Owl and the Tiger Thieves Read online

  “They won’t see us.”

  I would have said more, but at that moment the wooden door gave one last shriek and we heard boots pour in.

  I froze in place, hands wrapped around Captain, and watched through the closet door cracks.

  It wasn’t just Rynn’s mercenaries. In the lead, framed in the workshop entrance, was none other than Rynn. He was dressed in the same modern body armor he’d been wearing in Shangri-La, the Electric Samurai’s modern guise. He looked like any other mercenary—only he wasn’t. The Electric Samurai armor and the twisted spell the elves had cast had corrupted Rynn to the core. And for what? All because the elves had wanted to reclaim Rynn and force him into the mold of their perfect warrior. It had gone woefully wrong. To be honest, Rynn really didn’t look that different. That was something the Electric Samurai was very good at, blending in with the times.

  It was his expression that gave him away, just like it had in the mirror, the pale blue eyes so different from his normal blue-gray. It lent the rest of his face an icy expression, as if all the warmth had been sucked out. Behind Rynn I noted a handful of mercenaries, some of whom I recognized from Shangri-La, Zebras who’d fallen behind. They looked odd. Their faces were blank, devoid of any expression. They focused solely on Rynn, as if waiting to act on his slightest whim.

  I held my breath as Rynn took another step closer and peered around the workshop before settling his attention on the closet. It was as if he could see me right through the cracks.

  “Open the closet,” Rynn said.

  Artemis squeezed my shoulder in warning. “Keep quiet and perfectly still,” he breathed into my ear as one of Rynn’s mercenaries approached the door. The flashlight beam danced through the cracks. Cursory inspection done, he gripped the handle.

  There was no way he’d miss us.

  I shut my eyes and gripped Captain as the door opened and the flashlight beam fell on us—

  “Nothing here,” the mercenary said.

  I opened my eyes. Two mercenaries stood outside the closet, staring at us, and I stared back in terror. But they didn’t react, didn’t attack. They didn’t see us.

  Rynn himself came over and peered into the closet. He didn’t see us either, though he seemed less able to believe it. His nostrils flared as he sniffed the air and his eyes turned a lighter shade of blue. So much colder and more calculating since the last time I’d seen him in Shangri-La.

  I thanked an assortment of gods that Captain decided to stay quiet as Rynn’s cold eyes ran over us, once, then twice.

  “Boss?”

  Rynn looked away from me at the mercenary who had called him. “I found something,” the man said in a monotone, mechanical-sounding voice.

  When Rynn moved, I was able to see what the brainwashed mercenary had found: a ragged hole in the wall large enough for someone to crawl through. I guess da Vinci had created his own exits.

  Rynn examined the hole, then stood up, once again running his eyes over the room. “They were here. I can smell the cat—and a faint trace of her.” He nodded towards the canvas, the portrayal of terrified me and Captain. “And that proves it. Find them.”

  It looked as if they might all leave, but Rynn halted just shy of the door. His eyes narrowed, and he took a step back towards our hiding spot. I held my breath. He might not be able to see us, but if he decided to feel around . . .

  Or to hell with it and just shoot.

  But partway he stopped. If I hadn’t known Rynn better, I’d have said he was second-guessing himself—which I’d never seen him do before. Maybe the Electric Samurai wasn’t as well integrated as we’d thought. Maybe Rynn was still in there somewhere, fighting.

  “Check the rest of the building. Don’t let them slip through our grasp,” he said, heading for the stairs. “All the floors and the water below. Owl isn’t above a dip in putrid water.”

  The mercenaries fell into line with robot-like compliance, but not until the last one had left the workshop did I breathe again. It was Artemis who spoke first. “I don’t know about you, but after that effort I don’t have much left.” His skin was covered with a thin layer of sweat, and he sounded winded.

  I nodded. “My contribution? We run like hell.”

  “All for it. Which way, oh fearless leader?”

  Good question. I inclined my head. As far as I could tell, the mercenaries and Rynn had split up after they’d left the workshop. “Think you can pull that trick again? If it were only one or two?”

