Owl and the Japanese Circus

by Kristi Charish

  The vampire leaned in and smelled the skin on my neck. “Sabine never did say what condition she wanted you in.”

  She’d have to wait a little longer.

  Captain shuffled his hind end one last time before launching onto the vampire’s back. He screamed and let go of my neck in favor of getting my cat off him. My knees caught the brunt of my fall. I found my flashlight nearby and used the tunnel wall to stand. Captain still rode the vampire’s back, and more purple welts were appearing where Captain hit his mark.

  OK, Owl, you need a plan. Use the flashlight, grab your cat, and stumble out of here as fast as your motor skills can handle.

  My hand wavered as I aimed the flashlight. Come on, Owl, focus . . . I braced my arms and got ready to turn it on. One good shot was all I needed . . .

  I registered the thwack against the wall somewhere from behind my vampire-induced haze. I searched the wall for the source until I registered the flickering blue LED light attached to a thin, silver tube lodged in the wall a few feet above me. It took me another few seconds to register that the light was speeding up, like a strobe light . . . shit . . . that couldn’t be good. Well, there went my flashlight-cat-grab plan. I closed my eyes, covered my face, and clenched my teeth. I had a sinking suspicion this was going to hurt.

  Even with my eyes closed, I registered the UV flash—or my retinas did. And it hurt. I think I screamed, but I couldn’t be sure if it was me or the vampire. The flash just about knocked me out cold. I slid down the wall to the floor, forcing myself to keep conscious. Chances were only fifty-fifty I’d wake up from a second concussion in one day.

  Cool fingers turned my chin from side to side.

  “I’ll say this. You have a certain knack for finding the bad guys,” a familiar voice said.

  I opened my eyes.

  Rynn.

  I opened my mouth to speak but ended up wincing as his flashlight passed over my face. Enough pheromones in your system will make you sensitive to light and garlic.

  He crouched down to get a closer look at me. I thought he frowned, but it was hard to tell with the world spinning so fast. I tried to say, “Nice of you to drop by,” but it didn’t come out as anything intelligible, at least not to my ears.

  “You’re about as high as I’ve ever seen anyone on vampire sweat before,” Rynn said after he finished examining my face. I wished he hadn’t taken his cool fingers away. I tried speaking again but my tongue wouldn’t work, and I was freezing. If I could have strung words together, I’d have said, Get the damn DMSO—now.

  Lucky for me this wasn’t Rynn’s first vampire rodeo. DMSO, or dimethyl sulfoxide, was a readily available sulfur compound that neutralized the effect of vampire sweat in the blood. Anyone who’s ever dealt with vampires carries a vial or two around. A sharp prick in my bicep and a stream of ice shooting up my arm later, the use of the muscles in my neck returned. That was followed by a dull pain radiating through my back from where I’d been slammed. Yeah, that was going to hurt tomorrow.

  A sliver of a frown touched Rynn’s mouth. “Your pupils are still dilated. Just how much did you take?”

  “A lot. And not voluntarily,” I said. I didn’t need a lecture right now, thank you very much. If anything, the UV flash had made things worse. “Not that I don’t appreciate the assist, but I’d have been better off without the UV.”

  “Seriously?”

  I held my flashlight up and almost dropped it. “I had it covered. We were on our way out.”

  To his credit, Rynn didn’t push. “Can you move?”

  I tried my legs out before nodding. “Yeah, just don’t ask me to jump, climb, or run.” Using the wall, I pushed myself to a shaky standing.

  Rynn steadied me. “Sorry it took me so long. I had the girl to deal with. She tried to knock me out with chloroform but didn’t know what she was doing.”

  I closed my eyes. They’d both been in on it. How could I have been so stupid? “Benji has some explaining to do. And so does Mr. Kurosawa,” I said, and filled him in on what both Red and the downed vampire had told me.

  Not one bit ashamed for using Rynn for balance, I glanced back at the tunnel. And took a step. A wave of nausea hit me. “Come on,” I said. “Alexander and Co. will be right behind us, and they’re pissed.” Rynn arched his eyebrow and I added, “I hit them with a UV penlight. Red won’t be out much longer either.”

