Owl and the City of Angels (27 page)

“Hey! Come back and say that when I’m holding a UV light and my cat isn’t tied up, asshole!”

But having made his point, Alexander left.

I leaned my head against the wall and started to work on my restraints. I wouldn’t break them, but maybe with enough sweat I could pull my wrist through—minus some skin. Or, if I was really lucky, Rynn had been able to GPS my phone, unless Alexander had buried me and it under floors of concrete with no reception.

Damn it, when did Alexander get smart?

Captain mewed.

“Yeah, I know. Not exactly how I’d hoped to see the Sunset Strip, either,” I said. At least the gas mask meant I couldn’t smell Captain’s retaliation urine anymore.

Small comforts.

By my guess, roughly an hour had passed. The music was still going up top, so not closing time yet—
if
the Sunset Strip ever closed. . . . That was a sobering and unsettling thought.

Oh yeah, and my hands were bleeding. Did that count for progress? Probably not, since my hands were still bound by the metal twist ties.

Captain, however, was sitting on my restrained legs, wondering why the hell I wasn’t up yet. Apparently no carrier or burlap sack could withstand the determined wrath of Captain. Now, if he could only pick locks . . .

Hermes’s comment about me being a fuckup came to mind.

However long I’d been here, my ears were on edge, and I heard the scrape against the door before the handle began to turn.

Feeding time, and me with my wrists all nicely bloodied up as an appetizer. Captain, also hearing the noise, wriggled his hind end.

Maybe there’d only be one or two. I nodded to the spot behind the door, and Captain obliged. The one bonus to being in a vampire den for the past hour was that Captain had acclimatized to the pheromones and had stopped growling at everything.

The door creaked open an inch, and Captain readied himself.

“
Wait,
” I mouthed. Another few inches open . . .

The door opened and Captain pounced, claws first, as Artemis stuck his head through.

Captain, realizing midair he wasn’t attacking a vampire, sheathed his claws and more or less bounced off Artemis’s stomach. I say more or less because Captain packs a punch.

Artemis and Captain watched each other, Artemis wary and Captain . . . well, Captain just waiting. “Did the cat . . . ?” he said, pointing.

“Long story. Short version: he thought you were a vampire.” My relief at seeing him and not a vampire was warp-speed short-lived. “Artemis, you had one lousy job to do! Warn me if anyone was coming!”

Artemis raised a finger. “I said I’d keep watch—which I did. It just so happens I also said I wasn’t going to risk my neck saving you, which, by the way, confronting Daphne would have been.”

“Then why the hell did you offer?”

“Because I didn’t actually think she’d come herself! Besides, I came to get you out, didn’t I?”

I shook my head and held out my wrists. Worst incubus escort ever. Well . . . no, not in that way—forget it. “Just please say you have a knife.”

Artemis pulled out a box cutter and slit the metal binds. “Come on, we need to leave now,” he said, pulling me up and out the door.

“One second. I need my bag.”

“Seriously? Get my cousin to buy you a new one. We’re not rifling around a vampire den.”

“Yes seriously.” I pulled away, towards a side door. Artemis tried to grab my arm again, but I danced out of the way.

“Shit,” he said. “Look, the only reason I’m here is so my dear cousin doesn’t kill me for letting you out of my sight. Now come on. I have no intention of tangling with a pack of vampires. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly my cousin.” He snarled the last few words.

I didn’t budge. “Well, I’m as good as dead without the items, so consider it saving your own skin.”

Artemis swore, but instead of trying to grab me, he checked the hallway. “All right, this way. I think I saw an office when I came in.”

“How did you make it past the vampires anyways?”

“Hmmm—oh I got one of the girls to bring me down. They’ve got human employees—for the daytime shifts they have to. The young vampires get cranky during the day, and it’s bad for business when beer delivery men keep disappearing. Vampire pheromones coursing through their blood does make them easy targets though. Doesn’t quite seem fair.”

