Owl and the City of Angels

by Kristi Charish

  Rynn said elves tried to make everything fair for everyone—­humans, supernaturals, you name it, like Zen Buddhism of the supernatural world. And therein lay the problem. Details were sparse, but what I’d gleaned from Rynn had been peppered with: “get everyone killed,” “idiots couldn’t design a battle plan if they tried,” and “how would they like to be cannon fodder.”

  “In my opinion, Byzantine, you’re totally letting the incubus dictate the relationship.”

  “Wow—wait, no—that’s not what’s happening here. And what the hell did I say about staying out of my love life?”

  “Whatever. Makes no nevermind to me what you let the incubus tell you to do. Ahhh . . . you might want to step back. I’ll be OK if this trap goes, but you?”

  I moved Byzantine back out of range, but the thought worm Carpe had thrown at me wheeled its way around my brain. Was I letting Rynn dictate the relationship? Maybe I was—not like I’d had a lot of experience in relationships, unless you counted pissing off vampires . . .

  I forced the mind worm out. I played World Quest to get away from real life, not discuss it with Carpe, whose motives were suspect at best. Speaking of motives, Carpe was disarming a treasure chest. Normally I’d be concerned about Carpe pocketing items, but for the most part we were relatively honest with our hauls; besides, I knew his pack was full from the goblins and I was the one with the bag of holding—a pocket dimension in a bag. Every good thief’s best friend to haul every bit of loot.

  “Like a real friend, Byzantine, I don’t mind taking the odd spell in the face, kind of like a real friend wouldn’t mind getting me my goddamn spell book!”

  The coffee was done brewing, so I grabbed a cup before starting in again. “Is it you who wants the damn spell book, or your Grand ­Poobah?” The biggest bitch about being in the dark about most supernatural ­goings-­on was having to invent my own phrases.

  “Oh for—we don’t have a ‘Grand Poobah.’ ”

  “Same difference. Some elf has to be in charge of the rest of you elves—hence, Grand Poobah elf—unless you’d like to fill me in with the proper name.”

  I smiled, took another sip of coffee as Carpe made a derisive noise, and continued, “You know, Alexander got pissed I called the head vampire a Grand Poobah too. Is Grand Poobah hate a supernatural thing?”

  “Vampires? OK, you can’t compare me to Alexander, he was trying to kill you.”

  “Yet you want me to go kick a mummy in the balls and, what? Take the book while he’s clutching his knees? You do realize that strategy barely works in World Quest?”

  “I never said kick the mummy in the balls—”

  “Let me guess. Kick, then run really fast? Or maybe open a discussion on why he should give me the book?” I snorted.

  “You deal with monsters all the time, just look at your boyfriend—”

  “For the last time, no! No goblins, no Egyptian mummy sorcerers, no helping the elves in their reign of chaos.”

  “Now you’re just name calling.”

  “Whatever floats your boat. Now open the damn treasure chest!”

  Carpe didn’t offer a comeback—or move his avatar to open the chest.

  Oh for the love of— “Come on. You deserved that for the last dig about Rynn.”

  Nothing. Wait a minute, why was my screen flickering? I zoomed in on my game window. Sure enough, Carpe’s character was giving me the finger.

  “You goddamn son of a bitch—” And where the hell had he learned that? Damn it, I needed that hack. World Quest profanity filters were notorious. I got blacklisted at least once a month—mostly auditory, but every now and then written. Obscene gestures, on the other hand . . .

  The World Quest censorship light flared orange on the right-hand corner of my screen. I sat straight up.

  “Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me! How the hell is he supposed to be able to give me the goddamn finger and I’m the one getting the fucking sensor light? You’re really raising the bastard standard, World Quest, you know that—Shit.” The server flashed two more warning lights and logged me out of the game.

  I sat back in my chair. “You asshole, that got me kicked off.”

  “Alix, this is our private chat line—I loop it out of the server. They can’t hear you swearing like a sailor, promise.”

