Owl and the Japanese Circus

by Kristi Charish

  Hand on the door, Rynn spun around to face me. “And?”

  I closed my eyes. I hate having these kinds of personal talks. They only ever set you up to get totally screwed over or hurt. How bad did I want my friendship with Rynn?

  “You made me nervous the last time I was here. I didn’t know what to make of it, and personal conversations make me uncomfortable, so I did something stupid and decided to avoid you.” I ran my hand through my hair. “I’m a hell of a lot better with inconsequential conversations about vampires and RPGs,” I added, hazarding a look at him.

  He was still watching me and sizing me up from the doorway. Then he walked back to the outdoor bar and took the seat beside me. “All right,” he said.

  “We can go back to talking about RPGs and my vampire problems?” I said, maybe a little too hopefully.

  “No. We can have the conversation you didn’t want to have three months ago, and then I’ll decide whether I still want to be friends with you.”

  Ouch. All right. I maybe deserved that. I took a deep breath. “Fair enough.” There was no easy way to broach this; best to just blurt it out. “When you kissed me, was it a host/client thing?”

  “Why?”

  “Because as much as I’m totally OK paying you to talk about my problems—and trust me, it’s worth every penny—I don’t . . . want our client/host relationship to go that direction.” I bit my lower lip. “I’m sorry, Rynn, but it’s creepy. That’s my line in the sand.”

  I’d kept my eyes on the bar, but I glanced over at him now.

  He was watching me like a hawk. His face was unreadable. “If it wasn’t?”

  Another big breath. “That’s an entirely different can of worms. It’d be next to impossible not to have some feelings for you, considering how much I talk to you.”

  Rynn took a sip of his beer, his forehead knit in thought. “So just so we’re straight about everything, you disappearing for three months was because you liked me kissing you?”

  “OK, well, that’s paraphrasing, and cutting down an awful lot . . .”

  He held up his beer to stop me from babbling. “Yes or no?”

  He was going to make me say it. I swore under my breath. Rynn was really pushing me here. “Sort of—OK, more or less.”

  He sat back, staring at me as if I didn’t quite make sense to him but he was trying to figure it out. I had no idea what was going through his head. Then he leaned in towards me. I almost leaned in, part of me wanted to, but the price of playing this game was going to be way too high. I sat back. “Rynn. I can’t.”

  He sat back and crossed his arms. “Why not?” he said, not meeting my eyes.

  I didn’t answer. What was I going to say?

  “Owl, I work at a bar that caters to people’s dreams, and part of my job is to fulfill them—to a point.” He looked up at me with those dark blue eyes. “It doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings.”

  “I know you do.”

  He frowned. “That’s funny, because I’m getting the distinct impression you assume everything about me is a show.”

  I bit my lower lip. “Honest answer?”

  He inclined his head, and I took a much-needed swig of my beer. “Just that kiss.”

  Rynn’s frown deepened, and he let out a sharp breath through his nose. “So what? Someone like me can’t possibly have genuine feelings for someone?”

  I closed my eyes. This was exactly the part of this conversation I’d been dreading. “No. That’s not it at all. I know you care about me, and even though I pay to come in here and talk to you, I consider you a good friend.”

  “But.” It was a statement, not a question.

  I locked eyes. “I’m not in a spot where I can risk getting hurt by you. I’d rather keep you as a friend. If you haven’t noticed, I don’t have many.”

  The only thing I heard for a few minutes was the cacophony of traffic and voices from the street below and the bass drifting up from the club.

  “Rynn, can we please still be friends?”

  He watched me, unreadable as ever. For a moment I thought he was going to say no. Then he looked away.

  “We’re OK, Owl.” He slid off the chair and offered his hand. The relief on my face must have been obvious, because he put his arm around my shoulder and steered me back towards the door.

  “You know, you could have just said you weren’t interested. I think that might have been kinder.”

  “Yeah. I thought about it. But stacking little white lie upon little white lie is what usually gets me into trouble.”

