Owl and the Japanese Circus

by Kristi Charish

  And it didn’t have to be this way.

  As soon as she was gone and I was certain she wasn’t going to get back up and try to kill me, I grabbed Captain and Rynn’s pack. “Time to see what everyone else is up to,” I told him and headed into the back of the casino, where the rest of the party had migrated.

  I stopped short as I rounded the turn into Mr. Kurosawa’s private lounge. I’d been expecting the gunfight at the O.K. Corral; what I’d stumbled into was more along the lines of a Mexican drug cartel blowout. It was that unrecognizable. The polished white leather couches and mirrored coffee table were overturned and in pieces. Oricho was holed up, with a bound and gagged Nadya stuffed under an overturned couch behind him. The elegant bar with more top-shelf booze than I could count was on fire. I glanced over in time to see Rynn grab another bottle and douse the bar. A wall of fire shot up, turning the ghosts back. He managed to get a shot off at Oricho with a crossbow through the flames. Oricho parried with the sword . . . and a bolt came sailing at me. I dodged behind the wall but heard the telltale thwack as it lodged into the expensive wood. I peeked; the bolt had landed a few inches from my head. OK, note to self: never, ever walk into a supernatural battle ever again. I grabbed Captain by his collar and pulled him back before he could join the fray.

  There was no way I was getting between Rynn and Oricho’s supernatural death match. For one thing, I still had the element of surprise. I picked up a stray coin, aimed it at Nadya under the couch, and threw. Her head whipped around as it struck her forehead, and she searched for the source until she spotted me. I held my finger to my mouth in the age-old signal for “shut the fuck up”—not that she could have said much, gagged as she was, but it never hurts to clarify.

  Well, at least there was no sign of Lady Siyu; I just hoped she’d made it to Mr. Kurosawa and had been able to wake him.

  Wake him, that is, before Rynn and Oricho burned the place down.

  Another flame shot up from the bar, blocking another flank of ghosts from reaching Rynn. The delicate, hand-painted Japanese wallpaper went up in flames.

  I watched and waited for a chance to get to Nadya . . . and saw it. Now used to the wall of flame, Oricho’s ghosts tried flanking the bar to get to Rynn. He’d either figured it out beforehand or was damn fast on the fly, because the fire extinguisher came out. Did you know you could turn one into a flamethrower? Another gust of flame shot up, and this time even Oricho had to shield his eyes. I ran, Captain close on my heels, and vaulted over the makeshift barricade. I undid Nadya’s gag, then untied her as fast as I could.

  As soon as her hands were free, she grabbed my shoulders. “We made a mistake—the scroll, it’s not what we thought. The symbol I left before Oricho attacked me?”

  “Yeah, your skull? FYI—come up with something useful next time. Now let’s get out of here,” I said, and peeked over the couch. If I could get Rynn’s attention . . . The door to the roof was right near here. A fast run, and we could be outside. I couldn’t fly the helicopter, but Rynn might be able to. If we were lucky, we’d clear the perimeter before Oricho could chase us. He’d have the scroll, but it’d take him months to find someone as good as Nadya to read it.

  Nadya grabbed my arm, breaking my train of thought. “Will you listen to me? I was wrong. I figured it out last night, and when I couldn’t get in touch with you, I called Oricho.” She shook her head. “I thought I was warning him, but he already knew—”

  “Not that I don’t care, but can’t this wait until we hot-wire Mr. Kurosawa’s helicopter? Otherwise, whatever you have to tell me about the scroll is not going to matter one goddam, minuscule bit,” I said, and passed her a handful of the coins I’d found. I fished through Rynn’s bag until I found a light grenade—or at least I hoped it was a light grenade. “I don’t know about you, but I’m done with this party.”

  Nadya shook her head, tears forming in her eyes. “You’re not listening, Oricho—”

  “On the count of three, you aim for Rynn and get his attention. As soon as this goes off, bolt for the stairs. Rynn will get the idea. One, two”—damn, I really hoped this worked—“three.”