  Rynn stopped me and shook his head. “We’ve got some time. I came across them on my way here. I set trip wires outside the cavern. UV grenades and a little something for localized cave-ins.” He crouched down beside the vampire and began to fasten silver-coated plastic ties around his wrists and ankles.

  I shook my head. “They’ll just take the UV hit and dig themselves out, it won’t buy us much time—”

  He winked. “That’s why I added silver shrapnel. Should keep them busy for a day or so. How far back is Red?”

  “I dropped him under the lattices. Maybe twenty feet?”

  Rynn nodded and headed back down the tunnel. He returned a moment later dragging an unconscious Red by the feet. Red’s ankles and wrists were bound with the same plastic ties Rynn had used on the vampire.

  “Owl, who the hell is this Sabine?”

  “The vampire whose lackey got the drop on me in Vegas. She’s managed to rope Alexander and some of the Paris boys into working for her.”

  “I know that, I mean who is she?” Rynn said. “More to the point, what the hell does she want with you?”

  I shook my head. “The same scroll that Mr. Kurosawa wants, apparently. My best guess is she figured she’d let me do the groundwork and then get the jump on me.”

  Rynn frowned. “Maybe. But this was personal. This Sabine knows you. How?”

  Yeah, that was what Red had said too. And I sure as hell would like to know where Alexander and the rest of the Paris boys fit into all this. They wouldn’t go against the Paris Contingency unless there was a damn good reason. “No idea,” I said, and nodded at the unconscious vampire. “But I’m hoping he has a few answers—Why, you son of a bitch! I turn my back for one second—”

  Captain lifted his head up from the vampire’s hand and mewed. He was doing his best to turn the hand into a pincushion. I pulled him off the swollen, purple hand and refastened his leash, which thankfully was still in my jacket pocket. I then crouched to pick up the vampire’s wallet and phone. Except for a few scratches, it had survived the fall.

  I tossed it to Rynn. “And I’m willing to put money on this giving me a few answers.”

  He glanced through the numbers. “What do you plan on doing with them?”

  I shrugged. My head hurt too much to think that far ahead. “I don’t know. Start calling and see who answers?”

  Rynn slid the phone into his jacket pocket.

  “Hey, I didn’t say keep it.”

  He rolled his eyes at me. “You’ve had two concussions in as many days and enough vampire sweat to bring down a horse.”

  “So?”

  He crossed his arms and peered at me. “Have you ever heard the term ‘train wreck’? You might want to look it up.”

  I made a grab for the phone and immediately regretted it as I lost my footing. Rynn caught me.

  “Damn it, why did everything have to go sideways today?” I said.

  Rynn didn’t answer, but he didn’t let go of me either. “I have someone back in Tokyo who can trace these, probably get you a location—before you start making random calls. It’s called a plan; you might want to try it sometime.”

  “I always have a plan,” I said.

  “Really? Is that what you call this?” he said.

  Truth be told, I’m an awesome planner . . . I just hadn’t foreseen vampires finding me this fast or having archaeology flunkies. Besides, pressed up against Rynn, the world wasn’t spinning as much. I didn’t rush standing back up.

  “Hmmmm . . . you smell nice.” Yeah. Eloquence, that’s me.

  Rynn gently untangled me and held me at ar
m’s length. I remember his blue eyes, really blue, peering at me. He swore in Russian . . . I think.

  “You’re still higher than a kite, and I can’t give you any more DMSO,” he said.

  Now that I wasn’t pressed up against him, the world started spinning again. He was probably on to something.

  Captain had inched his way over to the unconscious vampire. This time Rynn swore as he took the leash from me and reined an angry Captain in.

  “You realize you have to train Mau cats?” he said to me as Captain turned on the leash and did his best to sever it with his teeth.

  “Yeah, well, we’re working on it,” I said. I wrapped the leash around my hand. Captain quieted somewhat.

  Rynn shook his head as he knelt down by the vampire and started to pull tools out of his pack. “Train wreck.”

  “Only on a bad day.” I leaned against the wall. “All right, for the past year. But you’re not exactly one to judge.”

  “No. No, I’m not,” he said quietly. For a second, he looked like he was about to say something else. Instead he turned back to his pack.