  He inclined his head. “You do seem to have a habit for attracting trouble. What is this I hear about you evading your vampire problem?”

  Shit. Rynn had a natural knack for getting people to talk when they shouldn’t. “What did Nadya tell you?”

  He shrugged. “Surprisingly little.”

  I took a deep breath. “What if I told you I found someone—something—that can take care of my vampire problem?” And with that I filled him in on my run-in with Mr. Kurosawa, including the part about him being a dragon.

  He studied my face until I was done. “You’re right,” he said, shaking his head. “You should be locked up in a mental institution.”

  I smiled. Rynn’s voice had an amused tone to it. “So I finally found where your belief suspends itself. Dragons.”

  He glanced over at me before opening the sliding door, a single eyebrow arched. “Let’s just say regardless of what I think about the existence of dragons, it’s the part about you not knowing when to quit I find disturbing.”

  We headed back into the warmth and crowd of the club. When we reached the second floor, Rynn pulled me into a corner and up against him. His arm wrapped around the small of my back before I got over my surprise.

  “Rynn—” I said, warning in my voice.

  He leaned in and kissed me. It was as good as I remembered, and I couldn’t bring myself to push him away or otherwise stop him. This was not helping me get over my crush, but this close, his breath on my face and the smell of his cologne . . . I wrapped my fingers around his neck and kissed back.

  Rynn took it as encouragement. I gave out a little gasp as he moved on to my neck. I knew I should break it off, but it felt too good.

  After a few moments Rynn stopped kissing me, but he didn’t let go.

  “I figured I’d take one last chance to change your mind. I promise I won’t do that again until you ask me.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t in any condition to say anything. Damn, that was why I’d stayed away for three months. I remembered now.

  Rynn walked me back to the main room. Nadya saw me immediately and waved from the bar.

  “You coming back in before you leave Tokyo this time?” Rynn asked, almost as an afterthought.

  I shook my head, still recovering. “Ahhh, I don’t know—it depends on how things go tomorrow with a contact. Might have to hop on a plane fast.”

  He gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “Just let me know you’re alive this time.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that.” Rynn headed back into the crowd, and I rejoined Nadya.

  “How are you feeling?” Nadya asked as soon as I sat down.

  I shook my head. “Don’t want to talk about it.”

  Nadya patted me on the back. “My good deed is done then. You’re welcome. Old Russian saying—”

  “Let me guess. ‘Sometimes what your friend really needs is a good shove under a moving bus’?”

  She shrugged her coat on and shot me a smile. “More or less.”

  We headed outside in the drizzle. It was refreshing after the crowded Gaijin Cloud.

  At a stoplight I pulled my phone out to run over the Bali files I’d accumulated and noticed a new text message along with a new contact entry. I did a double take as I saw the name. Rynn.

  Remember. Call me.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Nadya frowned at me, and I held up my phone. “Rynn. I don’t know how, but he got into my cell phone,”
I said.

  Nadya’s smile turned into a Cheshire grin. I glared back. “Goddamn it, he could have asked,” I mumbled, and then it buzzed again.

  BTW, who’s Dragon Lady?

  I shook my head. Guess. New boss, sort of—I’ll fill you in later. In all honesty, I had no idea what I was going to do about Rynn. Things just seemed so much more confused and jumbled up than they had been a few hours ago. “Just when you think you know someone.”

  “Hmmm?” Nadya said.

  The stoplight turned green. “Never mind.” I looped my arm in hers. “Come on, I’ve got work to do.” If I was lucky, I’d get through cross-referencing the other Bali temple digs tonight. Fat chance I’d find anything, but it was worth a shot in case the International Archaeology Association had missed cleaning something out.

  Rynn had a point. If I didn’t find the scroll for Mr. Kurosawa, or at the very least make a damn good show of finding it, I’d be playing hide-and-seek in a dragon’s casino very soon.

