Owl and the Tiger Thieves

by Kristi Charish

  I’d seen that text box only once since Shangri-La, when it had been filled with a jumble of numbers.

  Are you there?

  I swallowed and stared at the screen, not entirely certain whether I should trust myself or what I was seeing.

  Another message popped up on the screen. Please, Alix— Just tell me if you can see this.

  A cold sensation crept down my spine. Carpe was dead and buried in a collapsed pocket universe. I was certain about that, that’s what I’d told the elves . . .

  Please?

  I hesitated but only for a moment, my fingers flying over the digital keys.

  “Alix?” Nadya said. I held up my hand and continued to type.

  Who are you?

  A moment later, words appeared on the small screen: It’s me.

  Not It’s Carpe, not It’s the elf. Ambiguous. Not good enough, I typed back.

  Another pause, then Inventory.

  I switched apps and opened my game inventory log. A new item had appeared amongst my items. It was a scroll. An extra-life scroll, but this one had been customized. That was rare with game items, but it was possible to attach notes to them—usually to hide something from other players. I clicked on it. On the back of the scroll was written, I finally got Paul the Monk.

  I caught my breath but stoppered my hope. Paul had been our in-game teammate who had screwed us over, trying to kill both our avatars and make off with the loot, using his soccer-dad status as the excuse. Very few people besides Carpe would know about that wanted poster—he had been the one to set up the bounty. It still wasn’t clear, it was circumspect, like a code . . . Why the hell couldn’t he just come out and say it was him?

  There was a link at the end of the message. What the hell did I have to lose? I clicked it. The screen went blank and for a moment stayed that way before flickering and taking me to another player’s inventory. I recognized the name and avatar. It was Paul the Monk’s private inventory. I shouldn’t be able to see it.

  That wasn’t what had my attention, though. The inventory slots did.

  Every item he’d ever had had been replaced by a small computer-generated chicken. Even the empty slots had been filled with them. There had to be three dozen chickens on the screen. Just like the ones Carpe had saved from a plane crash in Egypt.

  Son of a bitch. It had to be him.

  “Carpe? Where the hell are you?”

  I’m inside—in here. I need to go before it finds me again.

  With that, the screen went blank.

  Son of a bitch. “Carpe? Carpe, you asshole, type back now and tell me where the hell you are!”

  “Alix!” Nadya spun me around.

  I shook off the spell that had descended over me while I’d been staring at the blank message box. I cleared my head as best I could to find out what Nadya wanted.

  She pointed to the place where Rynn had been a moment before. He was gone. “Rynn?” I called out. There was no answer. I searched the scene but saw only Artemis and Oricho along with a handful of other supernaturals. There was no trace of him.

  I looked at Nadya, but she shook her head. “One moment he was there—” she said.

  “—and the next he was gone,” I filled in for her. I stood there, the pain that engulfed my body replaced by hollow numbness. I’d spent months of searching, worrying that I’d lost him, and as soon as I’d thought I had him back—he was gone.

  The moment the world starts to look up . . .

  I don’t know how long I stood there, searching the crowds, hoping, willing Rynn to step back out.

  Another of Artemis’s sentiments came back to me loud and clear: “I might forgive Rynn, but that didn’t mean he’d forgive me.”

  I stood like that, watching the crowd, until Oricho and Artemis had left and Nadya made me move.

  Epilogue

  INTO THE LION’S DEN

  November 10, 8:00 p.m.: The Lion’s Pub, London.

  I pulled my jacket tighter around me as I stood across from the pub with the Lion placard above the door. London was a lot colder in the late fall than I’d imagined, particularly at night.

  The bar I was standing across the road from was situated in an older part of town, one that had avoided the architectural face-lifts that had turned entire streets into tourist traps. There were no advertisements, no menus, no pleas for people to stop in. There was an authenticity about the place—and a lack of people. I’d been standing here ten minutes and had seen only one person come out of the pub.

