Owl and the City of Angels

by Kristi Charish

  The bastards had figured out a way to cut the power to the casino. There was something wrong about the darkness though—it was too dark.

  Horns and sirens drifted up from the strip below.

  They wouldn’t have . . . I swore and checked outside the window. The buildings, streetlights—except for headlights, all of Vegas was dark.

  “Oh that’s overkill—”

  “Alix, why do I get the funny feeling you have something to do with the power?” Rynn said, coming up beside me.

  I turned away from the window and stumbled into him as my headache flared; he’d been standing closer than I’d realized.

  “Ah, yeah—long story about that. It was the World Quest ­developers—”

  Rynn peered down at me, his brow furrowed.

  “OK, it was my fault, but it was an emergency.”

  Rynn touched my forehead with the back of his hand. “You need to get in the shower now.”

  “No, I need to get back up on World Quest,” I told him. Maybe Carpe could hack us back in . . . I ducked out of the way but tripped over my own feet. Rynn caught me, his expression of worry deepening.

  “Stop it, you’re burning up.”

  I stopped. In fact, I got a good look at myself in the mirror, all sweat-soaked, five feet four inches of me. Who was I kidding? I wasn’t going to be any more use tonight in World Quest.

  I let Rynn lead me to the shower. Alix Hiboux, welcome to your curse.

  14

  To Catch a Thief. No, Not Me. The Real Thief.

  Noon, somewhere over the Eastern Sahara

  Ever flown over a desert?

  I figure the closest comparison is flying over the Arctic on a cloudless day. Except for the color, snow dunes look an awful lot like sand dunes.

  I turned away from the port window and tried to get comfortable in the . . . well . . . not seat. Let’s go with pile of bags and blankets and leave it on a positive note. This was a significant change from the modes of transportation I’d gotten used to as of late—luxury cruises, private jets . . .

  Cargo plane.

  The cargo plane itself didn’t bug me. It was a relief to be somewhere I felt safe.

  It was the damn chickens. The rooster especially kept crowing and pulling me out of my hard-won sleep, which I was trying to catch up on. After the power on the Vegas Strip was leveled, we bumped up our departure time. No one blamed me outright. They were just happy to have me gone.

  Oh yeah, and there was the small issue of my curse. After Rynn had corralled me into taking a long, cold shower to lower my body temperature, he’d gotten out the heavy-duty Tylenol. The fever had gotten under control—mostly—as had the headaches. I hadn’t had any hallucinations. Maybe I’d get lucky and it’d stay that way.

  Yeah, I don’t think I’m that lucky either.

  No sooner did I start to doze off than the right engine coughed and the rooster voiced his displeasure.

  Captain’s claws dug into my shoulder as he growled. I’d newly discovered Captain’s tolerance for livestock. The hens he was fine with—it was the damn rooster. “Why does it have to be chickens?” I said.

  “You said livestock,” Rynn said, not bothering to open his eyes to look up. After the flight from Las Vegas to South Africa, we all needed to catch up on sleep.

  I needed to be more specific next time . . .

  I settled back in and did my best to ignore the yellow dinghy hanging from the inside of the cargo deck. Yellow rafts and cargo planes . . . well, you’ve seen the movie. That whole ride-the-dinghy-out-of-a-crashing-plane? Doesn’t work, though that never stops people from trying . . .

  Captain started to creep down my shoulder, towards the crates. Again.

  I grabbed his tail and towed him back across Rynn’s assortment of canvas bags. As I turned, my elbow bit into a gun. Oh yeah. I’d forgotten about that.

  “When I said we needed to go in as someone the locals wouldn’t shoot at . . .” I held up the rifle fitted with a scope; God, I hoped it wasn’t real—or loaded. “. . . I’m pretty sure ‘mercenary’ wasn’t what I meant.”

  Rynn glanced up. Unlike me, dressed in cargo pants and a Kevlar jacket, Nadya and Rynn actually looked like mercenaries. I’d forgotten just how easily Rynn slid in and out of his mercenary persona—and how different he looked. Until he’d gotten tired of shooting at people, he’d been an enforcer of sorts for supernaturals. He was always careful to keep his host image at the forefront, and most days you’d never suspect his secret history. Maybe that was what made him good at it. Hide in “plane” sight, as I always say . . .