  5

  BALI

  12:00 p.m., Space Station Deluxe, Tokyo

  I closed my eyes and leaned against the plush leather seat, my hangover threatening to push its way to the forefront again. After getting back from Gaijin Cloud last night, I’d fallen asleep on my computer and missed my alarm this morning. I’d woken up to Nadya swearing in Russian at ten to twelve before she pulled me out the door.

  Without coffee.

  Nadya and I sat in a booth tucked in the back of her bar, across from Nuroshi. Today his skin was particularly clammy, and he kept dabbing at his red, watering eyes. The only things off with my turnip analysis were his brown, stained teeth.

  Nadya argued with Nuroshi in Japanese across the blue lacquer tabletop, hopefully bringing down the price. Whereas Nadya wore a black tank top and designer jeans, I’d shown up in my student getup. Nuroshi, lecher that he was, was so distracted by Nadya’s cleavage that he kept giving things away. Little nuances, little twitches . . . he lied, that was a given, but today he was nervous, and that worried me.

  I was starting to think the morning had been a bad omen, warning me about the day ahead. I tapped the table as the arguing raised a notch. “Hey you two, quit it for a second.”

  Nuroshi dragged his eyes off Nadya’s chest and turned them on me. A strained smile crept onto his face, as if he’d just been made to swallow something unpleasant. I was not Nuroshi’s favorite person to deal with; I don’t play nice with lecherous cowards.

  “Owl,” he said, and glanced back at Nadya. “Ms. Aleyev and I were just discussing my . . . rate.”

  Nadya made a guttural noise in the back of her throat. “Go to hell,” she told him, and added something unpleasant-sounding in Russian. Nuroshi just smiled, flashing his brown teeth. “What Ms. Aleyev so eloquently puts is that we have been unable to come to an agreement that financially takes into consideration the risks of . . .” His red, watery eyes regarded me. “. . . associating with you.”

  “I got rid of the vampires,” I said.

  He laughed and started to stand. “Somehow, coming from you, I do not find that at all settling. Ms. Aleyev, Owl, I wish I could say it’s been a pleasure—”

  I cringed; I hate being on the wrong end of negotiations, and that was happening a lot lately. “I’ll double what I usually pay,” I said. Nadya made a frustrated noise beside me, but Nuroshi sat back down.

  “I’m listening,” he said. I slid a white piece of paper with the transcribed inscriptions of the egg’s carvings across the slick lacquered table. The less Nuroshi knew about the egg itself, the better. “Can you translate this?”

  Nuroshi examined the inscriptions. After a moment his eyes flicked up and he regarded my face as he weighed his answer. “Yes, but it will take time. I’m sorry to say I’m not familiar with this text. How old is it, and where did you find it?”

  “What, just because I had a vampire problem you figure I fell off the stupid truck? Just translate it.” I took a deep breath; now for the million-dollar request. “I also need to access an old student project online.”

  “I find that difficult to believe. All theses are public access. Call the university, you hardly need my services.”

  “Yeah, but I want the good stuff,” I said, sliding the thesis title page and bad PowerPoint image of the tablet, which I’d lifted off a video recording I’d seen, over to him. I watched him take the blown-up, pixilated screencap in his clammy, fat fingers. “I want everything there is on the dig site this came from.”

  He warily glanced up at me. Recognition and greed flickered across his face, as if I’d passed him a coveted Christmas present or a picture of Nadya. “Ahh, now I see. I can do you one better. I’m already familiar with the thesis it came from. This tablet,” he said, tapping the image, “is from a dig site in Bali, and the location will cost you.”

  I choked, and Nadya made a similar noise beside me. “Nuroshi, me paying more for the location is about as likely as you getting a job as a hostess.”

  His eyes narrowed, and he spit inches away from my feet. Then he leaned across the table and smiled. “Alix Hiboux may be the most infamous archaeology student to uncover something she shouldn’t have, but she is not the first or last.”

  The hairs on my neck bristled, but I kept my temper in check at the sound of my old name.

  His smile spread, and I clenched my fists under the table. “However, in Japan we prefer to bury things like this to save everyone’s face, not feed otherwise promising students to the proverbial wolves.”

