Elf Saga: Bloodlines (Part 1: Curse of the Jaguar) (10 page)

“More of a recent acquaintance, actually.” I
touch the scarred skin on the side of my face. “Yesterday was not
my favorite day.”

“Violence is a disease, an infection that
spreads from person to person,” Amina says in a faraway voice,
huddled in the corner of her throne. “Do you know why my guards
attacked you today? Because thirty years ago, and half a world
away, the Azteran army invaded the Chirika province to mine for
gold and silver. So Lozen became a freedom fighter, and the
violence changed her, and now violence follows her, and infects
those around her, and now here you are, fighting my guards, thirty
years later. Because of Lozen, and armies, and gold. How insane is
that?”

She shakes her head. “The world is crazy,
sometimes. People are crazy. Have you ever wondered what the world
would be like if one day, just one day, everyone woke up and said,
today I’m going to eat some food, do some work, hug my kids, and go
to bed, all without killing anybody. Just once, just one day. And
for that one day, there would be no killing, no suffering, no fear
anywhere in the entire world. Why can’t that happen?”

I shrug. “Because people are dicks.”

The empress laughs. The laugh erupts out of
her tired, huddle body, out of her thin lips and red eyes, and she
smiles like the sun breaking through the rainclouds. “I suppose
they are.”

I nod. “So? Yas Yagaroth?”

Please say no.

She smiles and sighs and looks a little sad
again. “No, Amara can’t go to Yas Yagaroth.”

I exhale and say, “Okay. Fair enough. Then
can you just get our ship’s crystals back from her, please?”

“Crystals? Yes, yes, of course.” The red-eyed
Empress of Viraka nods at one of her servants. “Bring Princess
Amara here, please.”

The servant bows and strides out. While we
wait, Amina and Rajani make small talk, mostly about Rajani’s
mothers. I tune them out and steal some more fruit, although since
no one seems to care that I’m taking it, I guess it’s not really
stealing, and that takes some of the fun out of stuffing my face. I
wish they had some spicy chicken on one of these platters.

When the servant finally returns, alone, I
already know what’s wrong.

“She ran, didn’t she?” I ask.

The servant glances at me, and then says to
the empress, “Her Highness Princess Amara does not appear to be in
the palace. Her maid believes the princess to be in the city.”

“The crystals.” I spin to look at Rajani.
“Can she fly your ship?”

“Uhm… maybe?”

“Shit!”

I run out of the room, run through the halls,
run across the courtyard and out the gates, run through the
streets, weaving through the crowds, bounding and leaping across
the low rooftops, and all the while my mind is racing and screaming
and cursing about this jackass stealing our ship and stranding me
here. I know damn well that life isn’t fair, but why is it so damn
complicated, so relentlessly twisted and weird and exhausting and
stupid?

When I finally jog to a stop at the edge of
the landing field, it’s a cold relief to see that the Valkyrie is
still there, with no sign of Amara or her armored entourage. The
field watchman says he hasn’t seen anyone either, so I sit down on
the grass, close my eyes, and try to catch my breath.

Even jaguars get tired.

As I sit there I hear footsteps approaching
on the grass, and I crack my eyes to see Rajani walking up. She
sits down next to me.

After a moment she says, “You know, you just
ran out of a meeting with the most powerful woman in the entire
world.”

I shrug. “I guess.”

“You also said the word dick in front of her,
like, a lot.”

I grin. “Maybe once or twice.”

“So what now? Amara still has the
crystals.”

I stand up. “Then we get them back.”

“But how do we find her?”

I scratch my nose. “I have my ways.”

Ten minutes later we’re in the White Jacana,
a small theater in a quiet neighborhood, backstage in a dressing
room, and I have two young actors shoved up against a wall, and
they’re both babbling over each other so loudly that I can’t tell
what either one is saying. I wouldn’t have touched them, but they
came at me with prop swords when they saw my jaguar spots. Thanks
again, Mother.

“Shut up!” I shake them, and they shut
up.

Rajani clears her throat. “You know, I kind
of thought you were going to use your jaguar senses to sniff out
Princess Amara. You know, because of the way you scratched your
nose back when I asked how we would find her.”

