Owl and the Japanese Circus (51 page)

Rynn headed over.

“Next time you pass me a weapon, don’t send the pointy end first,” I said.

“It worked, didn’t it? Nagas tend not to think the more enraged they get. Do you mind,” he asked me, nodding at the spear I was barely managing to hold onto. Saying Lady Siyu was strong was an understatement, and she was already trying to work the spear tip out.

“Be my guest,” I said, and let him take it. I figured let the supernatural deal with each other one-on-one.

“Now, you were saying something about dismembering Owl and sending the pieces through the mail? Please,” Rynn said, twisting the harpoon until Lady Siyu growled in pain, “continue.”

She hissed and wrapped her tail around the length of the spear, reminding me of a worm on a fishing hook. “Lowliest trash of the ethereal world—”

I shook my head and took a big step back. Supernaturals.

“The scroll, Alix,” he said.

Oh, yeah, right. She’d dropped it on the floor a few inches out of
reach. I edged forward. My fingers brushed the edge of the scroll as Lady Siyu’s rattle tip struck. I scrambled back and almost fell flat on my face.

“You get it!” I said.

“I’m a little busy,” he said.

“I was lucky that wasn’t my head,” I yelled back.

Rynn grimaced and shifted his weight as Lady Siyu twined and retwined her tail. She wasn’t hurt, only immobilized—and really, really pissed off. It was only a matter of time until she torqued the harpoon out of Rynn’s grip. I really didn’t want either of us to be around for that part . . .

“Damn it, where the hell is Oricho when you need him?” I said.

“I believe here would be the correct answer,” Oricho said.

I turned around. I hadn’t believed my ears, and I didn’t quite believe my own eyes, but there he was, stepping over the top half of a ruined slot machine.

“Has anyone ever told you you have lousy timing?” I said.

He arched his tattooed eyebrow. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“Are you kidding? You missed just about everything we could have used you for.”

Lady Siyu spat as he walked up to where the scroll still lay. She hissed and thrashed at him with the tip of her tail, but he evaded it as if it had been no more than a gust of wind. He retrieved the scroll, then did something that caught me off guard—he bowed to her. Not that I claim to even begin to understand supernatural culture, but even Rynn looked taken aback, and he understood the etiquette and nuances.

Lady Siyu said something I had no hope of understanding.

Whatever it was though got Rynn’s attention. “Oricho, what’s she talking about?” he said, more tense than he had been a moment before.

Oricho stood no less than a foot away from me, his face the emotionless mask I’d grown used to. Real fast I was aware that Lady Siyu and the spear were standing between me and Rynn. “Oricho . . .
answer Rynn’s question, preferably in English so I know what the hell is going on too.”

“Snakes always did have a hard time controlling their tempers,” he said.

Lady Siyu called him something in the strange language again.

Oricho replied, “And yet, as you flail on the end of a stick, incapable of upholding your honor, you still can’t bring yourself to speak in a common tongue. It is a failing, Lady Siyu. A mortal one.”

Rynn pulled the spear out and circled with it to keep Lady Siyu at bay as he took a step closer to me. He was frowning at Oricho, and I realized it wasn’t Lady Siyu he was pointing the harpoon at. Oricho strode over and grabbed Lady Siyu by the neck. He twisted it, and her tail went limp as she crumpled into a heap on the floor.

“Owl, move,” Rynn said as I stared at Lady Siyu’s dead body.

“What the hell just happened?” I said. “Oricho?”

He stepped towards me. Shit. I looked into the same ice-cold eyes I remembered from the first day I met him. They scared the shit out of me then, and they still did.

I made for Rynn, but Oricho was faster. He grabbed me around the waist and lifted me off the ground. “I don’t care what private war you had with Lady Siyu,” I said, “let me go and leave me out of it.”

“If only it were that simple.” He shook his head, and for a moment I thought I saw a flicker of regret—maybe even sadness. But it was gone before I really knew what I’d seen. “You’ve acted honorably. I am sorry you are here. Unlike many of my kind, I prefer not to involve humans in our spats.”

“Alix, duck,” Rynn said. I didn’t exactly have a hell of a lot of mobility, and the only version of “duck” I could come up with was burying my face in Oricho’s shirt. Idiotic moment of relief; it smelled like cherry blossoms, not some version of supernatural BO.