  “Not even if all I had to do was fool a pigeon. Do you realize what it took to hide us from my cousin?” He trailed off. “Do you hear that?”

  “What? Mercenaries?”

  “No. Running water—a lot of it.”

  I tilted my head to the side as I wrangled with Captain, who’d also decided now was the time to leave. Faintly I picked up the sound of running water, stronger than the dripping that was in the workshop—and there was the sound of something else as well, underneath the noise.

  “It sounds like pumps—heavier than the ones he used in here,” he whispered as one of the mercenaries passed by just outside the open door.

  I’d wondered how da Vinci had gotten around the flooding—and now I knew what all those tubes had been for. He must have channeled the outflow from these rooms into a larger system, like a holding cistern for dumping into the canal.

  “How much do you want to bet it leads just outside the city?” The currents there were stronger on account of the lagoon; it would be easier to hide a large outflow of water there than in one of the canals.

  “I don’t particularly care if it leads into a private swimming pool, so long as my cousin doesn’t see us leaving.”

  That was something I could agree with.

  We made our way to the workshop door. Through the crack we spotted two mercenaries almost immediately, standing above the flooded stairs as if guarding against something that might surface from the depths.

  There was a jab to my shoulder. “I’ve decided to abandon my misogynistic ways. You go first,” Artemis whispered.

  I glared. “Not a supernatural, asshole. And of all the times you could have picked to become a feminist— Oh, for Christ’s sake!”

  Artemis shoved me into the stairwell. I scrambled for cover in the shadow of the door. Luckily the guards didn’t look down. One benefit to dealing with mercenaries who’d been robbed of independent thought was that they weren’t exactly quick on their feet. They were hanging out by the stairwell, staring off into space like a matching pair of living zombies.

  “Now what?” I asked Artemis as he joined me.

  In answer, he picked up a small stone off the floor and launched it up the stairwell. It hit the landing just above and like a pair of programmed NPCs, the two mercenaries ascended the stairs to see what had caused the noise.

  Artemis nodded at the submerged stairs below us. “After you.”

  Try not to think about what’s in there . . . I pinched my nose and quietly slid in.

  Captain huddled by the edge of the water shivering with unpleasant anticipation, flicking the end of his tail. He remembered the last time he’d gone for a swim in my bathtub. There was an easy way and a hard way . . .

  “The pumps should be no more than half a level down. You should be fine, as will your cat.”

  I pushed the wet hair out of my face. Yeah, well, I might realize that . . . Captain huffed his suspicions at me.

  The hard way it was.

  Footsteps were coming back down the stairs. Captain looked away from me, forgetting the threat of water. I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him in. I felt a pang of guilt at the look he shot me as he submerged and reappeared with a bedraggled head of fur. “Lesser evil than having Rynn or one of his brain-dead merry men use you as a pincushion,” I whispered.

  Artemis slid in and disappeared under the water. Not wanting to get lost in the depths, I took a deep breath and followed with Captain securely tucked under my jacket. Artemis had been right about one thin
g: the pump exit to the canal was nearby, an old cement storm sewer that had been forgotten and repurposed by da Vinci.

  Everything went dark as the current created by the pump dragged me into the pipe. I counted to three before I spilled into colder water that was moving much faster. It dragged us farther under until the current stopped. I shot towards the surface.

  Sun hit my face.

  Through my tangled and drenched hair I took a quick look around. We were just on the outskirts of the floating islands. I searched the stone wall, but if anyone noticed us, they decided not to pay attention. More important, I didn’t see any sign of Rynn or his mercenaries.

  I winced as sharp claws dug into my shoulder and Captain climbed up out of my jacket to perch on my head, grumbling the entire way.

  “Okay, yeah, I might have deserved that,” I told him. My eyes stayed on the walkway, though, as I continued to search for signs of Rynn.

  There was a flicker in a window overhead—slight and small, but it was there, just as it had been when we’d first entered da Vinci’s lair. I found the source: another church, worn and boarded up, its stained glass dusty. I waited for the flicker to reappear as my heart beat hard. Not a flicker, not even a shadow to hint it had been real.