I look at her with a raised eyebrow. “My nose
isn’t that magical. I can’t find one person in a huge city like
this.” Turning back to the actors, I say, “Now, let’s try this
again. Where can I find Amara and her boyfriend?”

“Probably at his place,” one of them grunts.
“He lives a few blocks from here, on the Street of the
Giraffe.”

I glance at Rajani. “You know where that
is?”

She nods nervously.

“Excellent!” I drop the two actors. “Now, I
have very good hearing. So I want you to sit here, very still, and
count to a hundred, very loud. And if I don’t hear what I want to
hear from this room, I’ll come back and break all of your arms.
Off.”

They nod and start counting, slowly and in
unison, like schoolchildren.

Back out on the street, as Rajani leads the
way toward the Street of the Giraffe, she asks me, “Can you really
hear them counting back in the theater?”

I laugh. “Nope. I just wanted them to give us
a nice long head start before they tell anyone they saw us.”

The Street of the Giraffe turns out to be a
very long street indeed, stretching off to our left and right for
block after block, and lined with small houses that all look
depressingly identical, aside from their bright pastel paint jobs.
And in between those houses are hundreds of pedestrians, mostly
parents and children, but also quite a few street vendors trying to
get the attention of those parents and their children with carts
full of sweets and toys and small clothing.

I wince. It smells like candy-coated
dung.

Rajani shrugs. “How do we find them in all
this?”

I sigh. “Hang on.” I turn to the lamppost on
the street corner and quickly climb the iron pole, which is painted
green and yellow, and at the top I balance on the small iron hood
of the lamp, high above the crowd, and I start looking. I don’t
know what I’m looking for, exactly, but it doesn’t take long to
spot the two armored men, one of whom answers to the name Obatunde,
and I drop back to the ground before anyone seems too annoyed at my
acrobatics. “This way!”

We jog down the street, dodging around
playing children and bellowing salesmen, and before Rajani can tell
me not to, I walk straight up to the two guards and say, “Hey boys,
we need to chat with your boss.”

They reach for their swords.

“Vinesvinesvines!” Rajani waves her hands and
her little green friends dash out of her hair and whirl around the
two men’s hands, weaving bundles of green vines out of thin air to
lash their hands to their swords, and their swords to their belts.
The faeries flit back into their refuge, leaving both men grunting
and straining to pull their hands free of the awkward knots of
plant life on their waists.

“Sorry,” Rajani says. “I’m just really tired
of all the fighting. Can we just talk, please? Like reasonable
adults?”

“Unless you want more attention.” I gesture
to the street full of curious children who fell silent at the
appearance of the faeries and are now continuing to stare at
us.

Obatunde glares at us, then glances at his
partner and says, “You stay out here. I’ll take them inside.”

So we follow him into the sunny sitting room
of a small house where we interrupt a hushed conversation between a
lovely young man and a tall young woman wearing too much gold
jewelry.

“Howdy, Jingles.” I nod at the princess.

She glares back. “My name is Amara.”

“Bitchy princesses with noisy hair who throw
me in prison for no good reason get called Jingles,” I say
reasonably. “So, I just had a fascinating chat with your mom. She
cried quite a bit. But don’t worry, we don’t want any trouble. We
just need a certain something, a bag with some crystals, you know
the one. Give it back. Now.”

“Amara?” The youth looks to her with his
dark, worried eyes.

“No need to worry. Just go upstairs,
darling.” The princess gently pushes him toward the steps.

“No, no. No need for that,” I say, beckoning
him back. “He’s a big part of your life and he shouldn’t be shoved
off stage when things get interesting. This is his house, after
all. What’s your name, fella?”

“Okoro,” the youth says with a nervous
smile.

“Hello Okoro. Nice to meet you. You have a
lovely home.”

“Thank you,” he says hesitantly.

“Okoro, you might be interested to know that
I had a very interesting meeting this morning with your…” I’m going
to say something that I think sounds clever and cruel, but I’m
running out of steam here. I’m tired of this game. I thought my
little chat with the empress had calmed me down, but really it just
helped me to focus. I’m done with this. I turn back to the
princess. “Screw it. Just give us the damn crystals.”

