Owl and the Japanese Circus (43 page)

I don’t think I’ve ever been more scared in my life. My coping
mechanism? Run my mouth off. “Get rid of the handcuffs and I’ll show you just how much trouble I can be,” I said.

“Before you make your decision, think on this. If I leave in your skin, I’ll know every secret, every heart’s desire, every fear. I’ll hunt down those you love and torture them. Then I’ll wear their skins and do it all over again. Why? Because it’s in my nature.” It leaned in and smelled my skin. “Now, where is the translation?”

Somehow, I didn’t think this was the situation Rynn had had in mind when he’d suggested I stop mouthing off to supernaturals. “Go to hell,” I said.

It slammed the back of my head into the bathtub. My ears started to ring.

“You think your friends would know?” It smiled and shook its head. “They won’t. No one ever does, not after I rip your mind apart. Otherwise I wouldn’t be in business.”

“Who sent you?” I said. I could barely hear myself with my ears ringing.

It smiled. “No one of any consequence.”

I kicked at it and it grabbed my neck, squeezing. “Where is the translation?”

Lady Siyu or Marie. It had to be. The dragon would have just tortured me. “Joke’s on you, I don’t have one.”

It turned my head from side to side and sniffed my skin. I cringed as a pink, wormlike tongue flicked out and tasted my cheek. It sat back and laughed, more gravel.

“I believe you are telling the truth,” it said. “I can smell it on you, you know. A lesser-known trait of ours. Pity. You do realize I will have to eat your soul now? Just to be on the safe side.” It let the girl’s skin slip into the lye-filled tub. It hissed, and smoke rose in a fog of ammonia.

Think, brain, think, what hurts skin walkers
 . . . I glanced around the bathroom, looking for something, anything.

It twisted my neck until I was looking it in the eyes, black and pupil-less. “Now be a good girl and look at me.”

I closed my eyes and spit in its face. It slapped me. Hard. On a hunch the skin walker was male, I kicked up.

I guessed right.

It crumpled over and grabbed its crotch as soon as I connected. I worked on the handcuffs, trying to slip my hands through.

He grabbed my wrist. “I’m done playing nice,” he said and twisted.

“Funny, I’m not done telling you to fuck off yet—” I screamed as I heard a snap and a sharp pain travelled from my wrist up to my shoulder.

“You know you don’t need to be conscious to have your soul stolen?” he said. I grimaced as my thoughts, memories, things I hadn’t thought of in years flooded to the front. My dad leaving for Mexico, my mom’s death, friends I’d forgotten about, Rynn, Nadya—everything flowed out of me, every personal detail. I tried to hold back, stop it . . . It was like an ice pick was being driven into my thoughts, again and again. I couldn’t stop it.

I heard a door kick in somewhere, and the skin walker growled.

I couldn’t be bothered to open my eyes. Maybe whoever it was would help me die a little faster.

“Stay here, little Alixandria the Great,” the skin walker said, using a name only my father ever called me. “I’ll be back in but a moment. Perhaps I’ll take a skin for the road.”

I couldn’t do or say a thing—not even yell a warning—as it opened the door on Rynn. I was too empty. I could watch though. Maybe that was what the skin walker wanted.

The skin walker grabbed Rynn by the neck and dragged him to the ground. It pinned him down and crawled onto his chest, but not before glancing over at me and smiling.

I didn’t even have the strength to look away.

“Now, look into my eyes, mercenary—No!”

The skin walker jumped off Rynn in surprise and clutched its head, shocked and hurt. Rynn got up, unharmed, and walked towards it. The skin walker held up its leathery hands in defense, backing towards the bathroom as Rynn followed.

What the hell was going on?

“No, I was tricked, I was not told about you, you sneaky, vile—”

The skin walker never finished its sentence. Rynn hit it across the face, and its head cracked into the porcelain of the bathroom sink. It dropped unconscious to the floor beside me. Rynn checked the skin walker first, then knelt beside me. He frowned when he touched my broken arm. I couldn’t blame him. It was bent at an awful angle.

I swallowed. It was hard, as my mouth was dryer than I expected. “Told another supernatural to fuck off,” I said. It was a bad joke. Rynn didn’t laugh.

“I hate skin walkers,” he said. “Bottom feeders.” I heard the bathtub drain, and I was glad the ammonia would be gone. He was on the phone, Nadya maybe, it sounded like Russian . . .

“How did you know?”

“Oricho was delayed by a disturbance on the casino floor. Skin walkers. They almost always travel in packs. I tried to get hold of you, and when I couldn’t, I worried.”

I tried to lift my arm but couldn’t. I was light-headed and didn’t like the way it jutted out at an angle, like a rag doll’s. I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to look at it.

“It didn’t break your arm, only dislocated it,” Rynn said, his voice soothing.

“I’m pretty sure it’s broken,” I said. He touched my face and pried my eyes open with cool fingertips.

“No, it’s just twisted. The poison is making you see things.” I heard water running and the lye in the bathtub drain away. Good riddance.

Part of me wanted to believe it, it made so much sense . . .

His blue eyes flared. “Stop being so pigheaded. Your arm isn’t broken.”

I shook my head.

Rynn gave up and fetched a set of keys from the unconscious skin walker. I winced as the cuffs were pulled off. He checked my hands where I’d tried to pull them through and swore under his breath. “You made a mess of your wrists. They’re too small to slip handcuffs.”

He lifted me, and I protested.

“I’m putting you into the bathtub so I can ice it.”

