Owl and the City of Angels Read online

  So much for riding the mob in a Zen state . . .

  I dove under a picked-over and abandoned date cart. The wood of the cart creaked as people climbed over it, but it didn’t upend.

  I realized my pocket was buzzing. I answered to a tirade of Russian cursing from the other end.

  “Nadya?” I said, plugging my ear.

  “Yes, Alix, I’m here—” I heard something crash on Nadya’s end, followed by more Russian cursing.

  “Nadya?” The crowd was thinning now, so I watched for a good spot to make an exit.

  Through the crowd of feet I picked out the black pants and leather shoes of two IAA agents. Damn it . . . I placed the phone back to my ear and heard more screaming in Russian. “Nadya, what the hell is happening on your end?” I whispered as loud as I dared. “And where the hell are you?” I asked when the yelling didn’t stop.

  “I’m hiding in a bar, and me and the management have come to an agreement.” I didn’t miss the threat heavy in Nadya’s voice. Now I knew what the shouting had been about.

  “How the hell did I end up in the riot and you in the bar?” I said, keeping track of the IAA’s feet.

  “Because unlike you, I’m capable of planning ahead,” Nadya replied.

  “Oh come on! I could hardly have predicted a riot and IAA—”

  “Alix, move or you won’t make it. I have an out, but it is time ­sensitive—a half hour only. Call me when you reach the docks—I’ll keep my eye out for you,” she said, and hung up.

  Damn it, barely any time at all. I set my stopwatch for thirty minutes and hoped I didn’t screw it up.

  I picked out a third pair of black IAA-issue shoes on the other side of the cart. The only way he could have gotten in was through the other end of the alley . . . Son of a bitch, I hate playing cat and mouse—especially when I’m the mouse. On top of the IAA closing in, the crowd was filling back in again fast. I needed to move now, or I’d be boxed in. And I had no illusions about my chances up against three agents.

  Well, there’s one advantage to me being shorter than most people: I’m harder to shoot in a crowd.

  The cart I was hiding under had been picked over, but it still carried dates. Let’s hope enough to cause a commotion in an already volatile environment. “Time to change the game the IAA’s playing, Captain,” I said, and checked that he was still secure in my backpack. I grabbed the handles and pushed the cart up and over, spilling the dates into the crowd.

  There were a few indignant yells—some for the dates, but mostly for the fact that the wooden cart had pushed an already volatile crowd into a nonexistent corner. Already short tempers flared at the loss of even more personal space, and one by one they turned on each other—including the IAA agents.

  While someone threw a punch at large agent number one, I shot out from behind the cart and vaulted over it. I kept Captain closely clutched to my stomach—though I’m the first to admit there’s comedic value to the idea of some hapless Egyptian lifting my backpack and being rewarded with a face full of claws.

  I pushed past two more mob goers/protestors and climbed over another food cart, toppling it over to get myself more than an arm’s length away from the fray.

  I checked for the IAA agents as I aimed for an alley—one that was too narrow by far for the mob’s purposes. The IAA agents were still standing, but too far back in the crowd to reach me anytime soon. Ducking a wild punch aimed at anyone dumb enough to get in the owner’s way, I climbed over a fallen pair of brawlers and bugged down the alley as fast as my feet would carry me.

  I was breathing hard now—my cardio had gotten better since Bali, but I was still a long way off from marathon material. I checked over my shoulder for the IAA again. They’d reached the alley and were moving faster now . . .

  There was a window a few feet ahead that had been opened a crack—not enough to tempt looters, but large enough I could wedge myself through. I vaulted up and crawled through.

  I’d landed in a restaurant kitchen, where half the staff was madly trying to shut everything down while the remainder tried to chase out customers still left up front. An angry cook glared and shouted something derogatory before reaching for a cricket bat.

  No time for niceties. “Sorry,” I offered in Arabic as I darted past him into the dining area. Another man behind the bar shouted, and I noticed a gun. These guys were ready to shoot looters. I pushed past a customer and opened the front door.