  I folded my hands on the table and gave Nuroshi a smile, though I’d much rather have slugged him.

  After I’d been “dismissed” from academics and decided on my career change, I’d paid a bright young hacker to trash any and all digital records of my old existence he’d been able to find. As far as the powers that be were concerned, Alix Hiboux didn’t exist and never had, though I’m sure there are a handful of people at my old university to this day who claim otherwise, especially after several artifacts went missing. What? I’d excavated them, technically, and after they screwed me over, they owed me those pieces. Many people knew what I looked like, and people like Nuroshi who were in the world of academics guessed. Throwing it back in my face was just low.

  I would have preferred to throw Nuroshi out. Unfortunately I was pretty sure he was telling the truth. I glanced over at Nadya. She drew a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling as if she was weighing the options. She caught me looking at her and nodded towards the empty bar.

  I snapped my folder shut on Nuroshi’s fat white fingers before he could rifle through my notes, then retreated with Nadya to the bar and out of Nuroshi’s hearing range.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  Nadya shrugged. “It’s a supernatural temple. If it was me, I’d give back whatever money I’d been paid and tell them to find someone else.”

  I shook my head. “Don’t think the dragon will take kindly to that. Do you think he’s lying?”

  She snorted. “Lying? Not about Bali, but without a doubt he’s not telling us something.” She shook her head as if to emphasize the point. “And before you go anywhere, I want to see the dig notes myself.”

  I let out a breath and glanced over at Nuroshi, who was sitting patiently at the booth, sipping his water. I felt like I was walking into a mousetrap, an ancient, magical, booby-trapped temple of a mousetrap, but a mousetrap all the same.

  There also wasn’t a hell of a lot I could do, but I did have one idea to get ahead of Nuroshi. I pulled out my phone and checked for flights to Bali. There was one scheduled to leave before nightfall.

  Nadya’s brows knitted as the airline webpage flashed onto my screen. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m booking a flight, what does it look like I’m doing?”

  “Are you nuts? Nuroshi could be lying—”

  “Which I’m hoping you can check out for me—and if it isn’t a wild-goose chase, I’ll already be there. If it is, I’ll turn around and b
e on a flight back.”

  Nadya swore in Russian. “You don’t attract trouble, Owl, you dive into it like the shallow end of a swimming pool.”

  No arguing there.

  I slid back into the booth, took out half the fee, and placed it on the table. “All right, here’s the deal. You bring Nadya and me those folders with dig site details and that translation by tomorrow morning, and we’ll give you the rest.”

  His usual leer twisted into a sneer. “Everything up front or no folders,” he said, but he reached his puffy hand across the table to snatch the fold of bills.

  I was faster. “Not a chance. You know I’m good for it. Either you bring us the dig folder tomorrow morning, or we go somewhere else.” I gave him my meanest glare. It doesn’t work on most people. Let’s face it, I’m just not that scary, but Nuroshi is a coward, through and through. He cringed back.

  “Do we have a deal?” Nadya asked.

  Nuroshi glanced between Nadya and me, calculating. “Only because I’m feeling generous to two such beautiful young ladies who have been such excellent customers.”

  That much was true. We had been excellent customers, but if he thought for one second I believed he had any kind of loyalty to us, well . . . I think Nuroshi would as soon sell his own grandmother to turn a quick profit, and if you know much about Japanese culture, that’s saying a lot about him.

  He reached his hand across the table to shake and I grasped it, trying hard not to think of what was under his fingernails. “Deal,” he said.

  I relinquished the money, which disappeared into Nuroshi’s jacket. He stared at Nadya once more before heading out the door.

  She said something in Russian under her breath as the door swung shut behind him. “One of these days I’d like to lock the leering fat turnip in a barrelful of water and nail the lid shut.”

  “How ’bout right after we find out what he’s not telling us?”

  “Sounds swell,” Nadya said.

  I checked my watch; I needed to leave for the airport soon, and I still had to swing by Nadya’s to grab Captain and a change of clothes.