Owl and the Tiger Thieves

by Kristi Charish

  I heard his voice clearly in my head as I stared into those eyes, a whiter blue than they had been before. “Have you ever heard the saying about giving someone enough rope to hang themselves with?” he asked, his voice clear in my head, and him so close it seemed as if I could have reached out to touch him.

  Oh shit. I tried to block him out and force him back.

  “It’s time for me to pull in the rope.”

  Somewhere behind me I heard a scream, followed by another, while I tried to force Rynn out. And then he was gone. I looked around me, but there was no sign of him, either in the arena or in the half troll’s eyes.

  I was scanning the crowds, searching for where the screams had come from, when something large and wet-sounding landed at my feet.

  It was a body, a heavily rendered one, tinged with the scent of rotting lily of the valley.

  Just about then, the arguing in the stone bleachers turned to screams.

  17

  MURDER ON THE MALABAR COAST

  The Lost City of Muziris, aka the Tiger Thieves stronghold. Time? Who cares? Corrupted supernatural-eating vampires.

  I covered my nose with the sleeve of my jacket, ignoring the scent of three days’ worth of sweat. It was better than—well—

  The body had fallen from above the high walls surrounding the arena, its head striking the stone floor with a sickening crack. I got a better look at it than I wanted to. An arm and a leg had been severed, but the head still remained. It rolled to the side as commotion spread through the crowd, a mop of dark hair falling over and partially covering the beaten and blood-soaked face. The features had been smashed to the point of unrecognizability, but the iridescent scales that flecked the skin were unmistakable: Normandy.

  Shit, he had not struck me as being a pushover.

  Shiva stepped back, her eyes wide as she stared at the face. “Normandy was one of my best. He left five minutes ago to find a perimeter patrol that failed to check in.” She shook her head, as if not believing what she was looking at. It looked as if something had bitten straight through the scales covering his neck—and hadn’t been dainty about it.

  The scent of rotting lily of the valley got stronger. Captain hissed and began to dance in a slow circle, trying to locate his prey.

  “They’re above us,” Artemis said.

  Artemis, Shiva, and I all looked up. Sure enough, suspended above us, clinging to the wall, were three humanlike forms. Their suits hung off them in tatters, and even from this distance their long hair looked greasy and unkempt. Very much like Charles’s had been.

  It was their eyes that really gave them away, though, bloodshot red as they found me. Their mouths were stained with blood. Better yet, it was fresh.

  “What’s that?” Shiva asked, taking a step back from Normandy’s lifeless body.

  “Exactly what I was trying to warn you about,” I said, following her lead. I held Captain tight. “Your second cousin, Rynn”—I glanced at Artemis—“or uncle might be more appropriate, considering the age gap.”

  “What’s wrong with them?” Shiva asked as two of the vampires crept down the wall towards us, moving with an eerie, jerky gait. Captain growled a warning. It did no good. I watched two more drop down and corner a pair of fleeing Tiger Thieves.

  “That’s what happens when vampires eat each other.”

  Shiva swore. Three above, two across, and four more emerged from under the gate—nine vampires at least, and from the looks of it, they’d all taken the long stroll to the cannibalistic side.

  Well, at least I knew their weakness: UV light. I reached for my UV flashlight, forgetting that I didn’t have it or any of my other equipment. I backed up until I hit the wall. Come on, Owl, think fast . . .

  I backed away from the vampire that was stalking me. I thought I recognized the three as Alexander’s. Then again, the red eyes, disheveled hair, and manic expressions could have thrown me off. One of the vampires dropped to the ground, followed by the other two. They stalked towards us, looking feral.

  “Please tell me your pink powder works on the vampires too,” I said. I noted that the exit to the stone compound was about a hundred fifty feet away. If we ran.

  Shiva shot me a sharp look. “Why the hell would we need that?” She placed her index and middle fingers between her lips and whistled, high and sharp. It echoed off the stone, and every cat that had previously been surrounding the Tiger Thieves perked up. Their noses shot into the air and curious probes and growls began. Captain had also perked up beside me, his ears twitching forward, sniffing the air with a renewed interest, fast homing in on Normandy’s body.