  Two IAA agents were standing in the doorway, mid-conversation on their communicators and about ready to open the door.

  “Oh you got to be kidding me,” I said.

  For a moment none of us moved, including the men in the bar.

  Who says there isn’t a common international signal for we’re all about to get screwed?

  I recovered first—years of practice and paranoia—and managed to stumble back and put a booth between me and the IAA.

  The IAA does not recruit slow. Both agents reached into their jackets, though neither was willing to pull out a gun—yet.

  “Alix Hiboux, aka Owl, we’re detaining you on IAA authority for breaches against regulation,” the one closest to me said, a midforties agent sporting a crew cut. I rolled my eyes. Where did they get these people? Probably poached from some military department, maybe even CIA. The IAA was funny that way. They might be the Grand Poobah of clandestine operations, but clandestine was the operative word. Officially they didn’t exist, so recruiting practices consisted of cloak-and-dagger-style poaching from various military and government spy departments. The mix of agents that resulted was eclectic, and more often than not a little crazy. Have to be to believe half the supernatural stuff that’s out there . . .

  Stall, Alix, stall . . . I raised both my hands over the booth’s ledge. “OK, seriously, guys, this is overkill for a minor dig site. Don’t you have anything better to deal with? Like hiding supernaturals or something?”

  Blond crew cut sneered. “You are our top supernatural threat.”

  “Seriously? Caracalla’s catacomb barely rates petty theft on the antiquities scale, let alone supernatural. And the only supernatural in there is Caracalla—and I didn’t steal him, I shoved a femur in his face. Hard distinction for you guys to make, I know—”

  “Put your hands on your head and drop to your knees,” crew cut yelled, interrupting me.

  Yeah, not happening . . . “This isn’t about Algiers, is it? Seriously guys, traps don’t count, and those aren’t supernatural either. Hell, you guys practically owed me the Cleopatra cuffs in damages and back pay,” I yelled back.

  “You’ve got to the count of five, Hiboux.”

  There must be some universal rule about the kind of people who want to become IAA agents . . . something along the lines of “assholes only need apply” . . .

  “OK, we might not like each other very much, but everyone in the IAA knows I don’t deal with dangerous artifacts or digs.” To be fair, the IAA might be dicks, but I figured that was why they’d never mounted a serious manhunt for me before. On their sliding scale of threats, I rate somewhere between a mosquito and a pigeon—mildly annoying, swat it if you can, but otherwise ignore it.

  I glanced around the bar and noticed patrons and staff were filing out through the kitchen—had to be another exit.

  “Just hit her with the tranquilizer so we can get the hell out of here,” IAA agent number two said, a contrast to crew cut, with dark skin, no hair, and falling somewhere in his midtwenties.

  Tranquilizer? Yeah, I did not plan on sticking around for that. Besides, number one looked like he’d rather spend a few rounds beating me up first—you know the type— to teach me a lesson for not following the sting operation script.

  Don’t think about the IAA logic too much—I know I try not to.

  I licked the sweat off my lip and checked the bar out of the corner of my eye. I noted a jar of w
hat looked like boiled eggs and garlic sitting on the bar within reach.

  “All right, the hard way it is,” I said. I grabbed the jar and launched it at crew cut’s head.

  You know what’s better than seeing an IAA agent slip and fall on a pile of dates? Watching one start an international incident.

  Crew cut’s gun came up, and Arabic-voiced madness ensued. Everyone in concert seemed to dive for cover as a loaded-gun standoff ensued.

  As bullets flew in both directions, I dropped to the floor and crawled after everyone who didn’t have a gun—the minority, in this case.

  The route led through the kitchen, and I happened to pass what had to be the cooks’ tip jar. I stuffed twenty bucks inside. I know, it barely scratched the surface, but I wouldn’t have felt right not leaving anything.