Amara narrows her eyes. “Or what?”

I blink. “Seriously? You’re a walking
skeleton and I’m half-jaguar. Do you actually need to hear me
threaten you? Fine. Give us the crystals or I will kill you.”

“No, you won’t,” she says smugly.

“Probably not,” I agree. “But I will break
your legs, and then Raj here will heal you, and then I’ll break
them again, you bony sack of crap.”

Obatunde lunges at me. I slam my palm into
the warrior’s chest and send him flying back against the wall,
breathless and shaking. I never take my eyes off the princess. “You
know, I hate violence, and this is stacking up to be the most
violent day of my life, thanks to you. And that’s saying a lot,
seeing as how I got half my face burned off yesterday. So how about
those crystals, before I really lose my temper?”

“Obatunde,” Amara never takes her eyes off me
either. “Please step outside and await my signal.”

The warrior nods and leaves, one hand still
pressed to his aching chest.

“Crystals.” I hold out my empty hand.
“Now.”

A high-pitched squeal out in the street makes
me flinch, and a moment later I hear the dull thud of a small
explosion high above us. I dash to the window and look up to see a
thin trail of black smoke from the street up into the sky, and
there, hanging motionless, is a blossoming mass of red smoke. “What
the… oh hell. Signal flare.”

“You have about two minutes before an entire
legion of city watchmen arrive to arrest you,” Amara says. “And
this time, I’ll be long gone in that lovely ship of yours before
you see the light of day again.”

I squeeze the window sill until the wood
cracks and splits against my palms. “Fine. You win.”

“Of course I win.” The princess inspects her
nails.

“I agree to your terms,” I tell her with a
vicious smile. “It’s a deal!”

She looks up, frowning. “To what deal are you
referring?”

“We kidnap you, and you get an all-expenses
paid non-stop flight to the long-lost city of the dead.” I grab her
by the neck and bend her down toward Okoro. “Say goodbye, kiss
kiss, I love you.”

“What?” Amara looks baffled as a frightened
Okoro kisses her.

I yank her away, right past a stunned Rajani,
and kick the front door open. The two bodyguards already have a
handful of red-cloaked watchmen waiting for us in the street, and
the watchmen have their alchemic flintlocks raised and ready. I
shove Amara out in front of me, keeping a firm grip on her neck,
and we march out into the sunlight.

“Classic kidnapping folks, nothing to see
here,” I call out. “Standard rules apply. You back off or I break
her neck, got it?”

“No, stop, please!” Amara struggles weakly
and starts coughing and wheezing. “I assure you, there are far
better ways to manage this situation.”

“Gen, what are you doing?” Rajani whispers
behind me. She’s clutching Amara’s cane and I see a familiar bag on
her shoulder. “Okoro gave me the crystals. Let’s just go!”

“Well, either we use Princess Hostage to
cover our escape back to the ship, or we get arrested again and
hope the empress isn’t too annoyed that I just threatened to kill
her daughter in the street.”

“This is getting way, way out of hand!” She
shakes her head. “I vote we take our chances with the empress.”

One of the watchmen fires. The glowing green
round whistles just past my ear and hits the house, where its acid
hisses as it consumes the paint and wood.

“Overruled,” I growl.

The chase back to the ship is pretty crazy.
Half the time I’m carrying Amara because her spindly legs aren’t
fast enough to keep up with us, and the other half of the time I’m
carrying both of them so we can jump over a fence or an
inconveniently overturned cart of fruit in the middle of a road.
Men and women in red cloaks lunge out of alleys and fire from
rooftops, and the small army chasing behind us grows by the second,
but we’re faster. Or at least, I’m faster. And when they get too
close I hold up the princess in my spotted hands and threaten to
break her in half.

I wish I really could just break her in
half.

So there’s running and shooting, and I have
to throw a few unripe avocados at a few faces, but we reach the
landing field a few steps ahead of them, and Rajani fumbles the
crystals back into the console, and just as three dozen soldiers
unleash a barrage of acidic gunfire at us, we fly away.

A quarter league, straight up.

I drop Amara on the deck and slump down onto
a bench seat to catch my breath. “Rajani? You okay?”