  However, seeing mercenary Rynn wasn’t nearly as frightening as seeing how well Nadya fit the part. Hell, not only did she look like a mercenary but she also managed to make the whole thing look fashionable.

  Me, on the other hand . . .

  “Just pretend it is costume night at the Space Station Deluxe,” Nadya said, referring to the upscale hostess bar she ran in Tokyo. “And try to look like you know what you’re doing.”

  Easier said than done. Not exactly a five-foot-nine glamazon who looked just as good in Kevlar as she did in a miniskirt.

  “Just relax and please, for the love of God, let me do the talking,” Rynn said before settling back into the seat and pulling his hood down.

  I tried to settle back in, but my paranoia about curse symptoms resurfaced. If all the notes on the previous victims were right, the hallucinations were next. Maybe paranoia was a hallucination . . . hell, the first symptoms were poorly documented, since the dig members hadn’t known they’d been cursed to begin with.

  “I think you’ve orchestrated a disaster,” I said to Rynn.

  “Right back at you.”

  “Whore.”

  “Train wreck.”

  Not being able to sleep, I glanced out at the Sahara below, Captain’s leash wrapped tight around my hand. Still a few hours left. I grabbed a thermos of coffee then pulled out my laptop; if I couldn’t sleep, at least I could get my bearings on where we were. Maybe Carpe had gotten back into World Quest and found me the damn map. Provided our characters weren’t toast.

  I hooked up my satellite phone and opened our private chat line. Hey—any news on World Quest? I typed.

  For once, Carpe’s response wasn’t instantaneous. Can you give me, like, half an hour? I’m kind of busy.

  Ah, no? Asshole, me dying is more important than whatever the hell you’re doing. Mostly he’d never find another player willing to let him skim off the top of our loot. Have you patched back into the World Quest server yet?

  Not yet. Like I said, something else came up. Look—gimme a sec, I’m seriously in the middle of something.

  Before I could argue back, Carpe logged out.

  I snorted, took another sip of coffee, and glanced out the window at the sand dunes passing below. For fun I pulled up the map on my screen. We’d reached southern Egypt. Something about that bugged me, even though we were still headed in the right direction. I saw the green light flash in the bottom-left corner of my screen, telling me Carpe was back. I switched to audio.

  “Hey, do I need to remind you we have a deal—no map, no book?” I said. Not least of which was because there was no chance I’d be alive at the end of the week if I didn’t make it into the city . . . and let’s face it, even with the map I could still end up dead. Lesser things had killed better archae­ologists, not to mention there might not be a way to reverse the curse.

  “Yeah, yeah—look, can we please have this conversation . . . shit.” Then I heard the electric snap telling me he’d signed off.

  Get back online, you slimy elf—Oh shit. The right engine coughed, and the plane bucked to the right. I swore again as my laptop and satellite phone slid to the floor.

  Both Rynn and Nadya sat up.

  “What the hell was that?” Rynn said.
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  “I don’t know, but the engine doesn’t sound happy,” I said.

  The plane banked again, and I heard the pilot swear loudly in the cockpit.

  Wait a minute. I recognized that voice . . . Oh no. Please be a hallucination. “Rynn, who’s flying the plane?”

  Rynn glanced up at me, then at the door.

  “We don’t know who’s flying the plane, do we?” I said.

  Rynn shook his head as the engine—the left this time—coughed and sputtered smoke.

  Shit.

  I scrambled up, dumping Captain, who’d firmly dug his claws into my thigh. “Get the door open.”

  I reached it first and wrenched it open as the plane banked forward, spilling me into the cockpit.

  Sitting in the pilot’s seat, wearing an old cargo jacket, a baseball cap to cover his ears, and an oversized pair of aviators, was none other than Carpe. In the pilot’s seat. Without a copilot.

  “Carpe,” I said, untangling myself from him and grabbing the collar of his jacket, “I really, really hope you’re a hallucination—”

  “Will you let go of me? I’m a very experienced pilot, thank you very much. I’ve clocked more hours in simulation than most pilots.” He grabbed at my wrists and tried to dislodge them.