  “No, they kicked me off for your avatar giving me the finger.”

  “No way, they haven’t got the build for the gesture filter patched in yet—”

  The fact that that was even an emerging problem on their radar . . . “So what the hell gives?”

  A series of pink and orange vertical lines flickered into existence across my black screen. “Carpe? You seeing this?”

  “Already on it. It’s not a hacker, it’s the game.”

  An unsettling feeling formed in my stomach as I remembered something Nadya had said about not using World Quest to plan heists . . . But there was no way the game could know about my recent string of jobs.

  Even so, the unsettling feeling remained.

  The lines solidified into a solid orange screen with a black dialogue window in the center. Across the dialogue box in retro DOS green letters scrolled one word.

  Probation.

  I swore. Probation? What the hell for? I typed.

  The green words flickered out, and new text scrolled across. We designed World Quest for entertainment. Not so you could loot the ancient world.

  Oh come on! Like you can prove anything.

  “Owl,” Carpe said. “You should maybe leave this one alone. Seriously, I’ve never heard of the creators actually banning someone before.”

  Against Carpe’s judgment, I kept typing.

  “Owl, will you shut up and just apologize!” Carpe said.

  I ignored him. Ban me from World Quest? Look, if you don’t want me using your maps to steal artifacts, maybe you should have put a disclaimer on the damn terms of use page. I pay my monthly membership, and I haven’t broken any rules. You want to change them? Be my fucking guest, but you bastards don’t get to ban my ass for breaking a rule that didn’t exist!

  Hence, probation. No more thefts based on our blueprints. We mean it. And have a nice day.

  And with that the screen returned to my game home screen.

  I couldn’t believe it. “What the fuck just happened?”

  There was a pause on Carpe’s end as I fumed.

  “Please tell me you haven’t been using World Quest to plan your heists,” Carpe said.

  “Uh, OK, but I’d be lying. What is it with everyone thinking that’s a bad idea? It’s an awesome idea. Bonus, they’re accurate.”

  “Uhhhh . . . OK, resourceful? Yes. Ethical? No. Do you have any idea how much scrutiny World Quest would fall under if anyone else links your thefts to the game? Not just the IAA, I mean the supernatural community too.”

  I hadn’t thought of it from that perspective . . . at all. I felt the beginnings of a pang of guilt. It’s not a feeling I’m comfortable with—I try to avoid doing things that might make me feel guilty.

  “Look, Carpe, I’m out for . . .” I checked the bottom of my login screen where a twelve-hour countdown clock blinked orange. “The next twelve.”

  He sighed. “You sure know how to ruin a game. See you online in twelve.”

  I shut down my login window and stared at the screen. Numb, that was the only way to describe it. Not being able to do anything about the game in the interim, I refilled my coffee cup and pulled up the theft files.

  I closed out the last black market page on my list. Those had been a bust. The only Neolithic artifact for sale had been a piece of flint arrow three months back, originating from France—not even in the same geographic ballpark.

  I next searched the entertainment magazine articles and video coverage, and stopped at the description in one of the captions.

/>   “This isn’t right,” I said to Captain, who was perched behind my computer. The legend for the piece had to be wrong. The flint piece had been called early to proto-Neolithic, and the stone bowl had been labeled as late—about a five-thousand-year separation. The sword? The sword was labeled as Bronze Age. None of the three pieces were identified correctly.

  I pulled up the video on the tablet and cranked the volume, to see how the entertainment personality explained the pieces.

  “All three pieces were found in northern Israel at the Eynan dig site, a Neolithic city settled by the Natufians, a culture famous for the burial of their family members underneath their homes,” the host said. She went on to ooh and aah over the idea of burying family members in one’s house, and that fast devolved into cracking jokes about in-laws and exes. Funny how humor is how we cope with things that make us uncomfortable.