  Nadya hit the top shelf with the coins, and Rynn glanced over at us. Fantastic, one down. I hefted the grenade and readied to throw . . . where was Oricho? He’d been right there—

  An arm reached around my waist, and I felt the sharp tip of a sword at my throat as I was lifted over and away from the couch. “Our arrangement has not changed, Nadya,” Oricho said. “Please. Continue reading the scroll, or I will slit Owl’s throat myself.”

  My eyes widened. “Nadya, what have you done?” She wouldn’t look at me.

  Oricho pushed the tip into my throat. “I tire of your protests, and my patience is not infinite. She can and she will, or I will slice your throat open in front of her.”

  My heart sank. Oricho had leveraged my life against Nadya’s conscience. There was no way she could say no. Didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try. “Nadya, don’t do it—it’s not worth it—”

  She shook her head at me and cast her eyes down at the scroll, defeated. “I’m sorry,” she said, and began to read.

  The pronunciation was beyond me, but I followed the word repetition as she read out each symbol and conjugated it to the next. She read the first line, then the second—I counted each symbol off in my head. She reached the fifth line, midway through. Captain stayed at my feet, growling uncertainly at Oricho. The worst part about this whole mess was that I had no way to tell Captain what was about to happen. Hey cat, you followed the wrong damn human out of those Egyptian ruins you were squatting in. Despite the sword, I grabbed my cat. I closed my eyes tight and waited for the end.

  The ghosts screamed first. I looked over at Rynn. His face was white, a look of pure shock as he braced himself against the bar. A streak of red ran down from his nose. Blood. He grabbed his midsection and screamed. Somewhere out of sight I heard a woman’s voice, what had to be Lady Siyu’s, lend a sharp, piercing shriek to the mix.

  It was nothing though compared to the bellow that made me cover my ears and sounded like some long-extinct prehistoric monster being dropped in molten lava.

  Mr. Kurosawa.

  I waited another heartbeat for the pain to rip through me, imagining being ripped apart at the molecular level.

  Nothing happened. I opened my eyes. Nadya was fine, and Captain, struggling and moderately pissed I was holding him, was also fine.

  Something wet ran down the back of my neck, and Oricho grunted. The sword stayed steady at my artery, but he loosened his grip on my throat. I hazarded a glance. Blood trickled out of the corners of his eyes and nose.

  Son of a goddamn bitch . . . the scroll was never intended to kill humans. It was made by humans to kill everything else . . .

  And Oricho had known that all along. Mr. Kurosawa had probably known too, which was why he’d wanted to get his own hands on it instead of letting some scared human get it.

  Oricho gritted his teeth, but the corner of his mouth turned up in a smile. “The scroll will kill every supernatural in Vegas. Once word gets out, the others, such as Alexander and the Paris Contingency, will be wary of venturing here for a long while. Especially knowing the human holding the scroll hates supernaturals as much as you do,” he added.

  The pieces started to fall into place The great equalizer, a scroll made by humans that could only be read by humans. A scroll that could wipe out supernaturals. All of them, including a dragon.

  No more vampires, no more Mr. Kurosawa, and no more Lady Siyu. All major plusses in my world. Hell, without being charged with keeping the supernatural world under wraps, the IAA would lose their stranglehold on the universities . . . I could go back. I wouldn’t even have to use the scroll again; I’d only have to let people know I had it and threaten to use it if they got within a square mile of me.

  When Nadya got to the last line, all my problems would be gone . . .

  But there’s a part of my brain that isn’t hardwired for
instant gratification. Rynn would be dead, along with the nymphs who kept clearing away my trail of corpses, and probably a lot of others in the hotel who’d never done a damn thing to me. All gone. Even Oricho—though he’d gone a little crazy on me—was trying to avenge a handful of humans. He was well and clear out of my good books for this mess, but he didn’t deserve to die either—or at least die again.

  And if I was being really honest with myself, none of my problems would be gone. They’d turn into new ones.

  Just like Marie’s problems had every single time she’d tried the easy way out.

  “Nadya, stop!” I screamed. I felt the tip of the samurai sword drive into my throat and a trickle of blood run down my neck.

  “Stop reading, and Owl dies. It is your choice,” Oricho said through clenched teeth. Rynn had stopped screaming—I didn’t think that was a good sign.

