate bug, which was scrambling to escape into the branches. My cat was mesmerized by its leaflike movements. I grabbed him as he snapped at the bug. “Knock it off,” I said. “The last thing I need is you puking by poisonous bug.”

  Captain let out a mew, letting me know just how much he disagreed with that statement.

  I set him down on the ground before shooing him away. There were fewer bugs there.

  “Better hope he doesn’t find one of the leeches.”

  “Leeches live in water,” I said.

  “Not here they don’t—land leeches.” With a grunt Artemis wedged the small log under the wheel and, putting his back into it, eased the jeep’s wheel out of the hole.

  Of course. The Tiger Thieves had chosen a humid, tropical jungle for their hideout. There had to be land leeches . . .

  I think it was probably my imagination, but I could have sworn I saw something black and slick in the low-lying brush leaves. I peered into the green foliage, but on second look there was nothing there.

  “What was it the Gorgon was talking about?” I asked Artemis. “When she said ‘last time’?”

  Artemis lifted an eyebrow. “Something that happened a long time ago.” He shot a furtive glance at the forest around us. I realized that he’d been doing that since I’d woken up. My spidey sense went on edge. Captain seemed to notice it too as he sniffed the air.

  What the hell did Artemis have up his sleeve? “I’d like to hear about it,” I told him, not leaving room for argument.

  Artemis started the jeep’s engine back up. “And I don’t want to discuss it.”

  I slid my hand back into my pocket and closed my fingers around the device. “You mistook that for a request. I assure you it wasn’t.”

  Artemis shut the jeep back off. His eyes were cruel as he fixed them back on me.

  Oh man, I hoped this wasn’t where he tried to stab me in the back . . . “Why are we stopping?”

  Artemis turned his cruel eyes on me. “How certain are you that my cousin is still in there?”

  I went cold. “He’s trapped—”

  “He’s being controlled,” Artemis interrupted me. “He almost killed you that time, didn’t he?” He snorted. “Don’t bother answering that. You already have.”

  An odd, icy chill formed in my chest, and I clenched the device tighter in my fist. “You want me to admit I was wrong?”

  Artemis shook his head. “I wanted to point out that there are other ways to torture someone than beating her up. Offering hope is one of the most effective.”

  I couldn’t stop the anger welling up inside me. “He’s in there.”

  Artemis shook his head. “And you just made my point for me.” He set his eyes back on the road. “Just think how much more it will hurt if you find yourself wrong, if the Tiger Thieves can’t or won’t help you. How much more tempted will you be to use that, just like you were with the vampires. Your weakness is your desperation.”

  The cold pit grew. The problem with hope is that it’s a double-edged sword. It can either make you crumble or drive you to do great things—especially for those you care about.

  Rynn was still in there. I was certain of it.

  “I’m not the one you need to be afraid of,” Artemis continued. “I’m trying to help you!”

  That hit a nerve. “Bullshit. The only thing you’re doing is waiting to stab me in the back, just like you did in LA!”

  “Oh, for—” For a moment I didn’t think he was going to say anything more, then, “Not that it matters now, but I was doing exactly what my illustrious cousin requested I do.”

  I was floored. “There is no way—”

  “Didn’t tell you, did he? Not exactly the way he suggested that things unfurl, mind you, but now that he’s incapacitated I don’t see any harm. I was spying. For him and Mr. Kurosawa.”

  I clenched the device even tighter. There was no way . . . “You’re lying,” I said, my voice low.

  Artemis flashed me a sardonic grin and clapped. “They didn’t tell you, did they? I was told to find out exactly how deep some of the supernaturals were into overthrowing the status quo—Nicodemous in particular. Rynn was quite upset about the whole wraith thing. Not that I had much of a choice; it was that or get nothing. Though, in retrospect, I think Rynn was more furious that I didn’t find out more about the plans that had been set in motion. Ow!” Artemis doubled over as I slugged him in the gut.

  “Take it back,” I said. Okay, part of me was disappointed that I’d resorted to violence that quickly. Then again, my threshold barrier to violence had greatly diminished over the last year.

  “What are you, five?”

  I clenched my fists by my sides and vowed not to hit him again—or at least try not to.

  “Don’t you throw your temper tantrum at me. I’m not the one who said to do whatever it takes to find out what the other side is doing. You have my cousin and Mr. Kurosawa to thank for that, and if you’re looking for someone to level blame at, try my cousin; it was his idea.” Artemis gave me a look of pure hate. “He’s more than happy to banish me from his sight until he needs a spy; then he has no problem calling me up. You should think about that: what kind of person sneers in disgust at a spy or thief for what he does but has no problem using him to do dirty work when need be? How does someone like that keep his conscience clean, do you imagine?”

  “Now who’s manipulating whom?”

  Artemis smiled. “I imagine he has no problem letting others whore themselves out to do the things he finds distasteful until he can no longer stand to look at them—funny, since from what I remember, someone told me it was you who had been calling him a whore. Funny how the tables get— Shit!” Artemis ducked as I launched the water bottle at his head. I was only slightly disappointed in myself. It was plastic.

