Owl and the Japanese Circus

by Kristi Charish

  “Mercenary,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I used to be a mercenary,” he said.

  “Oh, I got that part—I’m just not sure I believe it, regardless of the getup. Serving drinks to pretty girls and shooting people don’t exactly go together.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I owe Oricho a few favors, and he asked me to keep an eye on you. I’ve had a hell of a time tracking you since I landed.”

  “You’re the backup he was talking about?”

  Rynn was the last person I’d imagine toting a gun. A martini glass or beer, sure, but . . .

  Rynn frowned. “This is exactly why I didn’t say anything to you in Tokyo. You’d never have believed me.”

  I looked him over and nodded. “You’re right. Not if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Even after seeing it with my own eyes I’m having trouble with it. And what kind of mercenary carries around a tranquilizer rifle?”

  “The kind of mercenary who runs into supernatural things every now and then.”

  As strange at it sounded on the surface, it actually made sense. Rynn had hinted he was from Eastern Europe, though I still hadn’t figured out where exactly, and parts of Eastern Europe were supernatural hot pockets. Transylvania, anyone?

  “How did you go from mercenary to host/bartender?”

  “I’m taking a break,” he said, and started to head for the exit. “I got tired of people shooting at me.”

  Well, it was something I could relate to. I nodded at the naga. “Think we have a bit of time?”

  Rynn shrugged. “Hard to say. I’ve never tranquilized a naga before. I wouldn’t bank on more than half an hour, an hour max. Why?”

  I jogged towards the stairs that led back down into the catacombs.

  “Where are you going?” Rynn called after me.

  “The snake—naga—started chasing me before I could copy the tablet and photograph the walls.”

  “After all that, you want to go back in there?”

  “You can come with me or stay here with them,” I said, and nodded towards the two guards and the naga. “I’m not leaving without those pictures.” I noticed that the guard who’d been bitten was turning a purple color. I was sorry for him, but then again, I’d tried to help. I was still miffed they’d shot at me.

  Rynn was one step ahead of me. He checked the poisoned guard first, then turned the second one over. He groaned but didn’t otherwise move. Rynn pulled out one of the smaller guns on his belt and aimed.

  “You don’t have to kill him—”

  Rynn raised an eyebrow at me as the dart pierced the guard’s leg. The guard stopped moving immediately.

  “Never mind,” I said.

  Rynn shook his head, tossed the rifle over his shoulder, and, to my relief, followed. After all, there might be more nagas. There were an awful lot of tunnels.

  I couldn’t help but be impressed by how silently Rynn moved. It’s a thief thing. Even with no one around I still can’t stand making noise when I don’t have to.

  I glanced over at him. He raised his eyebrow and I shook my head.

  “Even seeing the whole mercenary thing with my own eyes I have a hard time believing it,” I said.

  He smiled. “Guess I’m full of surprises.”

  I realized I hadn’t actually thanked him. Hell, I wasn’t used to anyone coming after me. This was new . . . and awkward. Come to think of it, there were more questions, now that I was running this whole scenario over in my head.

  “How did you know where to find me? And how did you get my cell phone to work?”

  “Between Oricho and Nadya, I was able to figure out which of the two temples you were heading to. I used your cell phone signal to triangulate you partway along the coast, but by the time you were at the cavern entrances, I lost you. I found the students in Kuto and talked one of them into bringing me along. Once I was there, I was able to get the location and paid the kid with the jeep to bring me here.” He held up his phone with a black case on it. “This creates a cell line so I could patch into your phone. By the way, you owe the kid a hundred bucks.”

  I swore. “Why the hell do I have to pay him?”

  “You’re on Kurosawa’s payroll. Write it off as a business expense.”

  “I’d have at least bartered. He overcharges.”

  “Saving you fifty bucks and being late would have been self-defeating. Especially for you.”

  I guess I couldn’t argue with that.

  We found the chamber with the tablet, and I wasted no time photographing it. The tablet, two feet by four feet, lay on a slab of rock cut into the wall. First I made sure I had enough to make a 3-D reconstruction of it once I was back. The room itself was the size of a small bedroom, with a low ceiling and inscriptions covering the walls. Those didn’t interest me; they were classic Balinese.