I felt something stir my hair as it passed by. Whatever it was, Oricho breathed out fast and loosened his grip as he was thrown back. I slid out and ran, reaching Rynn before turning around to see what
had happened. The harpoon was sticking out of Oricho’s shoulder. Something wet was trickling down my neck, and I reached to wipe it away. My hand came back with blood—my blood. I swore and slapped Rynn. “Will you stop throwing harpoons at me?”

“I missed.”

I held up my bloody hand. “This is not ‘missed.’ ”

He frowned. “Fine. I didn’t hit anything vital—”

“It’s my head.”

“Oh for the love of—Will you stop arguing and run?” he said, and pulled me after him.

“Oricho has the scroll—” I started.

“I don’t know about you, but I stopped caring about five minutes ago.”

He had a very good point. Let the supernaturals kill each other while I sent a nice little email to Mr. Kurosawa from a safe distance on a Mediterranean beach—or better yet, on the other side of the planet, like Australia’s Gold Coast.

“If we move fast, we should be able to get Nadya and Captain and get the hell out of here before—” Rynn added when we were mere footsteps away from the casino exit.

Oricho spoke in an old-sounding Japanese dialect, and a gust of air came up around us. The doors to the casino slammed shut, and both of us crashed into them.

The ghosts.

Rynn swore, or I think he swore, since I couldn’t understand what he said as he pulled me back down the first row of slot machines . . . or what was left after Lady Siyu’s tirade.

“There is no escape that way, old friend,” Oricho said as the chimes started and all the machines spewed coins over the floor. They piled up fast, blocking our way.

Rynn stopped and spun, removing a hunting knife from inside his jacket. Oricho smiled as he strode towards us and reached behind his head. His hand came back holding the hilt of a very sharp and polished samurai sword.

That scared me. Rynn might survive a fight with Oricho, but considering the short work Oricho had made of Lady Siyu, my chances were slim, at best. That meant my best hope was to talk my way out . . . shit. Here went everything.

“I thought you kami cared about honor? What the fuck is this supposed to be?”

“Dishonor to an honorable end,” Oricho said.

“Let’s see, you’re working for Sabine to help her steal a weapon she really shouldn’t be in possession of, and then you snapped Lady Siyu’s neck after Rynn harpooned her—I’m not up on supernatural death rules, but I
doubt
that was an honorable fight, and for what? To steal the magic version of a localized nuke from your boss? I get you hate him, but I don’t get this.”

Oricho was taking his time but still getting closer.

Rynn stepped in front of me. “Oricho, don’t do this—it’s not worth stealing from Mr. Kurosawa, whatever Sabine is offering you. You can’t do this, you’re kami—”

Oricho stopped a few feet away, a sad, uncharacteristic smile on his face. “Who said anything about working for Sabine? She is under my employ. Honorable unto death,” he said, and undid the collar of his crisp white shirt to reveal a thick, angry red welt, never properly healed and still oozing.

Rynn’s eyes went wide in shock. Oricho nodded at him and raised his sword back up.

“You are right, old friend. A kami would serve as duty dictates. When I found out the true purpose of the scroll a few months back, I paid Sabine to take my life.”

Oricho had died. Some supers can do that—but when a kami dies, it becomes something else.

“You’re onryo,” I said. A spirit of vengeance.

He gave me an eerie smile, showing a completely different side, one I hadn’t even suspected lay beneath the surface.

“Honor for my samurai in vengeance,” he said.

The pieces began to fall into place. Lady Siyu hadn’t been the
target, and neither were Rynn and I really. Hell, he wanted to take out his boss. A personal nuke with enough explosive power to take out a kilometer of Las Vegas just might do it. And take everyone else with it . . .

Lady Siyu had just been guarding it until I’d run in looking for Oricho, and Rynn had come looking for me . . . “Lady Siyu didn’t poison Nadya—you did,” I said.

Oricho removed a pair of incisors from his pocket. “My associate was able to retrieve these from the Balinese temple after you incidentally killed the naga guarding the catacombs. I suspected they might come in handy—naga venom is so difficult to come by. I am sorry your friend had to be poisoned. I had no other way to steer you towards this path.”

I nodded. If I’d been less pissed at Lady Siyu and not so convinced she was guilty, I would have stopped and wondered what the hell she’d been doing waiting for me outside the elevator. “And you told her a thief was on its way down to steal the scroll, didn’t you?”