  “A video game does not mean you can fly a plane,” I said.

  “I beg to differ,” he said, insulted. “I got us this far, didn’t I?”

  “Fine, you can tell us why the left engine is smoking then,” Rynn said, coming up behind me.

  Carpe swallowed and glanced sideways at the instruments as they began to blink red and beep loudly. He glanced at the controls again and his laptop. “There are mitigating circumstances, namely I didn’t account for all the sand,” he started.

  “What does that mean exactly?” I yelled as the engine sputtered again.

  Carpe swallowed and lifted his dark brown eyebrows. “It means buckle up.” I really would have liked to hit him. Fear of dying by ejection through the cockpit window won out though.

  Apparently Rynn had the same thought process, because after exchanging a look, we both dove for the hatch back into the cargo section.

  Nadya was standing in the cargo bay, dealing with an irate and bellowing Captain. “Why is my nose itching?” she yelled so as to be heard over the sputtering engines—both now streaming black smoke that registered as burned rubber in my nose.

  “Because we’re about to crash,” I said.

  “Because the damned elf is flying the plane,” Rynn yelled, shoving me towards my seat.

  Nadya swore, tossed an indignant Captain at me, and dove for our bags of computer equipment.

  The plane banked again, and I had to jump to save my laptop from crashing into the hold wall.

  “Rynn? Parachutes?” I said as he dove for the pile of canvas bags. “Shouldn’t we be jumping out?”

  “Not enough altitude—strap in.” He grabbed two of the larger canvas bags and held them up, before deciding the heavier one on the left would be better served tied down. He checked the window and swore before grabbing the next piece of essential equipment.

  Nadya went for the yellow rubber inflatable hanging from the wall. I grabbed her before she could pull it down, shaking my head. “Trust me, bad idea.”

  She abandoned the dinghy and tied more of our equipment to the steel rings in the floor before strapping herself in.

  I grabbed Captain’s leash. He took one look at the developing chaos and sought shelter in the carrier. Smart cat. I tied it to the empty seat beside me and buckled in for dear life.

  Rynn strapped one last bag in before following suit. I hoped the most dangerous of the bags was bolted down.

  The plane sputtered twice more before the nose dipped and my stomach leapt, the way it does on a roller coaster. I think I counted three, maybe four, seconds until we clipped the first sand dune.

  Planes clipping sand dunes? Let me cross that off your bucket list for you; doesn’t matter if you’re strapped in, it still hurts like a son of a bitch.

  My teeth and jaw were still hurting when another giant mountain of sand flickered by the window and the entire plane jolted and veered to the right. The plane came to a wrenching halt—the rending of metal assaulting our ears—as it collided into the next sand dune.

  I figure I sat there for a couple of minutes. I wasn’t dead, and from the groans nearby, neither were Nadya and Rynn. That struck me as dumb luck more than anything else.

  The plane had lodged into a sand dune. Nadya and Rynn were both looking up at me, suspended above them. The window behind them only showed sand.

  All my limbs were still working, so I first let Captain out of his ­carrier—he leapt down about as gracefully as you’d expect from a cat carrying an extra few pounds. I struggled to get the belt undone, then I dropped down.

  “Oomph.” I landed on my knees nowhere near as gracefully as Captain, but in one piece and with no broken bones. This was a plane crash, not ballet; I couldn’t be bothered with making it look pretty.

  Rynn and Nadya climbed out of their seats next. It took all three of us to pry the cargo door open.

  Our plane was sticking out of the top of a dune. Only the left wing was still attached, more or less. The other wing was sticking out of the neighboring dune.

  “Where are we?” Nadya said.

  Good question. “Last thing my GPS told me, we were in southern Egypt, near the Sudanese border.”

  Nadya swore in Russian.

  Rynn added, “Well, we’re ready to deal with insurgents and freedom fighters—just not the ones we’d been planning on.” He frowned and looked at me. “Are you sure about the location?”

  I nodded and tossed him my satellite phone with the GPS. “See for yourself.”