  “How did you know about the naga?” I asked.

  “Lady Siyu and Oricho. Apparently she tried to warn you—”

  I snorted. “Warning me would have been, ‘Whoa, wait, there’s a naga living in the temple catacombs.’ All she did was order me back on a plane.”

  Rynn shrugged.

  I switched to an infrared filter and shone the light on the tablet. I often use multiple filters to screen artifacts. Ritual and supernatural sites tend to be etched with different light patterns, if you know what to look for. Which I do.

  The tablet was exactly what it seemed. The walls, however . . . There was a set of inscriptions lying right underneath the carved images. I photographed them, and on a hunch ran through the rest of my filter wheel. I found four more layers of different inscriptions superimposed on one another.

  I whistled and showed Rynn the readout on my tablet. “These guys didn’t mess around. They either were going to be really thorough, or they really didn’t want anyone to read this . . .” I swore. There was one more way to hide an inscription. It was rare, but I’d already seen that kind of magic hinted at in here once already.

  “Do you have a knife?” I asked Rynn.

  He looked at me quizzically but removed one from his belt and passed it over. I pushed down my squeamishness by reminding myself of the casino maze Mr. Kurosawa would chase me down in if I didn’t get his damn egg scroll back, then winced as I made a shallow slice in my left palm. The blood pooled in my hand. Rynn’s eyes widened.

  “Stand back,” I said, and pressed my blood up against the writing on the wall.

  A pattern emerged, like leaves budding at warp speed. I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d been worried it was a weaker spell and I’d have to cover the whole thing. A lot of people think this kind of ritualistic blood magic needs an incantation. It probably does to set it—I’ve never seen an actual ritual in practice and have no plans to. But looking at it is a totally different thing. This stuff was pushing two thousand years old, and it still took less than a second to activate. Someone had known what they were doing.

  Rynn drew in a quick breath and took a few steps back, a frown etched on his face.

  I smiled at his uncomfortable look. “Bet you’ve never seen that before?”

  “I’ve seen blood reliefs, just never seen one activated quite like that. Owl, was that wise?” he said, not bothering to hide his worry.

  I shrugged. “My supervisor once told me they could combust, but I’ve never seen it. Frankly, I think the IAA made it up.”

  He shook his head, not quite buying my explanation.

  “Normally I’d use diluted chicken blood in a spray bottle, but I didn’t bring any,” I said. “It’s not something you run into that often.”

  I got my camera out, balancing it with my uninjured right hand, and started snapping before the blood faded. This set looked different from the others. I had a sneaking suspicion this was a different language, or maybe some kind of codex.

  Midpicture, Rynn tapped me on the shoulder. “Why is it doing that?”

  I looked up from my lens. Sure enough, the blood relief was flickering, like a fluorescent ligh
t switch about to go out. I’d never seen that before . . . I caught the whiff of what smelled like charred hair.

  The lines of the relief ignited where I’d first touched my blood to the wall.

  “Run,” I said. I grabbed my bag and bolted out of the catacomb, Rynn following closely. We’d only gotten a tunnel away before the explosion knocked me hard on my knees.

  The whole cliff shook, showering us with pebbles.

  Rynn pulled me off the ground and half dragged me towards the entrance. Another reverberation shook the catacombs as we reached the lower temple room. Rynn caught me before I could fall and pushed me through the shattered door and up the stairs. We both hit the main temple at a run as the entire building rocked again. I heard something crack above me.

  “Run faster,” Rynn said. We jumped over the tranqued naga and I skidded to a stop. Both guards were still prone on the floor. Though I highly doubted the purple one was still alive, the tranquilized one was. I thought about trying to help, but Rynn pulled me along.

  “No time,” he said.

  I ignored him and grabbed the tranqued one by the collar. Rynn swore but returned to help me.