  As opposed to getting angry, though, Artemis only smiled. “Funny thing, you wouldn’t be this angry if I didn’t have a point.”

  If there’s one thing I have learned over the past few months, it’s when to remove myself from a conversation entirely. I tried to leave. Artemis stepped in front of me, blocking my way. “Get out of my way,” I told him.

  “Gladly.”

  I stormed past him, not entirely certain where I was going to go. I hopped into the jeep and turned the key. The engine sputtered.

  I caught the glint of metal in Artemis’s hand as he held it up. “What is so damn important about this?” he said.

  Son of a bitch, he’d picked my pocket. I clenched my fists. “You saw what it does. It pulverizes vampires.”

  Artemis shook his head and made a tsking sound. “See, there’s where you’re good—better than Rynn gives you credit for. You aren’t lying, you’re just holding back—and not feeling a damn bit guilty about it. That’s what fooled me before.” He
tossed da Vinci’s device into the air and caught it. “What is it?”

  I clenched my teeth. “I told you.”

  “Fine. Since we won’t be running into any more vampires out here—” He wound up his arm as if he were about to launch a baseball.

  “No!” I lunged over the jeep door at him, but he danced out of my reach.

  “Spill, or I throw this device into the jungle and leave you here stranded. Trust me, you’ll never see it or me again—and good luck ever finding the Tiger Thieves without me.”

  I believed him. Even if I managed to retrieve the silver device and make it to the Tiger Thieves’ lair, I would be in no condition to barter with them. “I’m telling the truth, I don’t know—” I started.

  Artemis made another warning tsk and wound up his arm.

  “But the skin walker knew what it was. She was convinced it does more.” I gestured at the journal still on the seat. “Unfortunately, da Vinci was so mad by the time he started testing the device, he barely managed to keep the instructions coherent—or on the same page—or in the same goddamned language— Shit!”

  Artemis’s hand shot around my throat like a snake. He looked more furious than I’d ever seen him; all his sympathy—feigned or sincere—was gone. “You idiot!”

  “It works,” I managed. “You saw what it did to the vampires.”

  Artemis shook his head. “You may be fine playing games, Alix, but Rynn is not, and for that matter, neither am I.”

  “I think it can strip a supernatural’s power, okay?”

  My feet hit the ground hard as Artemis stepped back and let me go. I don’t know who was more shocked that I’d told him, me or him. He actually looked shell-shocked.

  “Are you out of your mind?” he demanded, spitting the words through his teeth.

  I rubbed my neck. “You saw what it did to those vampires. It’s a very powerful weapon. I’d be crazy not to keep it.”

  He stopped me. “You—you think this is about building an armory? It’s not just a weapon, Alix, it’s chaos—all packaged up in that tiny silver ball.”

  This time I managed to wrench the orb back—or he let me. “Stripping a few of you of your powers is hardly chaos—”

  “No, it’s genocide! Use that thing stuck between your ears that passes for a brain, and think. If a human has this, he can level the playing field, but if a supernatural has it?” His upper lip curled. “It would have power over the rest of us, it could make us do whatever it wanted. And the last person on this planet who needs that kind of power is my cousin.” He swore. “I wondered why the hell he’d taken up this chase. It’s not like him.”

  “He doesn’t know exactly what it is.” Neither did I, for that matter, not from da Vinci’s notes.

  Artemis snorted. “Thank God for small favors. Otherwise half the supernatural community would have your head on a pike.”

  “And I’m not even certain it will work. As far as I can tell, it’s broken. Da Vinci figured the same thing.”

  “The fact that any of da Vinci’s devices work is the problem, not the solution.”

  “I was hoping the Tiger Thieves might be able to shed some illumination, since they’re the ones who used to deal with supernatural and magical mayhem.”

  “Out of the fucking question!”

  “Why not? If they can’t defeat Rynn, maybe this can.”

  “Give me that,” he said, and made a grab for it, a determined look on his face I hadn’t seen before. I swore, but managed to dance out of the way and around the jeep. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “What I should have done when you first found it.”

  I feinted left but Artemis was on to me. He cut me off and managed to get ahold of me. We struggled as he tried to pry the device out of my hands. “I’m getting it out of your corruptible, thieving hands before you do something catastrophic. Nothing good ever came out of da Vinci’s devices. They work, and that’s half the problem. Do you have any idea how much blood is on his hands? Ow!”

  I bit him hard on the hand. It worked; he let go.

  “Why, you little—” The mark on his hand was already fading, but his anger wasn’t.

  “So what happens if the Tiger Thieves can’t do anything for Rynn?” I asked him. “That’s it? Leave Rynn in the suit and watch Rome burn—again?”

  I saw more raw anger in Artemis’s face than I’d ever seen. He balled his fists up at his sides and took a step towards me. “That was never—” He stopped as Captain jumped out to stand between him and me and let out a challenge. Artemis stopped—and recovered himself.