  “It’s the vampires who should be worried about us,” Shiva said.

  As much as I knew that Captain and the other Maus could handle vampires, this was different. I mean, there were only a few dozen Maus surrounding the Tiger Thieves.

  I heard growls before the scrape of small claws on the stone and wood lattices above me. I looked up. All over the walkways and stone ledges there were cats, hundreds of them, all crouched and growling at the vampires, a few of them wriggling their haunches in anticipation.

  Man, oh man, these vampires were in for a very rude and painful awakening.

  The vampires didn’t know what hit them. It was Maus—a few dozen of them, chirping and bleating as they swarmed the three vampires.

  From the way they howled and tore into them, covering them with a carpet of spotted fur, they were out for blood. And not delicate about it one bit. Captain growled and lunged. I might have let him at them—I mean, it couldn’t have hurt—and it would have made him so happy.

  I stopped him, though, because of what I saw coming through the damaged portcullis, the one Normandy had been standing behind.

  More vampires. Every last one of them one of Rynn’s twisted, warped creations. And the Maus were already completely occupied with their vampire-killing operation.

  I needed to get them off, at least a handful of them. “Hey!” Shiva stopped me. In the mayhem she’d ascended her throne and looked like an intimidating warrior once more, not a figurehead ruler.

  She shook her head at me. “They’ll need time to finish the first job. I don’t want to draw them too thin—if they were normal vampires, that would be one thing, but these?” She shook her head once more. I watched as one of the vampires succumbed under a carpet of angry spotted Maus, his exposed hand a mess of purple and black bruises, while another vampire, still standing, pulled a Mau off himself and threw it across the court. It rolled, shook itself off, and charged back into the fray.

  Shiva was right, normal vampires wouldn’t stand a chance, but these? Even with their bruised and poisoned flesh they were still standing, as if they couldn’t stop or feel pain. Knowing how vampires usually reacted to Captain, it had to be Rynn’s doing.

  I searched the battle scene for Captain, but despite his red collar and cream-and-coffee pattern, I couldn’t pick him out against the sea of bronze and dark gray spotted coats. He’d been swallowed by the sea of fur.

  The new vampires stalked towards the cats.

  “We’d better run,” I said, and did just that, back under the portcullis and into the fortress. If I could lure the vampires away from the cats, it would give the Maus enough time to finish round one. If the other cats were anything like Captain, they’d race like bats out of hell to find round two. The important thing was to buy them time . . .

  There were two things vampires hated—sunlight and Maus—and I was all out of UV flashlights. I hoped that Rynn had made them hate something else. “Hey!” I shouted as loud as I could and waved my hands over my head. The vampires only had eyes for the Maus.

  “What the hell idiot idea are you trying now?” Artemis demanded, trying to block me.

  I pushed him out of the way. “Executing something resembling a plan.” I needed something to throw. I searched the ground for a rock and found a loose broken tile. I picked it up and hefted it over my shoulder. “Hey! I’m talking to you!” I launched it
. For once my aim rang true and I hit one of the vampires, a blond man still dressed in the tatters of his designer suit, one that now sported numerous tears and dirt. “Over here, asshole!”

  That got his attention. His lips curled into a snarl, and Artemis swore as the vampires turned their attention away from the cats and towards me.

  “Run,” I said, and the three of us did just that. For once I didn’t look back over my shoulder as we hit the fortress steps. Shiva went to close the portcullis. “Leave it!” I shouted.

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  “You said the cats needed time, so let’s give it to them.” I’d spent how long running away from vampires? Fifteen minutes in a maze of a fortress wasn’t beyond my means. I careened into a wall and redirected left. It might have been my imagination, but I swore I could hear the clacking noises of beaten-up dress shoes behind me.

  “I have an idea. Where do you keep the cats?” I asked Shiva.

  “The cattery is down the left corridor, but you do not want to go there. The smell is overpowering.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m counting on,” I gasped, and took a sharp left. Artemis and Shiva followed, though Artemis cursed me in the same breath.