  Nadya glanced up from the scroll. Like most active magic, it created a dim veil around her, like heated air over your barbecue. She glanced at Rynn and then back at me. Her lip quivered and she said sorry with her eyes, her lips never skipping a beat of the scroll’s incantation. I couldn’t fault her; Oricho had put her between a rock and a hard place. Read the scroll and kill one friend, or don’t read the scroll and kill your best friend.

  As if he could read my thoughts, Oricho said, “It is the only thing either of our kind understands. You will see in the end I am right.”

  “If there’s one thing you ought to know about me by now, it’s that I’ll be damned if I’m going to do what some supernatural tells me. And this isn’t the way to get back at Mr. Kurosawa,” I said, and kicked up hard with my boot.

  Oricho wasn’t ready for it. No male of any species ever is, which is why it’s so damn useful. To his credit, he barely flinched. In his weakened state, though, it was enough. The sword tip slipped to my collarbone and I dropped down. As soon as I was free, Nadya ran for me. I grabbed the scroll from her and shoved it in my jacket pocket. Both of us jumped behind the bar.

  “Light it back up,” I said. “Fire is about the only thing that stops him.”

  Nadya doused the bar in liquor while I ran to Rynn, who was doubled over on the floor.

  I turned him over. That he was a hell of a lot worse off than Oricho was an understatement. The whites of his eyes had hemorrhaged red, and welts had formed on his face where skin looked as if it had boiled.

  “Shit.”

  “It looks worse than it is,” he said, but he winced as he sat up.

  “Owl, lighter!” Nadya yelled. “He’s getting back up.”

  “Please say you have a lighter on you,” I said to Rynn.

  “Left jacket pocket.”

  I tossed the lighter to Nadya. She set the bar ablaze, and Oricho bellowed.

  “Can you run?” I asked Rynn.

  “Please say we’re not running.”

  “Well, that depends. Somehow I don’t think Mr. Kurosawa will go back to sleep. You really want to be here for the finale?”

  He grunted and used the wall for support to push himself to standing. “Running’s good,” he said, and indicated I should fork his pack over. I was more than happy to. Explosives make me nervous.

  Passing out halfway up the stairs didn’t seem too far-fetched, considering the shape he was in. “Umm, just so you know, this plan hinges on you being able to hot-wire and fly a helicopter . . .”

  He snorted but leaned on my shoulder, using me for balance.

  “What’s the plan?” Nadya said.

  “On my signal, light up the bar,” Rynn said, “as high as it will go—he won’t risk the flames—then run for the stairs.” Rynn was about to add something else but ducked instead, pulling me down with him. Three crossbow bolts, the tips covered in a black tar, lodged into the wall where his head had been. A dark look crossed his face. He yelled something at Oricho in what I now thought of as “common supernatural.” Oricho yelled right back.

  “What the hell was that about?” I said.

  “I told him to grow a pair instead of shooting me with my own weapons,” he said, yelling the last two words.

  Fantastic, Oricho had Rynn’s crossbow. Rynn fixed one of the liquor bottles with a rag, lit it, and launched it towards his old friend. I was starting to see how they’d trashed the place in no time fast.

  “OK, short run to the stairwell using an uncontrolled bar fire as cover with a mad supernatural trying to pick us off with a crossbow. What could possibly go wrong?” I asked.

  “Not helping, Alix,” Rynn said.

  “Owl!” Oricho shouted over the roaring fire. “You are trying my patience and making this more dangerous than need be. Hand over the scroll so I can end this quickly.”

  “Go back to hell,” I said.

  Nadya had doused the bar with one bottle and moved on to the next. We needed the flames high. Rynn fished through his bag and tossed her a yellow bottle. “Use this—it’s an accelerant.” Nadya dropped the booze and emptied the bottle. She got the lighter ready and waited for my signal.

  “Oricho, let us leave. Now, with the scroll.”

  “And what should I tell Mr. Kurosawa? That you stole the scroll, you and Nadya?” he said.

  “You can tell him I disappeared down a rabbit hole for all I care,” I shouted back.

  Oricho laughed, and I caught sight of his silhouette through the flames tempered by the emergency sprinklers. Good thing we were leaving, because I didn’t know how much longer the room would last. I heard sirens outside and fire alarms throughout the casino now—I had no doubt the fire was spreading.