  I warmed my hands with my breath, then rubbed them together. Head in or leave, Owl? I still had yet to decide . . . I’d made it this far and been so certain.

  Now?

  Captain mewed from inside my backpack. “Yeah, I heard you the first time. You’re getting cold.” If I didn’t go through with this, I could always hit the British Museum. It had central heating, right?

  I pushed myself off while I was still feeling brave. It was time I started filling in the blanks instead of ignoring my blind spots. I’d seen too many people die for no reason.

  The slight sound of boots sliding against the old cobblestones was the only warning I got.

  I knew he was there before he spoke on account of what I could read off him.

  There wasn’t much there, like a big, dark, nebulous pit.

  That should freak me out a lot more than it did.

  “So what is a thief like you doing in a place like this?”

  I doubted very much that Hermes didn’t know what I was doing here, but arguing would only delay me and I might lose my will to continue with this particular endeavor. “Padding my résumé.”

  Hermes seemed to consider my answer. “Interesting answer.”

  “Let me guess—the wrong one?” I asked. I was nervous enough as it was; I didn’t need Hermes derailing my resolve.

  But he only shrugged. “Honestly? It depends. Is this you running blindly towards your next imminent disaster, or did you actually think this one out?”

  That was a good question, one I’d been asking myself a lot the last two weeks. I figured I’d thought this one through about as much as I could without taking the plunge. “A little of column A, a little of column B.”

  Hermes considered my answer, then gave me a once-over—a serious one, devoid of his usual smart-ass demeanor. He nodded. “Well, then, far be it from me to stand between you and a well-thought-out decision. I mean, those come what? One every five years?”

  Asshole . . .

  “So what was the fallout in Tokyo?” he asked, changing the topic.

  I shrugged. “Surprisingly little, considering.”

  He arched one of his red eyebrows.

  “Oricho strong-armed the IAA into doing its job, but between the online videos and conspiracy theories floating around”—I shrugged—“they’re on borrowed time.”

  “And the boyfriend?”

  Maybe it was the sensory overload, but I was having a hard time figuring out what my own emotions were—what with everyone else’s roiling around my head. “No idea.”

  Despite Rynn’s being short a full deck of supernatural powers, no one had been able to trace him. That shouldn’t have surprised me. He’d had training it’d take me a hundred years to come close to.

  “Give him time,” Hermes said.

  But how much? I didn’t need Rynn’s powers to know that for once, despite this not being my fault or a product of my own recklessness, he might not be able to forgive me. I think that hurt more than anything.

  Hermes nodded at the pub. “I’m surprised the Dragon and Naga aren’t throwing a hissy fit over this. They don’t strike me as the sharing type.”

  “Call it a work vacation.” I hadn’t argued with Mr. Kurosawa when he’d suggested I take a few months off to recuperate—whether as a reward for stopping Rynn or punishment for working outside the lines of a coloring book was anyone’s guess. I needed time away from the Japanese Circus; I’d needed it for a while now. I wasn’t doing anyone any good su
lking around. As Artemis had said, I was toeing the line with a death wish—and let’s face it, if Lady Siyu and I spent any more time in a room together, Mr. Kurosawa would lose his thief for hire.

  Instead of offering a glib remark, Hermes just rocked back on his feet and nodded. “No promises, but I’ll see if I can keep the vampires off your trail—for a while.” He shrugged. “Mind you—vampires are a testy lot when it comes to agreeing to anything. Chances are good it’ll do as much harm as good. And as for the other thing, regarding the incubus?” He shrugged. “I’ll see what I can dig up, but—”

  “No promises,” I filled in for him. Hermes would see if he could find a way to reverse what I’d done to Rynn and myself, but as far as esoteric magic devices were concerned, there weren’t exactly certainties. But I hadn’t signed up for certainties.

  “Best of luck, kid. Whatever you do, don’t let them push you around. They might have you beat in the brawn department, but you can run circles around them in the supernatural department—and they know it.”