  My legs protested loudly as the smell of stale ammonia alerted me that we had to be near. The tunnel spilled into a cavern, not as high as some in Muziris but large enough to echo our footsteps, broadcasting our location to anyone who might be in pursuit. The ceiling was filled with nooks and crannies that cats would find a veritable paradise. And then there was the offshoot cavern that sand was spilling out of.

  Bingo: jumbo-sized cat litter box. I’d initially thought to lead the vampires into it, but with the smell as powerful as it was, I didn’t think we’d have to.

  I heard the vampire growls echoing towards us. “Can you hide us?” I asked Artemis.

  He nodded, and a moment later, when the vampires rushed in, skidding to an unnaturally abrupt stop, I watched as they searched the cavern with their eyes and then did what I knew they would do: turned up their noses, lifted their upper lips, and sniffed, breathing in deeply.

  Two of the six immediately collapsed in a pile on the floor—which only served to make things worse, their hands turning bright red as the traces of Mau saliva and dander raised angry welts on them. Two others tried to halt the coughing fits that threatened to overcome them, their faces turning a bright red, then purple with the effort—and probably from the toxic first deep breath. They exploded in coughs, doubling over, then sunk to their knees as well, their skin smoking.

  And then there were two. They were more resilient than the first two; their skin was welting red, but if I had to guess, they hadn’t taken in that first noxious deep breath. Artemis tapped me on the shoulder. Our respite wouldn’t last much longer. We crept past the vampires back to the exit, and when Shiva and Artemis broke into a run, I followed, keeping fast on their heels.

  I let the breath I’d been holding out as Shiva slammed a door behind us, putting at least one hurdle between the remaining vampires and us.

  “I’ve read every text there is on vampires, I’ve bred Maus for four centuries, and I’ve never seen a vampire like that,” Shiva gasped.

  “It’s a new trick,” I said between labored breaths. “And guess who they learned it from? If you don’t like it, tell me how to defeat him!”

  We hit a door, one that had been locked. Shiva swore as she tried the padlock. Then Artemis stepped in and struck it, once, then twice. Nothing happened.

  “Tell me!”

  Shiva hesitated. I really think she would have told me except for the footsteps in the hall behind us.

  Two vampires, their mouths covered with the ruined sleeves of their jackets, loomed in the entrance. Their faces were red, and the delicate tissue around their eyes, mouth, and nose was raw. It lent their faces an even more menacing appearance.

  Oh, they could not be happy about that . . . “Ah, guys, sorry about the cat urine—” I began, backing up as Artemis hit the padlock harder. “Let’s think about this, though—two of you against three of us? And you don’t exactly look in the best shape for a fight, what do you say we just call it in— Ah, shit!”

  Like madmen, the vampires roared and lunged for us.

  It was Artemis who took the lead. “Split up,” he said, and grabbed Shiva by the arm.

  Shiva and I began to argue, but the vampires were almost across the small room and Artemis had shoved me in the opposite direction from the way he was running.

  I didn’t have much of a choice. I ran and started to wish I’d left the portcullis open. I really hoped the rest of the Maus didn’t try to hold on to their dead vampire prey as Captain always wanted to. Please let that be the one habit Captain doesn’t give them . . .

  I refused to look behind me as I bolted down the hall. I could have sworn the scent of lily of the valley was getting stronger and the heavy breathing and footsteps closer. I hit a wall and randomly chose the hall to the right, hoping the vampire would be slower on his feet. I didn’t have much time left before the rotting lily of the valley would turn me into a puddle of lactic acid–filled muscles.

  When I hit the wall, my legs wanted nothing more than to give in. I made them keep going. If I lived through this, I was going to give Shiva one hell of a piece of my mind about rethinking coming up with one of those colored chakra powders for vampires . . .

  I hit another wall. Which way, left or right?

  The vampires turned the corner. Shit—of course both of them had followed me, one of them couldn’t have gone after Artemis and Shiva. Goddamn my luck.

  Left had a decline so I chose it, almost tripping over my own feet.

  And found myself face-to-face with a dead end.

  The vampire behind me snickered.