  I might have been high, but I didn’t like his resigned tone. I pushed. “What?”

  “Hmmm?”

  I got better footing and found a rock to rest my shoulder against—my own personal weight-bearing rock—so I could watch what he was doing. “I’m out of it, not stupid. You were about to say something else.”

  “Just that it’s your life. I’m the last person to try and tell you how you should go about ruining it.”

  “I call it surviving, not ruining. And I don’t have a choice.”

  “You keep saying that.”

  “And you’re starting to sound like Oricho.”

  Rynn shrugged. “When two different people say the same thing, usually I start to listen.” He rolled me a bottle of water. I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was until it was in my hand. “Surviving this long doesn’t count for much when the end result is still dead.” He nodded at the vampire. “Or worse. But then again, what do I know? I’m just a glorified whore.”

  I closed my eyes. Shit, Rynn was still pissed about that. Oh well, yet another thing to fix. When I came down.

  I focused what little attention I could muster back on Alexander’s vampire, still out cold on the stone floor. I cringed. Now that the DMSO had stripped some of the pheromones out of my blood, the vampire looked more like an emaciated heroin addict in expensive clothes than a Calvin Klein model. It takes a jaded heart like mine to remember what I’m looking at through that euphoria.

  Damn it, if Rynn hadn’t shown up when he had, there’s a chance I could have been joining them. “Rynn, if—”

  Rynn whistled to get my attention and held up a heavy glass syringe. “What’s your preference, garlic or silver?”

  I was about to push out my apology and thought better of it. Whatever reflective mood he’d been in had passed. Probably for the best.

  I shook my head. “No point. All they’ll do is irritate them. It’s like hitting cockroaches with bug spray.”

  The corner of Rynn’s mouth turned up in a smile. “Clearly you’ve never shot up a cockroach with bug spray before.”

  I didn’t know if I should be impressed or a little horrified that Rynn had better toys than me. Under the circumstances, I went with impressed.

  “And what do you want to do with him?” he said, and nodded at Red.

  I chewed my lip and glanced at Captain, still growling at the vampire but resigned to squat on the floor. I’m not a vindictive person—well, not as a general rule at least. Unless it’s self-defense, I stop short of hurting humans, especially ones like Red—an addict who doesn’t even know it . . . but the son of a bitch would have strangled my cat.

  “Throw him and Bindi together and keep them separate from the vampire.”

  “Why separate them?”

  It was my turn to smile. “You’ve never seen a vampire junkie desperate for a fix, have you?”

  Rynn opened his mouth to say something, but a sharp crack echoed from behind us, towards the caverns where I’d escaped Alexander. I cringed. My head was in no condition to take loud noises. It was followed by distant snarls and screams.

  “UV grenade?” I said through clenched teeth.

  “One of them. I imagine they’ll trigger a cave-in next.” Rynn grabbed an ankle tie in each hand and started dragging Red and the vampire down the tunnel. “Come on,” he said. “This loops around back to the temple proper.”

  “How did you find that out?”

  “The girl.”

  I snorted and used the wall for balance as I followed him. “What did you have to do to get her to give that away?”

  He threw me an innocent expression. “I’m charming and persuasive.”

  9

  GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF BALI

  Vampires are predictable.

  Across from the main chamber of the temple proper was an old kitchen with an old fire pit built into the wall, or, as I like to call it, ancient vampire storage unit. Rynn only had to show him the syringe filled with silver and Alexander’s vampire—his name was Charles, we found out—folded. He didn’t know a hell of a lot. Apparently Alexander was keeping all his goons out of the loop. Whether it was so they could feign innocence to the Contingency if everything hit the fan or because Alexander didn’t trust them was anyone’s guess.

  As I said, vampires are predictable.

  People . . . not so much.

  And Bindi was a whole new level of batshit crazy.

  Rynn frowned and leaned in over her. “All I want is for you to tell me where the tablet is. That’s it. Then we’ll let you have the vampire tied up in the other room. You give me something I need, I’ll give you something you need.”

  Back up in the temple proper, I let my head rest against the wall. I was still hazy, but even I knew what she’d say next. She’d been going in circles for half an hour.

