Owl and the City of Angels

by Kristi Charish

  I reached the stone wall that ran along the back of the dig site. Instead of replying to Nadya I dropped my phone in my pocket so I could scramble up. When I reached the top of the wall, and because I’m a sucker for morbid punishment, I shoulder-checked the approaching IAA. They were at the gates now, five in total, and I watched the lead as he raised his arm and pointed straight at me.

  I dropped down on the other side and hit the ground running. I fished my phone back out of my pocket before I’d turned a corner. “Screw it, Nadya we’ve got bigger problems than a meeting place right now. The IAA agents just spotted me.”

  “Lose them in the crowd before you grab Captain—”

  “I know that!” Still running, I slid out of my jacket and shoved it and my red baseball cap into my bag. I slowed to a jog and turned down the first crowded side street I came across that was still travelling in the general direction of my hostel.

  My name is Alix Hiboux, archaeology grad school dropout and international antiquities thief for hire.

  Have I mentioned I don’t do supernatural jobs?

  Welcome to my life.

  2

  Mummies, Monsters, and the IAA

  Ah—12:45 p.m., maybe? Oh who cares what time it is, I’m running from the IAA.

  I broke out the other side of a crowded alley onto a more or less empty street twenty feet from my hostel, the Queen of the Nile.

  I thought it was a whorehouse too, but no; just catered to back­packers.

  I might not have had the sense to stay out of Egypt mid-revolution, but at least I’d picked a nondescript hostel close to the dig site. I ducked back into the alley and scanned the street, ready to run at the first sign of IAA. There were none waiting outside.

  Well, the universe didn’t completely hate me today. Not that I’m dumb enough to trust my own judgment . . .

  Breathing hard, I bolted for the hostel entrance.

  “Excuse me—sorry—dumb tourist,” I said as I pushed past a group of backpackers huddled around the front desk. No one paid me any mind—everyone’s attention was glued to the TV. More protests, if the glimpse I caught of the newsreel was any indication. That had me worried. No matter how noble the cause, large aggregates of angry ­people are destined to leave hordes of dead and unconscious bodies in their wake. And millions of dollars’ worth of property damage.

  I threw a quick wave over my shoulder that no one paid attention to as I ran up the stairs. Relief flooded me as I unlocked and scanned my room. No sign of rifling through my things or tampering with the lock.

  “Pssst, Captain,” I said.

  Captain, my vampire-hunting Mau, chirped and exited from under the bed. He gave me a big yawn and another whine before snorting and sitting on his haunches. “Trust me, you’d have hated the catacombs—full of water, no vampires.”

  I upended my dig backpack and took only the flashlights, cash, and Serena’s fake ID. I ditched my dig backpack, cargo jacket, and tool kit out the window behind a balcony flowerpot, then stripped off my wet clothes and discarded them in the room’s trash can. I made sure the Medusa head was still strapped to my stomach. No way in hell was I risking dropping this thing while I ran for my life.

  I retrieved my red backpack from the closet and dumped my spare clothes on the bed. I grabbed a pair of clean jeans, T-shirt, and a white anorak—this one fitted with a drawstring hood. The next thing I ditched was Captain’s food. I earned a meow for that.

  “We’re running, not vacationing. I’ll buy you more when we get out of Egypt,” I said, and opened the backpack compartment I’d modified into a cat carrier. “Now hurry the hell up and get in before the IAA has a stroke of genius and decides to search the hostels.” Or the revolution moved in. The way Egypt’s last few revolutions had gone, I figured the looters had to be wetting their lips while they waited in the wings.

  I did one last sweep of the room to make sure I hadn’t left anything incriminating, then double-checked to make sure my extra ID and more cash were in the red backpack before looking for IAA out the front ­window.

  No sign of IAA suits, but an angry crowd was assembling a few blocks away. Damn it. I pulled out my phone and called Nadya.

  “Alix, where are you?” There was a slight panic to her voice, and she was keeping the volume down on purpose.