  “Come on,” Artemis said, swimming for the wall. “We need to get out of here before they smarten up and check the water. I know the way.”

  I followed him, once again placing my survival in his hands. That wasn’t messed up at all.

  I swam to the city wall. I shivered as I pulled myself and Captain out of the water—and not just from the cold. There was still no sign of Rynn or his mercenaries, but still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching me.

  Before we disappeared into an alley, I took one last look over my shoulder to see if the reflection reappeared in the church window.

  Despite my sinking feeling, there wasn’t a soul I could see in the dusty glass.

  7

  THE DEVIL YOU KNOW

  8:00 p.m., Venice: Back at the hotel, heading to the bar to drown my sorrows.

  “We’re not staying here, and that’s final!” Damn it, what the hell did I need to say to get it through Artemis’s thick skull? I pushed the front door of our hotel open. I hit it harder than necessary, sending it rattling on its hinge. My efforts earned me a bored glance from the clerk. It was that kind of place, off the beaten tourist track. The only people downstairs were in the small bar off to the side of the lobby. Bonus, there was no sign of Rynn or his psychotic merry men inside either. I’d spent the walk back scrutinizing the shadows and rooftops, meaning I’d only had half my concentration and mental resources to argue with Artemis.

  And the son of a bitch hadn’t let up one bit.

  I heard the door open and slam shut behind me once again.

  “If your goal is to run blindly into my cousin’s murderous arms, then by all means let’s run.” Artemis’s voice chased me across the hotel’s cracked floor as I made my way to the bar. The guests downstairs were well on their way to drinking themselves into vacation annihilation, and I was late for a date with a couple shots of tequila and more than one bottle of Moretti . . .

  I ignored him, my sights on the dusty bar doors mere steps ahead of me, behind which laid sweet inebriated salvation.

  Artemis didn’t take the hint. “Please, Rynn,” he continued, pitching his voice high in what I could only assume was an imitation of me. “No need to search Venice for me. Just stalk all the city exits and wait for me to flee like I always do, like a panicked headless chicken.”

  My irritation flared. I was nothing like a headless chicken. “It’s not running blindly,” I said to him over my shoulder. “We’re fleeing. Intelligently. There’s a difference.”

  I don’t know how he got ahead of me, but there he was blocking the bar doors. I suspected he was using his powers of dissuasion on me liberally.

  “With no destination or plan, it’s the same bloody thing! I need to recharge, and at the very least we both need to get out of our wet clothes. Look, will you just listen to me instead of giving me dirty looks?” He crossed his arms, still blocking me. “At least before you drink yourself into a stupor?”

  I clenched my fists. “A buzz. And after almost being eaten by a mad vampire and stalked by my possessed boyfriend, I think I deserve a drink. And just who did Oricho put in charge? Me or the degenerate incubus?”

  Artemis dropped his usual uncaring veneer to snarl at me. “You. Though why he’d put an alcoholic has-been thief in charge of anything is beyond me.”

  “Well, we all have our little life mysteries to solve.” Sensing a standoff and wanting to make sure he was part of it, Captain let out a loud meow, directing it at Artemis. “Now get the hell out of my way.”

  Again Artemis stopped me. “All I’m suggesting is that we stay put—for the night at the very least—until we have a better idea where the trail to the Tiger Thieves leads.”

  “And give Rynn and his murderous band of merry men the evening to find us? Venice is small—there’s only so many hotels.”

  Artemis ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll make certain that doesn’t happen. Blocking him from seeing us when he’s staring right at me is one thing, but this—he won’t be sure where to look. That I can manage.”

  I paused. The problem was that as much as every self-preserving bone in my body was itching to run, Artemis had a point. Running without a destination was risky—but so was letting Rynn find me. I was on edge, and despite my protestations to the contrary, inside I was panicking. Rynn had had no problem turning those mercenaries into his living zombie yes-men—what would he do to me if we crossed paths?

