Owl and the Tiger Thieves Read online

  Yeah, right. For all I knew, Artemis had been sent here to drop me into a deeper, darker, more bottomless pit. “Let me guess. You’re here out of the goodness of your magnanimous black heart?”

  If the powers that be on the other side of the supernatural war had gotten wind that I was here and decided a cell in the Albino wasn’t permanent enough . . . I’d already thrown enough wrenches into their plans—inadvertently, I might add, and accidentally, but the fact still remained that I’d been a nuisance in their recent ploy for supernatural world domination.

  Artemis made a derisive noise, then pretended to take a first look around. “Oh, my—look, a prison.” He frowned. “I remember hearing about this place. It’s the one where they throw away little thieves and pirates to rot for all eternity, no? I’d think you’d be a little more concerned about getting out.”

  “I would have found my own way. Eventually.” Besides, I needed to be in here.

  Artemis glanced pointedly at the unconscious forms of Jesús and Kujo. “Tell me, where did you hide the key? Lift a weapon? No, the other two in your cell, the dangerous ones, would have taken it from you if they’d thought for one moment you had something that could put distance between them and this place.” He gave me a once-over. “You aren’t exactly the intimidating type. No, please,” he said, as I fumed. “I’m dying to hear how the infamous Owl planned to get out of here. Please, continue.”

  Half the problem had been getting into the Albino. The other half—locating the pirate I’d read about and finding the Tiger Thieves pendant—had been the other half, which I’d still been working out. Was still working out. Though I now had the keys that would let me into the lower levels. In other words, I’d had no fucking clue. Not that I was going to tell Artemis that . . .

  I crossed my arms. “I had everything under control.” Lie, came the accusation from the back of my thoughts.

  Artemis didn’t back down. “Fine. Step back in the cell, I’ll shut the door, and you can go back to whatever it is thieves who get caught in dungeons do, exactly.”

  We stood there, staring at each other for the count of five. Oh, nuts to this. I broke the standoff first. Artemis knew I wasn’t getting back into that cell, and so did I.

  The clock was also ticking, and I could use a map to the lower levels. “You took care of the warden, right?” I asked him.

  “Yes, I dropped him in a storage room, along with a number of other guards I came across. Trust me, I had much better things to do than come here rescuing you— Hey! Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he said as I shoved past him, heading in the opposite direction my cellmates had taken, back to Miguelito’s office.

  Artemis didn’t take the hint; instead, he fell in step beside me, much like how an irritating fly follows you through a swamp. “Go away,” I told him.

  “No, I don’t think so. I was told to get you out. In one piece.” His smile had faltered now and there was something cold behind his eyes.

  I snorted. That was laughable. “Whose orders?” Oricho wouldn’t have roped Artemis into this. He might be Rynn’s cousin but the comparison ended at familial resemblance. Artemis was about as rotten to the core as an incubus could get, Oricho had to know that.

  He fell a step back as the already cramped corridor narrowed. “If you must know, Lady Siyu called in a favor—or threatened me. Take your pick, the point is that Naga isn’t to be slighted lightly.”

  Well. Wonder of wonders, we agreed on Lady Siyu. And the fact that Lady Siyu had ordered Artemis to spring me out just made it all the more suspect. Lady Siyu and I didn’t see eye to eye. On anything.

  As if sensing my suspicion, which was entirely likely, he added, “I think it’s prudent to point out that Lady Siyu didn’t exactly emphasize the value of your particular skill set. I believe her exact words were ‘No one tortures and kills the thief except me.’ ”

  Well, that at least made more sense as far as Lady Siyu’s motivations were concerned. And she knew how much I hated Artemis. If she was going to send anyone to rescue me out of a prison, it would be him.

  “And for a thief you’re a lousy pickpocket. I would have had the key off the large man on my first day.”

  I felt the baton in my pocket, hoping Artemis wouldn’t pick up on my intentions. After all, they really hadn’t changed since he’d shown up, despite his letting me out of my cell and shackles.

  “And speaking of my orchestrating your prison escape, this is the wrong way.”