  Out of all the people who spilled out of the restaurant into the alley, no one gave me a second glance as they ran for their lives. I could relate. I was in a different alley—a little off course for the docks, but the hell away from the IAA—I hoped. My bigger problem was that I’d fallen behind the mob. I checked my phone timer. Twenty minutes left. I wouldn’t make it past them in time. I needed another route.

  Behind the mob. Need another route to the docks, I texted Nadya.

  The nice thing about text was Nadya couldn’t yell.

  The dig site, came Nadya’s text.

  Oh screw that. I dialed. “Nadya, no! I’m stupid, not suicidal—and they have guns that they’re shooting . . . at me.”

  “They’re still searching for you in the riot, and Rynn says the mob is giving them logistic problems as well. They never expected you to beat them out of the dig site, and they won’t expect you to double back,” she said calmly.

  I pulled up a mental picture of Alexandria as best I could. If I doubled back, I’d shave maybe ten minutes off my run . . . still, I didn’t buy the IAA leaving the catacombs unmanned.

  I peeked out the alley again to gauge the mob, the bulk of which was now a few streets over, leaving only the stragglers, looters, and injured behind. “Oh you got to be fucking kidding me.”

  “Alix?”

  “Dig site it is,” I said as I watched three new suits moving amongst the mob stragglers. They were zeroing in on me again. One of them glanced my way. I ducked back out of his line of sight and swore as glass shattered above my head.

  On the bright side, all I had to do was run like hell a few blocks past the catacombs and I should end up at the docks. “Keep me on the line and I’ll be able walk you through it,” Nadya said.

  I fished the Bluetooth piece out of my pocket. “Just make sure you keep the directions coming. I’ve got no bearings over here.”

  “There should be an alley coming up on your left; take that one.”

  “Fine, great, awesome, alley on my left—” I turned left as instructed and skidded to a halt a few feet in. There was a collapsed wall blocking the way in the form of a pile of rubble . . . guarded by two chickens and a goat. The chickens ran for cover, but the goat just dropped the T-shirt it was eating and bleated at me. “Nadya, it’s a fucking pile of rubble with farm animals!”

  “Then find a fucking way over it—and hurry! I can’t hold our ride out forever.”

  “I didn’t avoid the open sewer so I could run through a flock of livestock,” I mumbled. With the revolutions, garbage and other city services had gone to the wayside, and the open canals that ran through Alexandria had taken the brunt of it. The ones that hadn’t already been filled in with concrete to stem waterborne diseases were swimming with discarded livestock and other assorted garbage.

  “Alix! Do it!”

  I swore, switched Captain to my back, and started to climb.

  At least the goat got out of my way.

  Halfway up, Captain let out a baleful howl.

  “Yeah, I hate livestock too,” I said, and continued to climb.

  It was followed by a second, louder cry.

  I glanced back over my shoulder to see what had riled him up.

  “Shit . . .”

  A trio of Egyptians stood at the bottom of the rubble pile, watching me, grinning. Two of them were a good foot taller than the third, and all three were wearing traditional robes and headdresses. I wasn’t sure if it was the difference in size or the smaller man’s years, but he appeared to be the most intelligent. That, and his eyes never left me.

  “That is her, boss?” one of the larger men said to the shorter one in Arabic.

  The smaller man smiled, displaying a set of teeth a few baskets shy of a picnic, and nodded. “Same as in the picture—more or less.” He switched from Arabic to halted English. “This isn’t your lucky day,” he said to me.

  “Got to go, Nadya,” I said.

  “Don’t you dare hang up—I need you online so I can reroute you.”

  Two larger goons started towards the pile. “Extenuating circumstances,” I said, and hung up.

  I climbed faster, wracking my brain for anything big I’d stolen of late, but it wasn’t like Mr. Kurosawa had me lifting artifacts of note. Damn, the IAA needed to come up with better things to do with their spare time.

  “Why don’t you come down so these men don’t have to hurt you?” the shorter man yelled.

  Screw that.