  I stopped the video after it moved on to a collection of Greek and Roman statues. The mistakes were understandable, just not the kind Nadya or I would ever make—not to mention any other archaeology grad worth their salt. The sword could never have come from Eynan; there was no overlaying Bronze Age. The city was decimated by droughts, as well as excessive farming and hunting, well before the Bronze Age reached the Levant. And they were wrong about the culture—the flint size was too large, for starters; they were Qaraoun, not Natufian.

  Either the thief who’d sold the items or Daphne’s collection curator hadn’t known what they were doing. These just weren’t the kind of mistakes I expected from the thief who’d pulled off this job. Unless I was dealing with another archaeology dropout—one who’d missed the “by the way, there be monsters” speech.

  Not enough information to know what they were doing, just enough to be dangerous. Especially if they didn’t know about the curse.

  Before I could email my new theory to Nadya, my laptop pinged. A message from Hermes.

  Dear Owl. We need to talk—Cheers, Hermes

  That was . . . unexpected. One of the things I liked about Hermes was his ability to conduct business online without all the bells and whistles associated with meeting in person. I know it’s counterintuitive, but there’s a level of trust that comes with knowing you couldn’t pick someone’s voice or face out of a lineup and vice versa.

  I’d really prefer not to . . . Kind of like our current working relationship. No offense, I responded, then fired off my email to Nadya.

  A few minutes later I heard the ping of another email. Dear Owl, None taken. Meeting in person nonnegotiable—Cheers, Hermes.

  “What do you think, Captain?” I said as he leapt onto my lap.

  In answer, he let out an inquisitive meow, waited—probably to see if I was about to stand up—then settled.

  Expecting wisdom from a house cat. Yet another illustration of my descent into madness.

  Not like I had any other real leads jumping out at me.

  All right. But this better be good. And hopefully not a trap. Where and when?

  Dear Owl, Will let you know tomorrow—Thanks for accommodating, Hermes.

  I shook my head and went back to the videos to see if there was anything else I’d missed. I was interrupted by a knock on my door.

  1:00 a.m., maybe Rynn got off early.

  Captain howled as I stood on my toes and checked through the eyehole.

  What the . . . ?

  Lady Siyu stood in the hallway, black sunglasses and all, tapping her foot. Should I open the door, or pretend I wasn’t there?

  Her nose twitched as she sniffed the air. She then tilted her head up and looked into the eyehole. She curled her lip, exposing a single, extended fang. “I can smell you,” she said, “and if you do not cease to waste my time—”

  I threw the door open. There was no point in delaying the inevitable. She’d only get meaner.

  “What do you want?” I’d also learned from experience that conversational niceties were a waste of time in Lady Siyu’s opinion. Not having to pretend I liked her was kind of liberating. If it hadn’t been for her new life goal of figuring out a way to kill me without interfering with her boss’s business, I might not even have minded working with her so much. There’s something to be said for efficiency bordering on uncivil.

  Lady Siyu pursed her lips. “I have new information to offer.”

  I crossed my arms while Captain wound around my legs, his hackles up. I made no move to let Lady Siyu past the doorway.

  She looked relieved rather than slighted. “I have reason to believe the artifacts themselves are cursed. You are not to touch them.”

  That got my attention. Lady Siyu rarely offered me any relevant information.

  “They are safe for most supernaturals to handle, such as myself or Mr. Kurosawa—even the incubus could handle them without much fault,” she continued.

  I didn’t miss the way she pronounced incubus, as if it were something distasteful. Even having him as interim security hadn’t elevated him past the whole harpoon-through-her-abdomen thing . . .

  It was my turn to narrow my eyes. “I knew that already. Why else are you here?”

  “The stone bowl is particularly problematic. If one of your kind were to drink from that vessel, I believe the results would be undesirable.” Her eyes narrowed and she tilted her head to the side, reminding me of Captain when he was studying a toy. “If this casino is any indication, your species frequently drinks from vessels of unknown origin.”