  “This isn’t sitting back and letting Rome burn. That could wipe out multiple species in a matter of months if placed in the wrong hands. It’d be genocide! You want to save Rynn and the world from his and the armor’s antics? Fine, just don’t complain when everything starts to burn and he blames you—yes, that’s right, you.” He snorted and threw up his hands. “Who am I kidding? You’ll be dead long before that—the next skin walker who crosses your path, or whatever else Rynn sends next. Good luck, Hiboux, you’re going to need it.”

  He grabbed his bag out of the jeep.

  “What about helping Oricho? What about your deal with him?”

  He shouldered his backpack and held up his hands. “Keys are in the ignition. At the end of this road you’ll find traces of a ruined city. I’m sure a Tiger Thief will find you wandering around. Just be yourself; you’ll probably ruin something.”

  “Artemis!” I shouted as he started down the poorly marked trail.

  “I’ve now gotten you to the Tiger Thieves’ doorstep. I’m done with this; I stop short of genocide. Pray my cousin doesn’t find you first.”

  I didn’t know if he was bluffing. Maybe he was ready to abandon me; maybe he was just blowing off steam. Maybe it was all manipulation.

  I didn’t get a chance to find out. A few feet away from the jeep, Artemis stopped dead in his tracks.

  “Are you coming or going?” I started, and stopped as Artemis raised both his hands slowly and gestured for me to do the same. Then I saw them. “You didn’t think we’d seriously be able to sneak into a secret society?” he asked through a forced grin aimed at our audience.

  I spotted more of them now—in amongst the foliage and trees, dressed not in military uniforms or camouflage but in clothing that blended into the green-and-brown background nonetheless. And they were far from smiling. They also had guns—pointed at us.

  Fantastic. This was going into the “how not to wake up from a hangover” handbook.

  I spotted Captain crouching in the jeep. I shook my head at him—his brown-and-white fur would camouflage him only in a snowy forest, if there.

  He wriggled his hind end before crouching down under a blanket—hopefully not in anticipation of his idea of a preemptive attack.

  “Why the hell do they look so hostile?” I whispered.

  Artemis inclined his head. “You get a lot of bandits through here. Better to be trigger-happy than dead.”

  Yet most of the guns were aimed at Artemis. “Seems to be more than that.”

  His upper lip twitched, ever so slightly. “We may have a bit of a history I failed to mention.”

  Goddamn it! I lifted my hands over the back of my head as one of them motioned for me to do so, then go stand beside Artemis. “You knew the Tiger Thieves were here, didn’t you?” I whispered.

  Artemis looked uncomfortable again, switching his attention between me and our audience, who were adjusting their guns and exchanging glances amongst themselves. “This was one of a few spots where they might have hidden themselves. I wasn’t certain until you found the map.”

  Oh, for the love of— Artemis hadn’t been screwing me over, he’d just been lying about how he was doing it. “And you’re just thinking of telling me all this now?”

  “Well, the time just never seemed right.”

  I started to back up, more to put distance between myself and Artemis than to retreat, but a kni
fe embedded itself into the ground before my feet point-first, halting any ideas I might have entertained of escaping in the jeep.

  A tall woman stepped forwards from underneath the dark green foliage. She wore a canvas army-surplus jacket over an off-white tank top—both worn but not threadbare—a pair of blue jeans, and a pair of black rubber boots that came up to her knees and had been designed for the rainy monsoon weather endemic to the region. She wouldn’t have looked out of place on a major city campus—blended into the background. Oddly enough, she didn’t really look out of place here either, except for the sword in her hand. Her hair was thick and black, loose around her neck, which was decorated with a thick gold choker, gemstones set into the metal in an ornate pattern. She could have easily been mistaken for a modern young Indian woman with international tastes as opposed to a member of an ancient group of assassins schooled in the supernatural—except for the bottomless black pits that masqueraded as her eyes, advertising, or maybe warning, that the bearer was darker and more dangerous than her face and appearance suggested.

  “Alix,” Artemis said, his tone careful, “let me introduce Shiva, resident queen of the Tiger Thieves. Shiva, may I present Alix Hiboux.”

  She gave Artemis a momentary appraisal, then turned a black liquid stare back on me. “The thief known as Owl,” she said.

  “Pleasure to make your acquaintance,” I started, but as others moved in, some wearing masks, some not looking entirely human at all, I got the impression it was anything but.

  “Why the hell do they look so pissed off?” I whispered.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Artemis replied as one of the Tiger Thieves grabbed his hands, wrenching them behind his back before securing them with rope.

  Oh shit. “There’s been a misunderstanding,” I said. “I’m not here to steal anything, I’m here for your help.” I raised my hands and backed up as two of the masked figures came towards me—right into a large, broad chest.

  “I don’t think they care, Alix,” Artemis called from where he was kneeling on the ground.

  Yeah, no kidding . . . I spotted a burlap hood in one of the men’s hands and a glass vial held by the other. Oh no . . . I raised both my hands. “You really don’t need to knock me out. I’ve had my fill of it, and there is a small chance I’ll just drop dead—oh, for fuck’s sake—”