  “Rynn,” Oricho shouted. “Do you think the dragon will care she stopped me? Or just put her ghost to work like all the others? Will you be able to live with yourself?”

  “Let us pass and we won’t have to find out. One dragon isn’t worth an entire city, you’ve said it yourself.”

  “Even we change,” Oricho said. “Nadya, read the scroll, and after all the supernaturals in Vegas are dead, you and Owl can walk out, unharmed.”

  “I’m not killing one of my friends for your psychotic plan,” she said.

  “The ghosts went with the first few lines of the scroll,” I told Oricho. “They’re free. Isn’t that what started this whole mess? You wanted them freed? Well, they’re about as free as they get. Now let us go.”

  For a second I thought, hoped, he might go for it. “What’s it going to be?” I yelled, then held my breath and waited.

  Another crossbow bolt lodged into the bar.

  Sometimes people just don’t want to be helped. I nodded at Nadya, and she dropped the lighter. The flames shot up to the ceiling, which we expected, the heat singeing the hairs in my nose and scorching my throat, but I didn’t expect the flames to shoot outwards as much as they did.

  Neither did Oricho, judging from his scream.

  Rynn shoved me in the back before I could look, but I glanced through the curtain of flames engulfing the room as we ran. Oricho clasped the tattooed side of his face. As we ran past, he removed his hand. The tattoos were a scorched, burned mess.

  “Door, now,” I said.

  I ran, Rynn still leaning on me, and Nadya close enough behind that I could hear her breathing, Captain on our heels. The smoke thickened as we climbed the stairs. I coughed, and my muscles started to complain under Rynn’s weight. He stumbled, and both of us stumbled onto the stairs, but I wasn’t about to stop or look behind me.

  The red lacquered door to the roof came into view. A few more feet and we were home free. I grabbed the door handle and pulled.

  It stuck. The adrenaline coursing through my veins did a one-eighty to panic. “Rynn, get the door open,” I said.

  He gripped the handle, but it wouldn’t turn. “I can’t, magic seal—”

  “The ghosts are gone, how the hell can it be sealed?” Nadya said, adding to my own panic. Stuck at the top of a burning building. Smoke rises.

  To top it all off, a deep rumble sounded from below, shaking what remained of the supp
orts in the private casino. A beam or wall crashed below.

  Mr. Kurosawa.

  I didn’t care if it was magic; I shoved past Rynn and really started working on the door. I had my lock pick kit out in two seconds flat.

  “Turn around,” Rynn said.

  “Not until I get this damned door open.”

  “Now—”

  “Will you just wait—” I thought the door was giving a little. The barrel was stuck and the smoke was killing me, but I swore I heard the click.

  Rynn placed his hand on the top of my head and forced me to look back down the stairwell. “Because there’s a three-story red dragon behind us.”

  At the bottom, peering up at us with narrowed red eyes, was a fifteen-foot-tall red dragon, reminiscent of the ones you’d see on old Japanese and Chinese paintings. I dropped my lock pick.

  Mr. Kurosawa smiled. There were a lot of teeth—lots and lots of teeth.

  Blackened lips curled up as out of his nose he blew white smoke that filled the stairwell with sulfur. He made a noise somewhere between a growl and a laugh.

  He looked right at me with a large red eye, glowing in the firelight. “I smell thieves,” he said.

  I hoped to hell one of the coins hadn’t lodged itself in my boot.

  23

  I HATE DRAGONS

  Saying we didn’t have a choice about returning downstairs was an understatement. Back on the casino floor, I helped Rynn along slowly, Captain hanging back a few feet with Nadya. The sprinklers were still going, bathing everything in a damp haze, but the fires were out.

  Mr. Kurosawa watched us from the charred remains of the casino floor as we descended. He was an extremely large dragon, the head and neck offset not by a mane of hair but by things more like ribboned tendrils like you’d see on a deep-sea fish. They were a mix of red and gold, and offset the red and gold scales. Up close, I could see now that there were in fact pupils housed in the red eyes, gold in color and highly reflective. I also noted the ruined wall on the far side of the casino. Mr. Kurosawa was pissed enough at this point to forgo niceties like human-sized doors.