  He studied it. “How the hell did we end up that far off course? The flight plan was supposed to skirt Egypt along the coast, not travel inland.”

  Carpe . . .

  Now where the hell was he . . . shit.

  The front section of the plane had not made friends with the sand; it was buried in the dune. Something kicked the pilot’s door. Carpe yelled something, but it was muffled by the metal.

  “I vote we leave him in there,” Rynn said.

  “I second,” Nadya added.

  I was halfway inclined to agree with both of them. As much as I wanted to pummel Carpe myself, leaving him locked up in that tin can for a while might do him some good.

  More helpless pounding on the metal.

  Damn it. “OK, as great as that sounds right now, none of us actually wants to be responsible for accidently letting Carpe die,” I said.

  Rynn glanced up at me. “Speak for yourself. I think it’s a fantastic idea.”

  “Me too,” added Nadya.

  I sighed. All right, neither of them actually meant that . . . “OK, no. Not leaving the elf to die. Come on,” I added, and started to climb up what was left of the cargo plane’s door to get to the damn elf. It had to be the fever. I was not used to being the voice of reason. Rynn followed me up and grabbed hold of the other side of the door.

  I banged it. “Hey, asshole who crashed the plane . . . get back.”

  “On three,” Rynn said. “One, two—three.” Both of us pulled, and the door gave way. Carpe pushed his head out.

  I’d never met Carpe in person before. I’d only ever seen him once over the computer camera when I’d been pissed enough to drop his firewall, and I’d had no chance or intention of attempting that again.

  Carpe looked much the same as I remembered: pointed ears, dark brown hair past his shoulders. Whereas Rynn’s features were attractive in a youthful but still male way, Carpe struck me as more ­androgynous—like a grunge kid from the ’90s on a nature kick. Kind of a hippy computer hacker . . . Oh forget it, Carpe didn’t quite fit well into any box.

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sp; I’d be lying if I said he wasn’t cute—taller than I’d expected from the photo.

  He extended his hand out towards me. “Much appreciat—Damn it!”

  Rynn grabbed him by the collar and tossed him out of the plane.

  Carpe hit the sand—hard. Rynn hopped down after him.

  “Carpe, isn’t it?” Rynn said, closing in on him. “What the hell were you doing flying our plane?”

  Carpe held up one arm in defense while he tried to scramble back, though since it was sand, he wasn’t getting much traction. “Look, I can explain—”

  “Fantastic. You’ve got two minutes to convince me not to shoot you.”

  Carpe’s fear vanished as his face contorted in indignant anger. “Two minutes? You can’t be serious—”

  Rynn took his gun out and shot at the sand near Carpe’s leg. Nadya, me, Carpe—all of us jumped, though Carpe jumped the highest.

  “Jesus, you shot me!”

  “I shot at you; in the same vicinity. If I have to do it again, chances are my aim will get worse.” He then shrugged, reconsidering. “Or better.”

  Carpe glared at me, still indignant. “Seriously, Owl, do you see the violence here?” He turned his attention back to Rynn. “All you incubi do is hit things.”

  Rynn smiled. “If I thought for a second you actually knew what you just said, I might laugh,” he said as he glanced down at his watch. “One minute thirty seconds left.”

  Carpe stared at me, pleading. “Owl, please.”

  I held up my hands. “Hey, I’m just the archaeologist. You want to steal our cargo plane, you get to talk to the mercenary incubus.”

  “OK, OK. Just point the gun somewhere else.”

  Rynn obliged, and Carpe pleaded to me once more. “All right, when I figured out you were going to the City of the Dead to try and get out of the curse you got yourself into—”

  “You mean Alexander tricked me into.”

  Carpe waved his hand as if the details weren’t particularly relevant. Not exactly ingratiating me to his cause . . .

  “I got to thinking that it was going to be a long shot, even if we got the map from World Quest. No offense, but there’s a very good chance you’re going to die anyways—hey, it’s the truth!” Carpe yelled as Rynn kicked sand at him. “On a side note, I was wondering how you’d get there. I ruled out North Africa and Europe—too much IAA, then it occurred to me you might be coming from the south. When I checked which flight you were on—”