  Right. That was what I had to remember. They might have what I needed, but I also had something to bring to the table. Funny that I’d needed Hermes to remind me of that . . .

  “And keep those sunglasses on.”

  As though I needed the reminder . . . still, I did a mental check that they were still on my forehead. “You know, Hermes, for a thief and supernatural you aren’t half—”

  I had been about to offer him something akin to a thank-you, but he was already gone. Vanished into thin air.

  I shook my head. Of course he’d vanished. One of the few supernaturals I knew who preferred to stick to the shadows in anonymity. I, for one, certainly couldn’t fault him for that.

  I turned my attention back to the door across the road.

  Come on, Owl, what are you waiting for?

  I headed over to the pub. My hands shook as I placed them on the heavy wooden door. I should have had a second shot of tequila before coming here. It had taken me a while to track down this place, and I didn’t know what kind of reception was in store.

  Being me, I’d figured the best route was to show up at their doorstep. Easier to ask forgiveness than permission . . .

  Let’s hope it came across as endearing.

  Time to gird your loins, Owl, and enter the lion’s den . . . or would that be equine den? I pulled my sunglasses down. I hadn’t quite gotten the hang of keeping my eyes, well, normal looking . . .

  Before I could talk myself into stalling any more, I pushed the door open and headed inside.

  Unlike a lot of the bars I’d found myself in over the years, this one was tame, in looks if not in nature: well lit, tables full of people minding their own business, but short of being packed to the hilt. It had an old-pub charm to it—cozy, even . . .

  If you overlooked the fact that the majority of patrons had chosen spots where their backs were to the wall and they had a decent line of sight to the front door.

  Nothing to be afraid of, Owl. I started for the bar, ignoring the looks I attracted. They weren’t immediate or obvious, I gave them that. Initially there were only a few looks, glances that started to linger as I reached the bar until I figured most of the patrons were eyeing me. The emotions I could pick up off them told me as much. What was it Rynn had said? That they had ways of detecting supernaturals. I wondered how I fit into their equation. Technically I was still human, albeit with a not entirely wanted set of new borrowed tricks. The question was, did their sensors know that?

  A bald man behind the counter returned my nod and came over, resting his large, bulky arms on the counter. He didn’t bother hiding the fact that he was giving me the once-over. “What’ll it be?”

  “Beer. Whatever is light that you’ve got on tap.” Figured this wasn’t the time to ask if they carried Corona.

  Keeping his eye on me, the bartender started filling a glass. “New, are you?”

  “You have no idea,” I said. I felt more than heard people coming up behind me, not yet violent but definitely going in that direction. The tension in the bar was palpable as the barman passed me my beer and took the bills I’d left on the counter. Not even Captain was willing to stick his head out or offer an opinionated mew.

  The only warning I had was the shift of the barman’s eyes towards the group of men I knew had left their chairs and were moving in behind me—not from any sound that gave them away but from the wariness and tension that had amped up in the room. Nothing overtly violent . . .

  The bartender nodded at me before hurrying to the other end of the bar.

  And then my head was rammed into the bar with a bang that silenced the remaining din in the room.

  “Ow!” I shouted.

  Two men on either side of me pinned down my arms while a third held the back of my neck.

  Okay, so my reading of violence versus tension and wariness needed some serious fine-tuning . . .

  “Your kind isn’t welcome in here,” whispered the man pinning my head to the bar, forcing my face into a position where I could see most of the people standing around the bar, including the bartender—every last one of them pretending not to see me but fixated on the proceedings.

  At least that answered my question as to whether my borrowed powers would set off alarms.

  “I’m not one of them—your sensors made a mistake—goddamn it!” One of the men holding my arm twisted my shoulder—painfully. I might be able to pick up on emotions, more or less, but much like da Vinci, I was woefully outclassed with regard to any of the other supposed perks. Like a cheap imitation . . . I could certainly have used Rynn’s and Artemis’s strength.