He inclined his head.

Which was why Lady Siyu had been more than happy to try and kill me. My strengths and weaknesses had all been used to get me here to distract Lady Siyu so Oricho could steal the scroll. And I’d been stupid enough to not only wander in headfirst but also drag Nadya and Rynn along for the ride.

Still stupid, reckless Owl.

“You have everything that you want—
everything
. Let us go,” I said.

“If it is any consolation, I assure you Nadya was not given a lethal dose. Unlike most of my kind, I abhor killing innocents.”

“Some fucking consolation,” I said.

He nodded. “I do not begrudge you your anger. I wish there were another way,” he said, and his eyes turned a ghostly white. Almost as one, the ghosts from the slot machines rose up in a hazy fog and gathered around him. Onryo could absorb energy from the dead. He didn’t though; he just sent them at us.

“I wished you’d not insisted on taking this job, Rynn,” Oricho said before the ghosts descended.

They brushed me to the side as if I’d been nothing, feather fingers holding me in place. They collected around Rynn’s head in a dense fog, and his face turned gray as he gasped for breath. “Rynn!” I yelled, but the ghosts held me back. When he fell to his knees, they let me go.

I knelt down beside him; he didn’t look good. “If incubi can do that whole energy stealing thing, now would be a good time,” I said.

Rynn shook his head and mouthed, “
Sorry
.” His eyes turned bright blue, and then he passed out.

“Incubi are hard to kill, but they do require air to function,” Oricho said.

I stood up, balled my fists, and faced him. “What the
hell
did you do that for?”

“So I need not hurt him any more than I have to.” He nodded at the back of the casino and raised his voice. “Bring her out. Owl will not fight now. She gambles with her own life, but refreshingly not with the lives of others.”

Great. Someone finally believes I’m not the bad guy, and it’s going to get me killed.

I did what I do best. Ran. Oricho’s expensive Italian shoes clipped against the tiled floor behind me. I darted behind the pool table and into the dark lounge with the white couches where I first met Mr. Kurosawa. The door to the roof had to be around here somewhere.

But where did that leave Rynn . . . and Nadya, and Captain? I stopped and looked for another door or route—one that might lead me to Mr. Kurosawa. Oricho was gaining, so I jumped behind the bar and grabbed the Bacardi 151. Maybe flammables would put a dent in an onryo.

“We’re on the same side, you and I,” Oricho said.

“Bullshit,” I yelled. I felt for the lighter in my left pocket. It wasn’t there. Goddamn it. I checked my other pockets . . . it had to be here somewhere . . .

“Believe it or not, it makes no difference,” he continued. From the clip of his shoes, I could tell that he’d reached the edge of the lounge. I started opening drawers, looking for a lighter.

“Does that include a skin walker almost ripping my brain apart?” I yelled.

“Believe me when I say I regret its use, but I had to know whether you were withholding the scroll’s translation. Sometimes the ends justify the means. I learned that lesson one thousand years ago.”

I hid under the bar as Oricho’s footsteps grew closer.

“I can smell the fear rising off you, Owl. It is an interesting insight into the workings of a human mind. Still, your kind has not moved past your fear of the dark,” he said.

Damn it. “Not the dark, just what I can’t see. I’m guessing your kind has no trouble seeing in the dark.” No point in hiding anymore; I stood up and continued rifling through the drawers.

Oricho inclined his chin in acquiescence. “Yet the two are often one and the same. Let us say a fear of the unknown then.”

I’d opened the last drawer. No lighters or matches. I sat back; there wasn’t much time left before Oricho reached me, and I was out of options. I was going to die. Either Oricho was going to make me try and read the scroll, which I couldn’t, so I’d blow us up, or he’d slit my throat for not trying. Either way, things turned out the same—me dead.

I don’t know if it was a reflection in the mirrored glass, or the angle at which I turned my head as I looked for a last-minute escape route, but behind the white couch in the corner was a stray shadow that shouldn’t have been there. It was a second before I realized it was a smoke and mirrors trick. There was a hallway, and I was willing to bet my life it led right to Mr. Kurosawa’s chamber. I vaulted over the bar and ran, hoping to hell he had some kind of fail-safe in there for intruding humans.

“There is no help for you that way,” Oricho said, but he didn’t step up his pace. I ignored him and turned into the passageway, skidding to a halt at the sharp corner.