  Halfway up the steps outside, another tremor rattled the temple. I glimpsed back in time to see one of the Apsara statues topple over and shatter. I winced. So much for not trashing a two-thousand-year-old archaeological heritage site. Benji was going to kill me . . . Maybe he’d buy that it was geological coincidence.

  We exited the temple and spilled out into a surprisingly tranquil night sky. We dropped the guard by the entrance gate; the morning shift would find him when they checked in. My good deed was done. I crouched down and stopped to catch my breath. The orange jeep was parked just outside the road gate, about fifty feet away. Kato stood up and waved when he saw us.

  I glanced up at Rynn. “So what happens now?” I said.

  Rynn removed his padded jacket and pants to reveal a tank top and beach shorts underneath. He frowned at me and glanced back at the now collapsed catacombs. “The IAA made exploding blood reliefs up? You could have gotten us killed!”

  I held my hands up. “I’m sorry. I swear I’ve never had one do that before. Ever.”

  He snorted and stuffed his gear into his bag. Next he was packing up his guns in a surfboard case, of all things. It didn’t escape my notice that he jammed one of the smaller guns into the back of his waistband.

  “Well?” I said, after an uncomfortable silence. “We can’t stay here all night,” I added as Rynn glared down at me.

  He shook his head again. “We head back into town, try to get an hour or two of sleep, and I’ll come with you to Basuki to make sure you don’t get yourself, or me, killed.” He finished by ruffling his blond hair.

  I opened my mouth to argue but thought better of it. I wasn’t keen on having backup, but having Rynn with me if I ran into another naga wouldn’t be bad.

  “It’s a little frightening how quickly you go from mercenary to beach bum,” I said instead. I wasn’t close to having caught my breath yet, but I got up and started towards the orange jeep.

  Kato flashed me a big grin as I tossed my bag in. “Hey, lady. You owe me two hundred bucks.”

  “You said it was a hundred,” Rynn said, before I could open my mouth.

  The kid smiled. “You want to walk back to town, mister?”

  “And what the hell makes you think I have two hundred dollars?” I said.

  Kato shrugged. “If you have a hundred bucks, I figure you have two. Not like you have a lot of rides waiting.”

  I turned on Rynn. “See? This is exactly why you barter. Now he figures he can walk all over us.”

  Rynn had his back to me, so I grabbed the small tranquilizer gun I’d seen him place in the back belt of his shorts.

  As soon as it was in my hand I pointed it right in the kid’s face. Kato’s confidence deflated as he stared down the barrel. It was my turn to smile. I knew it was a tranquilizer, but the kid didn’t. “Kid, I’ve had a bad night, so here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to drive us back, I’m going to give you a hundred bucks like he,” I said, pointing to Rynn, “promised, and you will never mention this night to anyone. Ever. Otherwise I’m going to shoot you, leave you here, and drive the jeep back myself. Do I make myself clear?”

  The kid swallowed. “I was just kidding, lady.”

  I handed Rynn his gun and hopped in the back. He was shaking his head as he hopped in beside me.

  “I can’t believe you just pulled a gun in a kid’s face,” Rynn whispered in my ear.

  I shrugged and gave his beach bum outfit a once-over, a new problem forming in my mind. “We’ll need to figure out a way to get you on the dig tomorrow morning.”

  “No need. I’ve already got an invite.”

  “What—How?”

  “You’ll see,” he said. He leaned his head back against the seat rest and closed his eyes.

  There was something about his smile I didn’t entirely like. I was about to ask for more details, but there was a crash behind us and the ground shook. The outer catacombs were collapsing under the cliffs. I leaned against the back of the driver’s seat and tapped the kid on the shoulder. He looked about ready to jump out of the car and run.

  “Drive, kid,” I said. Without any more prompting, the jeep set off like a bat out of hell down the gravel road and back towards Sanur.

  I glanced over at Rynn, who was relaxing. There was something else bothering me. “You lied to me. About why you believed me last year about vampires. You’d run into them before.”

  He opened his eyes and gave me a measured stare. “I didn’t lie. You’d be surprised how often I see a vampire in the bar. I just . . . omitted a few details. Don’t tell me you’ve never omitted a detail or two about your line of work?”