  “Don’t lie,” the man holding my head said, and to prove the point wrenched my shoulder once again.

  My old temper flared. “Well, that’s going to be a real fucking problem since I just told you the truth and you told me to fuck off. Lying is kind of the only option you’ve left me with here.”

  That seemed to catch them off guard, whether because I was denying being a supernatural or because I wasn’t responding like one was anyone’s guess. The grip on my other shoulder and neck lessened, even if my shoulder was still wrenched.

  “The sensors weren’t clear, Ed. Maybe she’s telling the truth,” one of the men who hadn’t been involved in wrenching my limbs said.

  I didn’t think Ed liked that, considering that he wrenched my shoulder further. But since two out of three were obviously questioning themselves I pushed on. “I’m looking for Captain Williams, the Zebras’ head honcho. If he’s not here, I’ll leave; if he is, point me in his direction and I’ll conclude my business and leave. Either way, I’ll be out of your hair.”

  A pause. “Who are you, then?”

  I wetted my lips. It wasn’t every day—or ever—that I’d had a full pub audience. Oh, what the hell. It wasn’t worth lying about now, not with the IAA scrambling to keep itself afloat. It had bigger fish to fry.

  “Alix Hiboux. The Owl—maybe you’ve heard of me?” I hazarded.

  The three of them let go. I stood slowly and turned around. Now there were three guns pointed in my face. I raised my hands. Note to self: honesty is not always the best policy.

  If any of the weapons was graded for supernaturals, there was no way I’d survive them. I heard a safety click off. Survive the supernaturals and get picked off by mercenaries . . . I closed my eyes and winced.

  “Edmund, stop being a dick,” a voice boomed.

  Everyone in the room turned towards the booming voice. It had come from a chair near the fireplace; its owner was one of the few people who didn’t have their back to a wall. His back was facing the room.

  “You going to vouch for her?” Edmund said, his gun still aimed between my eyes.

  “Since I invited her here, yes. And she’s telling the truth. She’s not one of them. If you weren’t using old technology, you’d have known that when we did.”

  One of the men at the fireplace table nodded at Edmund, confirming the analysis—o
ne of the Zebras’ techs, I wagered.

  The other two men really didn’t want anything to do with me now. They lowered their guns and backed away. It was the third man, Edmund, who waited an extra breath before lowering his gun.

  “Careful,” he warned me loud enough that everyone else in the bar could hear. “You’ve got a reputation for damnation and ruin. Keep it the fuck out of here.” Without another word or glance, he headed back to his own table.

  Well . . . that was a hell of a lot more attention than I’d expected.

  I headed for Williams’s table by the stone fireplace. The two men sitting with him got up, and one offered me his chair. I almost jumped when a beer was placed in front of me by the bartender. “No apologies, you understand?” he whispered.

  “No hard feelings.” I kept my eyes on Williams.

  Along with his men, he stared at me for a long minute. Finally he motioned for me to remove the sunglasses. Not seeing much of a choice in the matter, I did.

  “What on earth caused that misfortune?”

  “It wasn’t pleasant, and it wasn’t intentional.” I made a wager. “It’s also how you got your wayward men back. The ones misappropriated in Shangri-La.”

  His brow furrowed. “Which is why I didn’t let them shoot you.” He glanced down at a tablet on the table. “So, to what do I owe this visit? Or were you simply hoping that throwing the Zebra name around might buy you a few extra breaths?”

  Here was my big moment, the one I’d been waiting for, the basket I’d placed all my proverbial eggs into this last week. The smart money was on my turning back—but that would have made me a coward, and though I was a lot of things, I was not that.

  “Is your on-the-job training and placement program still on the table?” I asked.

  Williams glanced up again—interested this time, though wary. He placed the tablet on the coffee table and gave me a more thorough once-over. “I’m certain we could arrange a more formal discussion on the topic.” He waved the bartender over and held up two hands. “Though I have to ask, what’s behind this change of heart?”