  “Gee, Nadya, I’m in my hostel with a revolution brewing outside. What the hell happened? You were supposed to be looking out for protests while I was two stories under the city stealing our Medusa head.”

  “I was—something is very wrong. One minute everything was peaceful, the next—” Nadya broke off. I heard angry shouting in the background, half of it from Nadya in broken Arabic. I thought I picked out the distinctive crash of a TV breaking, followed by more swearing in both Russian and Arabic.

  “Nadya! Vent your anger later—at me—not Egyptian protestors who might decide they’re better off shooting first.”

  She lowered her voice. “It’s fine. I’m in a bar not far from the cruise docks. We just had a differing opinion of what constituted closing time.”

  I rolled my eyes. I’ll just bet. “Where did they come from? It was peaceful last week—hell, it was peaceful this morning.” In fact, there’d been no riots or violence on anyone’s forecasted horizons. Protests, sure, but not riots. Granted, it’d be naïve to pretend I understood the nuances of the current Egyptian political environment . . .

  “Unless the IAA trucked in rioters this morning,” Nadya continued. “Even you have to admit it was a powder keg waiting to happen. It wouldn’t have taken much.”

  It struck me as a little too convenient as well, though starting a citywide riot to chase down a thief was outside even their normal operating standards . . .

  The IAA supernatural rules were why I’d been thrown out of grad school. I’d accidently uncovered a supernatural artifact during my PhD research. No one—including my supervisors—had caught on until after the paper had come out. They’d convinced naïve and impressionable me to retract everything with the promise they’d fix any and all fallout. Technically they’d followed through on that . . . for them, not me . . . by throwing me under the bus and ruining any negligible chance of a career I’d had left. Apparently that had been easier. Or more fun, take your pick.

  But this? Granted, the IAA had made some passing and laughable attempts to flush me out over the last two years, but baiting me in Algiers and orchestrating this complex a sting operation? I always figured they were more pissed off about the damage to a couple dig sites early on in my thieving career than anything I’d taken.

  All right, they might have been pissed about me using what was left of my fine-excavating tool kit to pick the lock of the livestock freight container they threw me in while they arranged to disappear me somewhere in Siberia, but still . . .

  Time to leave while the going was still marginally possible. I went to grab my backpack and swore. Captain was still sitting on the bed. When he caught me looking, he meowed.

  “Get in the carrier now,” I said, and pointed to my backpack less subtly.

  Captain only meowed louder.

  Of all the spoiled . . . “Look, I don’t have time to give you a cat treat. Now get in the carrier—unless you want to test the whole Egyptian cat reverence thing.” Talking to my cat is probably the first sign of madness, but I figure the more I say, the better chance I have of getting my intentions, if not message, across.

  Captain chirped but this time complied.

  Finally . . .

  “Any sign of the IAA where you are, Nadya?” I asked.

  “Just a moment”—I heard scuffling—“no, none where I’m at. What about you?”

  Sliding my backpack/Captain carrier on, I checked out the window one last time. The crowd down the street was getting closer, but still no sign of IAA black suits or vans. “Coast is still clear. I’m getting while the going
is good, where do you want to—”

  Angry shouting carried down the hall. “Just a sec, Nadya,” I said. I flattened up against the dry and peeling wallpaper so I could edge the door open a crack—just enough to see what the commotion was down the hall.

  Two suits were forcing open the doors to all of the rooms, one by one, regardless of what the current inhabitants thought about it.

  I shut the door—quietly. “They’re here. Must have shown up on foot,” I whispered to Nadya. I grabbed the desk chair and wedged it underneath the door handle, then checked outside the balcony facing the back of the hostel. Two IAA agents—these in street clothes—were waiting below, and I only spotted them because I knew to look for the headsets. I went to the front window and hazarded a glance down. Still no agents milling around there. That meant these two pairs had to be an exploratory team, probably canvassing every hostel and budget hotel in the city.

  “Damn, someone at the IAA got up on the right side of the bed this morning,” I said under my breath. Must have been real early too, in order to organize all this.