“Wait—you got downstairs seducing some poor bar staff?”

Artemis glanced over his shoulder. “I wouldn’t be so quick to the pity party. She did say she was a big fan.”

Even if Artemis saw me roll my eyes, somehow I doubted he cared.

He shoved me into a side storage room full of beer kegs as a pair of girls came down the stairs. The growl I had to muffle from Captain told me these were vampires—or at least full-blown junkies.

As soon as they turned the corner, Artemis led me a little ways up the hall to a door marked
OFFICE
. Through the window I could see my bag sitting on the desk. I tried the door. Locked. “Shit—got a lock pick handy?”

“I’ve got a better idea,” Artemis said, and forced the door open. He shrugged when I stared at him. “Being stronger than humans occasionally has its uses.”

I ducked into the room and grabbed my bag first. Now for the artifacts . . . I started searching the drawers.

“Hurry it up, more people are coming.”

“Vampires, not people.”

“In this instance, the difference is a moot point. I told Rynn I’d get you out, not save you from a horde of vampires.”

“Great, go on. I’m out, so not your problem.”

Artemis snorted. “If only. Unfortunately my cousin will beg to differ.”

I ignored him.
Come on, brain, if I were a bag of loot, where would I be?
My World Quest reflexes kicked in and I started opening the closets and throwing books off shelves . . . I spotted a white satchel behind a row of books on the third shelf.

Artemis was still keeping watch and swore. “There’s two coming down the stairs,” he whispered. “I can hear the panic and adrenaline—and what the hell are you doing?”

“Making sure everything is still here.” Inside the bag were the bowl, flint, and fake sword. I shoved them inside my bag and thought about giving the room a cursory look for the real sword, but Artemis motioned for me to squat on the other side of the door while team number two walked by at a crawl. They began sticking their heads in each room. Shit . . . The woman looked through the office window but didn’t spot us. I tightened my hold on Captain’s scruff, doing my best to muffle his growl until they moved down to the storage room.

Artemis grabbed me and shoved me out of the room. “Up the stairs, before they get thorough.”

Vampires shouted behind us, but we had the head start. Captain squirmed under my arm as I pushed the door to the upstairs club open. The place was packed—mostly a punk crowd here to see the punk band on stage. I could barely hear the lead singer screaming over the drum and guitars—though this was a bar band, and that might have been the point.

Well, best way to lose the vampires was to blend in with the flock of sheep.

It was standing room only, so I pushed my way in. Artemis, figuring I wasn’t moving fast enough, darted around me. Why the hell hadn’t I thought to grab my damn shoes?

I did my best to make sure no one jostled the artifacts or Captain too badly. If I was smart, I’d have given the bag to Artemis to carry, but visions of the pieces rolling across the floor coming into contact with multiple people stopped me.

Even in the dim lighting, Artemis still managed to garner looks from the crowd. “You stick out like a sore thumb,” I said.

“That’s because when I’m in a dive bar, I’m usually drinking,” he yelled over his shoulder, and reached back to grab me. “Hurry it up—I’m not about to end up on the vampires’ shit list.”

We were getting close to the front of the club and hadn’t been spotted by the vampires yet. We probably would have made it to the door in a few more steps if I hadn’t caught sight of a familiar face; a petite brunette in a lawyer-black suit, the same one who’d been standing outside the catacomb dig in Egypt.

Our eyes met, and she lifted her hand, signaling to other agents.

Shit. And me with the bag of goods slung over my shoulder . . . I grabbed Artemis by the collar of his jacket and ground to a halt, almost slipping on spilled beer in the process.

Off balance, Artemis glared at me over his shoulder.

“IAA,” I shouted, and pointed at the entrance, where more suits had appeared.

Artemis swore. “Is there anyone you don’t manage to piss off?” He altered our course towards the signs that indicated washrooms.

Fantastic; more urine and stale beer.