  I didn’t think I’d ever made that big an omission, but I wasn’t ready to bank on it.

  I’d be damned if I knew what to do with this new development in our relationship—friendship, that is. I wasn’t entirely sure how I was going to get this to gel with the box I’d already slotted him into. As we wound down the hillside, my phone found reception. There were a lot of messages, mostly from Lady Siyu. I started with Nadya.

  “Alix?”

  “Nadya,” I said, fumbling my phone and trying to get my voice to carry over the wind rushing through the open jeep. I hoped she wouldn’t be too upset about her surfboard. “Do you want the good news or bad news first?”

  7

  THE DRAGON CATACOMBS

  7:00 a.m., the Basuki Temple, Bali

  “Shit!” I jumped up as my coffee seeped through my shirt when the jeep hit another pothole.

  Well, there went my caffeine fix. I sighed, finished the last sip, and took my first look at the Besakih Temple.

  I’d nodded off for a few minutes—hence the spilled coffee—so I’d missed most of the winding road. My first impression of the temple was all the more striking for my impromptu nap. It looked like something out of a Southeast Asian fairy tale. I let out a low whistle.

  Besakih is the oldest and most famous of the Balinese Hindu temples, dating back to the eighth century. Located at the base of Mount Agung—a volcano, if that doesn’t provide a few hints—at the north end of the island, it’s also known as the “Mother Temple” and is one of Bali’s most photographed sites. It really does look like something out of a fantasy novel . . . like the palace the evil wizard lives in.

  Less known is the fact that the epithet “Mother Temple” didn’t come into use until the fourteenth century, when the last great Balinese Hindu empire, the Majapahit, moved in. For six hundred years before that, the temple was called Basuki, or “Dragon Temple,” dedicated to the dragon god, Naga Besukian.

  And don’t ask me how the hell you get “mother” out of “dragon.” Some little old priest’s sick, twisted idea of a joke . . . or maybe being sacrificed to the “mother” temple met less resistance than being fed to the “dragon”: six-hundred-year-old propaganda.


  I tried not to glance at Rynn as the jeep bounced over another pothole on the dirt track.

  I hadn’t gotten much sleep last night. As soon as Rynn and I had gotten in—and gone our separate ways—I’d had to deal with both Nadya and Lady Siyu on the phone. Nadya had not exactly been thrilled about her surfboard, namely that I’d left it behind. Lady Siyu had been even less impressed with my run-in with the naga. Apparently barging in on another supernatural’s territory without going through the proper channels was a no-no in her book.

  Oops. I’d glazed over the falling statue and collapsing temple.

  Once I’d cleared the Basuki catacombs with her, there’d been a particularly terse message from Carpe Diem, since I’d blown off game time.

  By the time I’d finished dealing with the three of them—Carpe and Lady Siyu duking it out for most bitchy—I’d had less than an hour to sleep before getting into the jeep.

  Some days you just can’t win.

  I glanced down at Captain, who was out of my cat carrier backpack and on his leash, curled up under Rynn’s feet.

  “Traitor,” I whispered.

  Captain yawned.

  Rynn sat beside me in the backseat. The tension between us had been palpable ever since we’d gotten back to the hostel earlier this morning. I was still having trouble with the whole mercenary thing. You think you know someone . . .

  Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful he’d gotten me out of Sanur. What really had me pissed off was how he’d managed to get an invite to the Basuki catacombs.

  Rynn leaned in close enough to whisper, “You’re ignoring me. Why?”

  I didn’t miss the irritated edge in his voice. “I’m looking out the window so I can see where we’re going,” I whispered back.

  “What are you mad about?”

  I turned and ended up staring right into Rynn’s blue eyes. OK, I’d try honesty. “I just can’t believe you snuck into the camp picking up one of the dig girls.”

  There. I’d said it. I’d been honest.

  He frowned. “It’s not like I had a lot of options. You refused to answer my messages, I couldn’t track your cell phone, and Nadya didn’t exactly have an explicit itinerary of your activities.”