  “Don’t you dare do anything stupid.”

  I always figured “stupid” was a matter of circumstance and opinion. There was a bang and someone shouted in English-accented Arabic for me to open the door.

  Now or never . . .

  “Got to run. Call you when I’m clear.” I stuffed the cell phone inside my jacket and hopped up onto the ledge. I was on the top floor, and an awning forked out over my window a foot or so above me. I stood up, balancing between the ledge and frame, and reached for it. It was an inch outside my grasp. I glanced down . . . three stories . . . that wouldn’t necessarily kill me on impact, would it?

  There was another bang at my door, followed by someone trying to turn the handle and force it open. Thank God the chair held. I reached for the awning again, standing as far on the tips of my toes as I dared. Goddamn it, why the hell couldn’t I be an inch taller? I’d have to jump it.

  As if knowing what I planned, Captain let out a shrill whimper. “We’re not jumping, we’re climbing,” I said, putting more confidence into the words than I felt, as if saying it convincingly enough made it true.

  Just don’t look down, Owl. And with a silent Hail Mary, I jumped for the awning.

  My fingers gripped the wood rail, and I pulled myself up. I heard the door inside my room crack while my feet still dangled outside the window.

  Adrenaline coursed through me. I edged my feet to the side of the building and out of view as the door gave, then I scrambled up onto the roof.

  Like most median-income buildings in Alexandria, the hostel roof was made of red mud brick and exposed rebar protruding at various intervals—part property-tax shelter, part keeping your building expansion options open. I ran to the side that bordered a narrow alley. On the neighboring building there was a fire escape ladder within reach.

  The IAA suits’ voices carried to the roof.

  “—potential suspect on foot, may be headed your way, team five—”

  They’d found my open window. I didn’t wait around to hear more. Not one to look a minor miracle in the mouth, I threw myself at the ladder and straddled between the two buildings. The metal groaned against its mud-brick-buried hinges . . . Don’t look down, Alix, you don’t need to see how high up you are . . .

  I looked down. The street was a lot farther away than I thought it’d be. Damn it, I hate heights. There’s a video game involving a lot of leaping between high buildings I avoid for that very reason. Captain mreowled in his carrier.

  “Yeah, I think this is a stupid idea, too, but it’s the only one we have right now.” I was about to start climbing down when I heard the door crash open in the room directly below me. A few feet down was another window, albeit smaller, but still easy to spot me through.

  I changed direction as fast as my feet would take me and threw myself onto the roof as I heard an agent fumble with the window catch. I pulled my feet over the edge and peeked back down in time to see an agent stick his head out.

  “No sign of her out here. Head up to the roof, I’ll stay here—”

  Praise be to Egypt’s loose building codes, I was able to jump two more roofs and one balcony before I ran out of leaping-distance options. I searched for a way down and found an alleyside balcony about six feet below me with a clothesline strung between it and the next building that I guessed would hold me for the remaining two-story drop to the ground . . . or break as soon as I put any weight on it.

  At this point I’d take whatever the hell I could get. Besides, from the increased volume of screaming and breaking glass, the protest-turned-riot was close on my heels. It was get on the ground now, or get trapped on the roof between the IAA and the mob.

  I lowered myself over the edge and braced for the six-foot drop to the balcony . . .

  I heard the distinct chime of my phone. I swore, wishing I’d had the brains to turn the damn ringer off. Captain mewed, loud and baleful.

  “You adding to the noise isn’t helping,” I told him as I dropped down and checked my cell—in part to silence it, but also to see who the hell it was.

  Rynn.

  Damn it, not the time for an update. At least that was a good indication we were still on versus off . . . despite Egypt . . . and provided he never found out about Algeria . . .

  “I’m out—” I started.

  “What the hell did you just do?”

  I paused. Answering questions like that with Rynn was tricky. “OK, I thought we’d come to an agreement about you asking me things you really don’t want to know the answer to—”

  “Knock it off, Alix. I’m serious.”