  Great, thanks for the vote of confidence . . . Part of me wanted to roll my eyes, but technically she was right. First off, most people didn’t know magic or supernaturals existed. Second, get a large enough group of people together, and someone is bound to do something stupid.

  “There’s more to it. You wouldn’t be this concerned over a bunch of poisoned humans. In fact, I would have bet you’d do everything in your power to let the artifacts wipe out a few humans before going to retrieve them.” I crossed my arms, looking a hell of a lot braver than I felt. “What the hell else gives?”

  Lady Siyu hissed and turned on her heels back towards the elevators. “I do not find your attitude about this predicament amusing.”

  I hate being dismissed. “Trust me, I’m about the only one in this pony show with the right attitude towards the city and those artifacts.”

  She’d only taken a few steps when she stopped and glanced back.

  Maybe she wasn’t as dense as I thought . . . or maybe she was coming to terms with the fact that I knew what the hell I was talking about when it came to antiquities. Faster than I thought possible, the sunglasses were off and Lady Siyu’s face was back in front of me. Before I could get out of the way, her fangs—each an inch long and dripping with yellow venom—were a hairsbreadth away from my face. She was still in human form. Barely.

  Nope. Scratch that, no change. Absolutely as dense as I thought.

  “You would be wise to remember the only reason I permit your continued existence is that you are more useful alive than dead to Mr. Kurosawa. Do not think that status is an unlimited one. It will ebb when the tide changes, and then?”

  A drop of yellow venom fell, landing on my shirt. I stumbled back, tripping over the carpet and falling hard on my ass.

  Lady Siyu didn’t bother pursuing me. She swayed back and forth on her heels as gracefully as a cobra about to strike.

  “Then, I think I might kill you myself,” she said.

  The elevator door slid open. Rynn stepped out, and he frowned as soon as he saw Lady Siyu.

  She strode towards the open elevator, saying something to Rynn—seereet, or sieret; whatever it was, it was in supernatural—before she stepped inside.

  There was a tense exchange between them before the doors slid shut, but this time I couldn’t pick out the individual words. The problem with supernatural common is that the words are strung together in something that’s akin to singing,
making the individual words hard to tell apart.

  I stood back up, brushing my hands against my jeans to cover the fact that I was shaking. “Well, all things considered, I think that went well.”

  “She didn’t hurt you?”

  I shook my head. “No, just had information for me, nothing I couldn’t handle.” There was very little I hated more than implying to Rynn I couldn’t handle Lady Siyu or Mr. Kurosawa—unless they turned into monsters and actually tried to eat me. Then all bets to save my pride were off. Besides, I didn’t need him trying to babysit me.

  Rynn just stood there, and I realized he was waiting for me to let him in. I obliged.

  Almost immediately his eyes fell on the open computer screen.

  “You were talking to the elf again.” It wasn’t a question or accusation. Just a statement.

  I nodded. “World Quest game time.”

  He glanced over at me. “Did the elf contact you in Egypt?”

  It seemed an innocent-enough question, but sometimes I had a hard time reading Rynn’s expressions. I was getting better, but some of his quieter moods caught me off guard. It sounds strange, but every now and then it was like there was another layer—almost human but not quite.

  “Well, stalked me by cell phone is more accurate. He wants me to steal a spell book from a sorcerer’s mummy who is still using it. I told him no,” I added when Rynn’s lip twitched. For a second I thought he was going to say something else about Carpe or his general dislike of elves. Instead, he nodded back at my login screen—my now defunct login screen for the next twelve hours.

  “Why do you play?” he asked.

  The question and his quiet mood caught me off guard. I thought about it. Really thought about it. I’d learned the hard way: making light of Rynn’s questions when he was in a serious mood led to off-again relationship status.

  It hurt his feelings. Yes, I care about Rynn’s feelings.

  “Because for a couple hours I get to forget who I am, my problems, and I get to be somebody who for once in my life has the upper hand. Is that good enough?”