  We’d reached Miguelito’s office, and, true to Artemis’s word, there was no sign of the warden or any more guards. I hoped that meant the others had gotten out unscathed.

  I sighed as I surveyed the shelves stuffed with boxes and papers. A veritable treasure trove of confiscated goods and maps over the years. If Miguelito possessed a map to the lower levels, it would be somewhere in here. It was my best chance of finding my pirate. Not that I was telling Artemis that. “Look, if Lady Siyu sent you to find me, then what she really wants is Mr. Kurosawa’s idol. I’m not leaving without it.” And it was true enough. Regardless of my ulterior motives for coming to Peru, Mr. Kurosawa and Lady Siyu would be expecting their treasure, and there would be hell to pay if I left empty handed. For me and Artemis.

  Now, where the hell would Miguelito have stashed the prison maps?

  Ah, there they were. Upper levels, men’s quarters, storage rooms—I wondered just how many artifacts he and his counterparts had stashed in here over the years. If I had more time and the Peruvian equivalent of a U-Haul . . .

  Underneath the various blueprints, right at the bottom, yellowed with decades’ worth of neglect, were the maps of the lower levels. The pirate cells—the original ones from the 1700s.

  I’ll bet Miguelito hadn’t had a clue what was lying a few stories underneath him—or if he had, he hadn’t realized the significance.

  The Albino in Peru was far from the only prison built to deal with the New World’s blossoming pirate problem, but it was the first that meant business. Whereas in most prisons, chances were good you’d earn yourself a fast hanging, the Albino was where they’d stuck pirates to rot. Forever. The fact that the prison had been built over Incan burial chambers had led to all sorts of speculation about what had happened to the pirates who had been buried alive in the cells rumored to lie below us. There was the usual mess of contradictory local legends: ghosts of pirates haunting the cliffs, strange howls heard throughout stormy nights, stories of an ancient Incan curse . . . all bolstered by the rumors that no one who ventured into the lower levels ever returned.

  The last I was hoping was due more to a wide assortment of ancient Incan booby traps than an assortment of cursed undead. Contrary to popular myth, undead monsters and curses were rare and hard to come by—despite my own recent run-ins.

  The fact that no one in recent history had escaped the lower levels had left me with a small dilemma after I’d come across the reference to the Tiger Thieves, namely that I needed a reliable map to find my way to the right cell. Which I wouldn’t find until I was inside the prison. Those trips to Miguelito’s office had paid off. The maps had been where I’d figured—along with everything else.

  I smoothed the prison map out on top of the desk, blocking it from Artemis’s view. Carefully, I traced the cell wings—1700s, 1750s, 1800s . . . Now, where was the entrance, and more important, where had they locked the Mad Hatter up?

  Artemis cleared his throat.

  “Will you give me a minute? There’s no telling where they hid it.” All the corridors had been marked with numbers at regular intervals. I traced one of the corridors that branched off into the cliffs—1780, 1790, 1800— They were dates, they had to be. I’d found my pirate.

  Artemis cleared his throat again, louder.

  I glanced up from the map. He was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching me with narrowed eyes. “The drawer,” he said, nodding towards the desk. “I believe what you are looking for is in the desk drawer, not hidden among
st those papers. I distinctly remember seeing the warden put it there. Which you know, since you were in the room at the time.”

  I frowned at him, forgetting the map for a moment. How? How had he seen that? He hadn’t been in the room—or I didn’t think he had.

  Artemis only gave me one of his cruel smiles. “Ah, ah, ah. Not all of us supernaturals like giving away our tricks of the trade.” His expression hardened. “What is it you’re really looking for?”

  I tensed, acutely aware the incubus could tell if I was lying. “I’m a thief,” I said carefully, and held up the map. “I’m always on the lookout for treasure. This is a pirate prison, ergo—”

  “Jesus fucking Christ. You weren’t fucking caught, were you? You planned on ending up here—”

  I had two choices: to try to lie through my teeth, which was idiocy—Artemis was an incubus, he’d be able to tell—or not say anything at all. I went with the latter.