  It was the vampire I’d hit with the stone, the one in the damaged Italian suit with the straggly blond hair. I ducked, but the blood-drunk vampire was faster and stronger than I was. He managed to grasp my jacket collar. He pulled me in close, growling at me. I turned my face away and strained back, trying to avoid the toxic saliva and sweat laced with pheromones.

  I closed my eyes. This was going to be bad.

  But nothing happened.

  Slowly I opened my eyes, first one, then the other. The vampire was gone. In his place was none other than Rynn.

  Shit. I backed up against the dead-end wall, not certain whether he was an apparition or the real thing. Then the air in front of me frosted.

  I swallowed. “Rynn. So this is where we’re at now? Throwing vampires at each other?” My mind searched frantically for a way out of this predicament.

  He smiled at that. “Well, it’s a little cheap. Then again, so are you.”

  The Electric Samurai might have Rynn’s mind, but it certainly didn’t have his originality.

  I thought about running, but, faster than I could act, he closed the space between us.

  “I’m going to let the vampires eat you, Alix,” he said, a smile playing on his lips as he pinned me to the cold stone wall. I smelled his breath—the trace of amber and sandalwood was still there, but tinged with something burnt. I closed my eyes, waiting for the violence that resided under the Electric Samurai’s skin to explode. But it didn’t.

  Instead, a gloved finger stroked the skin just under my chin. I opened one eye. Rynn was staring not at my face but at my neck with something akin to a vampire’s hunger.

  “How did you manage to rope my illustrious cousin into all this?”

  I didn’t answer, sensing that any answer I gave him wouldn’t make things better.

  “I’m full of mixed feelings about killing you, Alix. You hold a strange fascination for me, one I remember even if I now don’t quite understand it.” His eyes roamed up from my neck until they met my eyes.

  “How about you call off your vampires and I’ll take my cat home.”

  Rynn tsked. “I wish it were that simple, Alix. I can’t let your interference go unpunished.” He stop
ped stroking my neck and leaned in until his lips almost pressed against mine. Unlike any time before, though, there wasn’t anything resembling affection—or even lust. The only thing that emanated off him right now was pure, unabashed malice. And every last cold bit of it was aimed at me. He was still smiling, but it was a twisted caricature pasted onto his face. He reached inside my jacket pocket, the one in which I kept the silver orb hidden. I swore and twisted away, but it was too late.

  He tossed it up in the air, taunting me. “One of da Vinci’s weapons. How does it work?”

  “Haven’t a clue,” I spat out. “Seriously, I don’t know. I’m not sure da Vinci did either, though he was pretty mad by the end, so for all I know it’s a magic paperweight.”

  Rynn’s smile was full of malice. “Let’s see whether you were telling the truth when you said becoming a vampire was a fate worse than death.” He let me go and took a step back.

  The blond vampire emerged from the shadows behind him.

  Shit. I tried to back up, but there was nowhere to do so. I considered running, trying to outmaneuver him, but that would have left the device in his hands. That I couldn’t do. So, Owl, what the hell else do you have?

  “Alix?” Shiva’s voice rang out loud and clear down the corridor—and not that far away.

  Shit.

  Artemis and Shiva skidded to a stop a few feet away from me, sizing up both the vampire and Rynn. “Oh hell, what is he doing here?” I heard Artemis say.

  All of us, Rynn included, stared at one another in suspense, waiting to hit the other side of the imminent hurricane.

  It was Shiva who lost no time: she blew a mix of colored powders into Rynn’s and the vampire’s faces. It did nothing to me but the effect on Rynn and the vampire was instantaneous; Rynn only shuddered, but the vampire? It—he—devolved into a fit of hacking coughs as the rims of his mouth and nose turned red.

  I lost no time either. My strength sapped by the vampire, I delivered a kick to the only place I knew I could still hurt him: the vampire jewels. Between the hacking coughs he let out an involuntary squeal and let me go. I dived for Rynn, not aiming for anywhere in particular except his jacket. I yelped as his armor seared the skin on my palms and coils of smoke arose, quickly filling the tunnel.