“Just put ice on it then,” I said. He stuck me in the tub anyways. I yelped as ice-cold water hit me from the tap, but my eyelids were getting heavy. I wondered for a moment if having my clothes on or getting wet with my head this light was a great idea. In the end I couldn’t be bothered. I started to drift off. Fine, if Rynn didn’t want me to think my arm was broken before I passed out, so be it. “Fine, you win, my arm is fine.” Even as I said it I started to feel better, and started to believe it. And drift off . . .

I woke aware of being carried. I was out of the tub, and though my hair was still wet and cold, sweats and a T-shirt had replaced my soaked clothes. I lifted my head and fought the dizziness. I lifted my arm. It was fine. Bruised, yes, but not broken.

“See, it’s worthwhile listening to me sometimes,” Rynn said and deposited me in my bed. Before I could force my slow mind to come up with something snappy, a knock at the door had Rynn’s attention.

I knew I should probably get up and see who it was; I pushed myself to sitting and slid my legs over the side. My head revolted, and I had to lie back down.

“I gave you a sedative. You need to sleep the poison off,” Rynn said, and threw the covers over me. They were heavier than I remembered, and I was in no condition to argue. I heard voices coming from the door outside the bedroom, and I strained to listen. They weren’t familiar, but I tilted my head to get a better view through the crack left in the bedroom door.

Two of the nymphs I recognized from the pool came in and picked up the skin walker. For harmless supernaturals, I was finding it unnerving how often they disposed of dead bodies . . . I strained to hear some of the words, but I couldn’t make them out . . .

The door closed, and I felt Rynn sit on the side of the bed.

“How often do those guys deal with dead bodies? And how the hell did you learn to take out a skin walker?” I said.

“Go to sleep,” Rynn said.

His voice was enough to remind me how tired I was. “I need a hospital,” I said, and stifled a yawn. I was losing the battle with sleep.

“Train wreck,” Rynn said.

I think I called him a whore before drifting off.

I was handcuffed to a bathtub, a yellow-skinned monster driving an ice pick down towards my face. I pulled at the cuffs and heard the snap as my shoulder came out of its socket. The skin walker leaned in, breath reeking like rotting meat. A pink tongue licked my face . . .

I sat up with a start, and Captain howled as he toppled off the bed.

I took a quick inventory of my room as I wiped cat saliva off my cheek. Besides Captain, my room was empty. I was still dressed in sweats. The blinds were drawn, but sunlight peeked through the slats.

At least a night had passed, maybe more.

Damn it.

I swung my legs over the side of my bed. OK, maybe not such a good idea, considering the head rush. I braced myself before I slid off, and I pulled my injured arm back in delayed reflex . . .

It felt fine. I even checked the bone, and sure enough there wasn’t even a sore spot. Using the vanity by the bed for balance, I stood up and
got a good look at myself in the mirror. My makeup had been washed off, which didn’t bother me—I rarely wear any unless I’m out with Nadya—but where I should have had a black eye and a swollen lip, my face looked completely normal. I could have sworn I’d just had the shit kicked out of my by a Russian skin walker.

What the hell had happened?

I checked the washroom. There was a dent in the wall where the skin walker had slammed me, and the sink was broken. I shook my head. I hadn’t imagined it; I’d almost died. My head swam as I tried to remember . . . Rynn had said something about poison. Had I been hallucinating?

Captain hopped back up on the bed and mewed.

I shook my head at him. “I so need to stop letting monsters beat the shit out of me.”

And where the hell was my cell phone? And laptop? I checked the nightstand, the bedsheets, the desk. I hate not having my stuff. A hair away from full-on panic, I checked my jacket pocket and breathed a sigh of relief as my fingers felt the leather of my wallet.

“Come on, Captain,” I said as I slid on a pair of slippers—no way was I trying heels, considering how woozy I was—and headed for the door. “You can help me sniff out my stuff.”

I opened the door to my room. A bodyguard blocked the way, his back to me. I almost tripped over my own feet scrambling back. “Hey, just what the hell is going on? Where are Rynn and Oricho?”

The bodyguard turned towards me. It was Oricho.

I leaned against the doorframe. “Jesus, I don’t care if you are a kami, don’t ever scare me like that again.”

A frown spread over his face as he took in my slippers and sweats. “Though I am glad to see you are awake, I do not think it wise to venture out just yet.”

“I’m fine,” I said.

Oricho glanced at the door frame I was leaning against.

“OK, I’m not ‘fine,’ ” I said, “but I can walk.” I noticed the chair beside the door. “How long was I out?”

“Twelve hours at most,” he said.

“Then why don’t I look like I had the shit kicked out of me?” I said.

Oricho took me by the arm, gently, and steered me back into the living room. I tried to anchor my feet to the floor, but I wasn’t in the best shape to accomplish it.

“Where most humans would be grateful to wake up unharmed after a battle, your first thought is to ask why. Does that insight not concern you?”

I pulled my arm away and beelined for the kitchen, struggling to catch my balance. I needed a coffee. I turned the coffee machine on and waited. The gods didn’t hate me that much. Today. As soon as my cup was filled, I took a long sip. “No, because I’m well aware I had the shit kicked out of me by a skin walker twelve hours ago.” I raised my arm. “
This
should be broken,” I said, “so why isn’t it?”

Oricho shook his head and passed me a chair. “Skin walkers are known to produce a powerful hallucinogen.”

I glared at the chair, but it’s hard to have pride when you’re about to face-plant. I sat down, and my head rush subsided. “Yeah, I know, Rynn told me. Trust me, I’m feeling the effects.”