  I made it two-thirds of the way up before I felt the tug at my foot and face-planted in rubble. Hands gripped my backpack like a handle and dragged me down. Captain howled; might not be vampires, but that doesn’t mean my cat can’t tell trouble when he sees it.

  One of the men cursed my cat as teeth hit their mark through the nylon.

  My stomach turned. I’d stuck Captain in there so we wouldn’t get separated—not to hand him over gift-wrapped to a thug residing in a country whose current dietary selections were suspect. Not a slight to the Egyptians, just that supermarkets are the first casualty in a revolution.

  Captain howled, and I heard nylon tear. It was followed by more Arabic cursing as my cat dug his teeth in again.

  Teach them to manhandle my cat . . .

  I saw a baseball-sized piece of rubble within reach and edged my hand towards it as Captain fought.

  A swift kick was delivered to my gut, followed by one to my leg.

  I winced but wrapped my hand around the brick. Too bad for them I’d gotten a lot of experience having the shit kicked out of me this last year.

  “Hey asshole,” I said.

  There was a grunt followed close by another yell and a high-pitched cat screech. I felt claws dig into my back as one of the goons tried to wrench Captain away. I clenched my teeth; if they so much as tore a tuft of hair off my cat . . .

  “I’ll come down, but you got to do one thing for me,” I yelled. I’d only have one chance to take them by surprise.

  There was a grunt of acknowledgment—as much of an encouragement as I was going to get from these guys.

  I tightened my grip on the rock and flipped over. Only one of the goons had made it up the rubble pile—the other was having difficulty scrambling up, and the leader hadn’t bothered trying. Between Captain’s teeth and my sudden movement, the backpack was wrenched out of the goon’s hand.

  I slammed the rock into the goon’s head. “Leave my cat the hell alone!”

  The goon’s footing had been tentative at best. The rock only stunned him, but it was enough to set him reeling . . . well, that and Captain had managed to tear a hole in the backpack large enough for his head to fit through. There was a blur of white and brown fur as he tore deeper into the thug’s hand, which was met with shrieks. Captain had drawn blood in three different spots, and it mixed freely with grime, making a reddish-brown mess.

  “Serves you right trying to steal a girl’s backpack—never know what’s in there,” I said, but I doubt the man was listening even if he did speak English.

  Now if my damn cat woul
d just let go so we could get the hell out of here.

  The man reeled back precariously, but Captain wasn’t having any of it. No way in hell was he letting go now that he figured he had the upper hand.

  “Let—go—you—stupid—cat,” I said, and wrenched the bag with both hands, trying to get Captain to let go so the man would fall already. Captain only growled and the thug’s shrieks pitched an octave higher as Captain did more damage. The other two were scrambling at the bottom of the pile, yelling at him and each other.

  The bag gave an inch as a strap sheared under pressure, and I almost stumbled back over the other side of the rubble pile. Out of shock more than anything else, Captain lost his grip.

  I wrapped both arms around a half-bagged, indignant Mau cat and ran—or rolled—down the other side of the rubble, leaving three angry Egyptians screaming in my wake.

  I landed in a shallow, stagnant puddle. Great, all that effort to avoid the sewers . . .

  I turned back to grab my backpack. Captain was sitting beside it . . . on the ground . . . glaring at me.

  I held up the backpack—well, between the struggle with the Egyptians and Captain’s handiwork, what was left of it. “Come on. I don’t have time for this. Back inside.”

  Captain just glared at the backpack, back at me, and let out a drawn-out meow.

  “Look—I get it. Locked in backpack bad. I’ll make a note of it and put a head hole in, OK? Now just get the hell back in and stay there before they figure a way over or around.”

  Captain snorted but hopped back in. To show I was keeping my end of the deal, I made sure he had enough room to stick his head out.

  Time for me to do what I did best: run like hell.

  I got Nadya back on the line and set off at a jog, doing my best not to try to think of the waterborne diseases I’d just soaked my shoes in. Instead, I wondered what the hell I’d stolen over the past few months that had the IAA this riled up.