  Artemis took that as an affirmative. He swore again. “You broke in with no fucking idea how to break out, didn’t you?” he said.

  “No, I had an idea.” And in my defense, I’d planned on sneaking into the Albino, not being thrown in a cell with the rest of the thieves. And it had seemed a great idea a couple of weeks before. That’s the problem with desperation—you tend not to think things through entirely.

  Artemis snorted.

  “I would have figured a way out. Eventually.” At the face Artemis made I added, “I was close.”

  In a fluid movement faster than I would have liked, Artemis crossed the cell-like office until he was on the other side of the desk, looming over me. The light caught his green eyes, giving them a sinister air. I swallowed. The last time I’d been in this kind of proximity to Artemis—well, let’s just say he hadn’t been the good guy or on our side.

  “What is it you’re really after, Owl?” he asked, letting a veiled threat hang in the air.

  I pressed my hand down on the map, ready to grab it and run. With my other I felt for the baton in Kujo’s oversized jacket. I’d spent a lot of blood, sweat, and tears over the past month tracking down the Tiger Thieves. I was tired of all the dead ends Oricho had sent me chasing. This three-hundred-year-old lead was the first real break I’d had. I wasn’t about to abandon it now, not after spending a week in this hellhole.

  My fingers closed around the baton and I shifted my weight. I was too close to turn around and run now.

  Artemis either didn’t care or didn’t notice; he was too busy looking exasperated. “I don’t have time for this. You may not want me here but I definitely don’t want to be here. And I doubt Lady Siyu does either.” He nodded towards the hall. “Come on. Before you do something you regret.”

  Yeah. This was one time I was not going to feel bad about my imminent actions. Sorry, Artemis, but I have a dungeon to crawl, pirates to see . . . I slid the baton out from under my jacket and swung it at his head.

  Rynn would have been proud of me. I didn’t telegraph, no windup, conserved my motion.

  Only Artemis caught it, snatching my wrist out of the air before I could connect.

  Shit.

  He smirked, cold and calculating—the amused look gone. “I’m not an idiot,” he said, and squeezed my wrist until the muscles released. The baton clattered to the floor.

  He pulled me in and trapped my arms, holding me tight facing away so I couldn’t even spit in his face, though it didn’t stop me from trying.

  “Now, we can do this two ways,” he hissed in my ear as I struggled against him. “The easy way, which is you tell me what it is you’re really in here after—or the hard way, where I make you tell me.”

  That made me pause. Artemis, I knew, would follow through on that threat, and the result would be neither subtle nor painless.

  I licked my lips as I gauged how much to share. “I’m after a pendant—one that was last seen on a British pirate imprisoned here in 1758.”

  “What kind of pendant? Magic? Cursed? It can’t be another trinket for Mr. Kurosawa, they would have mentioned it.”

  I kept my mouth shut. I was not going to give Artemis that much.

  In a smooth motion he switched from pinning my arms to a choke hold that he sunk in deep. Artemis tsked. “It’s not too late for the hard way, Owl.”

  Goddamn it. “I’m telling the truth! Just treasure hunting after a pirate.”

  “Hard way it is,” Artemis said, and I caught his eyes flash an unnatural green.

  If he knocked me unconscious and dragged me out of here, I’d never find it—which meant I’d have to tell the truth. “It’s called a Tiger Thieves pendant, all right?” I managed. “I need its map.”

  Artemis let me go. I backed up and covered my neck.

  “The Tiger Thieves? Are you out of your mind?”

  I shrugged. In a manner of speaking. “I don’t have it yet. It’s still on the pirate.” I pointed to the map of the cells below. “It should be in this wing—two levels down, the entrance is down the hall—”

  Artemis swore again. “Oh, I’m putting a stop to this now. Tiger Thief tokens given to pirates? You have gone daft.”

  “How do you know who the Tiger Thieves are?”

  He snorted. “Every supernatural knows who the Tiger Thieves are. Self-righteous assassins, the lot of them. Be glad you haven’t found them yet; they’d find somewhere worse to stick you than in here.”

  He took a step towards me. I played my last card. “I think they can help Rynn.”