  Yeah, he said that now . . . funny how sentiments changed when details emerge . . .

  “Apparently the IAA is more pissed about me knocking off a mummy than usual,” I said.

  “There has to be more to it. The Egyptian cell phone and military lines are so plugged I can’t make head or tails of anything going on in Alexandria. There are reports of explosions and gunfire from your end of the city—”

  Somehow I doubted that was entirely the IAA’s fault. Even if they’d hacked every cell phone in the city trying to flush me out, it wouldn’t get messy this fast. “I think that has less to do with the IAA and everything to do with the riot—speaking of which, the masses are heading my way, so if you don’t mind—” I swore as I caught sight of an IAA suit on the neighboring building’s roof. My cover behind the worn patio set wasn’t foolproof, and he spotted me in a matter of seconds, pointing to his friend.

  Wait a minute, what was in his hand . . . “Oh hell no, when did the IAA start carrying guns?” I said. They wouldn’t shoot though, would they? Not in a crowded city . . . In answer, a bullet struck the mud brick not too far from my head.

  Damn, they meant business this time.

  “Alix?” Rynn said.

  “Got to go.”

  He swore. “Run—call back when you can, I’ll try to keep tabs on the IAA.”

  I hung up and glanced down at the alley, then up. On the roof across the street stood another three IAA agents. If I climbed down to the street now, I’d be a sitting duck.

  Lucky for me the balcony door was ajar. There was a lull in the bullets, so I threw Captain inside and dove in after him.

  The apartment was modest; a couch and TV took up the bulk of the living space, accompanied by a small kitchen. I spotted a family of three—maybe four—hiding behind the couch, staring at me, their eyes wide.

  Never underestimate the value of pure, unadulterated shock. It means people don’t react.

  I jerked my thumb back at the destruction outside their balcony. “One hell of a protest,” I said in broken Arabic.

  The man nodded, slowly, but didn’t say anything. “Door?” I asked, or hoped that’s what I asked. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: languag
es are not my forte.

  The woman, huddled around a kid and wearing a bright green headscarf, nodded and pointed through the kitchen.

  With no intention of wearing out my shock value, I grabbed Captain and bolted out the front door and down four flights of stairs. When I hit the street, I was met by a sea of people in a mix of traditional white robes and typical Western wear of jeans and T-shirts. I wedged myself against the doorway, hoping they’d pass. They didn’t, endless and thick enough to crowd the narrow street. A woman screamed farther back, and I heard glass breaking.

  The riot had caught up.

  I shoved my hair inside my hood and tied it tight. Somehow I doubted there were many blond tourists fitting my description racing through the city now. “Hold on tight, Captain. The ride’s about to get rocky,” I said, and only after making damn sure my backpack was well strapped to my front did I dive into the crowd.

  The thing you have to remember about mobs is that they’re their own entity. The only way to navigate one is in a Zen-like state of calm—go with the flow . . .

  Well, that and throw a punch at anyone who tries to trample you and hope to hell no one decides this is the day to mug a tourist . . . or has the bright idea to throw something flammable.

  I kept my eyes peeled for the IAA as I rode the sea of people down a narrow side street, one that would take me to the docks.

  It’s always a pain to navigate a mob—especially if you’re short; the landmarks and road signs just, well, vanish. I caught sight of mosque spires I recognized five or six blocks to my right as the mob came up to a fork, and I rode the section that broke to the right. Turn left at the mosque, and I’d almost be home free.

  I heard screaming behind me, pitched enough to indicate fights breaking out. A quick glance over my shoulder told me exactly what the problem was; more people were flooding into the street and causing a traffic jam. That didn’t bode well.

  Someone fell into my back, catapulting me over a man who’d tripped ahead of me. Captain shrieked—out of fear or indignation, I couldn’t tell. I was too busy getting my feet to land under me and ducking a bottle as it soared overhead—striking a woman a few feet ahead wearing a bright blue scarf. She disappeared, whether trampled or escaping to the side I couldn’t be sure as two more bottles shot overhead.