  “It’s the smarter choice—you know it, and I know it. They won’t find us, and even if they do manage to stumble right into this hotel, I’ll have enough warning to give us a head start, and we’ll be no worse off than if you ran now. Besides,” he added, nodding at my backpack. “You said you need da Vinci’s journal.”

  The soggy wet journal—which needed to dry. And yes, it did hold the key to the Tiger Thieves. At least I thought it did.

  I counted to three, to calm my own nerves. “How certain are you they won’t find us?”

  Artemis visibly relaxed and held up his hands. “On my dear mother’s grave—and yes, she’s dead. She was human and died well before Rome fell.”

  I rolled my eyes, but despite my itch to leave, I needed to wrap my head around what information I now had on the Tiger Thieves and what I still needed to find out. And I needed a location. I needed to breathe. Damn it. Once again I found myself in a spot where Artemis was more right than I was. “Only until morning. That’s it—and we leave early.”

  Artemis crossed his heart. “As soon as the sun rises.”

  I turned around and headed for the elevator. “Where are you headed?” he called after me.

  “To my room. As you said, I need a change of clothes.” I was off my game with Artemis. I had never let Rynn steamroll me like this. Granted, he’d never really put me into a position where he could steamroll me; he’d gone out of his way to let me make my own decisions—a sensitivity that was beyond Artemis’s rapport with humans.

  I reached the door to my room, adjacent to Artemis’s, and headed inside. It was small and worn and looked over a back alleyway. No sooner had I dropped my soggy backpack onto the bed than I heard scratching at the window. It took a minute of fiddling with the latch, but I got it open. A bedraggled Captain meowed and, after getting a good sniff at the room, hopped in.

  I hadn’t had the heart to stick Captain in a soaking wet bag after our swim through the flooded building and the Venetian lagoon. As far as finding me in hotel rooms? It wasn’t always easy to sneak a cat through a lobby; we’d done this routine before.

  After he settled in on the heater to clean his fur and vocally register his complaints, I pulled out the journal and, along with a collection of towels, laid it on the desk. I then grabbed the hair dryer from the bathroom—a pink
-tiled, shower-curtained number—and turned the first page of the journal, drying the pages as I read.

  The answer to where next to look for the Tiger Thieves was in here somewhere. And to judge from the condition of the wet, wrinkled pages, it was going to take me most of the night to find it.

  Three hours later, I sat back in my chair and rubbed my eyes. Captain had been stretched out behind my laptop, stealing its heat, while I had been going through da Vinci’s red journal. I glanced to where my beer rested, half empty. The notes had been so depressing that I’d even let my beer get warm.

  The journal was more of a lab book, a recounting of his various experiments and research into the supernatural, though it read more like a catalogue of misfortunes—a fantastic example of why desperation wasn’t the motivator it was cracked up to be.

  Da Vinci had been an accomplished painter as well as one of the greatest thinkers and inventors of our time. There’s a saying that madness and genius go hand in hand, and he illustrated that beautifully.

  And his tryst with the Illuminati seemed to be where the spiral downwards had all kicked off. The Illuminati were well known in archaeological circles for their dogged pursuit of the supernatural, but they hadn’t started out that way. They’d started off manipulating politics through assassinations and spy networks. It was an esoteric branch of the Illuminati, one whose members really did believe in the supernatural, that had recruited da Vinci, and what started off as an ugly duckling rose to control the organization in a very short period of time. Some historians even think that very Illuminati branch eventually became the IAA.

  The main difference between the Illuminati and the modern IAA was that whereas the IAA was concerned about keeping supernaturals and supernatural artifacts under wraps, da Vinci and his ilk’s interests had been a bit more sinister. They’d wanted to understand the supernaturals intimately, particularly their magic and immortality.

  Again, if the very sparse history of the matter were to be believed, the supernatural division of the Illuminati was more of a footnote—both obsessed with and terrified of its prey. Until, that is, da Vinci came along. He’d been a revolutionary figure to them. He’d reasoned that humans were afraid of supernaturals because we had nothing to counter their powers with. So he began building things that could—the brownie bat we’d found being one example, along with traps, cages, and anything else that could force the supernatural into a state where it could be controlled and studied.