  Bindi licked the sweat off her lip and eyed Rynn hungrily. “Sabine is coming back for me, and when she gets here she’ll give me anything I want.” Her eyes glazed over, not unlike some young vampires I’d seen. Not quite there yet, but give it a few more months. “Even you,” she told Rynn.

  Rynn clenched his fist and his mouth drew into a tight line. I gave him less than a minute before he lost it. On the one hand, I was tempted to sit back and watch things explode; I’d never seen Rynn come this close to losing his temper. On the other hand, Bindi was as indoctrinated as any vampire groupie I’d ever seen. Over the past hour her skin had turned a clammy yellow, and her surfer braids and clothes were soaked with sweat. The eyes really got me though; they were so sunken and rimmed with red that I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.

  Red looked up as if seeing me for the first time, and with renewed interest. He hadn’t said much since waking up. He’d left Bindi to scream the vampire propaganda at us.

  My head was a bit more lucid, so I pushed myself up off the floor and stepped in. “Rynn, you’re wasting your breath,” I said. “Neither of them is scared of pain. Or you.”

  Red wasn’t nearly as far gone as Bindi was, and part of me wondered if that made him worse. Red was lucid enough to know what he’d gotten himself into. Part of me hoped watching Bindi come down off her fix would be a good lesson for him.

  “. . . and you,” Bindi said, turning her snarl on me, “can’t imagine the horrors my mistress has in store for you . . .”

  “Save it, princess. I’m not buying,” I said. Yeah, I felt sorry for her, but not enough to listen to the rhetoric. I tapped Rynn on the arm and nodded to the hallway. He sighed and, after ramming a gag into her mouth to damper down the obscenities, headed out.

  Red glared at me accusingly. “You can’t just leave us tied up like this,” he yelled.

  “Watch me,” Rynn yelled over his shoulder.

  I just shook my head. “Don’t blame me, kid, you should have run when I told you to.” I followed Rynn out and slammed the wooden door. But he would blame m
e. Another archaeologist whose career and life I’d supposedly ruined. Damn it, I hate being a scapegoat.

  Even with the door closed I could hear Bindi kicking and struggling against the restraints. I took a deep breath. “You’re approaching this all wrong. She’s batshit crazy.”

  “Really? Funny, I hadn’t noticed—”

  I held up my hand. Yeah, his usual cool demeanor was just about done. “Let me have a go at her. I’ve got experience dealing with vampire junkies, and my head’s cleared up enough. I think.”

  He gave me an incredulous look. “You think?”

  I shrugged. “Well, we don’t have a lot of options right now, do we? I mean, we can’t just stay here indefinitely. We either leave now without finding that tablet, or you let me have a go at her.”

  Rynn sighed. “All right.” He stepped aside for me. “Lead the way.”

  “Lesson one. Vampire junkies are scared of only one thing,” I said, grabbing my mask, a Ziploc bag, and a pair of latex gloves from my pack and ducking into the ancient kitchen. I walked right up to Charles the vampire, right where we’d left him, tied up and cowering in the brick oven. Captain was exactly where I’d left him too; tied to his leash just out of striking distance. I figured the more he got used to them, the less likely he’d be to charge in every time he smelled one.

  Captain mewed, and Charles’s eyes widened as he focused past my cat on me.

  “Relax, I just need something,” I said, as I ripped out a chunk of his greasy brown hair and slid it into the Ziploc bag. Rynn stayed at the doorway, but he raised an eyebrow as I headed back in to see my rapidly derailing archaeologists. “Watch and learn,” I said.

  I crouched down in front of Bindi and removed the gag. She tried to bite me, but I was ready for it. Like I said, I know my vampire junkies.

  “You two are dead, mark my words, as soon as Sabine finds me,” Bindi said, her teeth bared.

  Taking my time, I opened the Ziploc and waved it under her nose.

  With the first whiff, her eyes sharpened and she shut her mouth. She breathed in deeper, shivered, licked her lips, and lunged against her restraints. I waved the bag one last time before sealing it shut. She fixed hate-filled eyes on me, but her lip curled up in a frightened snarl.