  That made Artemis pause. I rushed to continue, “Ori—someone thinks the Tiger Thieves might know a way to get him out of the armor, but I haven’t been able to find them. I’ve been looking for months. This is the first concrete lead I have.” There were stories about the Tiger Thieves in esoteric history books—a thieves’ guild with political power, attempting to run interference between humans and supernaturals. Take your pick, but the stories all added up to the same thing: they had ways of dealing with big, bad supernatural problems. And they didn’t want to be found. By anyone—Oricho, the IAA, recruits, me . . .

  Artemis watched me, but whether he guessed who my source might be, he didn’t say anything. Regardless, his expression didn’t change. “I’ll admit I admire your loyalty and tenacity when it comes to helping my cousin,” he said more carefully than he’d phrased anything else to me.

  “Great. See you later, I’ll make sure to tell Lady Siyu you got me out,” I said, and started for the door.

  Artemis snorted and blocked my way. “Not a chance.”

  That had been the answer I’d expected. Artemis and Rynn might be cousins, but like a lot of families they weren’t exactly on good terms. “An hour is all I need, tops. Look, think of it this way, Rynn is dangerous—not just to humans but to supernaturals.” Reports and sightings of Rynn had said as much. He’d been acquiring a small army. Lady Siyu and Mr. Kurosawa considered him undirected, a chaotic variable, and therefore not nearly as great a concern as their war. What none of them seemed to realize was that that made Rynn the most dangerous part of their war—for both sides. From the look on Artemis’s face, he knew it too. The question was, how much did he really not care?

  Artemis narrowed his eyes at me. Still blocking my exit. “I make it no secret that I occasionally like to sit back and watch Rome burn.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t think Rynn plans on just burning things down. I think the new Rynn plans on taking over.” That’s more or less what the rumors had said. Rynn had been seeking out both supernaturals and humans, giving them an ultimatum: follow him of their own free will or lose their free will and follow him anyway. The reliable whispers at any rate. The unreliable rumors were much worse.

  Artemis narrowed his eyes at me. “Are you certain about the medallion?” he finally asked.

  I nodded. I’d come across a mention of it in the journal of a Spanish galleon officer. In 1758, it had been attacked by a British pirate, the Mad Hatter. It was neither out of the ordinary nor spectacular by pirate encount
er standards of the time except for the officer’s reference to the Mad Hatter’s flamboyant nature and the mention of a worthless stone pendant the pirate had insisted on keeping; he had gone half mad when they’d tried to take it from him. An old pendant made of stone and leather, with primitive drawings, golden dashes and lines, and the ghostly image of a Tiger’s head overlaid only visible in certain light.

  The Tiger Thief medallion. It had to be it.

  “They probably took it from him when they threw him in here,” opined Artemis, though he was less certain than he had been.

  I shook my head. “Every account I can find of the Tiger Thieves medallions says they were often mistaken for a worthless piece of stone on leather.”

  “That’s far from a certainty.”

  “Then let me check. Downstairs, two flights. That’s it. All the pirates who were ever locked in here were left to rot, all the cell keys thrown into the ocean—”

  “Well, that’s just fucking fantastic.”

  “It means his body has to be down there.”

  “Which is exactly the problem.”

  I frowned. “Dead bodies? Not to be morbid or macabr—”

  “No, for a human you spend an inordinate amount of time around dead bodies. It’s the pirate ghouls I’m worried about—the living dead kind, not the supernatural.”

  The bottom dropped out of my stomach.

  “Ghouls?” I said. “You mean pirate ghosts.” Ghosts weren’t exactly a walk in the park, but they could be outmaneuvered. Nowhere in my research on Albino had I seen a goddamn thing about ghouls.

  “This was an Incan burial site, yes? Well, if you’d bothered to look up the old conquistador legends, you’d know that the locals weren’t exactly thrilled to have the Spanish move in.”

  “The conquistadors killed them all—”

  “Most of them. And they still had some magic left when they tried.”

  Shit. Malicious ghosts I’d been prepared for, but ghouls?