I did my best to keep up. Artemis wasn’t exactly in “let’s keep the band together” mode; more like “save my own goddamned skin.” Considering how often his band Kaliope split up, that didn’t surprise me.

I slid across spilled beer to a precarious stop behind Artemis before ducking after him into a washroom.

He raced to the cracked porcelain sink. It groaned under his weight as he used it to get a look outside the small bathroom window—the kind you find lining the top of a basement wall.

“It’s only a small drop to the fire escape,” he said, and held out his hand for me.

There was a loud bang on the washroom door. IAA or vampires—
either one was a problem at this point. Didn’t need to warn me twice. I was a little more cautious in my bare feet, but I managed to scramble up. The pipes groaned again under the added weight. Somehow I didn’t think the sink would work quite the same after this.

“You’ve got a lot of experience sneaking out of bars,” I said.

“Necessity breeds expertise,” he said, and braced both hands to push me up. “Come on, that lock won’t hold long.”

Like Artemis said, the fire stairs were only a three-foot drop. You’d think that’d be a concern for a bar, but this place was cash and carry. I dropped down on bare feet and held up my hands for Captain, then the artifacts. I was already racing down the stairs when I heard Artemis drop down behind me.

“Run before the vampires wise up and run out the back,” he yelled down the stairs after me. Ignoring the protest the soles of my feet were making, I concentrated on taking the steps faster until I reached the pavement. Artemis had almost caught up, but I heard a door break up above. Shit. I hoped it was the vampires—the IAA was worse; they had guns.

“Which way?”

Across the road, a car lit up and gunned its engine. I shielded my eyes against the floodlights—UV floodlights . . . a jeep, military grade, with an open hood easy to jump into, and able to go off-road if needed.

Rynn.

I bolted for the car, not bothering to wait for Artemis. I needn’t have worried; Artemis outpaced me and hopped into the front seat. He wasn’t kidding when he said he had no intention of being caught by vampires.

I tossed the bag of artifacts and Captain in before diving into the backseat. I saw a group of people braced at the front of the bar, staying out of the range of the UV headlights. As soon as I was in, Rynn hit the gas, and the jeep careened through the crowd of vampires, who scattered. Like I said, not supernatural juggernauts. Cockroaches. I didn’t bother looking to see if the IAA made it out the bathroom window.

Only once we were woven into traffic did Rynn glance over his shoulder at me.

“Are you all right?” he said, his face knit with worry.

“She’s fine. I told you I’d get her out,” Artemis said.

Rynn glared at him, not bothering to hide his anger and something else—disgust, contempt. I wasn’t certain, because those weren’t things Rynn usually expressed. “I’m fine,” I said, and held up the bag. “Guess who else was after these?”

By the time I finished catching Rynn up, we were well on the highway, heading towards an airfield, and no one was following us.

We still had a ways to go before we reached the plane, where we’d ditch the jeep—and Artemis—and be on our way back to Las Vegas, the first half of my problem solved. . . . Well, partially solved, since I only had a fake sword . . .

I opened the bag—carefully—and removed the sword, now wrapped in an archaeology-grade muslin. Credit where credit was due; at least Alexander knew how to take care of the shit I used to steal for him.

I started to unwrap it, thinking I’d get the flashlight out and examine it once it was sitting in my lap. Might give me an idea who Alexander had on his payroll as a forger. The muslin came loose, and I reached to turn the bronze sword over. If the artist left a mark, it’d be on the handle . . .

It tingled as I touched it, and a shot of static electricity traveled up my arm and didn’t stop until it transversed my entire body.

Captain’s head perked up and he chirped, ears tipped forward. Both Rynn and Artemis turned in their seats, nostrils flaring and eyes glowing blue and green, respectively, at the scent of magic.

Unbelieving, I took another look at the sword in my lap. “No, No, No . . .” It wasn’t possible—I’d been sure . . . I rifled through the side pocket of my purse until the flashlight was in my hand.

“Alix, what the hell did you just do?” Rynn said.